abstract
| - The Young Socialists' League was a student organization at Hoxha Polytechnic in Milan, Italian People's Republic. Annarita Crosetti was a member of the group, mainly because membership would help gain entre into the better universities. While Annarita was dutiful, she was not quite a fanatical devotee of Marxism-Leninsm-Stalinism that some of her colleagues were. As an organization designed to indoctrinate the next generation of Italian communists, the Young Socialists' League had a great deal of political power at the local level. While obviously expected to adhere to the official ideology, branches of the League did enjoy considerable autonomy in running their affairs, and could elect their own officers with little interference from the higher Communist bureaucracy - though elections were held by open show of hands, rather than a secret ballot. The League took it upon itself to investigate the gaming shop called The Gladiator and determine whether or not it was ideologically sound. League president Filippo Antonelli created a committee comprised of Annarita Crosetti, Maria Tenace and Ludovico Pagliarone to investigate the store. Only Annarita visited the store, and after some counsel from her father and Antonelli, concluded that it was not a threat. Maria Tenace, a fire-breathing ideologue, decided that the store was purveying capitalism and should be shut down. Pagliarone reluctantly sided with Annarita. However, the Security Police subsequently shut the store down, proving Tenace right, and hurting Annarita's credibility. Nonetheless, Tenace was so personally disliked that the next school year, the League convinced Annarita to run for League president. She won the office handily.
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