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I get
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welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me Joseph
hayatt he's standing in for gatri who
I'm grateful to announce gave birth to
our son torren earlier this week the
Mafia the kostra our thing has much in
common with our current ruling class
except the mafia usually drew the line
at murdering women and children but when
it comes to plunder extortion corruption
and the Casual deployment of violence to
achieve their ends well the mafia are
just the roughest end of capitalism a
kind of naked free enterprise
originating in Sicily and moving big
time to the United States the mafia have
been with us for well over a century
immortalized on film glamorously in The
Godfather epics less so in Goodfellas
not at all in The Sopranos the word
mafia has become a byword for organized
crime of all ethnicities the Chinese
Mafia the Kurdish Mafia the kovan mafia
and so on joining us now to discuss the
original Mafia is historian TV presenter
and international bestselling author
professor John dicki his books include
Mafia brotherhoods Coan ostra which I've
read and his latest Mafia Republic which
is going to be a very big film Professor
thanks very much for joining us so the
mafia what is it is it the Godfather or
is it the Sopranos uh it's very much
more The Sopranos than the Godfather I
mean The Godfather is where most people
start but the thing The Godfather film
gets
wrong um is that it mistakes family in
the sense of uncles cousins and so on
and so forth with family in the mafia
sense which is really a metaphor a
metaphor for the organization itself and
they kind of borrow the idea of the
family to bind their group together
really mafias are systems for exploiting
fames rather than being blood families
in in the sense we normally understand
so little in the way of honor not that
there was very pure honor in The
Godfather but at least they pretended or
maybe even thought that they were held
together by a kind of Honor um well
honor certainly not in the sense we
understand it in this you know the mafas
have always killed children and women
and whatever and they've always also uh
talked to the to the police and the
state whenever it suited them that's you
know that there's uh there's no honor in
that sense but honor in the mafia sense
does exist and has been part of their
way of doing things since they began in
the middle of the 19th century and honor
essentially means a kind of criminal
Pride it's honor is kind of law for
those outside the law in a way so they
begin in this uh smallish Island uh at
the foot of Italy but they become
International bestsellers uh this
achieved presumably by their rather
large immigration to the United States
well we need to be clear one one of the
things behind this this new book one of
the arguments behind this book is that
to really understand the mafia as in
Kenra the Sicilian Mafia we need to
understand that it's actually only one
of three major criminal organizations in
Italy and today it's not even the most
powerful the most powerful is widely
reputed to be the andanga which is the
mafia of Calabria Calabria being the toe
of the Italian boot uh and what my new
book does is tell the story of these
organizations in parall in the way that
they've related to one another learned
from one another occasionally fought
from one another and above all had
variance of the same relationship to the
Italian state but you're right yes it in
as far as kostra is concerned it's the
link to the United States uh that really
projected it onto the world state age
but the most successful of the Italian
mafias that's spreading around the world
is the andang the calabrian Mafia the
one that nobody can pronounce few people
know little about the andang has had a
presence in Australia for example since
at least
1930 it's in Canada it's in Germany it's
in Northern Italy it's easily the best
of all of the mafia it's setting up
little colonies uh around the world I
know a lot of Italians and none of them
strike me as criminal Beyond anyone
else's criminality or uh or even violent
Beyond anyone else's potential for
violence what was it about Sicily Italy
that made them so good to organized
crime like a lot of societies in the
Mediterranean they've got a lot of
problems you know with building a state
particularly in the South Italy's
institutions have always been fragile
always vulnerable to corrupt ction and
patronage politics clientalism that kind
of thing but the real spark that sets
the mafias off the reason why southern
Italy as opposed to lots of other
societies that have the same problems
has mafias is to do with a link to
politics to do with a link to political
violence above all and it's no
coincidence that the mafias are about as
old as the Italian State Italy founded
in 1860 garabaldi and all that that's
when it first became a unified State and
that Pro that process of uniting Italy
was a process of Revolution it was it
was a violent overthrow of a a monarchy
the borbon monarchy in southern Italy
and the
conspirators who took part in that
Revolution needed revolutionary muscle
and they recruited that revolutionary
mus muscle amongst the criminals
particularly when they ran into them in
prison and many of those cons spors were
members of sort of masonic like secret
societies it was a good way to do
politics when you were conspiring
against uh a regime like the borbon
monarchy and so they
recruited those criminals into their
Masonic organizations and if you want an
easy definition of what a mafia is it's
not uh a criminal business it's a a free
masonry of criminals it works like the
Freemasonry that's really the key idea
to keep uh in your head really to
understand how the mafia works now going
back to the
1930s maybe earlier the United States
set up all manner of uh crime busting
outfits Untouchables and all of that did
they ever get on top of this yeah I
think the United States has made as has
uh Italy incidentally made made
important progress in recent years um I
mean famously it took the FBI until the
late 1950s before it actually decided to
prioritize uh the fight against
organized crime and recognize that Mafia
actually existed it had other priorities
not notably fighting Reds under the bed
uh for example but the key moment came
in the 1980s Sicilian Mafia essentially
controlled the supply of wholesale
wholesale heroin into the the Eastern
United States and this led in Sicily to
an extraordinary outbreak of violence as
well as a heroin epidemic in the United
States and uh literally hundreds
thousands killed in the worst Mafia wars
in history and the state finally
responded creating legislation and a
kind of law enforcement
infrastructure that was up to the task
you know 150 years too late if you like
and slowly slowly in recent years
progress has been made by some appalling
setbacks like the murders of heroic
investigating magistrates javanni
Falcone and Paulo borcel in
1992 um the Sicilian
Mafia uh is in the worst state that it's
been in its whole history really yeah
it's uh it's certainly not beaten it's a
long way from being beaten but its
historic leadership apart from one uh
man who's still on the run is all Behind
Bars serving uh lense in the United
States they they had the uh famously in
The Godfather the go the the one of the
uh Senators I think he was comes to the
wedding and so on and in the Italian
State they were particularly close to
Christian democracy weren't they that's
right it's really the the Cold War froze
Italian politics for 50 years Italy had
the biggest Communist party in Western
Europe couldn't be elected um uh the
biggest in the sense of electoral
support and this gave the Christian
Democrat Party Monopoly access to power
and the favors of the church and so on
and in southern Italy the Christian
Democrat Party was uh whole was very
seriously infiltrated by organized crime
think back to that definition I gave you
of mafias as being like the Freemasonry
for criminals uh
okay inherent in the the Freemasons is
the idea of Crossing class boundaries
yeah my grandfather was a Freemason he
laid cobblestones in Edinburgh for for a
living yeah it was an ordinary Working
Man whereas at the same time members of
the royal family are members of the
Freemasons it cuts right across the
hierarchy of social classes and the
mafia is exactly the same you'll find
Thugs and Aristocrats businessmen
politicians awful lot of doctors and
lawyers uh we we shouldn't be surprised
uh at any point in the mafia's history
to find that political and
entrepreneurial element within the mafia
Professor you obviously raised the fact
that the mafia very much capitalized on
the three mesa model of going across all
the social Spectrum um obviously we see
amongst young people today that the
mafia kind of typical film image if you
like is very much favored as a fashion
do you think that resonates with the
Matthew is in its true form in Italy
that's probably true outside of Italy I
think I think it's fair to say there's
no doubt that a film like The Godfather
trades off a certain glamour you if you
break that film down image by image it's
all about us getting the freea of
identifying with Michael who's a you
know who's the bad guy you know but in
Italy things play very very differently
it's only really in certain very limited
environments close to the mafia you know
the mafia does command its own area of
support the mafia is command their own
area of support in society that's
absolutely true but broadly speaking
Italian that idea the idea of Glamour
just doesn't play the same way
and fat slob than Michael
C very much so I mean you know these are
people who who kind of dissolve children
in acid and stuff like that you're not
going to you there's there's much you
can do to glamorize people like that
Professor it's been absolutely
fascinating talking to you thanks very
much indeed for joining us coming up
after the break it was the left's finest
hour and if the others had listened to
us the second world war could have been
averted and almost 100 million people
saved we're talking the Spanish Civil
War don't go
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away welcome back to Sputnik when a
fascist pooched was launched by General
Franco in Spain in 1936 it could have
remained a little local difficulty
instead it became a dress rehearsal for
the second world war emboldened by their
success in abua earlier the new fascist
powers of Hitler's Germany and melini's
Italy promptly threw their way behind
the attempt to destroy the Democratic
Spanish Republic the Western democracies
stood idly by indeed they imposed an
arms embargo on the legitimate
government of Spain as Hitler's Air
Force divebomb the ancient V capital of
gika reducing it to Ash a crime
immortalized by Picasso in his painting
of the same name Nazi guns and material
flooded into the fascist Franco forces
as they steadily Advanced murdering all
in their way only the then Soviet Union
came to the aid of Spain they and the
huge International citizens Army of
volunteers who came from all over the
world and came to be known as the
international Brigade The failure of the
western powers to Halt fascism in Spain
led directly to the series of Hitler
provocations elsewhere in Europe in the
reinland in Czechoslovakia and which
started the cataclysm of the second
world war it is hard to imagine a higher
price which could have been paid for
Folly joining us now to discuss the
Spanish Civil War and the British
volunteers who fought in it is Dr
Richard baxel historian and author of
unlikely Warriors just released in
paperback a story which weaves together
a diverse array of testimony to tell the
remarkable story of the Britains who
took up arms against General Franco Dr
Richard thanks for uh joining us uh just
paint the picture if you will of what
kind of British people joined the
international Brigade went to fight in
Spain and what did they find when they
got there well overall there were about
2 and a half thousand people from around
the British Isles and Ireland and cont
contrary to a lot of people's idea of
the of the international brigades
they're actually overwhelmingly
workingclass men and some women from ma
the major urban areas around Britain so
London Manchester merys side tinside
huge number from Scotland from the South
Wales uh mining areas so they're very
much working class of the left majority
of them were Communist party but it
wasn't just Communists it was all of the
left from the labor part from the labor
right the way through um and they went
to Spain because they'd seen the advance
of fascism across Europe uh in their own
country of course many of them had
battled against Mosley on the streets of
Britain and they were determined that in
Spain they would draw the line and
fascism would would get no further most
of them I think knew very little about
Spain when they left they were looking
they they knew more about Britain and
Germany and Italy so when they went
there they had very very little Spanish
they didn't really understand what to
they didn't know what to expect in many
ways and what they found was a brutal
Civil War in which the General Franco's
forces were being as you said in your
introduction supplied with huge amounts
of arms and material from the fascists
around the world and they had a very
hard time in Spain I think there's no
way you can get around there of the 2
and a half thousand from from the
British ARS that went to Spain over a
fifth of them were killed and very few
of them left Spain without some form of
injury interesting the uh class point
that you make because in so far as it's
remembered today uh often times it's
thought that uh because famous authors
like George Orwell poets like John kford
and other people from the intellectual
circles uh did go to Spain it's imagined
that it was an army of writers and Poets
but it was mainly Miners and boiler
makers and shipyard workers yeah exactly
so but that's that's in a way that's as
you expect because the middle class
volunteers were the ones in the main who
wrote the who wrote the Memoirs who
wrote the books and middle class people
talk about their you their own kind
The Narrative now uh has in my view uh
been defamed essentially what ought to
be hiled and I still heal it as the
left's finest Hour uh has become
poisoned really by uh twin
attacks uh although with one source uh
the Liberals people like Christopher
Hitchens and others uh attack the
international Brigade and attack the
Spanish Civil War as being some kind of
communist and Soviet uh crime against
the people of Spain when I believe the
opposite is true and then there's the
classic standard trotskyite narrative
that argues that if only the Soviet
Union the Dead Hand of the Communists
had not been on the struggle it could
have been won what do you say about that
well I I don't agree with that I think
that without the Soviet Union uh the
Spanish would Republic would have been
defeated much earlier than it was now
Stalin may have had his own reasons for
supporting Spain and they may not all
have been about uh uh standing up for
democracy but nevertheless there's no
doubting that without the huge amounts
of material uh with the the organization
of the international brigades themselves
it's it's quite likely that that that
the Republic would have de been defeated
in 1936 let alone 1939 so now I I don't
buy with that hypothesis at all the
international brigades were not they
were not sent there to suppress other
parts of the left there were elements
that were involved in that in inter n
sign struggle it is true but the most of
the the people that I've talked to who
went to Spain from the international
brigades spent most of their time
fighting in the trenches around Madrid
or in in Madrid or in the in the
mountains of Aragon they had they had
little time to be doing anything else
but but apart from trying to save their
own lives to be honest un unusually
Spain had a very large Anarchist
movement uh which of course was in the
war and fighting the fascists but as the
name suggests anarchists are quite
difficult to organize certainly
difficult to uh unite uh with uh others
how much was that dichotomy uh
responsible for the failure of the
defense the
Republic it obviously played a part but
I think I think it is overplayed I mean
to be the to be fair to the anchus you
couldn't really expect them to support a
a Social Democratic Republic and a a
centralized government that's not that
that that's not that what they believe
in and they supported the government in
1936 mainly because they'd given an they
were given an amnesty in the election
but also because they realized that that
uh the that the P the coup was directed
as them at them just as it was directed
at everybody else but I think what
really counts the reason the Spanish
Republic lost was not because of the the
problems and the arguments in the left
it was the fact that there were 880,000
Italians in Spain there were 20,000
Germans there were 75,000 Moroccans and
with everything that came with them that
to my mind is the crucial problem that
the Spanish Republic
FC I know those numbers 880,000 Italians
yeah essentially essentially Italy was
at war with the Spanish Republic and the
Western Government governments not only
did nothing but actually imposed an arms
embargo as Joseph said in the
introduction sure well the Western
governments were more they were looking
to appease the dictators the last thing
they wanted was for the Spanish conflict
to expand into into Europe so they did
pretty much everything they could in
their opinion to try and limit it to
Spain if they could sacrifice Spain so
that it would be wider peace in Europe
than they were prepared to do so if
fascism had been confronted by the
Western democracies in Spain in
1936 1939 and the second world war might
not have happened what do you think of
that thesis I tend as you probably would
know historians hate those kind of count
counterfactual speculations because we
spend all our time trying to work out
what did rather than didn't but I think
it's a difficult point to argue against
you know if the dictate if if Britain
and France had stood up to the dictators
earlier I think the likelihood is that
the situation would have been very
different yes doctor obviously I think
the wider public at the moment in this
Century had been very disheartened by
the loss of life in the Middle East but
obviously I've heard reports that in the
Spanish Civil War there was some 500,000
people murdered or uh in fatally injured
um it's it's unimaginable isn't it a
mass loss of life there was a huge loss
of life and it should be remembered it's
it's often forgotten but people were
being killed and continuing to be killed
after the Spanish Civil War because
after the Spanish Civil War there was a
dictatorship in Spain which lasted until
November 196 75 and people were still
being garotted not that long before the
end of the dictatorship so it is a yes
it's a it's a terrible tragedy and
thousands and thousands of people lost
their lives lost their livelihood were
imprisoned went into Exile yes it is it
is as one book called it the Spanish
tragedy in my uh first labor Party
Conference in Blackpool in
1974 the then prime minister Harold
Wilson made a public appeal to stop the
the rotting of three Spanish political
prisoners in 1974 I know an appeal which
failed and they were I think the last uh
GED hideous form of execution uh by the
dictatorship how has Spain fared since
the passing of
Franco well uh there was in some in many
respects the transition from the
dictatorship to democracy was remarkably
peaceful I think most commentators
expected there to be Bloodshed of some
form but there was an agreement in Spain
that there would essentially be a Packa
of forgetfulness and people needed to
move on and put the paast behind them
and that really uh that really lasted
for perhaps a generation or maybe two
generations but now it's starting to
break down while the children of the of
the people who fought in the Spanish
Civil War were were willing to to
maintain that pact the grandchildren are
less willing and they want to know what
happened to their grandparents so
there's an increasing desire within
Spain to find out about what happened
and to relearn the history because of
course under the dictatorship the
history that they were taught was
Franco's Vision version of of events
which is very different from everybody
else's now Spain is of course facing
difficulties of M mainly economic but
Spain is is in a difficult place they
have huge problems with corruption
they're financially deep trouble so it's
very difficult to work out what's what
the future of Spain will be but this
chapter uh that is wonderfully brought
to life again in your book uh unlikely
Warriors is uh almost without comparison
we're talking about a battle in which
Heming way and Jack Jones and George
Orwell and even Mr Atley uh briefly
Clement Atley the labor prime minister
after the second world war and T scores
of thousands
of ordinary workers uh who left their
unemployment queue mainly in the 1930s
some of them their jobs uh to go and
fight uh in a country of which they knew
little but for a cause that was dear to
them Dr Richard baxel thanks very much
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indeed and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's rattling Joseph well
on the subject of the mafia a great one
here from Gordon hor po um there is a
few I would like to see swimming with
the fish and on the Spanish Civil War
mwat says by comparison ocidental
people's today equal very weak spirited
largely due to Decades of conditioning
inconformity and a bit of a
controversial one from Amy Wy she says
if Tories were in power in the 1930s
they would probably ban people from
fighting for communism and socialism in
Spain I would say that a direct
comparison is people traveling to Syria
for Jihad but that seems to be illegal
well illegal and wrong uh the
International Brigade were going to
fight for a good thing in Spain the
people that are going to Syria are going
to fight for a bad thing I think one of
the uh reasons why uh it might be more
difficult to have such an international
Brigade today is that people know all
too much about War and what happens
there now bear in mind in
1936 nobody even had a television so
these people were going to a Spain they
knew little about um were being in uh
thrown into the front line of a very
bloody and brutal uh Civil War anymore
or is that us that's all we got time for
this week but follow us on Twitter it's
rtor Sputnik or check us out on Facebook
it's Sputnik on Russia today it's
goodbye from me Joseph hayatt and from
me George Galloway it's been marvelous
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oh
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