Ivan Matteo Lombardo

Lombardo was born in Milan in 1902. He was secretary of the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano; PSI) from 17 April 1946 to 13 January 1947. Regarded as an implacable opponent of communism, Lombardo was nominated for the role (without his knowledge) by the leader of the PSI's right-wing current, Giuseppe Saragat, and was accepted as a compromise candidate by the other leading factions at the party's annual convention in Florence. Lombardo was in Washington DC as part of a trade delegation (in his capacity as Under-Secretary of Commerce and Industry in De Gasperi's first government) when the decision to elect him as secretary was announced, and he only found out about it – with much incredulity and bemusement – after reading reports on the conference in the American press and receiving congratulatory telegrams from well-wishers.[1][2]

Following the Palazzo Barberini split in 1947 – which established a new party led by Saragat, the Italian Socialist Workers' Party (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani; PSLI) – Lombardo chose to remain in the PSI, but just over a year later he was one of the founders of another left-wing breakaway grouping, the Union of Socialists (Unione dei Socialisti; UdS). Opposed to the alliance of the PSI with the Italian Communist Party, at the 1948 general election he and the UdS came together with Saragat's PSLI to form a coalition – under the banner of Socialist Unity – which gained 7.1% of the votes cast for the Italian Chamber of Deputies and 33 seats.[3]

Lombardo was secretary of the UdS until June 1949, when he was succeeded by Ignazio Silone. In December of that year the party was dissolved, and its members joined forces with the former Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Romita, to create another new group, the Unitary Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Unitario; PSU). Two years later, in 1951, the PSU merged with the PSLI to form the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano; PSDI).

Upon leaving the PSI Lombardo was twice a government minister, firstly as Minister of Industry and Commerce from 23 May 1948 to 7 November 1949 (De Gasperi V Cabinet), and then as Minister of Foreign Trade from 27 January 1950 to 5 April 1951 (De Gasperi VI Cabinet). He stood down as a Member of Parliament at the end of the first legislature in June 1953.

In 1963 Lombardo signed a manifesto arguing for a presidential republic in Italy, together with Randolfo Pacciardi, Tomaso Smith, Alfredo Morea, Raffaele Cadorna and Mario Vinciguerra. He subsequently took part in a well-publicised conference on 'revolutionary war', organized from 3 to 5 May 1965 by the Alberto Pollio Institute for Military Studies at the Parco dei Principi Hotel in Rome, where he presented a paper entitled "Permanent communist war against the West".[4]

The fund of Ivan Matteo Lombardo has been deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence.[5]

He died in Rome in 1980, aged 77. His body is buried in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan.