Italian socialism’s party led a loose federation of forces, not a disciplined vanguard

Evidence

To understand the complex internal life of Italian socialism in these years, it is essential to stress that the party itself was only one of the forces in play: the socialist trade union federation (C.G.L.), the socialist deputies in parliament, the socialist local councillors, and the powerful cooperative institutions were none of them subject in any elective sense to party discipline. The primary concern of the party leadership throughout the war years was to play a unitary role in relation to these various forces; such a role could of its nature not be a revolutionary one, even though some at least of the party leaders were subjectively genuine revolutionaries. At the same time, the leadership was edged steadily to the left (in words at any rate) in response to the growing unpopularity of the war, the increasing militancy of the industrial workers, and later to the immense impact of the Russian revolutions. These twin, conflicting pressures combined to create the “maximalism” (Italian equivalent of the “centrism” which was an international phenomenon after the war, and whose most important expression was the German U.S.P.D.) which was to dominate the Italian Let until it was crushed by fascism, and of which Serrati, the editor of Avanti! after Mussolini’s defection, was the most important and most honourable expression. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 62

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s account of why a mere ‘unitary role’ toward disparate forces cannot be revolutionary prefigures his later theory of hegemony — leadership among allied forces vs. direct class rule. Connects forward to the Islamophobia field’s interest in how movements build consent rather than command.