Red Bologna: The Italian socialist congress

Introduction

Representing the Worker’s Socialist Federation, Sylvia Pankhurst would take part in the 16th Congress of the Italian Socialist Party held in Bologna in October 1919. There she would make a speech expounding her anti-parliamentary positions and declaring for the preparation of the revolutionary spirit and organisation of the working masses.

This occasion would also see her making contact with the Communist Abstentionist Fraction and discovering the similarity between her own positions and those of the Left movement.

In the article written for Workers’ Dreadnought, the organ of the Workers’ Socialist Federation, Sylvia would successfully evoke in her English readers the emotions she experienced taking part on that stirring Italian occasion.

Commencing with a very effective description of the city of Bologna, she plunges immediately afterwards into the revolutionary spirit moving the Italian working class in her description of the pre-congress meeting at Imola.

In an article written for the Italian review Comunismo (December 1, 1919) she wrote: «I had the impression, specially at Imola, that revolutionary communist sentiment runs extremely high in the crowds. The audience, it seemed to me, didn’t need the speaker’s speeches to raise their enthusiasm, it burned already in a crowd that was full of it; thus rather than the speakers animating the crowd, the crowd animated the speakers. This I hold to be a very promising symptom».

Passing on to report on the Congress, she immediately senses that all discussions hinge on the conflict between the views of the small, but dynamic and well-organised Abstentionist Fraction, and all the other members of the congress. This marginalised position of the Left was only to be expected if one considers parliamentary politics was for the Italian Socialist Party the fundamental fulcrum of its activity. The Congress could also hardly fail to be affected by the overwhelming influence of the impending general elections. All the aspirations, the hopes, the wishes of the various socialist tendencies converged at the same point: maintaining the unity of the party so as to keep intact its electoral strength. To obtain such a result, every type of compromise would be resorted to in order to keep the peace between the right wing of the party (the weakest in congress, but perhaps the strongest in the electoral field) and the predominant current of electoral maximalism. The right-wing would back down from an open declaration of its positions when it came to the vote, in order to crouch down in the not very welcoming shade of Lazzari (Unitarian Maximalist). The latter, in his turn, would accept an amendment to his Order of the Day, proposed by unitarian maximalist Maffi, so as to draw closer to the electoral maximalist positions of Serrati. Electoral maximalism «generous and plethorical in its victory mold extend to possible deserters a shaky footbridge, thrown, as if by magic, across the deep abyss of the impossibility of cohabitation affirmed in its programme: a programme accepted with an imperative mandate by the party sections which had subscribed to it. Thus the Congress emerged unanimously maximalist, at least in formal appearance. The Communist Abstentionist Fraction, which had shown itself to be more than a small patrol, neither could nor did participate in this universal harmony» (from Il Soviet, 20/10/1919).

In this regard, Pankhurst would perceptively remark: «Not only has the leadership forecast the Soviets and the Dictatorship of the proletariat in theory, but it has received a mandate to prepare the revolution. You must have loved hearing discussed, during the Congress, the methods with which you propose to form Soviets (…) and yet a revolution is forecast for the Spring. Therefore you must have your plan ready soon. This is all the more reason to maintain that the most logical position is that held by the abstentionist fraction. I find it difficult to understand how you can both propagandise for the conquest of Parliament – that is a body you propose to abolish in a few months – and become absorbed in the work of revolutionary preparation, at a time when, in my opinion, it is extremely urgent to encourage the conviction amongst the workers that the time for Parliament is passed» (Comunismo, 1/12/1919).

 The Communist Abstentionist Fraction (organized around the paper Il Soviet) didn’t differ from the other currents only in resolving not to participate in elections and in the resulting parliament, but above all by being the only ones to accept the theses of the founding congress of the 3rd International. In said theses the concept predominated of taking power, not through bourgeois democratic institutions, but by the revolutionary method and with the installation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its class party. The abstentionists rejected the perspective of the big electoral campaign because, as Pankhurst noted, it would divert the revolutionary tension of the proletariat. The electoral campaign would prevent the necessary channeling of the proletarian spirit of revolt into the only direction which might lead to the revolutionary solution: in a word, it would have sabotaged the revolution.

The reformist Right, in fact, would openly condemn the communist revolution whilst the big electoralist current would accept it only in words.

From the time of the Congress of Bologna, therefore, the Abstentionist Fraction would express the necessity of splitting from the Socialist Party. The fundamental point of the abstentionists wasn’t therefore that of anti-electionism, but the split from the party, leaving on the one hand revolutionary communists and on the other the social-democratic revisionists.

At the Congress the abstentionists made the following proposal to Serrati, Lazzari and Gramsci: the presentation of one single motion, far more clearly anti-revisionist, in substitution for theirs, in which there would be no talk of boycotting the elections, but of a split in the party instead. The abstentionist proposal was totally rejected by the maximalists who not only wished to take part in the elections, but to participate along with the right wing of the party.

It is well worth recalling that, not long after, writing in the “Extremism” text, Lenin would state that he had received and read some issues of Il Soviet and considered our movement as the only one which had understood the necessity of the separation between communists and social-democrats by splitting the Socialist Party.

     Pankhurst would conclude her article on the Bologna Congress recalling an exchange of opinions she had had with a representative of the Abstentionist Fraction regarding the formation of Soviets in Italy. We think that, on this occasion, the comrade misunderstood our representative. To clear up the misunderstanding we quote a passage from the Theses of the Abstentionist Faction (1920) that describes the function of the Soviets: «The soviets or councils of workers, peasants and soldiers, constitute the organs of proletarian power and can exercise their true function only after the overthrow of bourgeois rule. Soviets are not in themselves organs of revolutionary struggle. They become revolutionary when the Communist Party wins a majority within them. Workers’  councils can also arise before the revolution, in a period of acute crisis on which the state power is seriously threatened. In a revolutionary situation, it may be necessary for the party to take the initiative in forming soviets, but this cannot be a means of precipitating such a situation. If the power of the bourgeoisie is strengthened, the survival of councils can present a serious danger to the revolutionary struggle – the danger of a conciliation and a combination of proletarian organs with the organs of bourgeois democracy».

Editorial Note: Pankhurst’s report was published in two parts, in the 1st and 8th November 1919 editions of the “Workers’ Dreadnought”. Little has subsequently been mentioned about Pankhurst’s contacts with the Italian Left. Her journey to Italy is in fact dealt with very briefly in Walter Kendall’s “The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900-21 only in footnote 9 to Chapter 13. Kendall comments that the trip to Italy was on the way to a secret meeting of the Western European Secretariat of the Comintern in Frankfurt in Germany. Pankhurst travelled through Turin, there discussing with members of the various tendencies in the PSI (reports are in previous editions of the Dreadnought). Kendall’s footnote says that «Pankhurst’s impressions will be found in Serrati’s “Comunismo”», but this mainly appears to have come from the first half of the report. The second part of Pankhurst’s report seems to have been ignored by Serrati, for obvious reasons. Overall we would conclude that the report published by Serrati was truncated if not actually censored.

RED BOLOGNA – The Italian Socialist Congress

 Beautiful Bologna! “Red Bologna” – red in a double sense, red in its colouring, Socialist red in spirit – still seems to be lingering in the quiet old world of the Middle Ages; the hurrying swirl of modern capitalism has not touched the ancient city yet, nor are its people stirred by the approach of the newest Social Order. Aggressively modern Communities writhe and groan in long and painful birth pangs, for the New Order: their populations contend in terrible strife, but the working people of Bologna, seem to be hurrying forward gladly and without fear or doubting to take their part in the Social Revolution.

     The old streets are mostly lined with portici, so that one seldom needs to step from under the shady archways into the sun. The massive houses, coloured in soft venetian red that pales to a mellow orange, are carved with the arms of ancient families, and through their lofty doorways one sees spacious court-yards with statues and fountains, wrought iron gates and glimpses of green gardens beyond. Oxen pass drawing great drays, finely carved and ornamented with nail heads; old vehicles handed down from generation to generation. Some of their owners will tell you they do not know the age of them, but can trace them back from more than a hundred years. On these slow-going drays big wine barrels, from which, when they stop at their destination, you can see the grape juice ladled out, all newly trodden, with the stalks and the smashed grapes yet in it. Pictures of long ago they seem as they rumble through the old streets, these drays with the covering of straw that the barrels may rest steadily without roiling, and the woman in short cotton skirt and a handkerchief for her head-dress, sitting on the barrels to drive holding sa whip of string, whilst the man toils before leading the oxen with his hand on the bridle.

     These peasants coming into Socialist Bologna are arriving from the surrounding country that is even more Socialist than the town.

     At Imola, a little village forty minutes’ ride in the train from Bologna, a meeting was addressed by members of the newly elected Committee of the Socialist Party and the foreign delegates to the Congress.

     The speakers arrived late – the audience very early, it had waited more than two hours when the meeting began. The stage was cleared of scenery in order that the entire space might be occupied by the people who crowded in behind the speakers. The pit was thronged, the tiers of the boxes (which take the place of the circles in British theatres), were packed, the women in front, the men behind, with tightly wedged human beings who seemed as though they might easily burst over the edge by sheer weight of numbers. Very vivid, almost startling, was the effect of the bright coloured peasant dresses and the warm brown human flesh lit up against the black interior of the boxes: more striking still was the force of the enthusiasm that stirred the people. “Viva il Socialismo! Viva Lenin!” the cries resounded, the people all cheering and waving, calling the speakers by name – Viva Lazzari! Viva Serrati! Even the foreign delegates were remembered, the French with special enthusiasm. It was not from the speakers these people had come to gather enthusiasm, they had an abundant and overflowing store of it to impart. They were all glowing and burning with it – one felt the thrill of the coming revolution.

     On the walls of the village houses was painted here and there: “Viva Lenin!” The Socialist Party has a large club house in the village where there is a big portrait of Lenin in a fur cap. On the walls of the Lecture Hall of the club-house are painted portraits of Karl Marx, Karl Liebknecht and Andrea Costa and the motto – “Those who do not work shall not eat”.

     Again in a suburb of Bologna itself there was a gathering in the Casa dei Fiori: a supper in honour of the newly elected Executive of the Socialist Party and a meeting in the courtyard outside. There was a dense mass of people, peasant women of all ages, some very old, others with children, were seated on chairs in the centre of the crowd; the men were standing densely massed on the outskirts. The women prompted the speakers, punctuated their sentences with ready comment, called for them to continue yet longer and would scarcely let them end. Even a foreigner, whose words they could not follow, was up borne by the warmth of their welcome: hundreds of hands were stretched out to help, to shake, to wave in greeting.

     Bologna is the Oxford of Italy, the home of her oldest University. The city was once entirely aristocratic; the villains, the working people lived outside in the country, and the noble families demonstrated their greatness and pride by building enormous brick towers as symbols of their power. Bologna possessed until recent years a very forest of these towers, but one only, Asinelli, now remains at its original gigantic height, 257 feat. Close beside Asinelli is a decapitated rival, Garisenda, which leans greatly to one side. Dante, when he saw Garisenda in the year 1,300 likened it to the Giant Anteaus, leaning forward. Dante’s verse has been inscribed on a tablet affixed to Garisenda and the Bolognese eagerly advise all visitors to stand at the angle where they can see the tower “as Dante saw it”.

     Life seems to go smoothly in Bologna. People sit leisurely at the tables outside the restaurants. The cafés are open and brightly lit till two o’clock. Asinelli towers hugely against the pellucid sky. The street lamps throw into warm relief portions of ancient biddings leaving the rest all clothed in the black mystery of night. Four scene shifters returning home, with spirits exhilarated by wine, pause here to sing a part song. One of their number beats time for the rest and then protests volubly at their inexactitudes. Two others stroll up to argue about the singing. An attendant at the cafe sits down to observe and makes humorous comments on the scene. We are back in the time of Shakespeare – either he must have travelled in Italy, or British cities were like Bologna in Shakespeare’s time.

* * *

     The Socialist Congress was held in the big Teatro Comunale (Municipal theatre) at Bologna. Banners announcing it were hung across the principal streets leading to the theatre. The walls of Bologna in every direction were plastered with Socialist posters; Manifesto from the Socialist Party to the people of Bologna, addresses of welcome from the local workers’ organisations to the Socialist Congress and so on. Posters advertising the “Avanti” and other Socialist newspapers were everywhere; the Italian Government receives a tax for each poster, and perhaps because of this, there is complete freedom to post bills. On the commercial bookstalls one could buy translations of Russian Soviet pamphlets, pamphlets by Da Costa, and other Italian Socialists, and a serial history of the Italian Socialist movement.

     There were upwards of 1,200 delegates to the Congress, representing 1,891 branches and 81,463 votes. Before the war the greatest number represented at any Congress was 1,418 branches and 66,708 votes. The membership steadily declined during the war. In 1917 there were 870 branches, in 1918 765.

     The fine Teatro Comunale is brilliantly lit and decorated in red and gold. The artistic sense so lacking in England has made the best of the premises. Instead of a table and stiff rows of chairs at the front of the platform with a drop scene behind, as we do it in Britain, the entire stage is open. At the back sit the visitors of the Congress, who, have proved their enthusiasm by paying five francs each for admission, as have the other visitors who crowd the top gallery of the theatre. Midway across the stage is a big table for the press; at right angles to it, on the left hand side of the stage, is another press table. Nearer the front of the stage, and to the left of the centre, are tables for the Executive of the Party. All these tables have dull covers, and green plants are gratefully arranged at various points. To the right of the tables where sit the Executive, and a little nearer the foot-lights, is the tribune from which the speeches are delivered. It is covered in brilliant scarlet and draws all attention to the orator.

      At the far end of the hall, right opposite the centre of the stage, is a great portrait of Karl Liebknecht, surrounded by red flags and with black ribbon draped about it. Again and again the Congress rose to its feet to cheer Karl Liebknecht. Was Rosa Luxemburg forgotten? We sent a note to the Chairman recalling the name of the great Communist heroine. He read it to the assembly: the delegates leapt to the their feet and cheered most cordially. The omission recalled the fact that not 5 per cent of the members of the Italian Socialist Party are women. To the mind of the average Italian, (this is not untrue to say it of our own country also) the word “leader” always conjures up the figure of a man. Yet several Italian comrades, commenting upon the incident, expressed the view that Luxemburg was probably an even greater force in the German, and in the International Communist movement than Liebknecht. The moral of this is to call to women comrades to come out and take their due share in the revolutionary struggle, and not merely to remain in the safe harbourage of agitation for piece-meal reforms, which entail no serious conflict with, the possessing classes – of the women who are in the Italian Socialist movement, but few belong to the well-to-do. bourgeoisie: many are teachers, many belong to the manual working class. In certain sections of women are well organised industrially. In the stretch of country eastward from Piedmont to Ancona there are 8,000 women to every 1,000 man in the industrial Unions and in the Unions for land workers.

     For one session at the Congress the chair was taken by a woman, comrade Altobelli.

Revolutionary idea accepted by Italian Socialist movement

Several outstanding facts must impress even the most superficial observer.

• No one in the Congress, except Turati, the old reformist leader of the party, whose day has passed, expresses the least doubt that the Russian Soviet Revolution, that the Soviets and the proletarian dictatorship are the essential medium for securing Socialism, and that the Bolshevik policy is the right one.
• No one in the Congress openly dissents from the view that a Socialist Revolution is desirable in Italy as in all countries, that this revolution will shortly arise in Italy and that force will be employed on both sides.
• In Italy the rank and file of the movement so strongly desires the Revolution that not a single leader dare not tell the Congress that he is against it. Even Treves, a very clever reformist, who, were he in this country, would not be a socialist at all, but a member of the liberal Party, found it best merely to suggest that the Revolutionary period may not have arrived, that much preparation is necessary, and that the present popular tendency towards a violent revolution may only be an effect of the war.
• In Britain, not a single official leader has yet taken a firm and unequivocal stand for the Revolution.
• In Italy, the rank and file enthusiasm for the Russian Communists is so strong that, of all the leaders, only Turati dare cast a doubt on their bona-fides. In Britain, Henderson, Thomas, and others have persistently maligned and abused the Russian Communists, whilst the I.L.P. has refused to declare its solidarity with the Communists and the Soviets, and has insisted on adopting an attitude of impartiality between Soviet Russia and those so-called “Socialists” like Kerensky and Alexinski (at present acting as diplomatic courier for the British capitalist Government), who are joining with the forces of world capitalism to attack the Russian revolution.
• The Italian Socialist movement accepts as art incontrovertible fact that the League of Nations is primarily a capitalist instrument for crushing the Russian Revolution and all other popular movements which may arise.
• We, ourselves, have consistently maintained these views, which, though they are in Britain regarded by majority in the movement as almost fantastically extreme, are regarded as accepted common-places in the Italian Party.
• It must be remembered that the Italian Socialist Party created the Italian Trade Union movement, the Trade Union movement is less advanced politically that the political party.
• The Italian Socialist Party embraces all the political sections of the working class except the Anarchists.
• The original leaders of the Socialist movement were all intellectuals. Twenty years ago there were many Socialists amongst the University students. Now that the Revolution approaches, the Italian bourgeoisie no longer produces those who will fight against itself.
• In the Italian Socialist Congress members of the actual working-class play a stall part. Boreo, a Turin metal worker, was the only manual worker to address the Congress.

     It is important to notice that though Revolution is the subject of public discussion by the Italian Socialist Party today, this was not the case in times past.

     At the opening of the Congress the greetings of the Bologna comrades were voiced by Bentini, who said that this city was the birthplace of the Socialist movement in Italy. Tirantini, in bringing good wishes from the industrial side of the movement, the “Confederazione Generale del Lavoro”, declared that the glory of that body is the strike for Soviet Russia of the 20th and 21st of July and the great strike of the metal workers. Frasinelli brought greetings from the Young Socialists. Altobelli from the Socialist women, saying that the message of the suffering motherhood of Italy is: “no more wars”. More necessary and important she insisted than legal, political and Parliamentary action, are international strikes.

     A representative of the 300.000 demobilised soldiers, who are organized as Socialists in 600 branches, declared that the ex-soldiers organisation does not wish to form a separate Party but to work with the Italian Socialist Party and with the International. He said: “We are preparing our battalions to fight by your side. We shall form the Red Army to fight against the yellow army – the Arditi. We know that the war was a capitalist war. We have no hatred for the soldiers who fought against us; we reserve that for the Italian capitalists who drove us to the slaughter”.

     Greetings were brought from Yugoslavia and from the Trentino; telegrams came from the Socialists’ Municipal Council of Milan, from the comrades in Moscow, Berlin, Constantinople, Holland, and from the British Socialist Party. We were asked to speak on behalf of British comrades. We explained that we could not officially speak for the British Socialist movement as a whole, only in a general sense, and that our official greetings must be from the W.S.F. We spoke in English and Dr Schiavi very ably translated. The French and Swiss delegates arrived late at the Congress, and received like ourselves a splendid welcome; the spirit of the Italian Congress is intensely international.

      Paul Faure, co-Editor of “Populaire” addressed the Congress in French. He was as closely followed as though he had spoken in Italian, and was tremendously cheered. When the Swiss delegate stated that the Swiss Socialist Party had left the Second international but had not yet joined the Third, he was interrupted by cries of “Viva la Terza Internazionale! Abbasso la Seconda Internazionale” and “Viva Lenin”. “Viva Lenin” was often heard during the Congress. “Viva Lenin” and “Viva la Borghesia” are signs often painted on the walls by the roadside in Italian working class districts. When cheers were given for Liebknecht many voices cried: “Instead of cheering make the revolution!”

     The main business of the Conference was to receive the report of the Secretary. Costantino Lazzari, to elect the Committee and to decide upon the policy of the Party in regard to join the Third International (the Executive of the Party had already adhered to it), preparation for the coming revolution and the question of participating in parliamentary action.

     It is said that the Congress is more orderly than in any other days. Probably the delegates are sobered by the knowledge of the impending struggle. It is noticeable that social conditions: questions of rents, prices, pensions, and so on, are scarcely referred to broad outlines of policy, and the question as to how the capitalist system may be altogether overthrown, now holds the field. Few contrasts are more striking than that presented by this Italian Congress, and that, for instance, at which the British Labour Party adapted Sidney Webb’s programme of reforms, which in pamphlet form has been published under the inappropriate title “The New Social Order”.

     Three main groups reveal themselves in the Italian Socialist Congress, each of which has presented a manifesto, and a resolution to the Congress.

These groups style themselves:
   THE MAXIMALIST UNITARIANS whose motion stood in the name of Lazzari.
   THE MAXIMALIST ELECTIONISTS whose motion stood in the name of Serrati.
   THE COMMUNISTS whose motion stood in the name of Bordiga.

     There is also a fourth tendency, the Reformists, whose members are so few that they evidently think it useless to put forward a motion. This group consists mainly of the Members of Parliament: Turati, Treves, and Modigliani are its most prominent members. It was noticeable that the Parliamentary Group remained seated when all stood up to cheer the Russian Revolution and Lenin.

The taunt of Treves – A reminder to the British

     Treves, who by the way was opposed to the Zimmerwald Conference, declared that the Peace Treaty of Versailles has made a successful revolution in Italy impossible, as our revolution would be crushed by the foreign intervention organised by the league of Nations. He also argued that the failure of France and Britain to join Italy in the general strike of July 20th and 21st, and the failure of the Italian effort to stop the Allied intervention in Russia is a proof that the workers can do nothing by international action.

     This argument, though it is not merely false but foolish, should make us realise in this country how grievously we betrayed the International, when we failed to respond to the call of the Italian comrades last July.

     Treves urged as another argument against the possibility of a successful revolution, that the industrial organisations are becoming more and more conservative. It is true that the leaders of the Industrial organisations in Italy, belong to the right wing of the movement, but the struggle between the Mensheviki and the Bolsheviki is going on there as everywhere else in” the. workers’ movement of every country.

Lazzari’s motion

 The motion of the Lazzari section adheres to the Party programme of 1892, but states that it should be amended so as to indicate that when the working class captures political power, it will supersede the present Governmental machinery by Councils of Workers: it recognised the important and international character of the revolutionary action which the workers are taking to secure Socialism: it demands complete of thought for all members of the Socialist Party, but insists upon discipline in action.

     The manifesto published by this section recognises the class struggle, adheres to the idea of Social Revolution, states that the transfer of power from the capitalists to the workers may be more or less violent and cannot be accomplished except by the dictatorship of the proletariat, through such Councils of Workers and Peasants as are the strength of the Russian Revolution.

     This is a very advanced pronounced to come from what is really the right wing of the movement, for the reformist section is too small to count as a wing. The statement is cooled somewhat by a warning against making preparations for an insurrection and a declaration that the invincibility of the Party and its power to create a great coalition of the workers against the bourgeoisie lies in the admitted and recognised civil and political rights.

     Lazzari, in moving the Unitarian resolution, explained that he did not wish to sign a special programme and to adopt a sectional title: he wanted to remain an old Socialist. It seemed that a clinging to tradition had probably a good deal to do with Lazzari’s opposition to new tactics. His position is peculiar and by no means logical. He desires a revolution, but objects to preparing for it. He said that during the period of the strike of July 20th and 21st when comrades kept coming to him mysteriously, saying: “I know where there is a bomb”, he felt that he was no longer the secretary of a party, but a man in a comic opera. He urged that a revolution cannot be made without arms, and he talked of the importance of munitions in the late war though of course a war between state and state is by no means the same thing as a war between class and class. He said it is folly to speak of arming the workers, that the workers in the Army have the arms, and the spiritual change in the people will automatically bring those arms to the service of the workers. In this last he was saying exactly what the more advanced groups declare, but he did not recognise those groups as an evidence of the spiritual change he was predicting. The open letter which the Finnish Communists sent to Lenin, attributing the failure of their revolution to lack of preparation, should be carefully studied by Lazzari and the Unitarian group.

     Lazzari accuses the Maximalists of having faith in no one, but no one is so scathing as he is in condemning the Socialist Members of Parliament. Of Treves he said: «We admire your cleverness, but we do not know whether we can trust you when the moment of trial comes.» Lazzari argued that it is necessary to put Workers’ Councils in the place of the present Parliamentary power, and accused the Socialist Parliamentary group of working, not for this object, but for a continuance of its own power.

     It seems to us that no charge could be more derogatory and insulting, but Lazzari, who made it, still thinks the party should spend itself in putting such groups into Parliament and considers the abstentionist position ridiculous. Lazzari is however very far removed from the bourgeois ideals of the Second International: he repudiated the glorification of President Wilson at the outset and denounced the Berne Conference as an expedient for giving a new virginity to those who betrayed the International. He betrayed regret that when the offices of the “Avanti!” were burned, the socialists did not retaliate.

Serrati’s motion

 The motion of the Serrati section is that of by far the largest group in the party. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that Serrati is Editor of the “Avanti!” and, therefore can press his views home every day: it is also partly because it adopts a centre position, expressing the revolutionary sentiments with which the party is surging, without, breaking with the old political tactics, on which, until recently, the hopes of the vast majority of Socialists in all countries were entirely concentrated.

    Serrati’s motion states:

    That the Party Programme of 1892 is now superseded, and proclaims the Russian Revolution as “the most fortunate event in the history of the workers”. It affirms that, since no dominant class has renounced its despotism until constrained by violence and the exploiting class has always defended its privilege by violence.
    The Conference is convinced that the Proletariat ought to have recourse to the use of violence, for defence against the violence of the capitalist class, for the conquest of power, and to consolidate its revolutionary conquests.
    It affirms the necessity for both technical and spiritual preparation for the revolution.
    It decides to take part in election contests, in order to make propaganda for communism and for the overthrow of the capitalist system.
    It recognises that the present organs of local and national Government cannot be transformed into instruments for liberating the workers; and that such organs must be replaced by workers’ soldiers’ and peasants councils, workers’ economic councils, and so on. These councils functioning at first under the capitalist domination, will be instruments of the violent war of liberation, and afterwards will become the organs of social and economic transformation and reconstruction in the Communist Social Order.
    The violent conquest of power by the workers should be followed by the transitory dictatorship of all the workers.
    During this dictatorship Communism should be realised after which, with the disappearance of classes, every sort of class domination will also disappear, and the free development of everyone will become a condition of the free development of all.

It is therefore decided that:

1. The organisation of the Italian Socialist Party shall be prepared according to these principle.
2. That the Party shall adhere to the Third International.
3. That it shall work with the industrial organisations in the class war.

     We have condensed the main points of this long resolution, and set them forth here, because this is the resolution which was actually adopted by the an overwhelming majority and now becomes the official policy of the Italian Socialist Party.

The Abstentionist’s resolution

The motion of those who believe the time for participating in electoral contests is now past, and who call themselves simply Communists, stated:

    1. That the programme of 1892 is out of date, and that the Party should form an integral part of the International Communist movement, accepting the Moscow programme, and engaging itself to observe the discipline of the International Communist Congress.
    2. It declared incompatible the presence in the party of those who proclaim the possibility of proletarian emancipation within the ambit of the present “democratic” regime and who repudiate the method of the armed fight against the bourgeoisie by the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
    3. That the Party should assume the name “The Communist Party of Italy”.
    4. That the Party should abstain from the electoral struggle, intervening in the contests only to make known the reason of its attitude and engaging all the organisations and force of the Party in the work.
    5. That the organs of the workers should be armed with the practical means of warfare necessary for the attainment of the Communist programme.

     A manifesto was issued by the abstentionists together with the resolution, from which we have condensed the most outstanding points. This manifesto surveys the situation and outlines a revolutionary programme, the setting up of the Soviets, socialisation of banks, industries, the land and so on. It calls for the setting up of a Provisional Committee before the proletarian triumph, which will direct the struggle against Capitalism and arrange for the election of the Soviets.

     The second point in the abstentionist’s programme, that which dictated the ejection from the Party of the Reformists who say that the workers can be emancipated within the bourgeois Parliamentary system, and who repudiate the Revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, received support from many of the Maximalists, who, though still wishing to run Parliamentary candidates, desire the Revolution and the Soviets.

    Abigaille Zanette and another woman comrade, with Altobelli the only women delegates who addressed the Congress, announced that though they would vote for the Serrati motion, they fished that it might have excluded the Reformists from the Party. Indeed the logic of the debate was with the Abstentionists and there were signs that large numbers of delegates were aware of that, though the Serrati motion secured upwards of 48,000 votes and the Lazzari motion upwards of 16,000, whilst the Abstentionists’ motion had only 3,627. Many voices cried out: “Bordiga! next year you will have the 48,000”. Bordiga smiled carelessly, for he believes that the Revolution will have arrived in Italy before next year’s Socialist Congress can be held.

     Some sober right wing Socialist also told us that in their view the Congress will have reached the Abstentionist position within the year. As a matter of fact, it is not only in the question of preparing directly for the revolution, instead of dallying further with Parliamentarism, that the Italian Abstentionists are thorough-going revolutionaries. It seemed to us that even in Italy, the approach of the Parliamentary election has a tendency to delay revolutionary action, though not as in Britain to cool revolutionary speech.

The rise of the abstentionist movement in Italy

We were eager to know how the Abstentionist movement had arisen in the Italian Socialist Party; whether it had an originating leader, and had started from one centre. We were informed that the movement had developed spontaneously in all directions, each section ignorant of the rest. Only at the Congress itself had the Abstentionists learnt their full strength, and how widely they were diffused. Comrade Bordiga kindly supplied us with this table, which shows the strength of the movement in various parts of the country.

This important movement, important because it is composed entirely of those who are prepared to proceed to revolution, is of very recent growth. In Turin, where it comprises one-third of the Socialist Party, it arose because it was felt to be the logical outcome of the Executive’s decision to join the Third International and to recognise the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, a policy approved by the Party as a whole. The Abstentionist group was formed in Turin immediately after the strike of July 20th and 21th, but the discussion from which it sprang had been going on for some time before. The Abstentionist movement in Naples, which has absorbed practically the whole of the Socialist Party there – the Party is not large in the South – began immediately after the Armistice, when the prospects of the next General Election came under review. At Naples is published a weekly organ of the Abstentionist movement, which is called “The Soviet” and has a circulation, as yet, of only 3,000 copies weekly.

      Bordiga, who moved the Abstentionist resolution and was its principal spokesman at the Congress, is a young civil engineer of Naples and looks curiously like the press photographs of Bela Kun, though probably, if one saw the two men together, one would find them absolutely unlike. He is full of energy: every evening following the Congress he addresses a public meeting on “Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. His thought is exceedingly clear-cut: he declares himself a doctrinaire. In speaking he makes sharp-pointed references to the big wigs of the movement; and it seems at times that his very presence excites passion in the assembly. His voice is rather harsh and exceedingly penetrating: it lacks, at least it lacked in the Congress, that emotional quality which sways those very numerous people who are moved rather by sympathy than by logic. But he makes an impression on the Congress greater than that made by any other delegate. When he is speaking all attention, especially that of the platform, is upon him, and when others are speaking, he, in the centre of a group of comrades in a box at the extreme right of the stage, seemed to cause all the speakers to refer to him and his sayings whilst he punctuated the speakers’ remarks with caustic comment. Nevertheless he seems to be on quite friendly terms with the Maximalists whom he attacks.

     In conversation they dismiss him and the Abstentionist movement by saying that Naples always produced extreme types of just his quality, and that the Neapolitan extremists later degenerate into reformists, and yet again one finds them consulting him! The fact that he is the spokesman of the logical position – the position towards which the movement is inexorably tending – is the power behind this combative and enthusiastic personality. Moreover, though its detractors may seek to dismiss the Naples movement as a local eccentricity, the Abstentionist movement is developing roots everywhere: it is a movement that makes a special appeal to the workers. Boero, who seconded the motion, was the only workman to address the Congress.

Bordiga predicts a split

Bordiga told us that the large vote given to the Maximalists is accounted for by the fact that many Socialists desire to give Parliamentary action a last chance before abandoning it. He does not think it so certain as others do that the Socialist Party will have the expected great success at the polls.

     He believes a split in the Party to be inevitable: when it comes, he says, the greater part of the Serrati faction will join the Abstentionists, and the smaller part will fall back with the Reformists. In the Abstentionist movement, he told us there are few ”intellectuals”: the majority of its members are of the working-class. In Turin and some other places the Abstentionists are working closely with the Workshop Committees. Many Turin Abstentionists believe that the industrial councils of workers, which are now being built up to perform economic and technical functions, will eventually form the Soviets: Bordiga does not think so and believes this conception to be dangerous. He believes that the representation of the workers as a class, in the Marxist meaning of the phrase, should be independent of any accident of trade, especially in the period of expropriating the capitalists. The Soviets at this stage should, in his view, be above mere industrial divisions, as purely economic functions will be taken over by economic councils. He agrees that the economic function is more important than the political: nevertheless, he says, Soviets, unless dominated by Communists, will not secure Communism. He points out that there is Communism in Russia because the Soviets are Communist, and there is not Communism in Germany although there are Soviets. Ha says this is because those Soviets are not Communist. [They would now be Communist however had the Spartacist Revolution succeeded, we believe] He believes that the Communist Party has as big a function to fulfil after the initial Revolution as before. A Communist majority in the Soviets, he says, takes possible the continuation of the revolution, and unless the Russian Soviets had been Communist, they would not have made the Soviets an organ of proletarian dictatorship.

     He says that during the preliminary stages of the Revolution the Soviets should consist of members of the Communist Party only, and that before the Revolution the Party should prepare a list of persons who are to assume the preliminary functions.

     We observed that the Russian Revolution did not proceed in this way; that all workers were eligible for election to the Soviets; that the Communists were originally in a minority in the Soviets, but that they demanded all power to the Soviets, trusting in the inevitable drift to the left when the workers had secured control, to bring the majority round to their way of thinking. Bordiga replied that observation of the Russian Revolution should teach us to take a shorter cut to the same objective.

     In asserting that in the early stages of revolution the Soviets should be confined to Communist workers, Bordiga was expressing his personal view to us for this is not indicated in the manifesto and resolution of the Abstentionist faction, though the preparation of a Communist professional Executive finds a place in it.

     After the Congress the Abstentionists met and decided to remain in the Socialist Party, and to propagate their abstentionist views only within the Party and not amongst the workers outside – thus it should not be said that they were injuring the electoral prospects of the majority.

     The voting upon the three propositions Unitarian, Maximalist, and “Communist, occupied several hours. From the platform is called the name of each delegate, the branch represented, and the number of votes: the delegate replies by naming the mover of the motion for which he wishes to vote. Italian comrades told us this lengthy procedure is the only accurate method available: we explained the British card system to a number of incredulous hearers.

     After the vote on the motions of Lazzari, Serrati and Bordiga had shown the relative strength of the different factions, it was proposed that the seats of the executive should be distributed proportionally amongst them. But Lazzari objected to the proposal, saying it was best that the majority faction should have a homogeneous committee. He withdrew his name from amongst the nominees for the Executive, and thus automatically resigned the secretaryship of the Party which he has held for many years. There is an element of nobility in his resignation, and his loss as an official, in many ways will be greatly felt, for he has been a sturdy fighter: the Italian Socialist Party is far in advance of the French and British Parties, and that is in large part due to his work.

     Lazzari’s proposal to allow the Maximalist faction to have all the seats on the Executive was agreed to and that faction now controls the Party. Serrati withdrew the proposal that Socialist Members of Parliament should place in the hands of the Party Executive a letter resigning from Parliament, which the Executive might use as and when it thought fit.

     We were impressed by the way in which the Italian Socialist Party thus made a clean sweep of its old executive in order that the new policy to which it had pledged itself might be whole heartedly administered, and the fine spirit shown by the men who stepped aside now that the majority had moved beyond their policy.

     Meanwhile no news has reached us that the Parliamentary Committee of the British Trade Union Congress and the Executive of the British Labour Party have yet bowed to the rank and file which has ordered them to summon a conference to decide what action shall be taken to stop the war on our Russian comrades.

E. SYLVIA PANKHURST