Antonio Gramsci 1921
Those mainly responsible
Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 20 September 1921.
Text from Antonio Gramsci "Selections from political writings (1921-1926)", translated and edited by Quintin Hoare (Lawrence and Wishart, London 1978). Transcribed to the www with the kind permission of Quintin Hoare.
If in September 1920 the Turin communists had been anarchists
instead of communists, the factory occupation movement would have
had a very different outcome from the one it actually did have:
this is the essence of an article from Turin in
Urnanità Nova, which reasserts our heavy
responsibility for the failure to make a revolution. What a pity!
The Turin communists, in September 1920, were in fact communists
and not anarchists. Even then, they believed that "proletarian
revolution" means and can only mean creation of a revolutionary
government. Even then, they believed that a revolutionary
government can only be created if there exists a revolutionary
party, nationally organized, which is capable of leading a mass
action towards this historically concrete objective.
The Turin communists belonged to the Italian Socialist Party,
and were members of its Turin section; the reformist leaders of
the General Confederation of Labour also belonged to that party
and that section. The movement had been launched by the
reformists. The weekly L'Ordine Nuovo of 15 August 1920
clearly shows that the Turin communists were opposed to the action
initiatied by ROM - because of the way in which it had been
initiated; because of the fact that it had not been preceded by
any preparation; and because of the fact that it had no concrete
aim. Given these concrete conditions, the movement could only
culminate in a revolution on condition that the reformists
continued to lead it. If the reformists, once the action had begun
and taken on the dimensions and the character which it did, had
led it forward to its logical conclusion, certainly the great
majority of the proletariat, and broad layers of the petty
bourgeoisie and peasantry as well, would have followed their
slogans.
If, on the other hand, the Turin communists had begun the
insurrection on their own initiative, Turin would have been
isolated, proletarian Turin would have been pitilessly crushed by
the armed forces of the State. In September 1920, Turin would not
even have had the solidarity of the Piedmont region, as it had had
in the previous April. The evil campaign which the trade-union
officials and Serratian opportunists had waged against the Turin
communists after the April strike had had its effect, especially
in Piedmont. The comrades from Turin could not even approach those
from the region. Not a word of what they said was believed; they
were always asked if they had an express mandate from the party
leadership. The whole regional organization built up from Turin
had completely fallen to pieces. The Turin correspondent of
Umanità Nova, who perhaps knows the organizational
efforts that were made in that period, certainly does not know
many other things. The communists sought to put the Turin
proletariat in the best conditions from the point of view of a
probable insurrection. They knew, however, that elsewhere nothing
was being done, nor any slogan being circulated. They knew that
the union leaders responsible for the movement had no warlike
intentions.
For a very brief period of time, three or four days, the union
leaders were extremely favourable to an insurrection, they called
wildly for an insurrection. Why? Apparently Giolitti, under
pressure from the industrialists, who were openly threatening to
overthrow the government by a military pronunciamento,
wanted to go over from "homeopathy" to "surgery". He evidently
made certain threats. The union leaders lost their heads. They
wanted an "outrage", a local massacre which would justify their
reaching an agreement at national level in accordance with
reformist traditions. Were we right or wrong to refuse to take
part in this infamous game, which was to be played with the blood
of the Turin proletariat? By dint of repeating from April onwards
that the Turin communists were irresponsible hotheads, "localists"
and adventurers, the reformists had actually ended up by believing
this - and by believing that we would lend ourselves to their
game. They were not easy, those days of September 1920. In those
days we acquired, perhaps belatedly, a precise and resolute
conviction of the need for a split. How could men who mistrusted
each other, who precisely at the moment of action saw that it was
necessary to protect their backs from their own fellow-members,
possibly remain together in the same party?
This was the situation, and we were not anarchists but
communists, i.e. convinced of the need for a national party if the
proletarian revolution was to have the least chance of a
successful outcome. But even if we had been anarchists, would we
have acted differently? There is a point of reference for
answering this question: in September 1920 there did indeed exist
anarchists in Italy, there existed a national anarchist
movement. What did the anarchists do? Nothing. If we had been
anarchists, we would not even have done what was done in Turin in
September 1920 - i.e. carried out preparations that were certainly
very considerable, seeing that they were accomplished by purely
local effort, without assistance, without advice and without any
national coordination.
If the anarchists reflect well upon the events of September
1920, they cannot fail to reach a single conclusion: the need for
a strongly organized and centralized political party. Certainly
the Socialist Party, with its incapacity and its subordination to
the trade-union officials, was responsible for the failed
revolution. But precisely for that reason, there must exist a
party which puts its national organization at the service of the
proletarian revolution, and which - through discussion and through
an iron discipline - prepares capable men who can see ahead, and
who do not know hesitation or wavering.