Ventotene Manifesto

Progetto d'un manifesto), is a political statement written by Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi, and Eugenio Colorni,[1][2] while they were imprisoned on the Italian islet Santo Stefano of the island of Ventotene during World War II.

Spinelli, who was later elected to the European Parliament within the Italian Communist Party lists, became a leader of the federalist movement due to his primary authorship of the Manifesto and his postwar advocacy.

[5] The Manifesto criticised the "capitalist imperialism which our own generation has seen expand to the point of forming totalitarian states and to the unleashing of world wars".

[7] The most important assessment was the assertion that The document declared that "the European revolution must be socialist, that is it must have as its goal the emancipation of the working classes and the realization for them of more humane living conditions".

[10] It commended communists for being the most efficiently organised of political groupings, but said they had flaws in that they had a "dependence upon the Russian State" and possessed a sectarian nature which prevented them from working with others, which can weaken "the sum of the progressive forces".