Years later, in one of Benito Mussolini’s prisons, Gramsci recalled the exemplary advice Lenin had given Italian revolutionaries: “Separate yourselves from Turati, and then make an alliance with him”.20 This apparently contradictory message encapsulated the dual nature of the united front, involving both the necessity for revolutionaries forming a distinct and separate current in the workers’ movement, in the form of a cohesive and principled party, while striving to forge unity with others outside it. The Italian revolutionaries had ignored the first part of Lenin’s advice, and the price they paid was high. When the Italian Communist Party (PCI) finally emerged as an independent force, resentment towards the PSI meant a reluctance to pursue the second part of Lenin’s advice. The PCI found itself under the ultraleft leadership of Amadeo Bordiga, who rejected the united front and was opposed to compromises with reformism, even on a tactical basis. This was particularly dangerous because the defeat of the factory occupations created a context in which Benito Mussolini’s fascists could gain strength—and offer themselves as a tool to the ruling class to eradicate the threat from workers. As Broué notes:
In the first six months of 1921, the tally of destruction came to 19 printing presses and workers’ print-shops, 59 People’s Houses, 119 Chambers of Labour; 83 peasant leagues, 151 Socialist circles and everything that went with them, and 151 cultural circles. We omit here the number of people who died or were wounded, of men and women crushed by violence, fear, humiliation, ruin, and feelings of powerlessness.21
The PCI refused to give a lead and the PSI, on the receiving end of the worst violence, signed a “pacification pact” with Mussolini. Despite this miserable leadership, the possibility of united resistance by Italian workers emerged in the form of the Arditi del Popolo, an organisation set up by a group of ex-officers who wished to resist fascism. The Arditi were broad anti-fascist defence organisations:
The initial group also included a few anarchists…and possibly a few adventurers. But those joining were men from very diverse backgrounds who wanted to fight. They included not only young Socialists…but also Communists and people without party affiliation, who were simply democrats. In several localities, these groups were already beginning to stand up to the aggressors, put them to flight, and thus open up a perspective for confronting the terror.22
Tom Behan describes the momentous beginnings of the Arditi:
3,000 Arditi met for their first…national rally at the Botanical Gardens in Rome… Their message was simple—they were a military organisation formed to defeat fascist violence. But this was far from being a small group engaging in individual acts of terrorism against fascists. It was a movement that had the potential to become very big, and which organised public events and published a newspaper sporadically… The rally…was called as part of a national demonstration against fascist violence…more than 50,000 attended… Two days later the Rome chief of police wrote in a report that the size and nature of the demonstration “shocked the leader of the local fascist movement, who began to worry about the new situation emerging within the Roman working class”.23
However, “[t]he Communist Party forbade its members to join the Arditi del Popolo, the creation of which, it said, was a ‘manoeuvre by the bourgeoisie’”.24 Bordiga’s newspaper declared that “Communists…cannot and must not take part in activities organised by other parties, or which in any event arise outside the party”, and set about creating its own “pure” communist squads in competition with the Arditi.25 At a local level, many PCI members rejected this sectarian approach, becoming involved in the Arditi, sometimes in prominent roles. In many areas, the Arditi proved it was possible to push back fascism. The best example came from Parma, where 20,000 armed fascists marching on the city were repelled by the local Arditi. However, such examples remained localised, with no national organisation seeking to generalise from them. Mussolini later told a biographer: “If the Parma model had been used elsewhere, and was successful, the right of war veterans [fascists] to gain control over public life would have been called into question”.
The working class is fragmented in its politics, including its support for different parties or no party at all.1 The existence of these div
