TH MILITANT Page Saturday, April 26, 1930 THE CRISIS OF OF ITALIAN FASCISM (FAENZA KAND 9)
This much is certain the economic cri tervention by repeated spurts or foreign mobilization, a family in the suburb of the more is the political path we choose sis in Italy is growing more acute every capital) begin to fail, and where will Ital Santa Lucia, offered up heroic resistance correct. This curious childistuess, apday. The phases of this worsening are not fan capitalism turn? The answer to this and some of their assailants were killed. plied to the Italian situation, wouid ilian the common manifestations of the crisis of question is obvious the re inforced op These two incidents bear not the character that the road of the revolution is one that pression of the working class, at the very of an explosion of individual hatred, but capitalism to which the influence of forproceeds not throngh the weakening of fastime when the inevitable sharpening of an of an encounter which fits in with events, eign capital or some displacement in the cism, but through its consolidation until tagonisms will furnish the propitious con which elsewhere too, preceded and fol.
international constellation of the state of the happy day when capitalism can appeal dition for a movement of organized resist lowed it. These peasants aimed to make industry might bring teinporary relief, arto all its imposing fascist and social demtiñcially reviving this or that branch of pro ance to fascism and the bourgeoisie. a breach in the apparatus of brutal repres ocratic forces, and set in motion all the duction. On the contrary this intensification The Concentrationist (Anit Fascists) Alm worsening of the living conditions of the forces at its disposal in the present situaworkers.
for Social Democratic Government By their sacrifices, they demof the crisis assumes the form of a reckontion of balance of class forces. On that In good time we outlived the terms of onstrated that only violence could make ing to which we once applied the term, the day the machine guns of the proletarian this problem. and were continually re this breach.
balance sheet of the blood and misery of the vanguard will be recognized by the enemy pulsed by the Centrists who have turned It is interesting to observe what was Italian proletariat.
as in the right.
not their first and not their last band the reaction of the defensive mechanism For Marxists, however, the road of Besides this sanguinary adjustinent of spring. We tried to show that the essen of fascism, and why it did not have recourse the revolution runs through the consolithe balance of class forces, fascism is faced tial factors the manoeuvering of fascist to the usual form of reprisals. The pre dated blocs of all the leading forces of with problems that a mortal crisis impose policy (Vatican, plebiscite, tentative oversent plan of Fascism is to individualize capital, fascist and social democratic; to on the capitalist regime of every country.
tures to the concentration) and the inter the reprisals on the peasants who resist the point where their control disintegrates The fascist solution of these problems is nal dissensions of the fascist party were and are already at the disposal of the and the proletariat can adva. ce and conto guide industrial development along the to be found in the economic reasons which Special Tribunal. It is consequently be quer.
Hines commanded by the lenders of capital forecast in the near future a new offen cause Fascism understands that, if mobill Polley of Centrism Has Been Raluous who have come to the support of the Itallan sive on the miserable wages of the Italian zation and carnage in any given locality Practically speaking, the crumbling of Industry in difficulties, through the action workery.
may still be possible the conditions now the enemy forces depends on two essential of the world exchanges, because thelr inexist (verified by the simultaneous charAnd the news recently made public factors: the economie situation and the acterests demand, it, or rather because the conacter of the recent anti fascist incidents)
clearly shows this capitalist offensive tivity of the proletariat through the chantradictions between the rival imperialist nel of its Party, against which transpired the episodes of which could transform an expedition into In the present Italian groups force such a course on them.
resistance one or several districts into a revolutionary in Poullies, Sulmona. Turin, Agriculture, on the other hand, which situation, the element of economic crisis movement.
exists what is lacking is the activity and has been orientated towards the alleged pos Faenza and Milan. The Concentration sibilities of Italian independence from for. anti fascist) press which 18 anxious to Faenza showed that the possibility of capacity of the proletariat. In place of a enduring fascist persecutions las now real capacity for struggle by the Party, elgn exports, has reached the limits of its prove to the bourgeolele the futility and reached its extreme limit; that against dangers of fascism, and the benefits and we have in reality the political obstacles natural resources and is moving in a closed these persecutions violent and almed re which have been mentioned the action of the circle a condition from which the state advantages of a social democratic governsistance is developing; and that the apparment, tried to point out that these incidents, soclal democracy and the ruinous effects subsidized financiers and big land owners atus of repression, instead of pursuing the which followed each other in rapid sucof Centrism on Communist policy.
derive all the advantages, leaving the losses familiar tactic of collective reprisals, 18 As regards the social democracy, the to be borne by the middle and impoverished cession, were without any inner connection.
experience of the Italian proletariat there strata of the rural population.
Put the Concentration decelves itselt hesitating, and from fear of the growing unrest, is Individualizing its reprisals.
when it pretends that the substitution of last ten years speaks for itself. The Economile Stages of Faselst As for the Centrists, in their analysis Development an anti fascist for a fascist governing per The Economic Causes of the Milan Movement At Milan, the motives which occasion of the Sulmona and Faenza events, they put Slsewhere capitalism has been able to sonel can take place as a pacific transfer In ed the manifestations of Siesto and Miani themselves to needless trouble when they of power from one hand to another.
solve economic problems by virtue of the Silvestri, rlee more or less directly from the actual fact, however, the Concentration try to infer from a distribution of leatlets important factors of colonial possessions or economic situation.
etc. the existence of an organization able the possibility of expanding the apparatus for whom this perspective is bound up It is a familiar fact that capitalism, be to lead the movement.
of production. In Italy, where these factors with its direct and indirect relations with fore or in the course of an offensive for In the present situation, where orare lacking, capitalism can find no way out the foreign powers, and the forces of Anglowage reductions, embarks on dism18821. ganization is illegal, the elements permitother than by the increasingly intensified American imperialism, understands perTo effect these staff reductions, in connec ting of the establishinent of an organized exploitation of the workin class. After fectly. that the verspective which would tion with the reduced. possibility of the force or of a force capable of creating an the initial triumph of capitalism over the permit its accession to power is very difsale of commodities, the employers have de organization, when the situation will perworkers agitation of 1922, came the second ferent cided on wholesale let outs. The workers mit, are those who show the capacity of a stage o. the capitalist offensive preceded The roletarian Insurrection Only Can set themselves in motion to prevent this Party to politically envisage events, and by the consolidation of the bourgeois Defeat Faseism plan of the bosses from being put into assuring the confidence of the mass in the power (march on Rome) which marked the The struggle against fascism can only effect with a struggle: the scope of the Party, a confidence capable of assuring capitalist success as against the agitation be settled by a proletarian insurrection; it movement and the conduct of the dispute leadership and development to the moveor 1924 25. Following the second stage is therefore in the proletarian camp that it again proved that fascism did not resort menty that arise.
came a third, opened by the strengthening is necessary for the Concentration to to the system of wholesale violence and Influence of Stalinized Communist arty at of the political domination of capitalism conquer such positions so that, in the destruction out of foar of the consequences Minimum by means of the exceptional laws which course of the insurrection, it could interthat would follow a fresb massacre. The Faenza, Sulmona and Milan slow clearviolently strangled the working class in vene to direct the proletarian movement federal secretary of the Milan Fascist Or. ly that the influence of the Party as an 1927 from Its revolutionary development and Into ganization, speaking of the workers move organizing factor in the masses has been This latest phase has now ended with the channel of the conservation of the cap menty of Mani Silvestri, tried to prove that reduced to its minimum. Il individual the presentation of the balance sheet of italist regime. This explains why a conthe workers were not guilty of the man militants in the Party fascist economic policy from 1922 to 1929. siderable element of the fight very actively Centrist antiifestations attributed to them, The old in the movement, that is not enough to reOne must add that this economic policy fascist ideology of the Italian Communist ascist tactic would have been to mobilize place the enormous loss of prestige of the has not even the merit of originality: It is Party has found its way into the Concenthe apparatus of reg ession against the Party as an organization.
This loss flowe a caricature of the economic policy in tration (popular revolution, constituent adversaries of the regime.
from the international mistakes of the augurated and defended by the anti tas assembly, Labriolism of the latest cut. Italy 18 gripped in the framework of movement, and particularly from the fact ists. It is Nitti who is the recognized The fact, moreover, that many of the poan economic policy which has no other that those who ought to be leading the engineer of the anti Fascist concentra litical views of the Left Communists have possibility of development than a new of revolution in Italy are at the same time tion. The only difference lies in the fact been fraudulently adopted by Centriem tensive against the standards of the work helping to exercise their repression on the that Mussolini accompanied this policy with for domestic requirements in the struggle ers, the safety valve of capitalism in the revolutionary vanguard in Russia his system of violence and terror while against 118can only increase the confusharpening economic crisis. What are the There are numerous indications tbat the anti fascist would have applied the sion. Far from acting as a stimulus to the conditions which could enable the prolet many elements of the Party are opposed less expensive and surer method of demo struggle, Centrism is an element of disinarian movement to uproot and crush the to the disastrous tactic of Centrism and are cratic deception of manoeuvering with the tegration, loading the workers to doubt the capitalist dictatorship?
evolving in the direction of our group.
middle classes and backward section of correctness of a proletarian policy instead The Proletariat Must Lead the struggle The Centrist bureaucrats are greatly is.
the proletariat, limiting repression to the of getting them to realize that what they Against Fascism taken it they believe that plenty of money proletarian vanguard.
ought to doubt, by unmasking its artificial We have always protested against the and plenty of lies can perpetuate their Nitti or Mussolini. shifts of scenery is Centriem itself.
pretended analogy between the fascist and leadership. The latter arises not from our That it has been Mussolini and not The evolution of the Concentration. Tsarist dictatorship. In Italy you have a will but because there are revolutionary Nitti who for seven years has represented owing to the necessity of deceiving the pro dictatorship of capitalism; in Russia you reasons and requirements, as recent events the Italian bourgeoisie is due solely to the letariat and that of Centrism from the need had a government of the class which pre prove.
fact that only terrorism could ward off the of fighting the Left these are the political ceded the bourgeoisie in its historic role The fact that Sulmona and Faenza prerevolutionary menace to capitalism. This barriers between which the movements of and which one cannot confound with the ceded Milan, the fact that the manifestadoes not prevent capitalism now, however resistance and rebellion against Itallan fas bourgeoisie at all, For this reason, in tions of violence were of a much clearer (thanks to the results obtained by seven cism, are condemned to oscillate. They are Russia the break down of the Tsarist ma character in the former than in Milan.
years of terror and the plight to which the the political barriers upon which the events chine could results from a workers and raises the question of the relative juslai Communist novement has been reduced of Pouilles, Sulmona, Turin, Faenza and peasants movment, and also from the ence of workers and peasants in the develby Centrism) from believing itself capable Milan supervened. One thing is sure: conflict and friction between capitalism and opment of the situation.
successfully intervening in the working either the workers will succeed in smashthe feudal classes. In Italy on the other The Policy of the Left Unites the Massen class movement by attempting to substitute ing these barriers, or their movements will hand, the overthrow of thy fascist apparfor Struggle Nitti for Mussolini, or to engineer a com follow an extremely bloody and painful atus can only be brought about by proletar The well known thesis of the Left in bination of Nitti and Mussolini.
course, permitting Italian capitalism to reg. ian movements. It these movemento do that the sole path to liberation lies in After the first victory of capitalism, ister new successes.
not develop, it they are not gathered to the unificaton of the workers and peasants: there was a second and then a third. At The two most recent movements, the gether and coordinated, the enemy apparmovements under the leadership of the the very moment when Italian capitalism character of which we must closely anal atus will maintain its repressive force. This proletariat. This central position is again is obliged to present its economic balance, yze are those of Faenza and Milan.
very aspect of fascism as a representative brought into full reliet by the assassinathe classic proletarian belt has had to be The Outbreaks at Frenza a Signal of of the interests of capitalism, and the spe tion of Gorton. But the fact that it is tightened to its last notch. But after this the Future cific conditions and social relations in the peasants movements which have been balance, what is the outlook for capitalist At Faenzn the collisions occured at Italy, where the proletarian revolution is the most violent by comparison with the economy? radical change is impossible. two different times. In the first, Donati, on the order of the day, bring into relief the feeble movements in Turin This is implied not only in our general who had reached the breaking point of enand Milan.
the regime in Poland or the Baltic countries. shows in itself the seriousness of the sitthesis of the mortal crisis of capitalism, but durance, killed a few of the most notor differences between the Italian regime and also In view of the actual and specific ious fascisti. Thereupon the fascists im In view of the weakness of its political The development of the revolution in conditions of Italian economy which can mediately mobilized their forces; their position, Centris: would like to maintain Russia also taught us a lesson on this head.
live only by the intervention of foreign objective was not, however, as on many its prestige by proposing the following If the beginnings of the revolution were capitalism and the bloody attack on the other occasions, to wreak general devasta species of revolutionary theorem to the embraced in the workers movements of ving standards and wages of the workers. tion, but to cover the ground with corpses masses: the more perfect the operation 1995 and the magistral policy of the BolTotathase two conditions (the in by means of floggings. During this fascist of the repressive apparatus of capitalism. Continued on Pava 71 uation.