Fascist repression itself severed the Italian Communist Party’s original leadership

Evidence

The arrest of Bordiga and the massive blow which had been struck at the entire party organisation meant that the time when the Comintern, as mentioned earlier, began seriously to prospect the possibility of making changes in the P.C.I. leadership in order to bring the party into line coincided with a moment in which external circumstances compelled provisional changes in any case. It was to be well over a year before a new, coherent leadership emerged, with positions as sharply distinguished from those of Bordiga as they were from those of Tasca. It was to be another year after that before the new leadership gained unshakeable control. But the events of early 1923, when fascist repression reduced active membership of the P.C.I. to little more than 5,000, and when the original leadership was shattered by arrest and exile, so that a replacement leadership on the ground had perforce to be installed, was decisive in breaking Bordiga’s grip on the party. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 136

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923; Fascist arrests hollowed out the PCI leadership, forcing exile-based recomposition — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 139; Both the PCI and Aventine opposition misjudged fascism’s imminent crackdown — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 191 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923; Fascist arrests hollowed out the PCI leadership, forcing exile-based recomposition — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 139; Both the PCI and Aventine opposition misjudged fascism’s imminent crackdown — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 191 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Fascist arrests hollowed out the PCI leadership, forcing exile-based recomposition #corroborates (0.95) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 139