The Italian Opposition and the Spanish Revolution

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

I heartily welcome the idea of the New Italian Opposition publishing the present work in Italian. In my correspondence with the comrades of the New Opposition last year, I advanced the hypothesis that in the course of liquidating the fascist regime democratic slogans could assume a certain importance in Italy. Today, in the light of the Spanish events, I would formulate this same thought much more categorically. The Spanish experiences leave no doubt that the Italian revolution will have a longer or shorter democratic "preface" before entering the decisive phase of the immediate struggle of the proletariat for power. During that preliminary period, the proletarian vanguard will certainly not be able to ignore the problems of democracy. In the light of the Spanish events, the position of the Prometeo group, which rejects democratic slogans in principle, appears theoretically inconsistent and politically disastrous. Woe to those who will not learn from great historic facts!

The central theme of this work, at the same time that it is an attempt to clarify by means of recent experiences the Marxist attitude toward democratic slogans, consists in a criticism of the myth of a neutral, "popular" revolution, above the classes, and of the classless and powerless "democratic dictatorship." Today the Comintern leadership is attempting to erect a temple to this idol in Spain, for which many proletarian victims were sacrificed in China. We must confront this attempt of the centrist bureaucracy well armed; the problem is posed anew in the fate of the Spanish revolution.

It seems to me that the Italian comrades ought to follow attentively above all else the development of the great events on the Iberian peninsula. The same problems, in another form and with a different relationship of forces, will be posed sooner or later — we hope sooner — before the proletariat in Italy.