Week 133

 

In the aftermath of the general strike of July 20^th and 21^st Mussolini's Popolo d'Italia begun widening the range of its polemics to include as well – while not forgetting the fundamental character of its anti-Socialist action – those liberal and democratic “intellectuals”, those “philoso-failures” unable to recognize that the recent mobilization of the masses had been nothing but a “Bolshevik” and “anti-national” attempt to destroy the productive forces of the nation.

On the 23^rd it was the turn of Mario Missiroli – chief editor of the Resto del Carlino, a supporter of Nitti's political action and, at the time, associated to Filippo Naldi's complex editorial maneuvers – who had seen in the movement of masses, if not in the intention of the socialist organizers, an attempt to “find their place in the life of the nation”, a spontaneous and less than conscious motion to steer the political and social course in a new direction.

Far from it – explained Gian Capo (Giovanni Capodivacca) – This general strike, like the whole politics of the socialist party since 1914, is an exclusively political anti-national movement. The men who wished for it, the men who imposed it [upon the masses] are the same who used to say before the war - “German or Italian master, it's the same” - and that at every moment, during the war, giving credit to the infamous fabrication of a non-existent Italian imperialism, have helped placing our Country in a position of inferiority with the Allies. […]

The strike, as proven by its “colossal failure” - insisted Gian Capo – had not been a movement of masses, but, at least in the wishes of the “leaders of socialism”, it was supposed to be “an assault against the nation” for “the triumph of anarcoid-communism”, which the masses had refused to take part in. The “grotesque deformations of reality” attempted by those “German widows” had the only purpose of serving as justifications for

that indecent portion of the bourgeoisie which lives and thrives in the ambiguous space between the most conniving affair capitalism and the most obscene and hypocritical subversive demagogism. […]

The attempt to color the stolid action of the Socialist Party, which the Confederation of Labor has managed to get dragged into, answers to a far from providential, more or less conscious design of certain bourgeois groups and of the more sober fractions of the socialist […]

Whatever the new direction of Italy's foreign policy, it won't be the likes of Filippo Naldi or Filippo Turati to set the course […] The Italian people has so vast and profound reserves of spiritual health, that no maneuver, no matter how skilled, of the astute practitioners of politics and of their philosopher accomplices, could poison them. And, if a national syndicalism arises, belligerent and powerful, to replace the old and cowardly bourgeoisie, much more at ease with electoral flings and with taking cover, than with daring renovation, this syndicalism […] shall arise from the ruins of moronic bolshevism, which is rapidly wasting its stock in these criminal movements, proving the failure of the Asiatic method and providing the most amusing rejection of the philosophical bullshit of its bourgeois panegyrists.

It's the always fresh and every day more vibrant interventionist spirit of 1915 – that which rescued Italy back then and led Her to victory in war – [which represents] the conscious and powerful force destined to bring the action of the working masses into the rhythm of national life, and lead to victory in peace.

The Italian people, with its rebellion to the Leninist tyranny […] has made a powerful statement. Like the other peoples of the victorious nations, it doesn't wish to fall prey to an insane Leninist experiment, and refused as well to express its solidarity for Hungarian and Russian communism. Like the other peoples, it wishes only for peace and work, for its victory not to be disfigured and destroyed by those who'd wish to drag the Country into the Leninist chasm.

It's because of its failure, and only because of it, that the strike has carried a deep national signification, which can't be missed neither by the immensely mediocre practitioners of socialism, nor by the bourgeois panegyrist philosophers of the strike. […]

On July 26^th it was Agostino Lanzillo to explain, from the front page, “Why the leaders of the Socialist Party are morons”. After reminding his reader of the many instances where the socialist leadership had proven their instrumental view of the organized masses, Lanzillo came to examine the significance of recent events.

The Socialist Party staged the manifestation of July 20^th in order to give Italy proof that their hold on the working class is so strong that they can mobilize it for a general strike because of a reason whatsoever.

The socialists were mistaken. Ignorant of any notion of human psychology, they don't understand that human masses aren't moved by distant and remote facts […] How could the Italian proletariat understand the request of the socialist big guns to go on strike for undetermined, distant matters? Who is Kolchak to nine tenths of the Italian workers?

On the other hand the working class could feel […] what the leaders of the party couldn't understand: the sterility of the action which was asked of them, the disproportion between the pretense of opening a new phase of labor international politics and the incompetent and childishly shallow formulation of the problem. […] Proletarians could sense the disingenuous attempt […] hidden behind the Party's action, disguising with Russia their wish to make use of the labor organizations as a “boogeyman” for the bourgeoisie, not in the interest of the proletariat but only to serve the ends of their beastly and moronic policy.

This failed experiment leads us to hope that, soon enough, proletarians will be able to free themselves from the mortifying guardianship of the socialist party […]

Here in Italy – Lanzillo continued, citing a recent work by Georges Sorel – we had reached the absurd point […] where the general strike itself had become the ordinary reform of a pseudo-revolution [promoted] by a group of debased political practitioners, craving the opportunity to seize the power of the state thanks to the paralysis produced by the strike. Those practitioners were doing as they pleased with the CGdL, and were even dictating their terms to the Railway Union, the leaders of which had forgotten all of their past traditions and present duties.

Thank god, people revolted against it. There is still hope left that he general strike won't become the instrument for the affirmation of a pack of lying politicians.

But my intention here is not to prove that the big guns of official socialism are self-serving buccaneers. That's well know and quite an ordinary fact. In times of social crisis, it's obvious, like it happens in moments of financial crisis for financial fortunes, that new political fortunes may arise. The likes of Serrati, Bombacci and Vella, are the political equivalents of finance and bank profiteers: the equally pathological and inevitable outcome of the convulsive process of social life.

What's more peculiar and worth noticing in the affirmation of these individuals […] is their manifest, prominent and inflated imbecility. That's the novelty! For scoundrels to lead the way in times of political crisis is a mere historical fact... For imbeciles, and morons to do so, that's a peculiar character of present Italian life! […]

The Socialist Direction – Lanzillo pressed on – had concocted a nonsensical political strategy based on the imitation of a supposed Bolshevik model, instead of what might have ensured their affirmation.

Once the war was over, they should have quit with any polemics about the war. It was pointless and politically damaging to insist over something which had, at that point, become history, something which inspired the hatred of those who loved, under whatever form, their Motherland, and of those who had fought […] It would have also been reasonable the expect the socialists to formulate a concrete, practical program […] of political conquests, including also the conquest of the State. […] On this path, they should have sought to make arrangements with the other fractions, able to provide those forces which the socialists lack, and against which the socialists will never be able to win. [italics in the original]

[…] They did nothing of the sort! Insisted on winning alone […] Is there anyone who knows the socialist program? They are imitators of... Lenin, and Bela Kun. That's it.

But... Lenin and Bela Kun don't say the same things. But Italy isn't Russia or Hungary... Whatever! Bombacci can't find his own nose […] and might be able to, once as he is made people's commissary […] And they can't see that saying those things here in Italy is laughable […] and that laughter kills even the proletarian dictatorship.