Modern civilization has taken the principle of
freedom as its basis, a principle which holds that man must not
be a mere instrument to be used by others but an autonomous centre
of life. With this code at hand, all those aspects of society that
have not respected this principle have been placed on trial, a great
historical trial.
1) The equal right of all nations to organize
themselves into independent States has been established. Every people,
defined by its ethnic, geographical, linguistic and historical characteristics,
was expected to find the instrument best suited to its needs within
a State organization created according to its own specific concept
of political life, and with no outside intervention. The ideology
of national independence was a powerful stimulus to progress. It
helped overcome narrow-minded parochialism and created a much wider
feeling of solidarity against foreign oppression. It eliminated
many obstacles hindering the free movement of people and goods.
Within the territory of each new State, it brought the institutions
and systems of the more advanced societies to more backward ones.
But with this ideology came the seeds of capitalist imperialism
which our own generation has seen mushroom to the point where totalitarian
States have grown up and world wars have been unleashed.
Thus the nation is no longer viewed as the historical
product of co-existence between men who, as the result of a lengthy
historical process, have acquired greater unity in their customs
and aspirations and who see their State as being the most effective
means of organizing collective life within the context of all human
society. Rather the nation has become a divine entity, an organism
which must only consider its own existence, its own development,
without the least regard for the damage that others may suffer from
this. The absolute sovereignty of national States has led to the
desire of each of them to dominate, since each feels threatened
by the strength of the others, and considers that its "living
space" should include increasingly vast territories that give
it the right to free movement and provide self-sustenance without
needing to rely on others. This desire to dominate cannot be placated
except by the hegemony of the strongest State over all the others.
As a consequence of this, from being the guardian
of citizens' freedom, the State has been turned into a master of
vassals bound into servitude, and has all the powers it needs to
achieve the maximum war-efficiency. Even during peacetime, considered
to be pauses during which to prepare for subsequent, inevitable
wars, the will of the military class now holds sway over the will
of the civilian class in many countries, making it increasingly
difficult to operate free political systems. Schools, science, production,
administrative bodies are mainly directed towards increasing military
strength. Women are considered merely as producers of soldiers and
are rewarded with the same criteria as prolific cattle. From the
very earliest age, children are taught to handle weapons and hate
foreigners. Individual freedom is reduced to nothing since everyone
is part of the military establishment and constantly called on to
serve in the armed forces. Repeated wars force men to abandon families,
jobs, property, and even lay down their lives for goals, the value
of which no one really understands. It takes just a few days to
destroy the results of decades of common effort to increase the
general well-being.
Totalitarian States are precisely those which
have unified all their forces in the most coherent way, by implementing
the greatest possible degree of centralization and autarky. They
have thus shown themselves to be the bodies most suited to the current
international environment. It only needs one nation to take one
step towards more accentuated totalitarianism for the others to
follow suit, dragged down the same groove by their will to survive.
2) The equal right of all citizens to participate
in the process of determining the State's will is well-established.
This process should have been the synthesis of the freely expressed
and changing economic and ideological needs of all social classes.
A political organization of this kind made it possible to correct
or at least to minimize many of the most strident injustices inherited
from previous regimes. But freedom of the press, freedom of assembly,
and the steady extension of suffrage, made it increasingly difficult
to defend old privileges, while maintaining a representative system
of government. Bit by bit the penniless learned to use these instruments
to fight for the rights acquired by the privileged classes. Taxes
on unearned income and inheritances, higher taxes levied on larger
incomes, tax exemptions for low incomes and essential goods, free
public schooling, greater social security spending, land reforms,
inspection of factories and manufacturing plants were all achievements
that threatened the privileged classes in their well-fortified citadels.
Even the privileged classes who agreed with equality
in political rights, could not accept the fact that the underprivileged
could use it to achieve a de facto equality that would have created
a very real freedom with a very concrete content. When the threat
became all too serious at the end of the First World War, it was
only natural that these privileged classes should have warmly welcomed
and supported the rise of dictatorships that removed their adversaries
legalislative weapons.
Moreover, the creation of huge industrial, banking
conglomerates and trades unions representing whole armies of workers
gave rise to forces (unions, employers and financiers) lobbying
the government to give them the policies which most clearly favoured
their particular interests. This threatened to dissolve the State
into countless economic fiefdoms, each bitterly opposed to the others.
Liberal and democratic systems increasingly lost their prestige
by becoming the tools that these groups will always resort to in
order to exploit all of society even more. In this way, the conviction
grew up that only a totalitarian State, in which individual liberties
were abolished, could somehow resolve the conflicts of interest
that existing political institutions were unable to control.
Subsequently, in fact, totalitarian regimes consolidated
the position of the various social categories at the levels they
had gradually achieved. By using the police to control every aspect
of each citizen's life, and by violently silencing all dissenting
voices, these regimes barred all legal possibility of further correction
in the state of affairs. This consolidated the existence of a thoroughly
parasitic class of absentee landowners and rentiers who contribute
to social productivity only by cutting the coupons off their bonds.
It consolidated the position of monopoly holders and the chain stores
who exploit the consumers and cause small savers money to vanish.
It consolidated the plutocrats hidden behind the scenes who pull
the politicians' strings and run the State machine for their own,
exclusive advantage, under the guise of higher national interests.
The colossal fortunes of a very few people have been preserved,
as has the poverty of the masses, excluded from the enjoyment of
the fruits of modern culture. In others words an economic regime
has substantially been preserved in which material resources and
labour, which ought to be directed to the satisfaction of fundamental
needs for the development of essential human energies, are instead
channelled towards the satisfaction of the most futile wishes of
those capable of paying the highest prices. It is an economic regime
in which, through the right of inheritance, the power of money is
perpetuated in the same class, and is transformed into a privilege
that in no way corresponds to the social value of the services actually
rendered. The field of proletarian possibilities is so restricted
that workers are often forced to accept exploitation by anyone who
offers a job in order to make a living.
In order to keep the working classes immobilized
and subjugated, the trade unions, once free organizations of struggle,
run by individuals who enjoyed the trust of their members, have
been turned into institutions for police surveillance run by employees
chosen by the ruling class and responsible only to them. Where improvements
are made in this economic regime, they are always solely dictated
by military needs which have merged with the reactionary aspirations
of the privileged classes in giving rise to and consolidating totalitarian
States.
3) The permanent value of the spirit of criticism
has been asserted against authoritarian dogmatism. Everything that
is affirmed must prove its worth or disappear. The greatest achievements
of human society in every field are due to the scientific method
that lies behind this unfettered approach. But this spiritual freedom
has not survived the crisis created by totalitarian States. New
dogmas to be accepted as articles of faith or simply hypocritically
are advancing in all fields of knowledge.
Although nobody knows what a race is, and the
most elementary understanding of history brings home the absurdity
of the statement, physiologists are asked to believe, demonstrate
and even persuade us that people belong to a chosen race, merely
because imperialism needs this myth to stir the masses to hate and
pride. The most self-evident concepts of economic science have to
be treated as anathema so as to enable autarchic policy, trade balance
and other old chestnuts of mercantilism to be presented as extraordinary
discoveries of our times. Because of the economic interdependence
of the entire world, the living space required by any people which
wants to maintain a living standard consistent with modern civilization
can only be the entire world. But the pseudo-science of geopolitics
has been created in an attempt to prove the soundness of theories
about living space and to provide a theoretical cloak to the imperialist
desire to dominate.
Essential historical facts are falsified, in the
interests of the ruling classes. Libraries and bookshops are purged
of all works not considered to be orthodox. The shadows of obscurantism
once more threaten to suffocate the human spirit. The social ethic
of freedom and equality has itself been undermined. Men are no longer
considered free citizens who can use the State to achieve collective
goals. They are, instead, servants of the State, which decides what
their goals must be, and the will of those who hold power becomes
the will of the State. Men are no longer subjects with civil rights,
but are instead arranged hierarchically and are expected to obey
their superiors without argument, the hierarchy culminating in a
suitably deified leader. The regime based on castes is reborn from
its own ashes, as bullying as it was before.
After triumphing in a series of countries, this
reactionary, totalitarian civilization, has finally found in Nazi
Germany the power considered strong enough to take the last step.
After meticulous preparation, boldly and unscrupulously exploiting
the rivalries, egoism and stupidity of others, dragging in its path
other European vassal States, primarily Italy, and allying itself
with Japan, which follows the very same goals in Asia, Nazi Germany
has launched itself on the task of crushing other countries. Its
victory would mean the definitive consolidation of totalitarianism
in the world. All its characteristics would be exasperated to the
utmost degree, and progressive forces would be condemned for many
years to the role of simple negative opposition.
The traditional arrogance and intransigence of
the German military classes can give us an idea of the nature of
their dominance after victory in war. The victorious Germans might
even concede a façade of generosity towards other European
peoples, formally respecting their territories and their political
institutions, and thus be able to command while at the same time
satisfying the false patriotic sentiments of those who count the
colour of the flag flying at the country's borders and the nationality
of prominent politicians as being the major considerations and who
fail to appreciate the significance of power relationships and the
real content of the State's institutions. However camouflaged, the
reality is always the same: a new division of humanity into Spartans
and Helots.
Even a compromise solution between the two warring
sides would be one more step forward for totalitarianism. All those
countries which managed to escape Germany's grasp would be forced
to adopt the very same forms of political organization to be adequately
prepared for the continuation of hostilities.
But while Hitler's Germany has managed to chop
down the smaller States one by one, this has forced increasingly
powerful forces to join battle. The courageous fighting spirit of
Great Britain, even at that most critical moment when it was left
to face the enemy alone, had the effect that the Germans came up
against the brave resistance of the Russian Army, and gave America
the time it needed to mobilize its endless productive resources.
This struggle against German imperialism is closely linked to the
Chinese people's struggles against Japanese imperialism.
Huge masses of men and wealth are already drawn
up against totalitarian powers whose strength has already reached
its peak and can now only gradually consume itself. The forces that
oppose them have, on the other hand, already survived the worst
and their strength is increasing.
With every day that passes, the war the allies
are fighting rekindles the yearning for freedom, even in those countries
which were subjected to violence and who lost their way as result
of the blow they received. It has even rekindled this yearning among
the peoples in the Axis countries who realize they have been dragged
down into a desperate situation, simply to satisfy their rulers'
lust for power.
The slow process which led huge masses of men
to be meekly shaped by the new regime, who adjusted to it and even
contributed to its consolidation, has been halted and the reverse
process has started. All the progressive forces, can be found in
this huge wave, which is slowly gathering momentum: the most enlightened
groups of the working classes who have not let themselves be swayed,
either by terror or by flattery, from their ambition to achieve
a better standard of living, the sharpest members of the intellectual
classes, offended by the degradation to which intelligence is subjected,
entrepreneurs who, wanting to undertake new initiatives, want to
free themselves of the trappings of bureaucracy and national autarky,
that bog down all their efforts, and, finally, all those who, with
an innate sense of dignity, will not bend one inch when faced with
the humiliation of servitude.
Today, the salvation of our civilization is entrusted
to these forces.
II - Post-war tasks. European unity
Germany's defeat would not automatically lead
to the reorganization of Europe in accordance with our ideal of
civilization. In the brief, intense period of general crisis (when
the States will lie broken, when the masses will be anxiously waiting
for a new message, like molten matter, burning, and easily shaped
into new moulds capable of accommodating the guidance of serious
internationalist minded men), the most privileged classes in the
old national systems will attempt, by underhand or violent methods,
to dampen the wave of internationalist feelings and passions and
will ostentatiously begin to reconstruct the old State institutions.
Most probably, the British leaders, perhaps in agreement with the
Americans, will try to push things in this direction, in order to
restore balance-of-power politics, in the apparent immediate interests
of their empires.
All the reactionary forces can feel the house
is creaking around them and are now trying to save their skins:
the conservative forces, the administrators of the major institutions
of the nation States, the top-ranking officers in the armed forces
including, where they still exist, the monarchies, the monopoly
capitalist groups whose profits are linked to the fortunes of States,
the big landowners and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, whose parasitical
income is only guaranteed in a stable, conservative society and,
in their wake, the countless band of people who depend on them or
who are simply blinded by their traditional power. If the house
were to collapse, they would suddenly be deprived of all the privileges
they have enjoyed up to now, and would be exposed to the assault
of the progressive forces.
The Revolutionary Situation: old and new trends.
The fall of the totalitarian regimes will, in
the feelings of entire populations, mean the coming of "freedom";
all restrictions will disappear and, automatically, very wide freedom
of speech and assembly will reign supreme. It will be the triumph
of democratic beliefs. These tendencies have countless shades and
nuances, stretching from very conservative liberalism to socialism
and anarchy. These beliefs place their trust in the "spontaneous
generation" of events and institutions and the absolute goodness
of drives originating among the grass roots. They do not want to
force the hand of "history", or "the people",
or "the proletariat", or whatever other name they give
their God. They hope for the end of dictatorships, conceiving this
as restoring the people's unsupressible right to self-determination.
Their crowning dream is a constituent assembly, elected by the broadest
suffrage, which scrupulously respects the rights of the electors,
who must decide upon the constitution they want. If the population
is immature, the constitution will not be a good one, but to amend
it will be possible only through constant efforts of persuasion.
Democrats do not refrain from violence on principle but wish to
use it only when the majority is convinced it is indispensable,
little more, that is, than an almost superfluous "dot"
over an "i". They are suitable leaders only in times of
ordinary administration, when the overall population is convinced
of the validity of the basic institutions and believe that any amendment
should be restricted to relatively secondary matters. During revolutionary
times, when institutions are not simply to be administered but created,
democratic procedures fail miserably. The pitiful impotence of democrats
in the Russian, German, Spanish revolutions are the three most recent
examples. In these situations, once the old State apparatus had
fallen away, along with its laws and its administration, popular
assemblies and delegations immediately spring up in which all the
progressive socialist forces converge and agitate, either hiding
behind the ancient régime, or scorning it. The population
does have some fundamental needs to satisfy, but it does not know
precisely what it wants and what must be done. A thousand bells
ring in its ears. With its millions of minds, it cannot orientate
itself, and breaks up into a number of tendencies, currents and
factions, all struggling with one another.
At the very moment when the greatest decisiveness
and boldness is needed, democrats lose their way, not having the
backing of spontaneous popular approval, but rather a gloomy tumult
of passions. They think it their duty to form a consensus and they
represent themselves as exhortatory preachers, where instead there
is a need for leaders who know just what they want. They miss chances
favourable to the consolidation of a new regime by attempting to
make bodies, which need longer preparation and which are more suited
to periods of relative tranquillity, work immediately. They give
their adversaries the weapons they need to overthrow them. In their
thousand tendencies, they do not represent a will for renewal, but
vain and very confused ambitions found in minds that, by becoming
paralyzed, actually prepare the terrain for the growth of the reaction.
Democratic political methods are a dead weight during revolutionary
crises.
As the democrats wear down their initial popularity
as assertors of freedom by their endless polemic, and in the absence
of any serious political and social revolution, the pre-totalitarian
political institutions would inevitably be reconstituted, and the
struggle would again develop along the lines of the old class opposition.
The principle whereby the class struggle is the
condition to which all political problems are reduced, has become
the fundamental guideline of factory workers in particular, and
gave consistency to their politics for as long as the fundamental
institutions were not questioned. But this approach becomes an instrument
which isolates the proletariat, when the need to transform the entire
social organization becomes paramount. The workers, educated in
the class system, cannot see beyond the demands of their particular
class or even their professional category and fail to concern themselves
with how their interests link up with those of other social classes.
Or they aspire to a unilateral dictatorship of the proletariat in
order to achieve the utopistic collectivization of all the material
means of production, indicated by centuries of propaganda as the
panacea for all evils. This policy attracts no class other than
the workers, who thus deprive the other progressive forces of their
support, or alternatively leaves them at the mercy of the reaction
which skilfully organizes them so as to break up the proletarian
movement. Among the various proletarian tendencies, followers of
class politics and collectivist ideals, the Communists have recognized
the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient following to assure victory
so that, unlike the other popular parties, they have turned themselves
into a rigidly disciplined movement, exploiting the Russian myth
in order to organize the workers, but which does not accept orders
from them and uses them in all kinds of political manoeuvrings.
This attitude makes the Communists, during revolutionary
crises, more efficient than the democrats. But their ability to
maintain the workers as far removed from the other revolutionary
forces as they can, by preaching that their "real" revolution
is yet to come, turns them into a sectarian element that weakens
the sum of the progressive forces at the decisive moment. Beside
this, their absolute dependence upon the Russian State, which has
repeatedly used them in pursuing its national policies, prevents
this Party from undertaking political activity with any continuity.
They always need to hide behind a Karoly, a Blum, a Negrin, only
to fall headlong into ruin with the democratic puppets they used,
since power is achieved and maintained, not simply through cunning
but with the ability to respond fully and viably to the needs of
modern society.
If tomorrow the struggle were to remain restricted
within the traditional national boundaries, it would be very difficult
to avoid the old contradictions. The nation States, in fact, have
so deeply planned their respective economies, that the main question
would soon be which group of economic interests, i.e., which class,
should be in control of the plan. The progressive front would be
quickly shattered in the brawl between economic classes and categories.
The most probable result would be that the reactionaries would benefit
more than anyone else.
A real revolutionary movement must arise from
among those who have been bold enough to criticize the old political
approaches and it must be able to collaborate with democratic and
with communist forces; and generally with all those who work for
the break-up of totalitarianism, without, however, becoming ensnared
by the political practices of any of these. The reactionary forces
have capable men and officers who have been trained to command and
who will fight tenaciously to preserve their supremacy. In moments
of dire need, they know just how to disguise their true nature,
saying they stand by freedom, peace, general well-being and the
poorer classes.
Already in the past we have seen how they wormed
their way into popular movements, paralyzing, deflecting and altering
them into precisely the opposite of what they are. They will certainly
be the most dangerous force to be faced.
The point they will seek to exploit is the restoration
of the nation State. Thus they will be able to latch on to what
is, by far the most widespread of popular feelings, so deeply offended
by recent events and so easily manipulated to reactionary ends:
to patriotic feeling. In this way they can also hope to confound
their adversaries' ideas more easily, since for the popular masses,
the only political experience acquired to date has been within the
national context. It is, therefore, fairly easy to channel them
and their more shortsighted leaders towards the reconstruction of
the States destroyed in the storm.
If this end is achieved, the forces of reaction
will have won. In appearance, these States might well be democratic
and socialist on a large scale. It would only be a question of time
before power fell into the hands of the reactionaries. National
jealousies would be revived, and State would again seek to fulfil
its requirements in its armed strength. In a more or less brief
space of time the most important duty would be to convert populations
into armies. Generals would again command, the monopoly holders
would again draw profits from autarchies, the bureaucracy would
continue to swell, the priests would keep the masses docile. All
the initial achievements would shrivel into nothing, faced with
the need to prepare for war once more.
The question which must be resolved first, failing
which progress is no more than mere appearance, is the definitive
abolition of the division of Europe into national, sovereign States.
The collapse of the majority of the States on the continent under
the German steam-roller has already given the people of Europe a
common destiny: either they will all submit to Hitler's dominion,
or, after his fall, they will all enter a revolutionary crisis and
will not find themselves separated by, and entrenched in, solid
State structures. Feelings today are already far more disposed than
they were in the past to accept a federal reorganization of Europe.
The harsh experience of recent decades has opened the eyes even
of those who refused to see, and has matured many circumstances
favourable to our ideal.
All reasonable men recognize
that it is impossible to maintain a balance of power among European
States with militarist Germany enjoying equal conditions with other
countries, nor can Germany be broken up into pieces or held on a
chain once it is conquered. We have seen a demonstration that no
country within Europe can stay on the sidelines while the others
battle: declarations of neutrality and non-aggression pacts come
to nought. The uselessness, even harmfulness, of organizations like
the League of Nations has been demonstrated: they claimed to guarantee
international law without a military force capable of imposing its
decisions and respecting the absolute sovereignty of the member
States. The principle of non intervention turned out to be absurd:
every population was supposed to be left free to choose the despotic
government it thought best, in other words virtually assuming that
the constitution of each individual States was not a question of
vital interest for all the other European nations. The multiple
problems which poison international life on the continent have proved
to be insoluble: tracing boundaries through areas inhabited by mixed
populations, defence of alien minorities, seaports for landlocked
countries, the Balkan Question, the Irish problem, and so on. All
matters which would find easy solutions in the European Federation,
just as corresponding problems, suffered by the small States which
became part of a vaster national unity, lost their harshness as
they were turned into problems of relationships between various
provinces.
Moreover, the end of the sense of security inspired
and created by an unassailable Great Britain, which led Britain
to Errore. L'origine riferimento non è stata trovata., the
dissolution of the French army and the disintegration of the French
Republic itself at the first serious collision with the German forces
(which, it is to be hoped, will have lessened the chauvinistic attitude
of absolute Gallic superiority), and in particular the awareness
of the risk of total enslavement are all circumstances that will
favour the constitution of a federal regime, which will bring an
end to the current anarchy. Furthermore, it is easier to find a
basis of agreement for a European arrangement of colonial possessions
since England has accepted the principle of India's independence
and since France has potentially lost its entire empire in recognizing
its defeat.
To all of this must be added the disappearance
of some of the most important dynasties, and the fragility of the
basis which sustains the ones that survive. It must be taken into
account that these dynasties, by considering the various countries
as their own traditional appanage, together with the powerful interests
backing them, represented a serious obstacle to the rational organization
of the United States of Europe, which can only be based on the republican
constitution of federated countries. And, once the horizon of the
old Continent is superseded, and all the peoples who make up humanity
are included in a single design, it will have to be recognized that
the European Federation is the only conceivable guarantee ensuring
that relationships with American and Asiatic peoples will work on
the basis of peaceful co-operation, writing for a more distant future
when the political unity of the entire world will become possible.
Therefore, the dividing
line between progressive and reactionary parties no longer coincides
with the formal lines of more or less democracy, or the pursuit
of more or less socialism, but the division falls along a very new
and substantial line: those who conceive the essential purpose and
goal of struggle as being the ancient one, the conquest of national
political power , and who, although involuntarily, play into the
hands of reactionary forces, letting the incandescent lava of popular
passions set in the old moulds, and thus allowing old absurdities
to arise once again, and those who see the main purpose as the creation
of a solid international State, who will direct popular forces towards
this goal, and who, even if they were to win national power, would
use it first and foremost as an instrument for achieving international
unity.
With propaganda and action, seeking to establish
in every possible way the agreements and links among the individual
movements which are certainly in the process of being formed in
the various countries, the foundation must be built now for a movement
that knows how to mobilize all forces for the birth of the new organism
which will be the grandest creation, and the newest, that has occurred
in Europe for centuries; in order to constitute a steady federal
State, that will have at its disposal a European armed service instead
of national armies; that will break decisively economic autarkies,
the backbone of totalitarian regimes; that will have sufficient
means to see that its deliberations for the maintenance of common
order are executed in the individual federal sates, while each State
will retain the autonomy it needs for a plastic articulation and
development of political life according to the particular characteristics
of the various peoples.
If a sufficient number of men in the main European
countries understand this, then victory will soon fall into their
hands, since both circumstances and opinion will be favourable to
their efforts. They will have before them parties and factions that
have already been disqualified by the disastrous experience of the
last twenty years. Since it will be the moment for new action, it
will also be the moment for new men: the MOVEMENT FOR A FREE AND
UNITED EUROPE.
III - Postwar duties. Reform of society
A free and united Europe is the necessary premise
to the strengthening of modern civilization as regards which the
totalitarian era is only a temporary setback. As soon as this era
ends the historical process of struggle against social inequalities
and privileges will be restored in full. All the old conservative
institutions that have hindered this process will either have collapsed
or will be teetering on the verge of collapse. The crisis in these
institutions must be boldly and decisively exploited.
In order to respond to our needs, the European
revolution must be socialist, i.e. its goal must be the emancipation
of the working classes and the creation of more humane conditions
for them. The guiding light in determining what steps need to be
taken, however, cannot simply be the utterly doctrinaire principle
whereby private ownership of the material means of production must
in principle be abolished and only temporarily tolerated when dispensing
with it entirely. Wholesale nationalization of the economy under
State control was the first, utopian form taken by the working classes'
concept of their freedom from the yoke of capitalism. But when this
State control is achieved, it does not produce the desired results
but leads to a regime where the entire population is subservient
to a restricted class of bureaucrats who run the economy.
The truly fundamental principle of socialism,
vis-à-vis which general collectivization was no more than
a hurried and erroneous inference, is the principle which states
that, far from dominating man, economic forces, like the forces
of nature, should be subject to man, guided and controlled by him
in the most rational way, so that the broadest strata of the population
will not become their victims. The huge forces of progress that
spring from individual interests, must not be extinguished by the
grey dullness of routine. Otherwise, the same insoluble problem
will arise: how to stimulate the spirit of initiative using salary
differentials and other provisions of the same kind. The forces
of progress must be extolled and extended, by giving them increasing
opportunities for development and employment. At the same time,
the tracks guiding these forces towards objectives of greatest benefit
for all society must be strengthened and perfected.
Private property must be abolished, limited, corrected,
or extended according to the circumstances and not according to
any dogmatic principle. This guiding principle is a natural feature
in the process of forming a European economic life freed from the
nightmares of militarism or national bureaucratism. Rational solutions
must replace irrational ones, even in the working class consciousness.
With a view to indicating the content of this principle in greater
detail, we emphasize the following points while stressing the need
to assess the appropriateness of every point in the programme and
means of achieving them in relationship to the indispensable premise
of European unity:
a) Enterprises with a necessarily monopolistic
activity, and in a position to exploit consumers, cannot be left
in the hands of private ownership: for example, electricity companies
or industries of vital interest to the community which require protective
duties, subsidies, preferential orders etc. if they are to survive
(the most visible example of this kind of industry so far in Italy
is the steel industry); and enterprises which, owing to the amount
of capital invested, the number of workers employed, and the significance
of the sector involved can blackmail various State bodies, forcing
them to adopt the policies most beneficial to themselves (for example,
the mining industries, large banks, large weapons manufacturers).
In this field, nationalization must certainly be introduced on a
vast scale, without regard for acquired rights.
b) Private property and inheritance legislation
in the past was so drawn up as to permit the accumulation of wealth
in the hands of a few, privileged members of society. In a revolutionary
crisis this wealth must be distributed in an egalitarian way thereby
eliminating the parasitic classes and giving the workers the means
of production they need to improve their economic standing and achieve
greater independence. We are thus proposing an agrarian reform which
will increase the number of owners enormously by giving land to
those who actually farm it and an industrial reform which will extend
workers' ownership in non-nationalized sectors, through co-operative
adventures, employee profit-sharing, and so on.
c) The young need to be assisted with all the
measures needed to reduce the gap between the starting positions
in the struggle to survive to a minimum. In particular, State schools
ought to provide a real chance for those who deserve it to continue
their studies to the highest level, instead of restricting these
opportunities to wealthy students. In each branch of study leading
to training in different crafts and the various liberal and scientific
professions, State schools should train the number of students which
corresponds to the market requirements, so that average salaries
will be roughly equal for all the professional categories, regardless
of the differing rates of remuneration within each category according
to individual skills.
d) The almost unlimited potential of modern technology
to mass produce essential goods guarantees, with relatively low
social costs, that everyone can have food, lodging, clothing and
the minimum of comfort needed to preserve a sense of human dignity.
Human solidarity towards those who fall in the economic struggle
ought not, therefore, to be manifested with humiliating forms of
charity that produce the very same evils they seek to remedy but
ought to consist in a series of measures which unconditionally,
and regardless of whether a person is able to work or not, guarantee
a decent standard of living for all without lessening the stimulus
to work and save. In this way, no-one will be forced any longer
to accept enslaving work contracts because of their poverty.
e) Working class freedom can only be achieved
when the conditions described have been fulfilled. The working classes
must not be left to the mercy of the economic policies of monopolistic
trade unions who simply apply the overpowering methods characteristic,
above all, of great capital to the shopfloor. The workers must once
again be free to choose their own trusted representatives when collectively
establishing the conditions under which they will agree to work,
and the State must give them the legal means to guarantee the proper
implementation of the terms agreed to. But all monopolistic tendencies
can be fought effectively once these social changes have been fulfilled.
These are the changes needed both to create very
broad-based support around the new institutional system from a large
number of citizens willing to defend its survival and to stamp freedom
and a strong sense of social solidarity onto political life in a
very marked way. Political freedom with these foundations will not
just have a formal meaning but a real meaning for all since citizens
will be independent, and will be sufficiently informed as to be
able to exert continuous and effective control over the ruling class.
It would be superfluous to dwell at length on
constitutional institutions, not knowing at this stage, or being
able to foresee, the circumstances under which they will be drawn
up and will have to operate. We can do no more than repeat what
everyone knows regarding the need for representative bodies, the
process of developing legislation, the independence of the courts
(which will replace the present system) safeguarding impartial application
of legislation and the freedom of the press and right of assembly
guaranteeing informed public opinion and the possibility for all
citizens to participate effectively in the State's life. Only two
issues require further and deeper definition because of their particular
significance for our country at this moment: the relationship between
Church and State and the nature of political representation.
a) The Treaty which concluded the Vatican's alliance
with Fascism in Italy must be abolished so that the purely lay character
of the State can be asserted and so that the supremacy of the State
in civil matters can be unequivocably established. All religious
faiths are to be equally respected, but the State must no longer
have earmark funds for religion.
b) The house of cards that Fascism built with
its corporativism will collapse together with the other aspects
of the totalitarian State. There are those who believe that material
for the new constitutional order can be salvaged from this wreck.
We disagree. In totalitarian States, the corporative chambers are
the crowning hoax of police control over the workers. Even if the
corporative chambers were a sincere expression of the will of the
various categories of producers, the representative bodies of the
various professional categories could never be qualified to handle
questions of general policy. In more specifically economic matters,
they would become bodies for the accumulation of power and privilege
among the categories with the strongest trade union representation.
The unions will have broad collaborative functions with State bodies
which are appointed to resolve problems directly involving these
unions, but they should have absolutely no legislative power, since
this would create a kind of feudal anarchy in the economic life
of the country, leading to renewed political despotism. Many of
those who were ingenuously attracted by the myth of corporativism,
can and should be attracted by the job of renewing structures. But
they must realize the absurdity of the solution they vaguely desire.
Corporativism can only be concretely expressed in the form it was
given by totalitarian States regimenting the workers beneath officials
who monitored everything they did in the interests of the ruling
class The revolutionary party cannot be amateurishly improvised
at the decisive moment, but must begin to be formed at least as
regards its central political attitude, its upper echelons, the
basic directives for action. It must not be a heterogeneous mass
of tendencies, united merely negatively and temporarily, i.e. united
by their anti-Fascist past and the mere expectation of the fall
of the totalitarian regime, in which all and sundry are ready to
go their own separate ways once this goal has been reached. The
revolutionary party, on the contrary, knows that only at this stage
will it its real work begin. It must therefore be made up of men
who agree on the main issues for the future.
Its methodical propaganda must penetrate everywhere
there are people oppressed by the present regime. Taking as its
starting point the problem which is the source of greatest suffering
to individuals and classes, it must show how this problem is linked
to other problems, and what the real solution will be. But from
this gradually increasing circle of sympathizers, it must pick out
and recruit into the organisation only those who have identified
and accepted the European revolution as the main goal in their lives,
who carry out the necessary work with strict discipline day in day
out, carefully checking up on its continuous and effective safety,
even in the most dangerously illegal situations. These recruits
will be the solid network that will give consistency to the more
ephemeral sphere of the sympathizers.
While overlooking no occasion or sector in which
to spread its cause, it must be active first and foremost in those
environments which are most significant as centres for the circulation
of ideas and recruiting of combative men. It must be particularly
active vis-à-vis the working class and intellectuals, the
two social groups most sensitive, in the present situation, and
most decisive for tomorrow's world. The first group is the one which
least gave in to the totalitarian rod and which will the quickest
to reorganize its ranks. The intellectuals, particularly the younger
intellectuals, are the group which feels most spiritually suffocated
and disgusted with the current despotism. Bit by bit other social
groups will gradually be drawn into the general movement.
Any movement which fails in its duty to ally these
forces, is condemned to sterility. Because if the movement is made
up of intellectuals alone, it will lack the strength to crush reactionary
resistance, and it will distrust and be distrusted by the working
class and even though inspired by democratic sentiment, when faced
with difficulties it will be liable to shift its position, as regard
the mobilisation of other classes, against the workers, and thus
restoring Fascism. If, instead, the movement is backed only by the
proletariat, it will be deprived of the clarity of thought which
only intellectuals can give and which is so vital in identifying
new paths and new duties: the movement would be a prisoner of the
old class structure, looking on everyone as a potential enemy, and
will slither towards the doctrinaire Communist solution.
During the revolutionary crisis, this movement
will have the task of organizing and guiding progressive forces,
using all the popular bodies which form spontaneously, incandescent
melting pots in which the revolutionary masses are mixed, not for
the creation of plebiscites, but rather waiting to be guided. It
derives its vision and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge
that it represents the deepest needs of modern society and not from
any previous recognition by popular will, as yet inexistant. In
this way it issues the basic guidelines of the new order, the first
social discipline directed to the unformed masses. By this dictatorship
of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around
this State new, genuine democracy will grow.
There are no grounds for fearing that such a revolutionary
regime will develop into renewed despotism. This arises only when
the tendency has been to shape a servile society. But if the revolutionary
party continues resolutely from the very outset to create the conditions
required for individual freedom whereby every citizen can really
participate in the State's life, which will evolve, despite secondary
political crises, towards increasing understanding and acceptance
of the new order by all - hence towards an increasing possibility
of working effectively and creating free political institutions.
The time has now come to get rid of these old
cumbersome burdens and to be ready for whatever turns up, usually
so different from what was expected, to get rid of the inept among
the old and create new energies among the young. Today, in an effort
to begin shaping the outlines of the future, those who have understood
the reasons for the current crisis in European civilization, and
who have therefore inherited the ideals of movements dedicated to
raising the dignity humanity, which were shipwrecked either on their
inability to understand the goal to be pursued or on the means by
which to achieve it have begun to meet and seek each other.
The road to pursue is neither easy nor certain.
But it must be followed and it will be!
The Ventotene Manifesto, whose full title is
"For a Free and United Europe. A draft manifesto", was
drawn up by Altiero Spinelli and by Emesto Rossi (who wrote the
first part of the third chapter) in 1941 when they were both interned
on the island of Ventotene. After being distributed in mimeographed
form, a clandestine edition of the Manifesto appeared in Rome in
January 1944. The present text was edited by the Società
Anonima Poligrafica Italiana and presented by the Edizioni del Movimento
Italiano per la Federazione Europea (i.e. Publications of the Italian
Movement for the European Federation). This edition is based on
the 1944 edition which Spinelli stated was "the authentic and
precise text". Translated from the original Italian by Anthony
Baldry.
