rivalries and class struggles that you want to see curtailed?
“Why? You should want the people to forget the differences in circumstances and interests that divide them from other classes, and you should want to see capitalist and worker clasped in loving, fraternal embrace and then… can you be such inept conservatives as to fight dissent by boosting the grounds for dissent and training the gaze of the people upon a wealthy class freshly armed with a brand new, unfamiliar, and provocative privilege, whereby the rich man is made into a superior breed, individually blessed with more than one will?”143
After further observations in the same tone, it concludes: “There is only one thing the socialists are whining about: that if you carry on like this you’ll hasten their triumph too much!”
Coming from the socialists this might appear ironic and, if it were, it would be a delicate and most appropriate irony.
But no, they are speaking seriously. Otherwise, why resist a reform that, by accentuating and highlighting the class struggle, would play straight into the hands of their propaganda and bring their victory closer?
Do they not say, day in and day out, that the vote is the all-powerful weapon and that the people could never emancipate themselves without it? Then how come the abolition of popular suffrage, the aim of that blockhead Rudinì, would hasten their triumph?
Will somebody please tell us when these parliament socialists are in earnest and when they are pulling our leg?
143 “Il titolo accademico degli asini” (The academic qualifications of fools), Avanti!, March 17, 1897.
Endorsements for the
Abstentionist Manifesto
Translated from “Adesioni al manifesto astensionista,”
L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 2 (March 21, 1897).
Due to time constraints, we have not been able to ensure that every locality has let us have their opinion of our draft manifesto.144
Therefore, we have published it with just the signatures that reached us in time. Given, though, that beyond any effect it might have on the current elections, the point is that we should understand one another and affirm the line of conduct that the party intends to follow, in the next issues we shall print the endorsements as they come in. And we would beseech all those groups that share the manifesto’s ideas, including those to which we did not send the draft for lack of addresses, to send us their support, however belatedly.
Some groups have written to say that they are supportive and would like to place their support on record, but decline to sign their own names so as to avoid possible harassment.
It is our belief, however, that the only way of winning our right to exist as a party and of preventing the monstrous as well as ridiculous trials for criminal conspiracy that the government tries its hand at from time to time, is to ensure that we always loudly and publicly affirm our ideas and our organization. And if there are persecutions, we need to face them and assert ourselves louder than ever. No struggle is ever easy and free from danger… unless it is trotting along to drop a ballot secretly into a ballot box and then wait for godsends from the deputies.
Be that as it may, we will of course respect the wishes of the interested parties. Except that we want assurances as to the actual existence of the signatory groups, because we have no desire to help with the creation of illusions, which are then, inevitably, followed by let-downs.
Above all else, truth. If there are lots of us, so much the better. If we are few… well, that will be one more reason for us to busy ourselves at becoming many.
[Followed by a list of endorsements for the manifesto]
144 An abstentionist manifesto appeared as an insert in this issue of L’Agitazione, on the occasion of the political elections that took place on March 21, with runoffs to be held on March 28. For the text of the manifesto, see the volume of the present Complete Works containing pamphlets, programs, manifestos, and other miscellaneous publications.
The Election Results
Translated from “Il risultato delle elezioni,”
L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 3 (March 28, 1897).
Here are the election results in brief: all of the bourgeois parties suffered losses, and the Socialist Party emerged as the sole, real winner of the day.
Crispi’s followers have been utterly routed. The government, which had called the elections for the admitted purpose of getting rid of the subversive parties, has seen the numbers and influence of the establishment’s enemies swell. Having befriended Rudinì and taken responsibility for his reactionary policies, in the hope of earning government backing in the elections, the “democrats”—who were counting on sweeping success over the corpse of Crispi’s party—have been returned to the Chamber with just about the same numbers as before. The republicans have had hard proof that they are incapable of acting as a bulwark against socialist ideas and that the time has come for them to make up their minds, either to become out-and-out socialists and set about the wholesale transformation of existing social institutions, or declare themselves openly bourgeois and abandon any pretense that they are a party of the people.
As ever, the number of abstentions has been very high. This is due, in very small part—we are not given to delusion—to our propaganda; in part (we reckon, again, a very small part) to the stance of the clericals and a few diehard republicans; in part (regrettably a larger part) to the apathetic, obtuse indifference of so many Italians; and in part (no doubt, a very great part) to the feeling of disgust with everything and everybody that swept through the people at the sight of so much sordidness and so much treachery This feeling leaves the people inert and mistrustful for the time being, but it might very well prove the point of departure for an imminent awakening and fresh enthusiasm for ideals that look beyond the political and personal contests of the past.
We have mixed feelings about these outcomes.
Frankly, we are greatly delighted by the socialists’ successes, because, no matter how much they watered down and emasculated their program in view of the elections, it still goes to show that the idea of socialism is gaining ground; that the numbers rebelling against the orders of master, priest, and policeman are on the rise; and that, after all, this Italy is not really the land of the dead that it had appeared in recent years to be.
On the other hand, a feeling of sadness is awakened within us when we see that so much youthful energy, so much noble enthusiasm is wasted in an endeavor (conquering Parliament) that will not succeed, or, should it succeed, would lead only to a brand new form of oppression and exploitation for the masses of the people. And we are afraid lest this fickle people of ours, disappointed in their hopes yet again, might chalk up the disappointments that will be coming their way from parliamentarism to socialism and lapse back into apathy.
Parliamentarism is a deadly germ that has wormed its way into socialism. It turns every step forward, every success of the idea, into a source of corruption and an incentive to water down the program even more and to grow even more bourgeois.
Let the parliamentary socialists, among whom there are so many noble minds and beautiful intelligences, reflect. Let them ponder these words from a bourgeois newspaper (Il Resto del Carlino), which, in expressing the hopes of the bourgeoisie, plainly points to the danger
