The Italian Left: On the Line of Lenin and the First Two Congresses of the Third International Pt 11

The Milan Meeting of October 15

Attending this meeting were representatives from the Communist Abstentionist Fraction, from Ordine Nuovo, from the Milanese Maximalist Left, from the majority within the Youth Federation, and also a number of Maximalist groups without any clear physiognomy but who opposed Serrati’s line. Of those present, the CAF was the only one with a solid organization of its own at a national level, the one grouped around „Il Soviet.”

It was from this meeting that the “Manifesto-Program of the Communist Fraction of the PSI” would emerge; on the basis of which programme the so-called Imola fraction of “pure communists” would arise. Addressed to all comrades and sections of the PSI, the Manifesto-Program was published in “Il Soviet” on October 17: it denounced, in the first place, the incompetence of the PSI and declared that the fraction, at the next congress, would resolve the acute party crisis. It stated that the trade-union organizations and political organizations, to which had been entrusted the task of developing a victorious opposition to the bourgeois policy of self-preservation during this period of open class struggle, had proved inadequate, that the party hadn’t modified the criteria of its policies and that the masses, having been disappointed, were turning to organizations outside the party, for example to syndicalists and anarchists. It stated that the Second Congress of the CI had established the foundations for party renewal on which the next congress would have to work, namely:

1. Changing the party’s name to the Communist Party of Italy (section of the Communist International).
2. Revision of the program, as approved in 1919 at Bologna.
3. Expulsion of all members and organizations which have pronounced against the communist program.
4. Revision of the party’s internal statutes with a view to introducing into it the criteria of homogeneity, centralization and discipline.
5. As regards action, discipline towards all the decisions of the CI Congress and the national congress, observance of which will be entrusted with full powers to the CC elected by the congress.
6. The directives on party action: to prepare for insurrectional action with consequent legal and illegal work; to organize Communist groups in all workers’ organizations; to work inside the ‘economic organizations’; participation in the political and local government elections to be distinguished by features totally opposed to the old social-democratic practice; control to be exerted over all propaganda activity.

On October 17, Il Soviet also published the Abstentionist Fraction’s bulletin of adherence to the Manifesto-Program:

„The Fraction’s Central Committee, reassembled on October 9, 1920, having listened to the report […] on the agreements reached with the other left fractions and tendencies in the party, regarding preparations for the congress and proposed action to achieve the most efficacious application of the resolutions of the Moscow Congress; and having examined the Manifesto-Program that was issued with this end in view, has decided to fully adhere to this movement in the name of the Communist Abstentionist Fraction. This decision has been communicated to the provisional committee in Bologna [the committee soon moved from there to Imola] and it invites all groups that adhere to it to examine the above-mentioned program in a special assembly, and then proceed to their relevant sections to seek agreement, on the basis of the program, with similar groups. It wishes to record that […] the Communist Abstentionist Fraction still retains its own organization and constitution, and, as regards the local council elections, stands by the criteria taken into consideration by recent CC decisions. It hopes, moreover, that the joint effort of all communists will be crowned with success in their work of putting new life into the organizations and revolutionary activity of the Italian proletariat.”

A brief comment recorded how the Communist Abstentionist Fraction’s adherence to the Manifesto-Program wasn’t really that surprising since the abstentionists had proposed an agreement with the electionist communists before, at the Bologna Congress in 1919, at which time it was actually the latter who dropped the proposal, in the name of party unity.

The Milan Manifesto-Program, however, made no reference to the Ordinovism that took over all the positions adopted by the abstentionists, except abstentionism itself, abandoned (for reasons we have often mentioned) even by the abstentionists themselves. The emphasis was instead placed on the question of the party, its centralization, and on the question of conquering the trade-union organizations and the national confederations. No special role, however, was attributed to the factory councils.

A provisional CC and a three-man Executive Committee had been nominated with a provisional headquarters in Bologna; it was also decided to publish the weekly “Il Comunista”, and to convene the fraction’s Imola Congress for November 28.

That the influence of the abstentionists, at both the theoretical and organizational levels, would be a determining factor in every aspect of the work of forming the Communist Fraction, and making preparations for the Socialist’s national congress, is something no-one can deny. At the same time nobody can accuse them of using their theoretical, organizational, and numerical superiority to impose their personnel on the governing body. As a matter of fact, then as now, our fraction has always rejected petty personalistic politics and, in 1924, in reply to a slanderous campaign against the Left incited by future Stalinists, one of our comrades insisted that the abstentionists had never demanded a presence within the leadership organs which was disproportionate to their forces. The comrades of the Left never saw making bids for leadership roles as one of their political functions. On the contrary, whilst getting ready for the Imola Congress the abstentionists would maintain a certain detachment towards the fraction’s official organs, keeping their own organization intact right up to the Livorno Congress. In fact, the fraction’s entire network was entrusted to comrade Fortichiari, who would work perfectly well with the abstentionists even though he wasn’t an abstentionist himself.

A Historical Necessity

The great questions of principle had been cleared up once and for all with the theses and conditions of admission to the International and with the theses and writings of the Communist Abstentionist Fraction. Now it was a case of conducting an all-out battle against the opportunism of the Right and Center. In the second half of 1920 the fraction fulfilled this task, through Il Soviet, with great energy and gusto. “Il Soviet” also published a whole series of articles aimed at unmasking opportunism and the duplicity of the CGL leadership, which whilst underwriting the documents of the Red Unions in Moscow continued to adhere to Amsterdam, thanks in part to Serrati’s support.

The internal party polemics took place while the Giolitti government was discussing “control of industry” with the unions, and offered police operations to the reformists to control subversives whilst the fascist groups started to launch their “punitive expeditions”. The October 24 edition of “Il Soviet” explained that it was a matter of a single counter-revolutionary policy, not opposed and contradictory government policies; and that the bourgeois tendency of the moment was in fact more predisposed to social-democratic government. To this end, the part of the bourgeoisie supporting the social democratic solution played its final card. On December 9, “Il Soviet” published an article, entitled “Defeatist Maneuvers”, denouncing Turati’s parliamentary speech, in which, following the events in Palazzo d’Accursio in Bologna, he had condemned not only the black-shirts, but also the “red flag fanatics”. Turati affirmed the urgent need to “disarmare gli spiriti – quell high spirits”, “deporre le armi e pacificare gli animi – lay down arms and pacify souls”, thus allowing free rein to the fascist groups, armed to the teeth and protected by the State. Even the party center indulged in pacifism, and declared loudly against liberties trampled underfoot, invoking the protection of the public powers, and advising workers not to respond to “provocation”!

All of which would confirm the urgent necessity of constituting the Communist Party, a necessity dictated by considerations of principle: as long as the proletariat remains under the influence of a party which orders it to disarm precisely when the class enemy is mustering its forces, it will never be able to defend itself if the workers’ struggle to defend itself against fascist and State repression was inseparable from the liquidation of the socialist Right and Center. The victory of reaction was largely the product of the excessive delay in achieving the split and the consequence of the reformist influence over the working masses.

The Imola Congress

In the autumn of 1920, there was held a congress of Communists who believed in acceptance without reserve of the resolutions of the International’s Second Congress, and consequently in the expulsion of the reformists from the party. Present at the conference were representatives of the CAF, “Ordine Nuovo”, and the left Maximalists. The CAF’s representative gave an introductory speech in which he declared that it wasn’t just the social-patriots who had deserted the proletarian cause but also the social democrats, who rejected the violent destruction of the bourgeois power and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the same way they refused to accept the new communist program elaborated by the International. His speech was seconded by the delegates from the other groups. Naturally, there was argument and differences of opinion on certain points, but not such as to erode the principles on which the Communist Fraction was built. It was an open secret that the Communists had met at Imola to organize the Communist Party of Italy, not to win votes at the next congress of the PSI. The overriding question, which had been deliberated on in Moscow, was that of the purging of the party: nothing remained now but to put it into practice, severing links both with the reformists and the Maximalists, whichever way the vote went at Livorno. At Imola it had already been accepted, even if not decided on formally, that if the congress vote put the Communists in a minority, the latter, already organized in the fraction, would abandon the congress and the Socialist Party in order to constitute the new Communist Party of Italy (section of the Third International). Indicative of the underlying consistency is the fact that the motion approved unanimously at Imola would be the same as that presented by the Communists to the Livorno Congress.

The article which follows poses in the clearest possible way the question of the split as a historical necessity independent from any considerations of a numerical character, that war-horse of the usual traitors. The article, entitled Towards the Communist Party was published by the fraction’s newspaper “Il Comunista” on December 19 and 23, and also in Avanti!.

Towards the Communist Party

„The Imola Convention believed it opportune not to pronounce on the attitude that our fraction should take if the vote at the national congress puts us in a minority. This was because it would have contradicted the convention’s character as one based on fractional work, which aimed to organize the conquest of the majority of the party at the congress.

„On the other hand, as Gramsci observed, there was a sense in which the convention was not just working towards a congressional victory, but towards the constitution of a new party. And the true objective of our entire work is precisely that. We need to bear in mind that a matter as important as the constitution in Italy of the Communist Party will not, in the final analysis, be settled by a majority at the national congress; rather it will be after the congressional vote that the matter can be tackled directly, and resolved. The elements of the solution are to be found in the entire experience and political preparation of the Left of the present party, the Left party, or rather, the two of them that have co-existed up to now, and even more are contained within the Communist International’s program of action.

„Anti-democratic even as regards this, we cannot accept as ’ultima ratio’ the arithmetic expression of the consultation of a party which isn’t a party. We can start to recognize the correct opinion of the majority at the point where homogeneity of program and purpose begin; in a society divided into classes we cannot accept it; not within a proletariat necessarily dominated by bourgeois influences; not within a party with far too many petty bourgeois members, and which historically has oscillated between the old and the new internationals; which, therefore, isn’t, either in its thinking or its practice, the class party of Marx.

„And so we need to immediately start thinking about all the possible situations which could arise immediately after the vote; which must not, and cannot, cause a break in the continuous development of our activity towards that fundamental objective. Let us set out from this initial consideration in which is summed up precisely the most important result of the Imola Convention: the Communists will vote for the motion already deliberated on at the convention. There must be no changes introduced or any kind of softening or toning down of the motion. If certain elements end up oscillating between us and the Unitarians, we won’t be making any concessions to win their votes. Nothing therefore remains but to examine the two hypotheses: of our motion gaining a majority, or a minority, of the votes.

„In both cases, we must make sure we follow the same directives. The Italian proletarian movement is at a crossroads, but the choice before it is not between the politics of Reggio Emilia or the politics of communism but between our program of action, and that of the Unitarian social-communists. Despite the latter constantly assuring us that we only diverge on minor points, and that we are all chips off the same programmatic block, the truth is that it is through them that the right conducts its politics: a pure reformism if it emerged would be immediately ruled out, whilst the effort of the reformists is applied according to the laws of least resistance, i.e., aiming to get their method to permeate the majority of our plethoric party under the label of intermediate tendencies.

„The Unitarians cannot be clearly distinguished from the reformists. The whole of their argumentation during these fervent and extremely animated debates has been virtually identical. Everywhere the Unitarians defend the policies of the right fraction and above all of the General Confederation of Labour. They emphasize that their purging of the party of the extreme right is on the same level as purging it of extreme left elements.

„Yet more proof: the Unitarians are in favor of hitting out at the present party leadership for the stance they have taken from Bologna up till now, blaming it for the failure of the revolutionary bids made by the Italian proletariat, and clearing the reformists of all blame. It is almost as though, politically and historically – leaving aside any personal positions taken by any of its members today – the present leadership wasn’t the executor of the Maximalist and Unitarian majority led by Serrati at Bologna. The Unitarians fail to see that the leadership couldn’t pursue a purely Maximalist policy precisely because it was impossible to do on the basis of the ambiguous Unitarian positions. They can’t see that in such a way they produce arguments against their own theses and against their political direction, and they can’t see it because in fact they have more or less taken over all of reformism’s polemical positions against maximalism; as is proved too by the fact that they address the entire problem of what the conditions and possibilities of revolution are in the same way as the right-wingers. One part of the Maximalist majority therefore goes beyond Bologna, and the abyss is opening up between them.

„There is a clear split between Unitarians and Communists, and discussion between them is sometimes immeasurably violent. This clear split isn’t attenuated at all by those subtle differences which may exist amongst the extremists, but which are usefully integrated into the elaboration of a better awareness for all of the best way to go forward, compact and united. In local discussions, therefore, we see Communists and Unitarians lining up into two opposed camps, with the Right maneuvering in the background and not very easily distinguishable from the Unitarians. And it’s not that surprising. Just as the bourgeoisie delegates its defense, at critical moments, to reformism, so reformism, when it is losing ground among the masses, is forced to delegate its counter-revolutionary function to the centrism, labelled right-wing communism, which we can see at work in all countries. When attending the party assemblies and conferences the feeling you get today is that it is really the Communists and Unitarians who are heading for a definitive split; they for whom existing alongside one another has become an impossibility.

„The conclusion is this: we must strive to form a communist party which is not influenced by today’s kind of politics based on the thesis of party unity, one not led in collaboration with the exponents of today’s Unitarian communisms. Lenin in his article explained this to us very well, and it must be our open objective.

„I hope that not all Unitarian Communists break away from us in order to form an independent party, or a social-democratic party with the reformists. I think our situation is at least as mature as the situation in Germany. The mass of the Unitary Communists, our home-grown independents, need to be set free, and their leaders put out to grass.

„If we end up in the majority, therefore, we will set them free by means of the steady application of our Imola motion, ostracizing the right and the right-leaning, and making sure that all the leading party organs are exclusively under the sway of extremist communism.

„But what if we find ourselves in the minority? We could neither put up with a party led by the Unitarians, nor sharing the leadership with them. Our task as a fraction is over. With the present massing of the party’s extremist groups on the base of the deliberations in Moscow, of our program, of our motion, and, based on the latter, of the struggle inside the party against both reformism’s direct and indirect manifestations, our duty as a party is starting. We are not going to stay, resuming the hard work of proselytism, if it means the proletariat and ourselves are immobilized until the next congress is called. And neither will we make the criminal blunder of entrusting the leadership of Italian proletarian movement to a confused and imprecise mixture of communist and centrist directives: this would be the triumph of the Unitarian theses, already condemned both in Italy and within the Communist International.

„It is therefore strikingly obvious that immediate departure from the party and the congress, as soon as the vote has put us in the minority, is the logical, courageous and tactically appropriate solution. From this there would follow, in line with the norms we have indicated, the setting free of the Center: in fact I think that this important objective of ours is more likely to be achieved under these circumstances.

„Let us therefore be prepared for such a resolution. More than any other it corresponds to the directives of the Communist International, it is therefore inappropriate to suppose that it wouldn’t meet with the latter’s approval; and to invoke this supposition to postpone an act which, once delayed, would undermine its beneficial and positive effects.

„I think that the groups in the fraction should confront this issue and say something about it to their congress delegates. However, on this basis our fraction – which is the kernel of a genuine and viable party – cannot and must not under any circumstances be divided. It must make its move, intentionally and deliberately, all together, as one body. I am certain that this stance will be met with your virtually unanimous approval.

„Let us therefore look at the situation squarely in the face and let’s take full responsibility for it. What we are conducting is a battle without quarter against all wavering and all misunderstanding.”