Antonio Gramsci 1925
The internal situation in our party and the tasks of the forthcoming congress
L'Unita, 3 July 1925.
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.
At its last meeting, the Enlarged Executive of the Communist
International did not have to resolve any question of principle or
of tactics that had arisen between the Italian party as a whole
and the International. 116 This was the first time that such a
thing had occurred, in the whole series of meetings of the
International. For this reason, the most authoritative comrades of
the Executive of the Communist international would have preferred
there not even to have been any question of an Italian Commission:
since there was no general crisis of the Italian party, there was
no "Italian problem" either.
Indeed, it should be said at once that our party, although even
before the World Congress and especially afterwards it had
modified its tactical positions in order to draw close to the
Leninist line of the Communist International, nevertheless
suffered no crisis in the ranks of its members or in relation to
the masses: quite the contrary. Having defined its new tactical
positions with respect to the general situation created in the
country after the 6 April elections, and especially after the
assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, the party succeeded in growing
as an organization and in extending its influence notably among
the working-class and peasant masses. Our party is one of the few,
if not the only, party in the International which can claim such a
success in a situation as difficult as that which has been being
created in all countries (especially in Europe) in relation to the
relative stabilization of capitalism and the relative
reinforcement of the bourgeois governments and of social-democracy
- which has become an increasingly essential part of the bourgeois
system. It is necessary to say, at least in parenthesis, that it
is precisely because of the emergence of this situation, and in
relation to the consequences it has had not only among the broad
working masses but also within the communist parties, that the
problem of Bolshevization must be confronted.
The Present Stage of Development of the Parties of the International
The crises which all the parties of the International have
passed through since 1921, i.e. since the beginning of the period
characterized by a slowing down of the rhythm of revolution, have
shown that the overall composition of these parties was not
ideologically very solid. The parties themselves oscillated, with
often very violent shifts from right to far left; this produced
the most serious repercussions on the entire organization, and
general crises in relations between the parties and the
masses. The phase which the parties of the International are
passing through at present, on the other hand, is characterized by
the fact that, in each of them, there has been being formed
through the political experience of the last years - and there has
been consolidated - a basic nucleus which is bringing about a
Leninist stabilization of their ideological composition, thus
ensuring that they will no longer be shaken by crises of too deep
or oscillations of too wide a nature. By posing in this way the
general problem of Bolshevization, both in the sphere of
organization and in that of ideological formation, the Enlarged
Executive has declared that our forces are on the point of
resolving the crisis. In this sense, the Enlarged Executive
meeting is a point of arrival. But at the same time its
recognition of the very great progress achieved in consolidating
the organizational and ideological bases of the parties is a point
of departure, insofar as this progress must be coordinated and
systematized, in other words must become the effective,
generalized consciousness of the masses as a whole.
In some ways, the revolutionary parties of Western Europe find
themselves today in the same conditions in which the Russian
Bolsheviks found themselves from the moment of their party's
foundation. In Russia before the War, there did not exist great
workers' organizations such as those which by contrast
characterized the entire period of the pre-War Second
International in Europe. In Russia the party, not just as a
general theoretical assertion but also as a practical necessity
for organization and struggle, embodied within itself all the
vital interests of the working class. Its factory and street cells
guided the masses both in struggle around trade-union demands and
in political struggle for the overthrow of Tsarism. In Western
Europe, by contrast, an increasing division of labour grew up
between the trade-union organization and the political
organization of the working class. In the trade-union field, the
reformist and pacifist tendency developed at an ever-increasing
pace; in other words, the influence of the bourgeoisie over the
proletariat grew steadily stronger. For the same reason, in the
political parties, activity shifted increasingly towards the
parliamentary sphere: in other words, towards forms which were in
no way distinguished from those of bourgeois democracy. During the
War, and in the period which followed it and which immediately
preceded the creation of the Communist International and the
splits in the socialist camp that led to the formation of our
parties, the syndicalist-reformist tendency became increasingly
consolidated as the organizational leadership of the trade
unions. Thus a general situation came to be created, which
precisely places the Communist Parties of Western Europe in the
same conditions as those in which the Bolshevik Party found itself
in Russia before the War.
Let us look at what happened in Italy. Through the repressive
activity of fascism, the trade unions in our country came to lose
all effectiveness, in terms alike of numbers and
combativity. Taking advantage of this situation, the reformists
gained complete mastery of their central machinery, and devised
every conceivable measure and arrangement to prevent any minority
from forming, organizing, developing or becoming a majority
capable of taking over the central leadership. But the broad
masses - rightly want unity, and reflect this unitary sentiment in
the traditional Italian trade-union organization: the General
Confederation of Labour. The masses want to struggle and become
organized, but they want to struggle with the General
Confederation of Labour and to become organized in the General
Confederation of Labour. The reformists oppose the organization of
the masses. Recall D'Aragona's speech at the recent Confederation
congress, in which he asserted that there should not be more than
a million organized workers in the Confederation. If one bears in
mind that the Confederation itself claims to be the unitary
organism of all Italian toilers, i.e. not only of the industrial
and agricultural workers but also of the peasants, and that there
are at least fifteen million nonorganized toilers in Italy, then
it seems that the Confederation wishes, as a programme., to
unionize one fifteenth, i.e. 7 - 5 per cent of Italian toilers,
while we would like 100 per cent to be organized into unions and
peasants' organizations.
But if the Confederation, for reasons of its own internal
politics, i.e. in order to keep the leadership of the
Confederation in the hands of the reformists, wants only 7.5 per
cent of Italian toilers to be unionized, it also wants - for
reasons of general politics, i.e. so that the reformist party can
collaborate effectively in a bourgeois-democratic government - the
Confederation as a whole to have an influence over the
disorganized mass of industrial and agricultural workers; it
wants, by preventing the unionization of the peasantry, to ensure
that the democratic parties with which it intends to collaborate
preserve their social base. It therefore manoeuvres especially in
the field of the internal commissions, which are elected by the
entire mass of unionized and non-unionized workers.
In other words, the Confederation would like to prevent the
organized workers, apart from those in the reformist tendency,
from presenting lists of candidates for the internal
commissions. They would like the communists, even where they are
in a majority in the local tradeunion organization and among the
unionized workers in individual factories, to vote for the lists
of the reformist minorities as a matter of discipline. If this
organizational programme were to be accepted by us, we would
arrive de facto at the absorption of our party by the reformist
party, and our sole activity would remain that in parliament.
The Task of the "Cells"
Moreover, how can we struggle against the application and
organization of such a programme, without bringing about a split
which we absolutely do not want to bring about? The only way to do
so is through the organization of cells, and their development in
the same way that they developed in Russia before the War. As a
trade-union fraction, the reformists, holding the pistol of
discipline at our throats, prevent us from centralizing the
revolutionary masses either through trade-union or through
political struggle.
It is, hence, obvious that our cells must work directly in the
factories to centralize the masses around the party: pushing them
to reinforce the internal commissions where these exist, and to
create agitation committees in the factories where no internal
commissions exist or where they do not carry out their tasks;
pushing them to seek centralization of the factory institutions,
as mass organisms not simply of a trade-union kind, but for
general struggle against capitalism and its political
régime. It is certain that the situation in which we find
ourselves is much more difficult than that in which the Bolsheviks
found themselves, since we have to struggle not just against
reaction as represented by the fascist State, but also against
reaction as represented by the reformists in the unions. Precisely
because the situation is more difficult., our cells must be
organizationally and ideologically stronger. In any case,
Bolshevization as it is reflected in the organizational sphere is
an imperative necessity. No one will dare to claim that the
Leninist criteria for party organization are peculiar to the
Russian situation, and that their application to Western Europe is
purely mechanical. To oppose the organization of the party by
cells means to still be tied to old social -democratic
conceptions. It means to be situated objectively on right-wing
terrain, i.e. on terrain where there is no desire to fight against
social democracy.
Bordiga's Failure to Intervene in Moscow
On all these issues, there is no disagreement today between our
party as a whole and the International. They were therefore able
to have no repercussions on the work of the Italian Commission,
which concerned itself solely with the problem of Bolshevization
from the ideological and political point of view, with particular
respect to the situation created within our party. Comrade Bordiga
was insistently invited to participate in the work of the Enlarged
Executive. To have done so would have been his strict duty,
insofar as he had accepted at the Fifth World Congress to become a
member of the Executive of the International. It was all the more
incumbent upon comrade Bordiga to participate in the proceedings
in that in an article (whose publication he had himself, however,
made subject to the approval of the International Executive), he
had taken up a position on the Trotsky question that was radically
opposed not only to that of the International Executive, but also
to that adopted in practice by comrade Trotsky himself. It is
absurd and deplorable from every point of view that comrade
Bordiga should not have been willing to take part personally in
the discussion of the Trotsky question. That he should not have
been willing to take sight directly of all the relevant
material. That he should not have been willing to submit his
opinions and information to the test of an international
debate.
It is certainly not with such attitudes that one can show one
has the necessary qualities and talents to embark upon a struggle
which should have as its practical result a change, not only of
policies, but also of personnel, in the leadership of the
Communist International.
Lenin's Five Points for a Good Bolshevik Party
The Commission, which should have discussed specially with
comrade Bordiga, in his absence fixed the line which the party
should follow in order to resolve the question of tendencies, and
of the possible factions which may emerge from these: in other
words, to ensure that the Bolshevik conception prevails in our
party. Let us examine the general situation of our party by the
yardstick of the five basic qualities which comrade Lenin posed as
necessary conditions for the effectiveness of the revolutionary
party of the proletariat in the period of revolutionary
preparation, that is to say: 1. every communist must be a Marxist
(today we would say: every communist must be a Marxist-Leninist);
2. every communist must be in the first line in the struggles of
the proletariat; 3. every communist must abhor revolutionary poses
and superficially scarlet phrases, in other words must be not only
a revolutionary, but also a realistic politician; 4. every
communist must feel that he is always subject to the will of his
party, and must judge everything from the point of view of his
party, i.e. must be sectarian in the best sense which that word
can have; 5. every communist must be an internationalist.
If we examine the general situation in our party by the
yardstick of these five points, we can see that, although one may
say of our party that the second quality constitutes one of its
characteristic features, one cannot say the same so far as the
other four are concerned. Our party lacks any deep knowledge of
the doctrine of Marxism, and hence also of Leninism. We know that
this is related to the traditions of the Italian socialist
movement, which have not contained any theoretical discussion that
has deeply interested the masses and contributed to their
ideological formation. It is also true, however, that our party up
till now has not helped to destroy this state of affairs. Indeed
comrade Bordiga - confusing on the one hand, the reformist
tendency to substitute a generic cultural activity for the
revolutionary political action of the masses with, on the other,
inner-party activity designed to raise the level of all party
members to a total awareness of the immediate and long-term aims
of the revolutionary movement - has helped to preserve it.
The Phenomenon of Extremism
Our party has sufficiently developed the sense of
discipline. In other words, every member acknowledges his
subordination to the party as a whole. But one cannot say the same
so far as relations with the Communist International are
concerned; i.e. so far as the consciousness of belonging to a
world party is concerned. In this sense, it is only necessary to
say that the internationalist spirit is not very much practised,
certainly not in the general sense of international
solidarity. This was a situation which existed in the Socialist
Party, and which was reflected to our disadvantage at the Livorno
Congress. It continued to subsist partially, in other forms, due
to the tendency which comrade Bordiga encouraged of considering it
a particular badge of honour to call oneself the adherents of a
so-called "Italian Left". In this sphere, comrade Bordiga has
re-created a situation resembling that created by comrade Serrati
after the Second World Congress, which led to the exclusion of the
Maximalists from the Communist International. In other words, he
has created a kind of party patriotism which shrinks from becoming
integrated into a world organization. 118
But the greatest weakness of our party is that characterized by
Lenin under point three. The love for revolutionary poses and for
superficial scarlet phrases is the most striking feature not of
Bordiga himself, but of the elements who claim to follow
him. Naturally, the phenomenon of Bordigan extremism is not
suspended in mid air. It has a double justification. On the one
hand, it is related to the general situation of the class struggle
in our country; in other words, to the fact that the working class
is the minority of the working population and is concentrated
mainly in one area of the country. In such a situation, the party
of the working class can be corrupted by infiltration from the
petty-bourgeois classes which, although they have interests which
as a whole run counter to the interests of capital, nevertheless
are not willing to take the struggle to its ultimate
consequences.
On the other hand, what also helped to consolidate Bordiga's
ideology was the situation in which the Socialist Party found
itself prior to Livorno, which Lenin characterized as follows in
his book "Leftwing" Communism -An Infantile Disorder: "In
a party where there is a Turati, and a Serrati who does not fight
against Turati, it is natural that there should be a Bordiga."
However, it is not natural that comrade Bordiga should have become
ideologically crystallized even when Turati was no longer in the
party, when even Serrati was not there, and when Bordiga was in
personal charge of the struggle against both of them. Obviously,
the element of the national situation was preponderant in the
political formation of comrade Bordiga, and had crystallized in
him a permanent state of pessimism on the possibility for the
proletariat and its party to remain immune from infiltrations of
petty-bourgeois ideologies, without the application of extremely
sectarian political tactics which made impossible the application
and realization of the two political principles which characterize
Bolshevism: the alliance between workers and peasants., and the
hegemony of the proletariat in the anti-capitalist revolutionary
movement. The line to be adopted in order to combat these weakness
of our party is that of the struggle for Bolshevization. The
campaign to be waged must be a mainly ideological one. However, it
must become a political one so far as the far left is concerned,
i.e. the tendency represented by comrade Bordiga, which from
latent factionalism will necessarily pass over to open
factionalism, and at the congress will seek to change the
political line of the International.
The Question of Tendencies
Do there exist other tendencies in our party? What is their
character and what danger can they represent? If we examine the
internal situation of our party from this point of view, we must
recognize that it not only has not achieved the level of
revolutionary political maturity which we sum up in the term
'Bolshevization' but has not even achieved a total unification of
the various parts which came together at the moment of its
formation. This has been helped by the absence of any broad debate
which has unfortunately characterized the party since its
foundation. If we take account of the elements which came out for
the Communist International at the Livorno Congress, we can say
that of the three currents which constituted the Communist Party -
i.e. 1. the abstentionists of the Bordiga faction; 2. the elements
grouped around L'Ordine Nuovo and the Turin
Avanti!; 3. the mass elements who followed what we can
call the Gennari-Marabini group, i.e. the followers of the most
typical figures of the leading stratum of the Socialist Party who
had come with us - only two, i.e. the abstentionist current and
that of L'Ordine Nuovo/Turin Avanti!, had prior
to the Livorno Congress carried on a certain autonomous political
work, discussed among themselves the key problems of the Communist
International, and thus acquired a certain communist political
ability and experience. But these currents, although they
succeeded in getting the upper hand in the leadership of the new
Communist Party, did not constitute the majority of its
base. Furthermore, of these two currents only one, the
abstentionists, had since 1919 - i.e. for two years before Livorno
- had a national organization and formed among its adherents a
certain organizational party experience. But in the preparatory
period it had exclusively concerned itself with internal party
questions and the specific factional struggle, without having as a
whole passed through political experiences of a mass nature, other
than on the purely parliamentary question.
The current which had formed around L'Ordine Nuovo and
the Piedmont edition of Avanti! had created neither a
national faction, nor even a real faction within the confines of
the Piedmont region where it had arisen and developed. Its
activity was prevalently of a mass nature. Internal party problems
were systematically related by it to the needs and aspirations of
the general class struggle: general to the working population of
Piedmont, and especially to the Turin proletariat. This fact,
though it gave the members of the current a better political
preparation and, as individuals, even at the base, a greater
ability to lead real movements, nevertheless placed it in a
condition of inferiority in the general organization of the
party. If one excepts Piedmont, the great majority of our party
was made up of the elements who came out for the Communist
International at Livorno. For a whole series of comrades of the
old leading stratum of the Socialist Party remained with the
Communist International: comrades like Gennari, Marabini,
Bombacci, Misiano, Salvadori, Graziadei, etc. The local
abstentionist groups were grafted onto this mass which in its
conceptions in no way differed from the maximalists - and gave it
the form of organization of the new Communist Party.
If one were not to take account of this real formation of our
party, one would understand neither the crises through which it
has passed nor the present situation. The origins of our party
coincided with the most ferocious unleashing of fascist reaction,
so that one can say that each part of the organization was
baptized with the blood of our best comrades. As a result of
exigencies of a struggle without quarter which were thus imposed
on our party from its very beginnings, the experience of the
Communist International - i.e. not just of the Russian party, but
also of the other fraternal parties - did not reach us, and was
not assimilated by the mass of the party, other than in an
irregular and episodic fashion. In reality, our party came to be
detached from the international whole. It came to develop its own
incoherent, chaotic ideology on the sole basis of our immediate
national experience. In other words, there came to be created in
Italy a new form of maximalism.
This general situation was aggravated last year by the entry
into our ranks of the IIIrd-internationalist faction. 180 The
weaknesses which were characteristic of us existed in a still more
serious and dangerous form in this faction, which for two and a
half years had existed in an autonomous form within the Maximalist
Party, thus creating internal bonds among its adherent which were
to persist even after the fusion. Moreover, the
Illrd-internationalist faction too, for two and a half years, was
completely absorbed by the internal struggle against the
leadership of the Maximalist Party: a struggle which was mainly of
a personal and sectarian nature, and only occasionally dealt with
fundamental questions, whether political or organizational.
Bolshevization
It is thus obvious that the Bolshevization of the party in the
ideological field cannot solely take account of the situation
which we can sum up in the existence of a far left current and in
the personal attitude of comrade Bordiga. It must tackle the
general situation of the party; in other words, it must confront
the problem of raising the theoretical and political level of all
our comrades. It is certain, for example, that there is also a
Graziadei question, in the sense that we must utilize his most
recent publications to improve the Marxist education of our
comrades, by combating the so-called scientific deviations
defended in them. 18 1 No one, however, can think that comrade
Graziadei represents a political danger; i.e. that on the basis of
his revisionist conceptions of Marxism there can emerge a vast
current and hence a faction which endangers the organizational
unity of the party. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten
either that Graziadei's revisionism leads to support for the
right-wing currents which exist in our party, even if only in a
latent state.
The entry into the party of the Illrd-internationalist faction,
i.e. of a political element which has not lost many of its
maximalist features and which, as has already been said,
automatically tends to prolong - beyond its existence as a faction
within the Maximalist party - the bonds created in the previous
period, can undoubtedly give this potential right-wing current a
certain organizational base, thus posing problems which must
absolutely not be neglected. At all events, no violent differences
can arise on the following series of opinions. The above-mentioned
difficulties created by the original composition of our party face
us mainly with ideological problems closely related to the
following two necessities: 1. that the old guard of the party
should absorb the mass of new members who have come into the party
since the Matteotti affair, and who have tripled its numbers ;
2. that we create party organizational cadres who are able to
resolve not just the daily problems of party life, both as an
organization in itself and in its relations with the unions and
other mass organizations, but also the more complex problems
related to our preparation for winning power and exercising that
power once won.
The Right-wing Danger
One may say that a right-wing danger potentially exists in our
party. It is linked to the general situation in the country. The
constitutional opposition forces, however much they may have
failed in their historical function since they rejected our
proposal to create an anti-parliament, nevertheless continue to
subsist politically side by side with a consolidated fascism. The
losses suffered by the opposition, though they have reinforced our
party, have done so to the same extent to which fascism, which
holds the entire State apparatus in its hands, has been
consolidated. It is therefore evident that within our party a
rightwing tendency could emerge, if it does not already exist, in
counterposition to a far-left tendency which believes at every
moment that the time has come to go over to a frontal attack on
the régime, which cannot be disintegrated by the manoeuvres
of the opposition. The elements of this rightwing tendency,
demoralized by the apparently overwhelming power of the dominant
party and despairing of the possibility that the proletariat may
be able speedily to overthrow the régime as a whole, will
begin to think that the best tactic is that which leads, if not
straight to a bourgeois-proletarian bloc for the constitutional
elimination of fascism, at least to a tactic of real passivity,
with no active intervention by our party, thus allowing the
bourgeoisie to use the proletariat as electoral cannon-fodder
against fascism.
The party must take account of all these possibilities and
probabilities, so that its correct revolutionary line is not
affected by deviations. It should consider the right-wing danger
as a possibility, to be combated by means of ideological
propaganda and normal disciplinary means whenever this proves
necessary. But it should consider the farleft danger as an
immediate reality: as an obstacle not merely to the ideological
but to the political development of the party; as a danger which
must be combated not just by means of propaganda, but also by
means of political action - since it leads directly to the
disintegration even of the formal unity of our organization, and
since it tends to create a party within the party, a discipline
against the discipline of the party.
Does this mean that we want to break with comrade Bordiga and
those who say they are his friends? Does it mean that we want to
modify the fundamental basis of the party, such as it was
constituted at the Livorno Congress and preserved at the Rome
Congress? Certainly and absolutely not. But the fundamental basis
of the party was not a purely mechanical fact: it was founded on
unconditional acceptance of the principles and discipline of the
Communist International. It is not we who have brought these
principles and this discipline into question. It is not in us,
therefore, that a desire to modify the fundamental basis of the
party should be sought. Moreover, it is necessary to say that 90
per cent or more of the party members are ignorant of the
questions which have arisen between our organization and the
Communist International. If, especially after the Rome Congress,
the party as a whole had been enabled to know the situation of our
international relations, it would probably not now be in the
conditions of confusion in which it finds itself. In any case, we
wish to assert most forcefully, in order to thwart the wretched
schemes of certain irresponsible elements who seem to find their
political satisfaction through exacerbating the wounds of our
organization, that we believe it is possible to reach an agreement
with comrade Bordiga, and we think that this is also the opinion
of comrade Bordiga himself.
The Framework of the Discussion
We consider that the framework for our congress discussion
should be defined in accordance with this general approach. In the
period which we have passed through since the last parliamentary
elections, the party has carried out a real political activity
which has been agreed to by the great majority of our comrades. On
the basis of this activity, the party has tripled its membership
and notably developed its influence in the proletariat - to such
an extent that one may say that our party is the strongest of
those with a base in the General Confederation of Labour.
We have succeeded in this last period in posing concretely the
fundamental problem of our revolution: that of the alliance
between workers and peasants. Our party, in a word, has become an
essential factor of the Italian situation. On this terrain of real
political activity, a certain homogeneity has been created among
our comrades. This element must continue to be developed in the
congress discussion, and must be one of the essential determinants
of Bolshevization. This means that the congress must not be
conceived of solely as a moment of our general politics: of the
process through which we bind ourselves to the masses and arouse
new forces for the revolution. The main nucleus of the congress
activity must, therefore, be seen in the discussions which will
take place to establish through which phase of Italian and
international life we are passing: in other words, what the
present relation of social forces is in Italy; which are the motor
forces of the situation; what the present phase of the class
struggle represents.
From this examination, two fundamental problems arise. 1. How
we can develop our party so that it becomes a unity capable of
leading the proletariat into struggle; capable of winning and
winning permanently. This is the problem of
Bolshevization. 2. What real political activity our party should
continue to carry out, in order to bring about a coalition of all
the anti-capitalist forces led by the (revolutionary) proletariat
in the given situation: so as to overthrow the capitalist order in
the first stage, and constitute the basis of the revolutionary
workers' State in a second stage. In other words, we must examine
what the essential problems of Italian life are; and which
solution to them will encourage and bring about the revolutionary
alliance of the proletariat with the peasants, and accomplish the
hegemony of the proletariat. The congress must, therefore, at
least prepare the general outline of our government programme.
This is an essential phase of our party life. To perfect the
instrument necessary for the proletarian revolution in Italy -
that is the major task of our congress. That is the work to which
we invite all comrades of good will, who put the unitary interests
of their class before petty and sterile factional struggles.
12-Nov-00
rolf@marxists.org