An unresolved party-versus-union divide left the Italian radical movement internally dual
Evidence
In June 1914, after the massacre of workers at Ancona (see note 33 on p. 70 ), the General Strike called by the PSI was briefly and reluctantly supported, and subsequently sabotaged, by the CGL. Gramsci points out that, despite this, the PSI in 1919 had not learnt its lesson with reference to the CGL. In August 1920, on the eve of the factory occupations, Gramsci had in fact written in Ordine Nuovo : “Today … at a moment when the revolutionary period may impel the Party into action from one moment to the next, the Italian movement is in a situation where not only it has not resolved in practice the problem of the relations between party and trade union, but it has not even raised the question. The Italian proletarian movement is the field of activity of two political parties: the official one and the de facto one constituted by the trade-union leaders.” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2279
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s later theory of hegemony — the party and union as two competing institutions both claiming political leadership, relevant for Islamophobia readings on institutional competition over representation.
Related
- The Italian left never resolved the party-union relation before the factory occupations. (similarity 0.90)
- Dual power in the factories ended through isolation, not armed force (similarity 0.81)
- Italian socialist leaders chose negotiation over insurrection in 1920, angering radicals (similarity 0.81)
- Gramsci’s factory-council focus delayed but ultimately grounded his party work (similarity 0.80)
- The 1917 October Revolution taught Italian socialists two distinct lessons (similarity 0.79)
- Italian anarcho-syndicalist leaders moved from radicalism into fascism via nationalism. (similarity 0.78)
- The Ordine Nuovo factory council group disintegrated politically by mid-1920 (similarity 0.78)