XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party
Giacinto Menotti Serrati, leader of the majority maximalist grouping in the PSI, feared that the expulsion of figures such as Filippo Turati, Claudio Treves and Ludovico D'Aragona would alienate a large number of workers.
Serrati also considered the removal of the right wing of the party unjust, because it had neither participated in bourgeois governments nor supported intervention in the First World War, unlike the French socialists and German Social Democrats.
A minority of five - Serrati, Adelchi Baratono, Emilio Zannerini, Giovanni Bacci and Gino Giacomini supported an alternative agenda that insisted on party unity and claimed autonomy in the application of international directives.
In an intermediate position between reformists and unitaries were the so-called "intransigent revolutionaries" of Costantino Lazzari, while alongside the communists was the group around Antonio Graziadei and Anselmo Marabini which, while faithful to the Comintern, wanted to work for a mediation.
It also called into question the fundamentals of the motion adopted by the Bologna Congress[4]: 10 - it rejected violent seizure of power and assorted that the dictatorship of the proletariat should be understood as "a transitory necessity imposed by special situations and not as a programmatic obligation", inevitably be modeled on what happened in Russia; finally, it supported "all possible attempts to bring socialist government closer", while judging the idea of short-term revolutionary upheavals in the richest European countries to be childish.
[1]: 109 The communist fraction had formed in Milan on 15 October, publishing a manifesto signed by Bordiga, Gramsci, Misiano and Terracini, by the leftist maximalists Bombacci, Repossi and Fortichiari and by the secretary of the Socialist Youth Federation Luigi Polano.
[8]: 9 [4]: 62–73 Jules Humbert-Droz would later write that Serrati by this stage had become the only opponent of the Third International in the West, and his articles were echoed by all the enemies of communism and the Russian Revolution in Switzerland, France, Germany and elsewhere.
This goal was to be pursued by ousting all those who hindered it, i.e. the reformists:[14]: 256 according to the Kabakchiev, this split between revolutionary and non-revolutionary forces, which had already occurred in many countries, was also necessary in Italy so that the whole European continent was ready for the final upheaval which would have led to peace and the solution of the problems of unemployment and misery caused by bourgeois policies.
[9]: 98–98 In the afternoon session, chaired by Argentina Altobelli, Adelchi Baratono spoke for the maximalists, who pleaded the cause of party unity, defined the distinctions between the pure and unitary fractions as artificial and insubstantial and underlined how the revolution had been stopped both by the action of the reformists and "the not fully revolutionary orientation of the masses".
Lazzari, from the minority fraction of the "intransigent revolutionaries", criticized the splitters and, referring to Marx, underlined how indispensable the unity of the proletariat was, and how the distinction between communism and socialism was forced.
[9]: 149–151 Lazzari also asserted that the Russians did not take into account the fact that in Italy, unlike many other countries, the social democratic currents had already been expelled for a long time, and he recalled in this regard the purge of Leonida Bissolati, Ivanoe Bonomi, Angiolo Cabrini and Guido Podrecca in 1912 for supporting the Italian invasion of Libya.
[14]: 257 [6]: 49 He urged the party to comply with the 21 points of the International by expelling the reformists, separating itself from those who believed that one could "reach power through the parliamentary regime"[13]: 31–34 and who lacked recognition of the «universal validity of the Bolshevik revolution».
[14]: 257 The Sicilian orator also lingered on the problems of the South, emphasizing that to transform the party into a truly national structure it would be necessary to develop a political-union organization hitherto lacking in that region, capable of breaking up the large estates and improving production methods and working conditions.
[9]: 246–247 Even Vacirca, who had a very heated argument with Nicola Bombacci during his speech (the latter even drew a revolver),[1]: 111 reaffirmed his acceptance of the 21 points, but with the reservation that the congress should be able to discuss them and propose modifications.
Amadeo Bordiga then took the stage and denounced the entire history of pre-war socialism,[14]: 258 accusing it of having become in recent decades a conservative force that had replaced the Marxist conception of violent conflict between classes with a peaceful petit-bourgeois vision.
For Bordiga the interest of the proletarian class could not be realized within the present political framework, through the pursuit of gradual conquests and partial results which did not set the objective of overthrowing the bourgeois state.
[9]: 271–296 [13]: 47–50 During the morning Serrati also spoke, centering his speech on a series of recriminations against the behavior of the International towards the PSI, pointing the finger at the unequal treatment reserved for Italian socialists compared to what happened in the congress of French SFIO, where "rightists", "patriotards" and "Freemasons" had been tolerated without ultimatums.
[1]: 86 [14]: 255 In the final part of his speech, Serrati dwelt on the unity of the Italian Socialist Party as the only hope "for the Russia of the Soviets", in the light of the suffocation of the communist movements in Finland, Estonia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, of the dissolution of the Confédération générale du travail in France, of the control of the English working mass by conservative laborism.
[9]: 324–315 Filippo Turati's afternoon speech demonstrated the profound ideological difference that separated him from the communists: in fact, it revealed the clear rejection of any violent revolutionary solution and a strenuous defense of socialist reformism and its "daily work of creating maturity of things and men", that would survive the "Russian myth" behind which, according to him, nationalism was hidden.
[1]: 112 Turati declared himself in favor of the motion by Baldesi and D’Aragona, attacked the principle of recourse to violence, and underlined how the proletarian dictatorship had to be of the majority, i.e. democratic, in order not to turn into mere oppression.
[1]: 113 A similar assessment came from the former socialist Benito Mussolini, who from the columns of the Popolo d'Italia claimed this transformation was due to fascism: having "ravaged and hastily dispersed the men of violence in the provinces where they had organized the red terror", the fascists had allowed the return of "traditional socialism".
[13]: 58 Anselmo Marabini then intervened, from the "circular" fraction, explaining that his own group would vote for "the motion that will be recognized by the representatives of the third international", accusing the unitaries of dividing the party in the name of unity.
A motion signed by Paolo Bentivoglio was unanimously approved in which the PSI's adhesion to the Communist International was reiterated «accepting its principles and method without reserve», and protesting against the declaration of exclusion issued by the representative of the Executive Committee.
[14]: 260 [1]: 115–116 [10]: 269 A speech by Adelchi Baratono followed, highlighting the differences between the unitary motion and the concentrationist one, and urging the right wing to accept the revolutionary program of the party and the principles of the International.
Two parliamentary deputies were on the list of candidates drawn up by the majority fraction: Gaetano Pilati, as representative of the proletarian League of the maimed and war veterans, and Giovanni Bacci, as chairman of Avanti!
[12] In the aftermath of the split, the spread of right-wing subversion forced the organised working class to defend itself against attacks on the Labour chambers, cooperatives, peasant women’s leagues, workers' newspapers, and individual activists.
[1]: 220–121 In 1961 Palmiro Togliatti reflected on whether the creation of the new working class party, "at the very beginning of 1921, was not the cause of a harmful weakening of the workers' and democratic movement, which should have been avoided", especially in the defence against fascism.
[24] However the unleashing of violent reaction in Italy, together with the failure of the revolutionary attempt in Germany known as the "March Action", internal political difficulties in the USSR and the halting of the advance of the Red Army in the Polish–Soviet War during the spring of 1921 were among the factors that led to the adoption of a less radical line by the Comintern in the months following the Livorno Congress.
[25][26] Disagreeing with this new line, Umberto Terracini contested the need to wait until the majority if the working class had been won over before starting the struggle for power, and was harshly reproached for this view by Lenin.
