DECLARATION BY REPOSSI TO THE CHAMBER ON BEHALF OF THE PCd’I, 12 NOVEMBER 1924

From: I Comunisti al Parlamento – Contro il Fascismo e contro le Opposizioni,  Libreria del PCd’I, 1925

Repossi. I speak of the minutes of the sitting of 13 June. If my, I mean the Communist Group’s, statements are judged to refer to the current situation, it is because today’s situation is merely the development of the one that existed on 13 June. If I had been present at that sitting, I would have had to point out to Members Rocco, Soleri and Delcroix that a Chamber of fascists and supporters of fascism, a Chamber elected by Cesare Rossi and Marinelli, cannot commemorate Giacomo Matteotti without committing a shameful desecration.

President. Hon. Repossi, I call you to order!

Repossi. These things I must repeat to you today. It is not a question of the political responsibilities of the regime, which today has no support other than the squadrists shouting ‘Viva Dumini’; nor is it just a question of the moral responsibilities of those who daily consider the bloody violence exercised on workers to be legitimate. It is a question in this case of direct personal responsibilities, which cannot be evaded by forcing the resignation of an under-secretary or by the monstrous contradiction of renouncing the Ministry of the Interior.

President. I cannot let you continue in this way!

Repossi. Since time immemorial, murderers and accomplices of murderers have never been allowed to commemorate their victims. This assembly bears the burden of complicity.

President. I call you to order for the second time.

Repossi. We are only returning here today to repeat our indictment of you, and nothing will prevent us from returning whenever we deem it necessary to use this forum to show the workers and peasants of Italy the way to liberation from the regime of capitalist reaction that you represent. If we had been present on 13 June, we should and would have said that the Matteotti murder appeared to be the determinant of a situation precisely because in reality it was its gruesome index.

President. Hon. Repossi, you do not speak on the record….

Repossi. The Matteotti murder was the spasmodic sign of fascist failure.

Greco. You cannot go on like that!

Repossi. Even then it was quite clear that you can weaken a proletarian organisation for an instant, but that you can’t weaken the proletariat for long, because that means reducing the whole country to slavery.

Capanni (snaps and shouts). I won’t touch you because you disgust me!

Repossi. Even then we could tell you, and today we repeat, that the proletariat does not even forget the responsibilities of those who prepared and flanked fascism, of anyone who favoured its coming to power, of anyone: even the invoked ‘whoever’ of the Quirinal. Even then we foresaw that, by restricting the anti-fascist struggle to the search for a parliamentary compromise, which leaves intact the reactionary substance of the regime from which millions of workers and peasants throughout Italy suffer and which they curse, no positive outcome could be achieved. On the contrary, help was being given to fascism. We do not live in the expectation of a bourgeois compromise for which the bourgeoisie today calls for the intervention of the king, for which reformist and maximalist social democracy renounces class struggle and calls for a ‘superior administration that is alien to the interests of each party’, i.e., a military dictatorship that should prevent the inexorable advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The centre of our action is outside this courtroom, among the working masses who are becoming increasingly convinced that the end of the shameful situation in which the country is kept by you, your pro-fascist supporters and your democratic and liberal allies and flankers, will only come about with the return to the field and the prevailing over you of their organised force. We also point out from this tribune to the workers which path they must follow: it is the path of resistance and physical defence against your violence, of unremitting struggle for trade union conquests, of organised intervention against the rising cost of living and against the precipitating economic crisis; it is the path of the constitution of Workers‘ and Peasants’ Committees. Around the Workers‘ and Peasants’ Committees must be gathered all those who want to fight against you with appropriate weapons. From the Workers‘ and Peasants’ Committees must come the only watchwords that contain a radical solution to the present situation: Away with the government of the murderers and starvers of the people. Disarmament of the black shirts. Arming of the proletariat. Establishment of a workers‘ and peasants’ government. The Workers‘ and Peasants’ Committees will be the basis of this government and the dictatorship of the working class.

And now, go ahead and commemorate Giacomo Matteotti, but remember that the cry uttered by the Martyr’s mother also became the cry of millions of workers: ‘Murderers! Murderers!’.