Doug Enaa Greene: Amadeo Bordiga and the development of a revolutionary core

Doug Enaa Greene examines Amadeo Bordiga and the development of a revolutionary core.

Despite Bordiga's differences with the factory council movement and L'Ordine Nuovo, he had supported the call for workers' control of production. And events in Italy brought the two wings of the revolutionary left closer together. By 1920, the factory council movement had launched several general strikes which had put the question of power on the agenda. However, the Socialist Party and the trade unions, showed that their bark was worse than their bite. Although verbally militant, the PSI fed revolutionary expectations among the workers, but they were never ready to commit themselves to make a challenge for power. When the workers were in the streets, they preached patience and calm. They had no idea how to mold the masses or to make the revolution, in fact they did not even think it was their responsibility to do so. In one of the strangest tragicomedies in history, in September 1920 the PSI Directorate debated whether or not to turn the factory occupations into a bid for power. They passed this responsibility for answering this question over to the unions who rejected any attempt at revolution by a vote of 591,245 to 409,569. The Italian factory council movement, which remained directionless and decentralized, was ultimately demoralized and fell apart. The stage was now set for fascism to pacify the working class and restore “order” through systematic violence which the socialists were unable to respond to.

Emphasis Mine

This is a very important point. The idea of a revolution involves the taking of power, and the dismantling of the Capitalist state.

For a revolutionary party not to be ready for this, opens the door to the Fascist reaction as happened in Germany, Italy, and Hungary. Spain was different in that the revolution failed to keep power amid infighting over the direction of the revolution.

Bordiga dropped out of politics and quietly pursued his engineering career until after the fall of Mussolini in 1943. Thereafter, he was politically involved in small left communist groups and wrote extensively on the nature of the Soviet Union and Marxist theory. Bordiga believed that the historical moment was unfavorable for revolutionary action and he devoted himself to propagating and educating Marxism to the few devoted militants who remained loyal to him. However, the left communist movement that Bordiga inspired remains miniscule and isolated. The fate of Bordiga has been unkind, he has generally been eclipsed in histories of Italian communism by Antonio Gramsci. While Gramsci is a far more creative Marxist, it needs to be said Bordiga was at times more far-sighted than him on what needed to be done — especially in the early days. It is unlikely that the Communist Party of Italy would have been created without his tireless energy. Ultimately, Bordiga's adherence to program provided him with stability and a political compass while others were led astray, but at the same time, he was prone to mechanical, rigid and moribund thinking that left him unable to develop the appropriate strategies needed by the PCI to endure fascism and build a mass movement. Bordiga remained frozen and faithful to a heroic moment that passed, which was both his strength and weakness.

Emphasis Mine

The revolutionary must both be embedded in the current struggle of the working class, and aim for a communist revolution. We must continually evaluate where we are and where we want to go.

The fetish for an enduring revolutionary programme is self-defeating. The programme is a call-to-arms among the currently existing conditions. As these conditions change, the programme must change to adapt to emphasise revolutionary potential.