Intransigence

It is vain to hope that the socialist party, through the voice of its governing bodies, will provide a statement of its methods or set out, if not its fundamental principles, at least its immediate program of action.

It is equally undeniable that this does not happen not only due to the mediocrity of the leaders of that party but also because it is in the grip of a profound crisis and finds itself in a moment where it does not know—and cannot say—what it wants or what it aims for. However, this is not a crisis of conflicting and simultaneous tendencies, a clash of tendencies “in space,” meaning a division of the party into two dissenting currents separated by a clear demarcation line, but rather a crisis of tendency “in time,” that is to say, a crisis of transformation of the tendency that the entire party follows as a whole.

It is not easy to discern a left and a right within the socialist party; yet, despite the absence of conflicts within its ranks, the undeniable observation remains that the party lacks a clear direction. In fact, the crisis consists in the party’s involution from one tendency to another, a collective shift in directives. The party’s opinions are indefinable not because its members are split into opposing camps, but because the party is transferring everything from yesterday’s opinions and orientation to those of tomorrow.

This excludes the possibility that the current crisis of the party can be resolved by a split. The only thesis stubbornly advanced by all its adherents is that of unity, even though this ridiculously superficial declaration does not bring with it any more precise political awareness. It is extremely evident that if a left existed—if it had not detached itself due to the attractive force of the extreme left that split off in Livorno, and without receiving any further attractive impetus from the latter, now organized as a party—it would never have found the strength to abandon the right. Equally evident is that if a right existed—if it had not split when the extreme left were still active within the party—it would never feel any incompatibility with the current left. But left and right no longer exist; there is a party that stretches from left to right—and if you want to know its pace, just ask Turati.

Therefore, drawing conclusions from the weak debate within the ranks of the socialist party on whether or not to collaborate is only possible through a careful and meticulous examination—one that strives to overcome the impenetrable wall of vagueness that this party presents. This vagueness, which makes it dangerously defeatist for the proletarian cause, will persist for some time in its balancing act—not between the right and the left, but between the past and the present—concealing the trajectory of its involution.

The party’s leaders still frame the issue as a question of principle, even as they begin to skillfully accept a more pragmatic discussion about the possibility or advisability of ministerial participation. They raise the question of principle without firmness or conviction, merely to continue exploiting those "glorious traditions" of the party—which are no longer represented by the socialists, but by us, the Communist Party. And they say: no collaboration, because the party is intransigent. In its recent congresses, including that of Livorno, the party affirmed a position according to which sharing governmental power with the bourgeoisie is anti-socialist. Therefore, in order to even discuss collaboration, another congress would be necessary to overturn that position. And yet, collaboration is being discussed, and even the supposed intransigents now argue that this is not the right moment to collaborate—implicitly suggesting that collaboration might be acceptable in the future.

Now, while we wait for this ostentatious display of intransigent principles to prove as fleeting as the maximalism of recent years, and anticipating that this reversal will be carried out with great cunning and servility to avoid too much of a scandal in relation to the party’s currently professed attachment to tradition, we can already expose the inconsistency of the foundation on which the socialist party claims to stand—a foundation that is insufficient to support it, serving only as a shaky bridge toward entirely different positions.

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The intransigent tendency emerged as a reaction against the reformist drift of ten or twelve years ago. It rejected the theoretical and tactical revisions proposed by reformism, which assumed that the historical possibility of a violent revolution was obsolete, that the irreconcilability of class antagonisms had been overcome, and that a gradual transformation of the social order toward collectivist forms was possible through reforms implemented by the state under the influence of the proletariat’s political power. There is a certain logic in this conception that makes its two elements inseparable: the denial of the revolutionary perspective and the affirmation of class collaboration as a tactic to intervene positively in a slow transformation process, replacing the intensification of class struggle and the final revolutionary catastrophe.

The principled critique of this conception—an undeniable merit, we must emphasize, of the left wing of the Socialist Party during those years of crisis for the proletarian International—was outlined but never carried to its full consequences. The position of the faction—rightly called revolutionary intransigent—if fully understood, directly contradicted the claims of the reformists, drawing from the conviction that capitalism was inevitably heading toward a revolutionary crisis the conclusion that the party’s role was to propagate socialist ideas and programs, rendering any collaboration with the minimalist work of gradual modification of existing conditions incompatible.

In this position, there were excellent elements of a return to the formidable revolutionary effectiveness of Marxism, all the more valuable given that all the other parties of the International were dangerously leaning to the right. However, in actual political directives, those principles were far from being accurately translated into practice. In reality, the party always remained enslaved to the contingent way of understanding situations, which was characteristic of reformism. At Reggio Emilia, it was not the followers of the reformist doctrine who were expelled, but only those who, in that immediate situation, sought to engage in bourgeois collaboration in the name of the party.

The party’s practical intransigence, which the reformists—particularly the parliamentary group and the Confederation of Labor—constantly undermined, was upheld only through continuous oversight by the left, which exhausted its best energies in this effort. In truth, this intransigence was always based on contingent evaluations of the situation, which led even the reformists to conclude that it was not the right moment to accept ministerial collaborationist proposals. The fact that the outbreak of war did not reopen the practical conflict between the reformists advocating collaboration and the intransigents—due to specific reasons that need not be recalled—helped perpetuate the ambiguity of this formal intransigence, which increasingly forgot its revolutionary premises.

Sterile and foolish would be intransigence if it were not conceived as the only tactic that allows for training and preparation for a revolutionary situation. The rejection of reformist collaboration can fully define the role of revolutionary intransigents as long as the situation does not present imminent revolutionary prospects, as long as the bourgeois regime continues to function normally and can be criticized but not yet overthrown. However, when the situation enters an acute stage and the very foundations of the current regime are shaken, then the issue takes on a different aspect: theoretical and tactical intransigence must give way to the direct preparation of positive action. At that moment, the opposition to the reformist method is revealed in its true light; for revolutionaries, the unfolding events rightfully confirm the general premises from which their tactics were derived, and they recognize that the time has come to move beyond merely rejecting collaboration with the bourgeoisie and instead launch a direct attack against it.

The Italian Socialist Party, intransigent yet not structured or engaged in activities that clearly aligned with its rejection of reformism, was always left suspended in mid-air when it sought to draw such conclusions. In 1912, the reformism of the “Turatians,” with its contingent electoral intransigence, found common ground that allowed it to avoid losing its place within the party. During the war, with its "contingent" neutralism and its equally contingent rejection of the national defense bloc, it ensured that the party stopped short of assuming the responsibilities of revolutionary "defeatism."

When the party faced the multitude of problems arising from the postwar period—among which loomed the example of the great Russian Revolution, in a context we will not repeat for the reader—while in Italy everything suggested that the collapsing bourgeois regime was merely waiting for someone to deliver the final blow, once again, it did not follow a complete maturation of revolutionary consciousness and organization. Instead, it adhered to the same adaptability to circumstances that had always allowed the coexistence of its two wings, apart from the perpetual discontent of an extreme left. It did not take much effort for the reformists—who remained such despite the lessons of the war—to adapt to maximalism, which many embraced under the superficial influences of the situation, as "the situation was pushing leftward." Once again, reformism, by wisely adapting, avoided being repudiated in principle and remained within the party, waiting for its moment. The anti-reformists, in reality, were also reformists in a fundamental sense, as they allowed revolutionary conclusions to be dictated by superficial interpretations of a contingent situation. The proof of this lies in the fact that most of them had no real understanding of the programmatic and tactical content of the maximalism they so fervently praised. And here, too, we will not repeat ourselves.

In reality, communist conclusions were evident even from the development of the class struggle in our country—not in the sense of expecting a ready-made revolution that required only enthusiastic support, but because the party’s left had the opportunity to complete its critique of reformism. This meant evolving its intransigent stance during "normal times" into a revolutionary dynamic that, in the period of extreme bourgeois crisis, called upon the proletariat to seize power for itself and itself alone. This power was to be won through methods directly opposed to the peaceful and legalistic ones advocated by reformism—by breaking apart all the structures of the bourgeois social order.

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In Italy today, the same process has unfolded as in other countries. Reformism has not resigned itself to disappearing simply because history has shattered its schema of peaceful evolution. Instead, it now advocates bourgeois collaboration, arguing that the crisis—however severe—will eventually “stagnate” without leading to the abolition of the capitalist system. To achieve this, it even participates in government, going so far as to support armed reaction against the revolutionary section of the proletariat when necessary. Revolutionary forces, recognizing the undeniable truth of the bourgeois regime’s disintegration, conclude that we are in an era of revolution and must work toward preparing the masses for the final struggle.

The thesis of purely negative intransigence can no longer hold. It is now put forward only by those labeled as “centrists,” who appear to stand between the revolutionary directives of the communists and the collaborationist reformism—though in reality, this position serves only to mask their indecision and their gradual drift to the right.

Thus, it is no longer possible for the Socialist Party to continue its old game of coexistence between reformists and revolutionaries, united only in their shared refusal to commit either to reforms or to revolution. In fact, as the revolutionaries have already left to organize within the Communist Party—where they now confront the immense task of clearing away the defeatism of others—those remaining within the Socialist Party are steadily moving toward militant reformism through their participation in ministerial politics. Their feeble attempt to still call themselves “intransigents,” as they once did, is nothing but a pitiful and empty retreat.

When Serrati says: “No to collaboration, because we are intransigent on principle and discipline; yes to moving to the right, because the situation is shifting to the right,” he reveals that he has always been a reformist, along with many others even worse than him. His extremist stance was dictated not by genuine revolutionary conviction but by a situation that seemed to push everyone to the left without much effort.

Later, while still weakly maintaining that collaboration should be avoided, he invokes the argument of the ongoing insurmountable crisis and claims that the Socialist Party should not be so naïve as to take responsibility for it.

Everyone can see that Serrati’s belated and castrated intransigence traps them in a dead end. They once said, along with us: we are intransigent, we do not collaborate, because the bourgeois regime cannot be patched up, and a time will come when its inability to function will become evident—therefore, it is necessary to preserve the proletariat’s strength for that moment. Today, they recognize as fact what was then only a prediction. But from this recognition, what follows is not the continuation of a negative intransigence, but a positive directive. Whoever does not answer in a communist sense—by preparing for revolutionary action and the dictatorship of the proletariat, regardless of the difficulties to overcome—must necessarily choose: participation in the bourgeois government to mitigate the social collapse. The stance of intransigence only made sense when this crisis had not yet fully emerged.

Therefore, the much-proclaimed intransigence of the socialists is now an empty phrase. We alone are truly intransigent, because anyone who does not work toward the revolutionary resolution of the situation is, in practice, collaborating with the existing regime. If ministerial participation is the most extreme and blatant form of such collaboration, the ambiguity in which the so-called intransigents of the PSI remain—serving not to provide a clear and firm direction, which we would vainly ask them to define, but merely to cover their transition toward outright ministerialism—is the worst kind of deception, ultimately aiding the cause of bourgeois preservation.