Week 45

 

It sure had taken a while, but with the end of the Summer of 1918 the Italian Socialists eventually had their National Congress.

If you read through the Avanti!'s headlines during the previous months, you'll find the frequent references to an “upcoming Congress” – in June, in April, in fact already the year before, during the Spring of 1917 – expression both of the fact that the socialist leadership could not by itself have its congress, without some degree of tolerance from the government (which often contented itself with the “we'll see” reply to the inquiries of the Parliamentary Socialist Group) and of the need to remind its audience that, even in times of war, there was a Socialist Party, with its rituals, its formulas, its life, of which – as Filippo Turati had reminded the Chamber during the last session of June – the national congress was an integral part.

The previous XIV Congress of the Italian Socialist Party had taken place in Ancona before the Great War had even begun (April 26^th to 28^th 1914). The XV Congress opened in Rome on September 1^st 1918 and closed its works on the 5^th .

In between the two congresses, the experience of the world conflict had affected the socialist movement deeply, creating the conditions for its transformation into... something else, the actual nature of which the socialist leadership was perhaps still unable to realize at the time. Immediately in August 1914 the Second International had fractured under the pressure of the mounting war tide, with the German and Austrian delegates siding in large part on a position of support to their respective governments, soon followed by the French socialists, hit by the assassination of one of their most influential leaders, Jean Jaures. The Italian Socialist Party (at least in its “official” - i.e. what used to be the “intransigent” current) had frequently needed its ties with the International in order to promote and support its internationalist positions – that despite the fact that its relations with the organization had often been problematic, a symptom of both the financial difficulties and the substantial lack of a central coordination that had characterized the whole arc of the PSI. Struck by this major blow, it had taken a neutralist position on the matter of the Italian intervention summarized with the formula of “neither support nor sabotage” - a choice that was subject to criticism from both outside the Party, with the former socialist current of the “revolutionary syndicalists” favoring the intervention as well as the opposite side of the “reformers” who were ready to support the government, and from inside it with currents promoting measures of direct action against the war (a general strike to be proclaimed in the case of war declaration) and others promoting the intervention as a measure of opposition to German militarism and authoritarianism [see for instance the early positions of “not equal distance” from Germany and France]. It was in this climate that Mussolini had left the direction of the Avanti! first, and soon after had been expelled from the Party altogether. The long wait for the Italian intervention had not helped the socialist official position with the chosen formula proving – and appearing day by day less effective. The inability of the Party to take a decisive step in either direction was not only a result of the internal difficulties tied to the complex nature of its leadership but also an effect of the concrete situation of the Italian nation – the socialists in large part understood that changing their position in favor of the war would have been both unpopular with their basis and an implicit admission of their mistake; but they also had to face the reality that, soon after the experiences of the general strikes of 1904 and 1908 and the “red week” of 1914, they lacked the strength to mount a successful opposition to the intervention. A realization of their own organization inadequacy, mixed with the underdevelopment of the workers movement, that the Russian Revolution would somehow blur in the minds of many of the socialist leaders, bringing them to seek for an imminent revolutionary transformation.

When the intervention came therefore the Socialists could do little more than renew their initial declaration, while on the other hand the new special legislation approved by the Chambers and the various decrees which followed provided the Italian governments with a series of repressive instruments that could be (and were) applied to the socialist organization with a large degree of arbitrariness. This led to a period of difficulties where the “life of the Party” as Turati had called it was vastly reduced to the basic physiological functions and chances of coordination, debate – either theoretical or practical – or just the opportunity for a revision of the internal balance of the Party were minimal. Communications were also frequently limited to a semi-clandestine fashion as the various provisions against defeatism targeted “those activities which could disturb or create distress within the public” as well as imposing limitations on “public meetings” and “private meetings of political nature”.

The Party Congress had often been a way of smoothing out (or to “institutionalize” more often) the contrasts between the various currents of the socialist movement, to take into account the changing balance of power, the growth of new local phenomenons and suggestions – absent this systematic process, the Italian Socialist Party had remained on the surface frozen in its pre war asset that split it into the three traditional centers of influence: the Party Direction, led by its Secretary Costantino Lazzari and by the “intransigent” majority; the Avanti!, the official newspaper where – after Mussolini's defection – the Chief Editor chair had been taken by Giacinto Menotti Serrati, himself expression of the “intransigent” majority; the Parliamentary Group, led by the old leader Filippo Turati, a moderate “reformer” whose position in the Parliament by itself opened his flank to the attacks of the current that argued for a total no-collaboration policy with the authorities.

During the war, Turati's tenuous hold on the Party had become progressively weaker – his attempts to challenge within the Parliament the repressive measures taken against the Party Direction and the frequent sequestrations and censorship of the Avanti! had often appeared too feeble to his opposition, or at least proved unsuccessful. And things had not improved with the increased social unrest that characterized the year 1917 – the “facts of Turin” of August especially had been blamed on the effects of socialist anti war propaganda (or even at times on a full blown socialist conspiracy) and soon after Caporetto a general narrative had been promoted by the radical interventionist-nationalist forces that tied together the visit of the Soviet delegates, the events of Turin and the “military strike” of Caporetto – a socialist fil rouge that run through the misadventures of the nation.

A consequence of this renewed attention had been the arrest of the Party Secretary Costantino Lazzari (and his vice Nicola Bombacci) in the last days of January 1918 – for a matter of internal circulars of “defeatist nature” - resulting in Lazzari's incarceration until the end of the year. Menotti Serrati had been already incarcerated in 1917 for his involvement with the facts of Turin. To make matters worse, the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 had increased the tension between the “moderate-reformers” and the new “maximalistic” current (the distinction, dating back to the SPD Congress of Erfurt of 1891, came to relevance again within the Italian context to characterize those currents which, according to their own interpretation, were supportive of the Bolshevik actions and advocated for – as per the original - “the maximal program” over “the minimal one”) represented mainly by acting Secretary Nicola Bombacci (who had been arrested with Lazzari but had not been jailed thereafter – or at least not for a long time).

The Italian Socialists met therefore in Rome under the most exceptional circumstances: the Party leader in jail, the Chief Editor of the official Party newspaper (and member of the Party direction) also in jail, the leader of the parliamentary group called to both shield the party and exposed to the attacks of the party, a large number of members subject to police measures or ongoing judiciary proceedings, the entire congress threatened (at least in principle) by the application of the limitations to political meetings. All this, it should not be forgotten, within a country at war; with the political and military authorities debating on the opportunity of resuming the offensive against the Austrians before winter.

 

The Avanti! issue of Tuesday 27^th of August opened with the announcement of “the XV national Socialist congress; Rome – September 1^st , 2^nd , 3^rd , 4^th 1918”. The order of business listed:

1. Constitution of the presidency office and revision of its powers

2. Moral and financial relation from the Party Direction
3. Moral and financial relation from the Avanti!
4. Relation from the parliamentary group
5. Orientation of the Socialist Party within the present political situation, national and international
6. Appointment of the Party Direction and the Chief Editor of the Avanti!