PDF-Version: Amadeo Bordiga – The Defence of the Communists in Court

(The proceedings begin with a statement that does not seek to refute the so-called evidence of the prosecution, to which Bordiga had responded in the interrogations, but to prove, starting from general considerations on the function of the Communist Party and the Italian political situation at the time, that the accusation itself is absurd and untenable. It continues as follows).

The theoretical principles of the Communist Party and the Communist International are those of the economic determinism that had at its master Karl Marx. The first causes of the historical and social facts are the economic factors. With respect to these, society is divided into classes whose interests are in conflict and which are in conflict with each other: the nature and development of class struggles determine and explain the political facts. In the present historical period the struggle between the capitalist class, which holds the instruments of production, and the proletariat is framed. In spite of the observations of the liberal and democratic theorist, the State is only an organism of struggle in the hands of the capitalist class which holds the power to guarantee its economic privileges. The study of history and the constitutive analysis of the capitalist society demonstrate the inevitability of the struggle of the proletariat for its emancipation. How will this happen? All socialists admit that it will happen with the (necessarily gradual) passage from the economy of private property to an economy based on the common ownership of productive means.

The scientific character of the communist doctrine is to establish that this economic evolution cannot begin if political power does not pass from the hands of the bourgeoisie to that of the proletariat; and to deny that this passage is possible through democratic representation, claiming that it will take place through a violent clash between the proletariat class and the bourgeois state. The proletariat would then organise itself, as the Communist Manifesto of 1847 says, and as it has been implemented in Russia since November 1917, as the ruling class, opening up the more or less complex era in which capitalism will give way to collective administration, and the division of society into classes and the necessity of the State as the coercive body of the defeated class will also disappear.

This theoretical construction of a series of forecasts is accompanied by a positive programme of action and struggle of the world working class.

The substantial thesis of communism is that the organ of this struggle, the brain and the animating centre of it, must be the political class party, the international communist party.

Does the social revolution happen spontaneously or is it the communist party that unleashes it on its own initiative? Here, in pedestrian terms, is the serious problem of action, of communist tactics. Leaving aside any more extensive examination of the question, we can say that the revolution would not triumph permanently without a class party possessing a clear doctrinal knowledge and a strong organisation; and that, on the other hand, the party cannot choose the moment of the revolutionary struggle, nor override the necessity of the general conditions from which the social crisis must spring.

To clarify this concept, a subject of continuous study and examination in the very sense of the communist movement, a distinction is made between the objective and subjective conditions of the proletarian revolution.

The objective conditions can be seen in the data of the general economic and political situation, in the degree of maturity of capitalism, in the degree of stability of the bourgeois state; the subjective ones in class consciousness, in the good trade union and political organisation of the proletariat. What subjective conditions are needed for the victory of the revolution to be considered imminent? The thought may be controversial, but all the communists, rejecting any interpretation and voluntarist utopia, consider necessary the wide and progressive possession by the communist party of a sure influence on the mass of the associated proletariat to its becoming, determining above our will, of the favourable objective conditions.

As much as we want to be, from the revolutionary point of view, optimistic in examining such a double order of conditions, it is evident that if these conditions were realised, the precipitation of historical events would assume such forms that, whilst inserting into it the very important task of the great Communist Party, the concepts and expedients of conspiracies and concert of action en petit comité would be eliminated from the scene of the events.

The hypothesis formulated, therefore, in the articles of the penal code that concern us, does not correspond exactly to the possibility of the revolutionary task that the Communist Party sets itself, even though it does not motivate our defensive attitude that denies in full and in principle our disposition and ability to carry out the acts, which today are attributed to us contrary to the complete truth of the facts.

As a party we have the prospect of participating in the revolutionary struggle, without which our party would lack the raison d’être of being; but the previous reservations were to be made in the formula of the “concert of action” and on the common expressions of conspiracy, et similia.

On the other hand, when a historical situation matures that involves an open and extra-legal attack on the powers of the State, the facts in which the movement becomes concrete are already out of reach of judicial actions and sanctions. In such a period, due to the weakness of the regime, the written law is silent in its political applications, and gives way to the brutal coefficients of strength and success. And in fact, before October 1922, no judicial proceedings were brought against the Fascist Party, which notoriously orchestrated and established that it would take power by force, then arrived at a compromise, through which and after which the doctrine and the letter of the current legislation were repeatedly and with impunity torn apart. This is an observation, on the part of the writer, and not a theoretical defence of the legislative system in force. This argument means that if the Communist Party prepares a movement against the powers of the State, this is done under certain hypotheses, hence also the consequence that no trial will be opened against its leaders during that period.

History teaches and admonishes that prevention against revolutionary movements is achieved not with codes applicable to common crimes, but with exceptional measures and laws, which pursue what the common law tolerates and allows in matters of political activity of citizens. If, in order to avert a revolutionary movement, one were to expect to gather first the extremes of the evidence of the plot, objectively speaking, one would act too slowly for the disarmament of an adversary on the eve of the action. It is not a paradox to conclude that if there is a trial, there is no plot.

Let us come to the substance, that is, to the precise and convincing consideration of the accusation: we are in Italy, from the beginning of 1922 to February 1923, in terms of the arrest warrant. Let us also consider from the constitution of the Communist Party (January 1921) to the aforementioned date.

The Communist International has considered and considers, as from its fundamental texts, the present historical period following the World War as a revolutionary period in general. The hypertrophy and therefore the collapse of the capitalist system, on an international scale, are evident in the consequences of the war and in the impossibility of a peaceful order.

This crisis is considered by us the “final crisis” of capitalism, even though we cannot foresee its duration and complications. However, the crisis has taken on a particular aspect in recent times. While the economic data does not indicate that it will be overcome at all, there have been shifts in the relationships of political forces.

In the years 1919 and 1920 there was a wave of proletarian activity; but only in Russia did it achieve stable success. In other countries, from the end of 1920 onwards, the general fact that we call the “capitalist offensive” emerged. The evaluation of this fact became fundamental to the effects of tracing the communist tactics. I will recall it in general lines as it is contained in many texts: the manifestos of the Third International, especially from the end of 1921; the manifestos of our party which, from August 1921 onwards, were launched to propose a general proletarian action against the bourgeois offensive, and similarly the articles in our press, the communist speeches and agendas in union congresses. Material all contained in the collection of one of the Italian Communist newspapers of the aforementioned period. (For those who are not in my condition it would be easy to accompany this exhibition with the most interesting extracts from the public documents cited).

Faced with the agitation of the proletariat, lacking, however, sufficient conscience and coordination, the ruling class, after going through a certain period of confusion, but before the proletariat took advantage of it in an irreparable way, finds that it has at its disposal political and therefore military forces that can be used with the probability of success for the defence of the regime.

Within the bourgeoisie, the currents that advocate the “strong hand” are making their way. Economically, capitalism sees the situation in this way: perhaps one can try to save the bourgeois economic apparatus from ruin, provided that to fill the immense gaps opened in wealth by the war and the crisis, one can obtain proletarian labour at a lower price. Hence a systematic plan of coordinated action by all the bourgeois forces: political reaction with state bodies and extra-state militias, offensive union of the bosses against the favourable labour pacts won by the workers in the immediate post-war period.

The objective is to disperse not only the subversive parties, but also the economic organisations of the working class.

A general offensive, however, which not only tends to paralyse the revolutionary attack, but proposes to repel the proletariat from the conquered positions and take back those conquests that had already been recognised.

This offensive backlash of the ruling class, especially where the Communist Party has no influence on the entire proletariat and its organisations are partly run by socialists of various tendencies, poses the communists with the tactical problem that has been solved in the sense of renouncing the offensive tactics, the revolutionary offensive that the situation makes problematic, by tracing another way to confront the action of the ruling class. This way consists in trying to obtain a common action of all the workers’ organisations for the defence of those conquests and those rights that the employers attack. Non-communist organisations will not be able to oppose this defence of the immediate and daily interests of the workers, and if they did, the influence of the moderate elements would cease, increasing that of the communist party. Obtaining from this the general action of the proletariat, the maintenance of the proletariat’s positions would entail, in spite of the modesty of the objective and the result, the failure of the offensive plans of the bourgeoisie, the only means which, as has been said, remains to avoid the catastrophe of its economic regime. This, schematically, is the meaning and spirit of all the action and intentions of the communist parties in recent times. It is evident, by the way, that we do not pretend here to give a demonstration of the truth of all the above theses, but only to establish that they were and are the guiding ideas of Communist tactics, as is verifiable from all our political literature already invoked.

That said, let us come to the action taken by the Communist Party of Italy and to what its plans for action in recent months were.

In Italy the bourgeois offensive took place in a classic way. The apex of the political influence of the proletariat was reached towards the end of 1920: then the situation began to turn upside down. The proletarian party (PSI) had not been able to take advantage of the good objective conditions due to the ideological confusion and the lack of solidity of organisation. The governments of Nitti and Giolitti saved the situation by skilfully speculating in the attitude of the so-called reformists who constituted in the right of the PSI and directed the Confederation of Labour. The failures and disappointments demoralised the proletariat, while the bourgeoisie emboldened and the fascist movement emerged. Until then, the Communists had constituted the left of the PSI denouncing its revolutionary incapacity due to the work of the reformists, and to the insufficient attitude of the maximalist centre, easy to extremist verbalism but below all consciousness of the true conditions of a revolutionary development and of the delicate demands of action which it entails.

On January 21, 1921 at the Congress of Livorno, the Communists detached themselves from the Party and formed the PCd’I, Italian section of the Communist International. The new proletarian organisation, as soon as its cadres were put in place, saw the situation characterised by the spread of the bourgeois and fascist offensive, faced with the results of which reformists and maximalists wavered and hesitated.

The leaders of the Italian Communist Party belonged within the very bosom of Communism itself to a tendency that could be said to be left-wing, where the true and proper tendency wanted to talk about itself, from the very first moment, even though the efficiency of the proletarian bodies was then much better than what it was afterwards and especially after the Fascists went into government, they judged and declared on a hundred occasions that the situation excluded autonomous and offensive action by the Communist Party, until it had had greater influence than the other proletarian parties, and had strengthened its position in the trade union bodies dominated by the reformists.

Although it launched the word of resistance by all means to the manifestations of the bourgeois offensive, both as trade union disputes and as fascist expeditions and raids, the Communist Party hinged its propaganda on the criterion that local and case-by-case resistance was insufficient to stop the opposing momentum and safeguard the most elementary rights of the proletariat. In August 1921, the party proposed, with a public appeal, a joint action to all the Red Unions, with the implementation of the national general strike, the objective of which was a series of precise practical demands, from eight hour day to the defence of the labour agreements and the right of free activity of the organisations.

Throughout the subsequent period, the work and agitation carried out by the PCd’I is aimed at this end.

Throughout this campaign we have always declared not only that we would not carry out autonomous action with our forces outside the discipline of the associated action we proposed, but that this same general action had those precise objectives, and not the overthrow of state powers. On the contrary, those who opposed the action used the vain argument against us that “the general strike is done only to make revolution”. See all the relative controversy, especially on the occasion of the national councils of the CGL (Verona, November 1921 – Genoa, July 1922). It goes without saying that our aforementioned attitude derived from careful tactical evaluations and not from our wish that the present state powers would remain on their feet one day more than inevitable.

The Communist campaign determined the formation of the Alleanza del Lavoro, although directed, as we know, by non-communists. Faced with this our attitude was constant: we invited it several times and on concrete occasions publicly to action, we criticised its delays, but we always renewed and observed the commitment not to act alone outside and beyond its deliberations.

The general strike was proclaimed too late by the AdL: in August 1922. We had always said that this action had to take place before the mass of the proletarian forces were disrupted by the struggles and isolated shocks, but while disagreeing with all the attitude of the leaders we gave the word to obey the orders of the AdL cut off from this strike, we protested, but we reiterated to execute the disposition. A whole series of Communist communiqués and articles from the end of July and the beginning of August can be consulted on the matter. The strike marked, as we know, a worsening of the proletarian positions, despite the courageous demeanour of the workers; the reaction intensified and pervaded the last provinces of the country until the end of October when it took over the power of the State.

From the incontrovertible facts that precede it is very easy to deduce one conclusion: the PCd’I, which has never made a mystery in a situation in which proletarian efficiency and its members were much stronger, of not being able to propose as an immediate and imminent goal the overthrow of the power of the State, was less and less able to pre-order, set up and plan any action in the following times, and even less after the advent of fascism in power. It is by no means unrevolutionary to declare, as we have done in situations that were not those of the accused defending himself, and regardless of the demagogic poses, that the leadership of the PCd’I since its constitution, has never considered the advent of a revolutionary proletarian power in Italy as a possible eventuality.

The immediate aim of the Party’s activity had to be and was the preservation of the maximum possible degree of efficiency of the proletariat.

Explaining the objectives of our proposal for a general strike, we presented it to the workers, even non-communist ones, as “setting foot on a firmer platform for future action” (see the posters of July 1922). Other important circumstances come to support the absurdity of the hypothesis that our party was preparing a motion against the powers of the State.

After the August strike, a split between reformists and maximalists had occurred in the PSI, putting the problem of uniting the latter with the communists in a numerically larger and stronger party on the agenda. The clarification of an issue so fundamental to the party had priority over any action plan, however modest. After the Fourth Congress of the CI in Moscow in December 1922 had decided in favour of a merger, this was binding on our party, while there were further debates on it in the Socialist Party.

It is clear that while awaiting the resolution of such serious issues, our party alone could not (and there were no bodies of direct collaboration with the other party) prepare a great political action, already proved improbable by the above.

More: our evaluation of the political situation since the advent of the fascists in power, established in the articles of what remained of our press, converged to manifestly admit a long duration of the fascist regime, and the necessity that a slow crisis of this would give the proletariat back the possibility of re-weaving its organisational web to develop a new classist action. The task of our party was and is to safeguard as much as possible its organisation, the means of propaganda, the consciousness of the conviction of the part of the proletariat which follows it.

In my interrogations, I have already made it clear that even for such limited purposes, in the face of the persecution that strikes the party, it is necessary to have recourse to what is known as “illegal work”, and as the needs of that party action that I have been proposing here, it is necessary to have a military framework, financial aid from our international communist organisation, and other means and forms of action that we have never made a secret of, speaking about it in repeatedly public communiqués.

But one objection could have been raised: even though all the public activity of the party responded to what has been stated above about the directives of its management, there could have been clandestine collateral action with purposes other than those outlined in the public and official acts.

This objection is also valid for two reasons: those who know even a little about the function of the Communist Party, immediately see that the primary factor is the formation of the political consciousness of the vast mass, and how all our doctrine and practice is in direct opposition to trust in the work of the narrow aristocracies of initiates. We keep the technique and mechanics of party work secret for obvious reasons, but we know that we would expose ourselves to the greatest catastrophes if we kept the political aims of the struggle secret.

The importance of words thrown publicly to the masses is primordial for the Communists and they anxiously seek opportunities to do so in congresses, rallies, etc., so as to surpass the circle of diffusion of our press (as happened with the well-known disclosure by the government and its press agency of the manifesto of the Third International against Fascism).

In 1917 in Russia the Communist Party openly made its revolutionary agitation on the words “power to the Soviets”, the objective of its policy. Secondly, in our internal affairs, if there is always a lot of incomprehensible things left to us if we take possession of the Archive of the Ministry of the Interior, we will never find a word that says we act differently and outside the political line that has been outlined here.

To suppose that beneath such a clear daily recognition of the reality of the situation, and of the relationship between our forces and those of the enemy, we had orchestrated, or only imagined, a “blow” against the powers of the State, is tantamount to supposing that our Party was led by madmen, and I flatter myself that there are many findings against this unfortunate hypothesis.

I summarise: the Communist Party never loses sight of its ultimate programme, but on the basis of the reality of the situation, it is constantly shaping not the so-called minimum programme of the reformists, but a practical plan of concrete action for the “visible” future.

During the period of activity of the PCd’I in this second “actuationist” framework, the attack on the powers of the State has never been figurative. At the time of our arrest, the aforementioned plan contemplated internal organisational strengthening, communist propaganda with the available means and, above all, trying to make the press more efficient; seeing the same horizons of traditional work among the workers of the trade unions and cooperatives, electoral work and so on considerably reduced.

If the supreme bodies of the political police of the State, to which all this matter is visible to a political observer (whatever the party) with the naked eye is certainly known, have raised the accusation of conspiracy, they are evidently convinced not only of error, but of bad faith.

In the lower ranks of the police, one sees the conspiracy in everything that one ignores and does not understand, thus confusing the guilt of others with one’s own professional inadequacy, or at least with the lack of possession of the gift of omniscience. If in this police ignorance the crime of conspiracy consists, then it is certain that the Italian Communists have plotted, plot and will always plot, until they have found the X-rays to read the thought in human brains. But in the upper strata of the police, instead, the partisan policy of the present government is pursued, knowing full well that insubstantial accusations are raised. The present government is keen to present to public opinion the exploit of the elimination of all revolutionary political activity.

To this is opposed the resistance of the Communist Party, which can be beaten and badly reduced but will never take the paths of adaptation and prudent concealment necessary to be tolerated by bullies. And to crush this weakened Party, but not at all willing to be appalled by the brutal deeds of the triumphant political party, the State police have manufactured sur commande the accusation that is being made. Now we are ready to find it historically logical for the fascist government to keep us in prison because we are Communists, and to treat us even worse; but if we are accused of having committed something we did not do, just as we claim all the responsibility for our work, we reject the false and improbable accusation to the most obvious absurdity.

Source: “Il processo ai comunisti italiani – 1923”, Libreria editrice del PCd’I, Rome, 1924.