Italian communists read fascist repression as proof of imminent revolution in 1924.

Evidence

P.C.I. membership at the end of 1924 had risen to about 25,000, and a legal apparatus of sections and federations was re-created side by side with the clandestine cells during the months following Matteotti’s death. It was still an overwhelmingly working-class party, still firmly believing in the inevitability of the world defeat of capitalism in the wake of the October Revolution. Every strengthening of repression was taken as a sign of ruling-class weakness. It must be emphasised that the Left still dominated the party organisation as a whole. In the elections for new federation committees which took place between September and December 1924, Bordiga still controlled the majority of federations, and the most important ones: Turin, Milan, Rome, Naples to name only the largest. But, the leadership too broadly shared the view that had been so succinctly expressed by Bordiga earlier in the year: “the bourgeois counterrevolution for us is the proof of the inevitability of the revolution”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 192

Categorization

• DEFINE: The Bordiga line — counterrevolution proves revolution’s inevitability — is a useful specimen of the mechanistic, economist fatalism Gramsci later theorizes against.
• XREF: connects to: Italian Communists read mounting repression as proof of revolution’s approach; Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923; Communists in the early twenties still saw revolution as imminent
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Italian Communists read mounting repression as proof of revolution’s approach; Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923; Communists in the early twenties still saw revolution as imminent

Broader Connections

• Italian Communists read mounting repression as proof of revolution’s approach #corroborates (0.98)
• Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923 #complicates (0.78)