From International Communism in the Era of Lenin by Helmut Gruber, pp. 371-379.

To All the Comrades of the Communist Party of Italy:

With good conscience and after mature deliberation, we believe we are carrying out our duty as communists by directing the present appeal to comrades. The party is going through a crisis of such a nature that it can be resolved only by the participation of the whole mass of its members.

We are not alluding to the crisis of efficiency and organization which is the inevitable consequence of the victory of the antiproletarian forces in Italy. The crisis also deserves full attention, but it could be faced – if there was no others –by opportune measures taken by the directive organs and faithfully carried out.

Here it is a question of another crisis which unfortunately aggravates the consequences of the first: an internal crisis of general policies, which from individual tactical questions has now broadened to include the whole framework of principles and the tradition of the political line of the party.

This crisis did not originate from internal disagreements, but from divergencies between the Italian party and the Communist International in its present majority and in its central organs. Precisely because the crisis has taken on such a character – of absolute abnormality – it could lead to the paralysis of the life of the party and to the sterility of its action if the question is not placed before the whole party, with the comrades being completely informed through a basic discussion and a final and definitive evaluation of what must be the platform of thought and action of our party.

This document proposes the initiation of such a task, in spite of the difficulties caused by the inability to have open meetings of the party and a free press.

The platform on which our party was built at the congress of Livorno is known to the comrades. They know the results of [our] criticism carried out within the Socialist party as a reaction to its essential shortcomings, especially in the years after the war.

What was the situation of the party and its task immediately after Livorno for the men entrusted with its leadership? The theory of the party was clearly established on the revolutionary and Marxist bases brought to light by the Russian Revolution and the founding of the Third International. The new organization of struggle of the Italian proletariat, distinguished by the strength of its international connection, must develop more and more in such a way as to avoid the pernicious and traditional defects of superficiality, disorder and personal cliques fatal in the old party, and with new criteria of seriousness and cool reflection, together with the unlimited dedication of all the individual militants to the common cause.

And there is also the vast problem of the action and tactics to be applied in the special Italian situation in order to arrive at communist goals.

The condition of the proletarian struggle at the beginning of 1921 had been compromised by the inadequacies of the Socialist party, so much so that a revolutionary offensive did not seem possible on the part of a minority party like ours. But the party action could and should have been calculated to obtain the greatest efficiency of resistance of the proletariat to the unleashed bourgeois offensive, and through resistance obtain the concentration of the workers’ forces in the best possible condition around the banner of the party, the only one possessing a method capable of guaranteeing the preparation of a recovery.

The communists saw the problem in this way: assuring the maximum of proletarian defensive unity before the pressure of the industrialists’ offensive, but at the same time avoiding that the masses in the illusion of that apparent unity, a sorry mixture of contradictory directions which already had been denounced as impotent by the sad experience acquired by the Italian masses [incomplete sentence]

At this time we shall not repeat the history of the communist attempt to build a united front of the workers’ organizations against reaction and fascism. The attempts failed because of the behavior of the other parties… but from this very failure of our criticism, based on facts, gained the advantage of an increased tendency of the militant proletariat to gather around the communist party.

Our propaganda never hesitated to assert that the proletariat could win only with a clearly communist direction, even if – precisely to win that goal – the communists offered to struggle together with workers of any political party. The results of this experiment, in a period of extraordinary political importance, must be discussed by the party and the International with an exact evaluation and complete account.

But today there is this danger: such a question may be liquidated by saying, The tactics of the party were wrong and caused the proletarian defeat!

Here the point is not to defend the work of individuals, to whom nobody in the other parties denies goodwill and even other qualities, but something quite different: a judgment on a totality of experiences of the first order, a thing of vital importance for a Marxist party, and augmented by the international significance of the present phase of Italian history. And it is a question of asking whether the party, after the outcome of such an experiment, should review and modify its fundamental bases. Such a question demands the interest of the whole party, as well as a much more mature examination by the whole International. And, after having said that which is obvious to any witness of Italian politics of this last year – that the Communist party could not have prevented in any way the course that events have taken because of causes too profound and remote to reverse – it is to be immediately emphasized that the line which we established at Livorno could be followed only for a brief moment. Here we are only presenting the outline of the question in the hope of persuading the comrades of the need for a profound discussion.

Three facts must be considered:

The Italian party has had different opinions than those of the International regarding the communist “international” tactic. The divergence regarding Italian things is even more serious, since it departs from the limits of “tactics” to touch upon the very bases of the constitution of the party. Up to now the International has modified and is still in the process of modifying its policies with regard to tactics, but now also with regard to its program and its fundamental organizational norms.

Here we shall not deal with the first point. It is well known through the discussion at the Congress of Rome of our party (March, 1922), and is spelled out in the theses on tactics which were there approved.

The second point, on which the mass of the party is little informed, deserves greater attention.

On the question of the tactics to be applied in Italy within the proletarian movement, the divergence came to a head very slowly. Even though the Italian delegation to the Third Congress was already in the opposition regarding the tactics of the International, the concrete work of the party up to that time and beyond was still approved and praised.

Later, with regard to the slogans of the “united front” and a “workers’ government,” we never precisely knew what the International wanted us to do. But in the meantime our party spelled out its line with the aim of preventing tactical means from conflicting with the needs of propaganda, not only in theory but in fact. This was done from two fundamental points of reference: “Only with the political line upheld by the Communist party and with its leadership can the proletariat defeat the bourgeoisie,” and “Only in a revolutionary dictatorship can proletarian power be built.” Consequently, [the party] did work in the “united trade union front,” but with an open campaign against any trace of opportunism.

From time to time, the International did make specific criticisms, but even in June 1922 it merely asked the party to launch the slogan of a “workers’ government,” but so defining it as to render it a “pseudonym of the proletarian dictatorship,” whereas it was afterward said that it was really ministerial and parliamentary participation. On the trade union question and on fascism it was never made clear what the International wished to modify in the method we had followed.

But the divergence broadened and deepened to a field of substantial importance with the question of fusion with the Maximalist party [Serrati faction].

Whereas we viewed the “pedigree” of the party [PCI] as having been historically established in its foundations at Livorno, and always maintained that the influx of other proletarian elements, the chief goal of the party, was to be attained by wrenching them from the cadres of other movements and by inserting them in ours, and we were against any idea of a mass fusion with other parties and against any creation of factions of sympathizers within the latter rather than having them come [directly] into our ranks (that is, we were against “noyautage” or cell building), it is clear today that the International considers the Livorno solution as transitory and aspires to a mass adherence of another “slice” of the Socialist party. According to it, the Maximalists were divided from us solely by the fact that they hesitated to separate themselves from the reformists. According to us, Maximalism is a form of opportunism as dangerous as reformism. In its tradition and leadership it will never be revolutionary, but will continue its task of leading the masses astray with its charlatanic language, which hides the most pernicious cultivation of a state of impotence and inertia.

The International, in seeing the Italian proletariat lose ground and the consequent reduction in the ranks of our party, thought it could displace the development of the situation and at the same time achieve and international success with the adherence of the Maximalists. We wished to denounce this openly as defeatism and to reinforce, even in the inevitable retreat of the militant proletariat, the predominance of the Communist party with the liquidation of the other parties.

Facts have demonstrated the resistance of the Maximalists as a political organization to put themselves on the revolutionary terrain and loyally to accept adherence to the International. There was the opinion that Serrati [incorrect phrase – probably to the effect that Serrati was the most representative Maximalist leder] and we have seen that same Serrati liquidated by his party, or rather by a few dozen leaders who do everything in the name of the Maximalist workers, whereas the latter can be won only by breaking the new in which they are caught. And they say… that the communists have prevented the fusion!

What have been the consequences of this attitude of the international in Italy? The tactical work of the party in the united front was impeded, this providing the other parties with a diversion from the situation in which our tactics had bound them. They proposed a “political” coalition to hide their repugnance for action along the lines of communist proposals. The Maximalists could play to the hilt the game of the reformists in the General Confederation of Labor and in the Alliance of Labor, this deceiving the workers – thanks also to the fact that Moscow invited them to adhere, this perpetuating the old and fatal mistake. Let us recall only that the last chance to eliminate the trade union leaders and reestablish the movement of August 1922 on very different bases occurred at the conference of the Confederation [of Labor] in July [1922] at Genoa. There the reformists were a minority, yet the Maximalists bade them remain at their posts after their declaration against parliamentary collaboration, which was in fact not less pernicious than their do-nothing formula urging neither proletarian action nor collaboration [with the bourgeoisie].

Evidently, besides the old distaste for struggle, there was the game of Serrati and others to barter little by little their position and influence for a readmission to the international.

The formation of the Third Internationalist faction, in which those elements which might have come to us were invited to stay [in the PSI] basically served to perpetuate the mistake. And in conclusion the Maximalist party – which should have disappeared after its division from the reformists – while it trifled with the International, undertook no commitments, and exploited the situation in a facile opportunism. Unfortunately [Maximalism] exploits the tendencies of the workers toward inertia in this difficult moment by continuing to win them over to a certain degree to its banner of passive and simulated fidelity to a few revolutionary phrases. Even if the situation changes, it is a force destined to exhaust itself in a worse impotence.

And the politics pursued by the International, though not obtaining the fusion, did prevent the Communist party from utilizing some situations in which the workers tended to recur to it – even though in numbers “relative” to the decline of effective [members] caused by other reasons.

So it was after the August strike. However, the international regarded the socialist schism as the most important event – in a certain sense even after the advent of fascism and the unleashing of reaction against our party. Within the latter, subjected to a permanently abnormal condition of delay and profound structural modification, a state of uneasiness developed and grew which is in contradiction with any eventual probability of a turn for the better.

Moreover, the differences with the International had produced the formation of a current, the so-called “minority,” which while posing as orthodox communism, in reality united those who after Livorno remained somewhat attached to the old socialist methods [even though] disapproving of its clumsy systems of work and responsibility. This group upheld the theses of the International not by elevated and solid arguments, but by recalcitrance and undercover gossip.

The party suffers from all this. A remedy is necessary.

The outcome of this “fusionist” direction threatens the “liquidation” of the party as it was at Livorno and it was in its struggles of more than two years, which were not without honor. That would mean once again to cast the Italian proletariat into the stagnation of vile and chattering Maximalist “centralism.” Thereby the Italian working class would not even draw a useful lesson for tomorrow from its Calvary.

It may appear that a warning should have been sounded earlier. But, as we have said with regard to the tactical question, for some time the dissension was in practice elusive. The method of the International was to present its particular slogans one at a time, whereas we wanted them outlined and defined in broader relief. Something similar occurred with regard to the fusion itself, according to the various alternatives presented by the successive socialist congresses. For example, after the one in ’21, it seemed that fusion was no longer considered, and even relations with the Third Internationalist faction were, as far as we knew, at least not considered to be official. It was at the end of ’22 that the divergence appeared in all its gravity, and only later events showed that it developed in a way scarcely known to the party. And it is in the most recent times that hope has been lost for a solution through a real and vast discussion within the International and not with palliatives contrived in long and painful dealings and with expedients of hardly more than a personal character.

Let us at least refer to a typical point which we have proposed to examine. The new tactical slogans of the International, not yet well clarified in their meaning, which appeared after the Third Congress – and the Fourth did not have time to discuss tactical theses – also brought a danger of modifications of program and principles, a danger now evident in the repeated postponements of the question of the program and the statutes to 1924. At the same time, the grave problem of organizational discipline has become a desultory and often discontinuous expedient resulting in unpleasant internal crises in many parties and in their relations with the center.

The danger to which we refer can become very serious. We are perhaps on the eve of a crisis in the international camp; as the Italian party we are in the depths of a crisis. Driven by all these grave considerations, which we promise to further illuminate with it will be possible for us, we propose attaining an agreement of the comrades on these concluding points:

To provoke within the party, despite the obstacles of the present situation, a broad discussion and consultation on the value of the experiences and struggles acquired by the party and on its programmatic and tactical direction. To provoke in the competent organs of the International and analogous discussion of broad import on the conditions of the proletarian struggle in Italy during the last years and up to today, avoiding the contingent and transitory accommodations which [illegible word] suffocate examination of the most important problems. To participate in a discussion of the program, organization, and tactical action of the International, struggling against any revision toward the right, and above all obtaining maximum clarity in the establishing of policy. After achieving a unanimous evaluation of the fundamental problems through such debates, to ensure that a clear and complete plan be outlined for the direction and action of the party. On this basis, active work will begin for intensifying the activity and efficiency of the party on a line clear in the minds of all the militants and with the most rational participation of all their energies, since the reasons and causes of the present grave state will have been overcome. If such a debate does not bring about a substantial consensus in a series of decisions based on common principles – though remaining at our posts in the ranks of the communist militia guided according to the will of the majority of the International – not to take part in the organs of leadership of the party, since these should be composed in accordance with the policies which they are called to apply.

Important.

Would the comrade who receives this document make copies of it and distribute them to the party members, also copying this postscript.

Each comrade is asked to send his agreement, or even his opinion, however dissenting, and any communication concerning this document by means of the same comrade who gave him this copy. The reply will travel the same road in a reverse direction.

This document has been sent to the central committee of the party and to the international.

It would also be of great interest to diffuse it abroad. We would be very grateful to anyone doing this in the form of a translation.

The Initiators