Amadeo Bordiga

Marxism of the Stammerers

The decontamination to which we dedicate 90% of our humble work will be continued a long time after us and be realised only in the distant future. This decontamination combats the epidemic - always and everywhere dangerous, of those who - in all places and at all times - innovate, bring up to date, renovate and revise...

Amadeo Bordiga 1952

First Published: Battaglia Comunista No. 8, 17-20 April 1952;

The System of Communist Representation

Bordiga's critique of the wing of the Italian socialist movement which advocated participation in elections.

In launching our communist programme, which contained the outlines of a response to many vital problems concerning the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, we expected to ace a broad discussion develop on all its aspects. Instead there has been and still is only furious discussion over the incompatibility of electoral participation, which is soberly affirmed in the programme.

Amadeo Bordiga May 1919

First Published: Il Soviet, 13 September 1919, Vol. II, No.38;

The Fundamentals for a Marxist Orientation

Amadeo Bordiga's contribution to a programme of what fundamental principles communist organisations should organise themselves around, explaining historical materialism and criticising the Bolshevik conception of socialism in the process.

Amadeo Bordiga 1946

The Fundamentals for a Marxist Orientation

Introduction to the Bordiga archive

Introduction to the Amadeo Bordiga archive on the Libertarian Communist Library

Bordiga (1889-1970) was an influential member of the Italian communist movement and leader of the Absentionist Fraction of the Italian Socialist Party and for a time leader of the Italian Communist Party, before resigning in favour of Gramsci, under pressure from Lenin.

Murder of the Dead - Amadeo Bordiga

Bordiga explains Marx's economics and argues that state monopoly over the economy (i.e. nationalisation) is no more socialist than private monopoly.

In Italy, we have long experience of "catastrophes that strike the country" and we also have a certain specialisation in "staging" them. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, rainstorms, epidemics...

Letters to the 3rd International - Amadeo Bordiga

Comintern poster.

Letters from the Central Committee of Amadeo Bordiga's Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the Italian Socialist Party to the Moscow Committee of the 3rd International, November 1919 and January 1920 regarding issues within the Italian Socialist Party around the issues of elections and the Italian war effort in WW1.

Source: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/bordiga0.html;
HTML Mark-up: Andy Blunden 2003.

I

Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the Italian Socialist Party
Central Committee
Borgo San Antonio Abate 221
Naples

The Legend of the Piave - Amadeo Bordiga

The Piave river.

Bordiga's analysis of a fatal environmental catastrophe in Italy, which could easily been avoided, had importance been placed on safety rather than profitability.

The patriotic saga of Italy raised the Piave to the status of the national river, and designated it as such, in 1917. In the war which was to have been the Fourth War of Independence, leading the country in a leap beyond the Venetian frontiers (won by no means by armed might) already gained from the Third.

Letter from Amadeo Bordiga to Karl Korsch

Karl Korsch.

Letter written by Amadeo Bordiga in Naples, in October 1926 to German left communist Karl Korsch about his platform.

Naples, 28 October 1926

Dear Comrade Korsch,

The problems we face today are so important that we should really be discussing them face to face in detail. This unfortunately is not a possibility at the moment. Also I won't be covering all the points in your platform in this letter, some of which could give rise to useful discussions between us.

Fundamental Theses of the Party - Amadeo Bordiga

Detail of the first membership card of Partito Comunista d’Italia,1921.

At the Lyons Congress of the Communist Party of Italy in 1926, shortly before the Communist International adopted the theory of "socialism in one country", the Left presented a draft theses (The Lyons Theses) which predictably was rejected by the largely Stalinised party.

In these theses our current drew not only the balance sheet of the situation in Italy, of its activity when it was in the leadership of the Communist Party of Italy, and of the activity of the Gramsci-Togliatti leadership which was imposed on the party by the Communist International in the years after 1924.

The Communist Left in the Third International - Amadeo Bordiga

An allegorical representation of the Third International by Ivan Golikov, 1927.

Bordiga at the 6th Enlarged Executive Meeting of the Communist International, 15th March 1926: "Since the Russian Revolution is the first great stage of the world revolution it is also our revolution. Its problems are our problems, and every militant in the revolutionary International has not only the right, but also the duty, to collaborate in their solution."

Seventy years ago the wave of proletarian strife and insurrection which had brought the 1st World War to a close was all but over. Instead of being strengthened and supported by the establishment of a European soviet republic and beyond, the Russian proletariat had been left high and dry.