PDF-Version: Letter from Bordiga to Zinoviev and Bukharin

This letter’s original is in Italian and in cipher: please consider as original the translation that will be countersigned by your comrade… (Emilia)

July 13th. To comrades Zinoviev and Bukharin.

Dear comrades, I received your letter and I cannot thank you enough for the affectionate expressions it contains. I am sorry that my reply cannot correspond to your wishes.

I thank you and the other comrades for your plan to “exchange” me, but I am against it for many reasons. My situation is not at all alarming; it is also possible that I will soon be released. I could not accept restrictive conditions of my activity, in the sense that you rightly indicate. Finally the thing, accepted or rejected (as I believe it would be) by the Italian government would compromise the government of the Soviets and also the Italian party, in the sense of making the position of other arrested comrades more difficult. Such a means, I believe, should be reserved for cases of extreme seriousness that might occur: today it is not proportionate to the purpose.

As for the… “Italian question”, I regret not being able to make a complete exposition of my thought; which, moreover, would not be considered more thoroughly than on other occasions, in which, as you know, I have never been very satisfied with the depth of the examination of the subject.

While you are doing – to me and my friends – a great credit for what I consider to be, I do not say a fault, but certainly a “fiasco”, that is, of having been put in prison, you continue to make criticisms of which I cannot recognise the rightness. I certainly don’t regret criticism for personal pride, and I hope you will grant me this, but I find that what you say about the situation in Italy and the function of the party is completely at odds with reality as I see it: and if I see it badly after having been so busy, it is clear that nothing good can be done about me.

The divergence has become more pronounced: I hold on to the formula “nothing to do with the maximalist party”, which I’m limiting myself here to enunciating only. Collaboration in the practical direction of the party has become impossible; and I am sorry to have to tell you that I have expressed this opinion to my comrades in the Italian executive.

You believe that great political success will be achieved with the conquest of the Socialist Party in the Comintern – I believe that it will not be achieved even with many other socialist congresses and discussions in Moscow on the Italian “vexata quaestio”; and that in the meantime the normal (not miraculous) development of the communist party will be sacrificed – but in any case, you believe that my presence at the head of the party is irreconcilable with your purpose: both because the socialists will never come to “rub themselves” against me, and because you are too prejudiced, and it will always be natural to pour on us the failures of your method: you said that we have prevented the merger: come on, you know that at the congress in Milan no one voted for it and the argument of “forty-three percent”, you cannot have used it seriously. You have understood in reverse (permit me to say it) the situation of the congress of Rome, and you don’t want to admit it…

From Livorno onwards our “school” has had a constant programme and has tried to fulfil it: the dissent with the Comintern has hindered it, without substituting it with another: all this serious political experience is too badly evaluated by the comrades of the International in order for us to renounce to re-establish its true value: I believe it is my duty to do everything to force you to carry out this discussion in depth, and I will dedicate myself to it as soon as possible. In the meantime, others must take the leadership of the party.

Forgive me for speaking frankly as usual. Consider also that when there is something to be done for the revolutionary cause, which others may find too difficult or too harsh at the decisive moment, you can always count on my modest strengths, despite my tendency to “make mistakes”, and what you must consider obstinate in not wanting to admit it!

I have no remorse, because on the path that you are determined to follow in Italy (I cannot here deal with the general line of the Comintern and perhaps my judgements do not interest you), I would only be an obstacle, and everyone would continue to work in a state of general and pernicious malaise, because I have no faith that revolutionary success can be achieved in those ways.

PS: I am receiving the list of new party offices (15 July). I must honestly tell you that, as in December with the merger, you have again “built on sand”. There is no other solution than “all power to the minority”. With great efforts you have obtained the accession of our delegates, but you have not changed the situation and the party will find itself in an even worse situation, I know you will blame me…

I would hope that you would dedicate so much effort to solve the problem in a higher and more organic way, and finish this gruelling “marchandage”… as I, with words that you don’t like, am used to call it.

Source: Il Programma Comunista, No. 5, March 1981.