Chapter Seven
Six months of discussion, from May to October 1952, were taken up with the issue of analysing unitary imperialism. What was the real balance of power between America and Russia? And the centres of European imperialism, which displayed signs of an Atlantic split? And Japan, which had begun to hint at greater political independence from the USA?
How one analysed these questions carried serious political consequences. Only with a scientific notion of the ‘times and forces’ of imperialism could militants be provided with a solid frame of reference and safeguard themselves from disorientation and external influences. Washington was clearly stronger than Moscow: Europe’s priorities were different from those of the USA. This gave the lie to prospects of an imminent war, pushed Moscow towards a defensive policy of ‘detente’, and disclosed European groups with an interest in the markets of Eastern Europe. All this did not mean that Russia and Europe were any less imperialist than the USA.
The second half of 1952 was decisive for throwing light on the ‘Third Front’. In May Cervetto returned from Argentina: in his ‘Notebooks’ (1982) he makes it clear that his departure was organised hastily in view of the preparations that were underway for GAAP’s Second National Conference, which was to be held in Florence, with the date set for 1st June: the next day I was already on my way to make contact with the organisation again and to prepare for the conference in Florence
.
Six months of arm-wrestling
In his first letter143 to Cervetto, Masini declares himself surprised at such a hurry
it’s strange, since the connection with the imminent conference might seem obvious. The split in the Internationalist Communist Party had become public only a few weeks before, with the publication of correspondence between Amadeo Bordiga and Onorato Damen. Masini was sympathetic to Damen’s group, which he felt had a working-class base
, was engaged in a critique of Leninism, was solid against imperialism and not afraid to intervene
. In successive exchanges Cervetto agreed about Damen,144 and Masini145 anticipated future collaboration with Damen’s ‘Communist Struggle’ on the strength of a letter the group had written to GAAP’s National Committee. The idea was «to start collaborating on a III Front basis, a collaboration, let’s say, of a ‘Zimmerwald’ kind», thus confirming that the Third Front concept included the search for an initiative shared with other internationalist organisations, although the reference to Zimmerwald continues to hark back to a time when strategy was worked out in the context of imminent war.
In L’Impulso of 15th May, Masini’s editorial ‘Resolute’ sees the fallout from the international situation as putting the anarchist movement at risk of disorientation and betrayal
. Masini’s general scenario was still that war was rapidly advancing, signalled by a strengthening of the political-military Atlantic coalition
(which now included Greece and Turkey and was opening to Spain, and with Germany co-opted via the European Defence Community), by repression of the colonial area (Tunisia, Morocco, Malaysia and Indo-China), and by the ever more reactionary and aggressive attitude of governments in Great Britain, France, Italy and above all in the USA, where Eisenhower was likely to win the elections. Such exacerbation of the political situation, writes Masini, is frightening in that it faces militants not only with the advance of repression, but above all can create a reaction of surprise
at the unfolding of the logical, extremist and Fascist nature of American imperialism
. This surprise reaction could lead to disorientation and from thence to betrayal:
Betrayal could come from those surprised by the increasingly crushing pressures of American imperialism: those facing the organised and continual exercise of police, military and judicial violence, facing the ruthless elimination of every scrap of civil liberty, might unconsciously allow themselves to be pushed towards Stalinism.
According to Masini, those most vulnerable to such hasty psychological reactions
were not only the most emotional personalities, but most often those disappointed in the Western powers. Those who had hoped in Washington against Moscow were frightened now, but the real militant revolutionaries already knew just «how much potential Fascism was incorporated in the Western democracies», and «what sort of merciless class dictatorship was built into the regimes of the Atlantic Pact countries». Above all, militant revolutionaries know that imperialism is a unity, that the so-called ‘blocs’ complement each other even as they clash with each other – in fact, precisely because they clash with each other
.
The ‘betrayal’ myth
Cervetto’s response to Masini contains the first explicit treatment of the political and theoretical issues Cervetto intended to raise at the conference and which signalled a confrontation that was to last the rest of the year. Clearly, Cervetto was not satisfied with a bare declaration of the resoluteness principle, nor with repeated moralistic accusations of betrayal
which he felt were inadequate in facing both theoretically and politically the PCI’s rapid erosion of the anarchist sphere of influence. The disorientation to which Masini referred was indeed affecting GAAP directly: with their Turin group in crisis, the spotlight was on unresolved theoretical and political issues.
Of his experiences in Argentina, Cervetto wrote they did not change me, but thy allowed me to study better certain problems in all their aspects
: it had been almost entirely a year of meditation, re-reading going back to material I’d swallowed whole and never assimilated
. Now he was re-reading Lenin’s Imperialism, with his thoughts focused on the need for direction highlighted by the crisis of GAAP’s Turin group. Cervetto’s assessment was that the psychological disorientation that has attacked that group of militants was based on theoretical deficiencies
. It was certainly necessary to be resolute and intransigent in the Zimmerwald of imperialist war
, resolute in internationalist opposition, but a simple affirmation of principles was not enough: it was vital to have a theoretical base.
«You can’t settle all the theoretical problems imperialism raises by waving a Zimmerwald banner. You can’t justify your position by using slogans, or just by being sure you’re on the right road.
It’s detrimental to your thinking which becomes negative and mechanical: you risk falling into opportunism, which is frightened to raise problems, to study and discuss them. I believe we should strenuously avoid falling into such positions. I believe we should have the revolutionary courage to face the theoretical problems capitalism raises. If we’re solid in our political position, indepth theoretical investigation should give our militants clarity and even greater ‘resolution’. [The highlighting is the editor’s.] For example, I believe that US imperialism is taking the initiative in war, that it’s the world’s economic colossus opposing a Soviet bloc that’s economically its inferior by at least two-thirds. Why can’t we talk about this?»146
Perhaps the disorientation of the Turin group could have been contained by study, systematically sorted within our own organisation
and those comrades might have been brought back and set in the right direction:
«And if collective study should confirm what I think, would that invalidate the Zimmerwaldposition? Wouldn’t it rather armour it with theory, explaining all the insidious claims and problems we are witnessing today? If we were to accept that the USA is on a war footing we couldn’t then go on simply repeating the Zimmerwald-III Front slogan!»
Revolutionary theory had to be capable of sorting and separating society’s contradictions: the ‘imperialism is unitary’ declaration remains only a mechanical formula unless theory is capable of studying analysing detailing and ultimately exposing both the contradictions of such ‘unity’ and difference between the opposing sides
. Two opponents aren’t necessarily two equals: they may be for the purposes of propaganda, but they cannot be for theory
.
The need for theory
Cervetto concludes by postponing the issue to the national conference («remember we’ll be reconsidering this letter at Florence») and recalling a point from the Bordiga debate: These requirements I’ve mentioned were also dealt with in an article of Mafffi’s in Battaglia Comunista a few issues ago
.
This article was possibly ‘Totalitarianism: an Alliance between Capitalists and Opportunists’ (March 1952) which argues the need to analyse the historical evolution of opportunism
and its links with the forces of imperialism. The interest of the article lies in its definition of the USSR and Stalinism as a social-democratic
moment of unitary imperialism: although somewhat confused, the point seems to be the need to analyse Moscow’s political moves towards detente
while not ceasing to view the USSR as an imperialist power.
Here we may recall Cervetto’s note on the disorientation of the French Libertaire in relation to the ‘Third Front’. He was to express numerous reserves at the Florence conference, to the point of suggesting that the formula might be abandoned altogether. One of his arguments was that the new danger was orientalism
, i.e. inclination towards the USSR, whereas up till then the anarchist debate had been influenced rather by «westernism», or the propensity to lean towards the US in the cause of opposing the Stalinist USSR of the Spanish Civil War.
Cervetto saw this new veering towards the influence of the PCI and the USSR as a factor in the disorientation that had shaken the Turin group. Conversely, in the conceptual weaknesses of the FAF and its Libertaire, he saw an unconscious veering towards westernism
that contradicted Libertaire’s own declaration of principle on the Third Front. ‘Neither Truman nor Stalin’ had been the watchword since 1950, yet these developments showed that in the absence of theoretical depth and strategic analysis not only was it inadequate merely to go on reiterating internationalist principles, but that internationalism itself was thereby put at risk. It was a practical demonstration of Lenin’s principle: «Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement», which was to become the emblematic motto of Lotta Comunista.
As we have seen, Cervetto was to describe the first stage of the party’s history up to 1957 as the battle for internationalism
. During that period, what came out of all the debates on the timescales of the coming war
, on the internal dialectic of unitary imperialism, on the nature of the USSR and the rise of Europe – was that in the absence of a strategic analysis that could identify the specific features and dynamics of the various forces of imperialism, it was impossible to safeguard even the basic principle of internationalism. If a movement is incapable of tackling the difficult strategic and political issues arising out of the clashes between the imperialist powers, it ends up in the grip of forces with ideological and political influences that it has failed to understand.
The Second National Conference at Florence
At the beginning of June 1952 GAAP’s second national conference was held at Florence. Lorenzo Parodi’s speech appeared to take account of a number of critical observations (and not only from Cervetto) on the Third Front. Parodi pointed out that the Third Front initiative had not been taken at Pontedecimo, but after a referendum among all comrades: the French FAF had followed the same method, and their Paris and Lille congresses had arrived at the same decision. It had been a test of federated organisation
and had demonstrated that on a federal level the National Committee could take urgent decisions at any time
. The Second Conference now had the task of ratifying the decision and actions consequent upon it. It was an advantage of the initiative that it had directed activity towards a precise objective, thus avoiding the risk of a generic anti-militarism that could be confused with the pacifism of Stalinist currents. It had proved possible to strike at the «westernist» deviations within the international anarchist movement, and contacts had been facilitated both with anarchist movements abroad and with non-anarchist revolutionary movements in Italy.
The minutes of the second day of the conference records Cervetto’s request that the Third Front’ issue be clarified. The campaign must have a time limit: if it’s not successful we’ll have to think up new initiatives and methods
. As he had already communicated to Masini, Cervetto made a direct link between strategic analysis and consolidation of militants:
We have to examine the situation, analyse and explain it, and its not enough to say that the two blocs are the same: that would be simplistic, and doesn’t correspond to reality. The difference in wealth distribution between the two groups determines different dynamics. The war initiative is with the USA: the USSR is weaker and pursues a defensive polity of peace, of detente – it’s forced to do so. This doesn’t mean that the nature of the two blocs differs. They’re both imperialists, but are driven by economic reality to behave differently: if we explain how that comes about we can avoid becoming disorientated and making a distinction between the ‘natures’ of the two blocs. Only by explaining how their policies differ because of economic facts will be able to conclude by condemning both on the basis of reason rather than formulas. If all we say to the workers is ‘Neither Truman nor Stalin’, they won’t understand. If we explain to them the various modes of being of imperialism, they’ll grasp what we’re trying to get across.147 [Highlighting by the editor].
Masini replied that the USSR did appear to be hemmed in on all sides, but to break this «can only attack, will only attack», as in Korea. He seemed to agree with Cervetto on the need to analyse the USSR, to study the economic factors that evidence its imperialist nature. The basis of Cervetto’s reply was the nexus between tactics and strategy, between slogan and theoretical analysis:
Masini, I’ll have to say it again: we can’t play on the working class yearning for peace, which is basically a bourgeois yearning. I agree that we need to have slogans. We need to make ourselves understood by the working class, bat we mustn’t compromise on the revolutionary nature of 3rd Front, quite the opposite – we have to make this position a working-class position and translate it into the right political formulas in terms of the masses, of action and straggle. Bat we’ll only achieve this clarity if we can bring a new theoretical understanding to reinforce and sharpen the position of the revolutionary vanguard vis-à-vis the two imperialist blocs.
Back to the «little group» and anarchism
Subsequent letters, over June and July, partly explained the reasons for the disagreement and partly avoided it in planning a programme of activities. The most important was written by Masini immediately after the Florence conference, and expressed increased concern that Cervetto was allowing himself to be influenced by Marxism: «he should not lose [himself] in intellectual orgies»: guard against becoming infatuated with theory
but also against a continuing theoretical instability
. It was appropriate to concern oneself with historical materialism
but not with Marxism: the study of Marxist theoreticians must be accompanied by a critique of social democracy and Bolshevism, so that the organisation didn’t run the risk of «losing its autonomy». The value of theoretical work was not to be overestimated: «to be immune to opportunism it’s not necessary that a militant be encased in theory» the world is divided into the crooked and the honest
. Until there was a concrete prospect of a working-class movement, «the real, the solid path we must follow is anarchism»:
There are more than enough Marxist sects and splinter groups. If we want to keep our links with Italian tradition, if we want to claim a place in the Italian working-class movement and maintain our ties with the masses, if we want to be heard, if we want to establish relations with other countries, we can only do it within anarchism and with anarchism. Alternatively, we could just be little group with no substance, no power, no morale, easily isolated and condemned to inertia.148
It was a repeat of the 1950 debate, perhaps reinforced by Cervetto’s year out of Italy. But now Cervetto was further on in his knowledge of Marxist theory, and disagreement became focused on the connection between analysis of imperialism and the Third Front formula. On the latter, Masini rejected Cervetto’s reservations. It wasn’t just a transient rousing cliché
but a general call intended to stop any internal deviation, whether towards East or West
and externally to open up a new political prospect on the lines of Zimmerwald
. Therefore we should make contact with all who would put their revolutionary good faith to the test on the touchstone of opposition to the two imperialist blocs
. Unfortunately the Florence conference had not discussed the crisis in the Bordiga party, or Cucchi and Magnani’s MLI, or the PSI, but a lot of work could be carried out in Italy in resisting American imperialism and its rule over Italy
.
Cervetto’s reply recalled all the 1950 discussions. It was a duty of theoretical work
to deliberate the issues of imperialism, the State, and the social structure of the USSR: he didn’t believe this would cause a crisis
as might have happened two years previously. These issues needed to be dealt with, as was also demonstrated by the Bordiga-Damen debate, they would take time to resolve, but they should be confronted and studied:
I think we’re mature enough to study, if not to resolve these problems. That would be enough for me [...] As far as theory goes, I think our job is to define the problem as it exists in reality, now. Especially when this work on theory has immediate implications for political tactics. This was the sense Untended when I spoke of the USA having the war initiative and the USSR the peace initiative. This is the reality today.149
In a letter dated 4th June, Masini accused Cervetto of giving undue importance to theory and the training of cadres. The words used are revealing; Masini believed that cultural work
shouldn’t be given more importance than political work:
I believe that our organisation had reached a theoretical level without having the corresponding political development. There have been movements that have reached respectable political dimensions on the basis of modest theoretical assets, and have made history. Now, Pm not saying that our political and organisational growth should go beyond the limits of our theoretical stock, but I do say that in our work we must give both areas equal commitment (think, for example, about how many Italian workers we could attract to GAAP, if our theoretical level was matched by the same level of work to explain and spread our principles – I think a great many would come over to us.150
Cervetto replied that there was a dialectical relationship between quality and quantity in an organisation:
This is why I made a distinction between supporters and militants. The problem is this: + supporters = + militants = + cadres. Only by expanding can we find and train new cadres. We need to have this sort of view: 10 ordinary comrades can help to bring a cadre out of that very rich raw material, the working class. Although I acknowledge we could have done and could do more coal face work, I’m still pushing the theory problem, still considering it dialectically.151
Cervetto insisted that the risk of getting obsessed with theory, or destabilising theory «cannot be eliminated when a group falls into the dangerous practice of taking on stagnant and ultimately mechanical slogans». The distinction between the crooked and the honest belonged to the world of individualism
. Ernestan, one of the exponents of anarchism who had gone over to the western
tendency and supported the USA might be honest enough as far as that world of the crooked and the honest
was concerned but for a militant with working class morals he was crooked, because he was against the working class
.
The search for a scientific order
In a subsequent letter, Cervetto goes back to the key problem
of imperialism. Some points had originated from a discussion with Livio Maitan, though Cervetto’s opinion of Trotskyism was that it was very weak, not to mention nebulous
. He had also given careful attention to the debate between Bordiga and Damen in the pages of Prometeo, noting: «Some very interesting observations». «If I had to choose, I’d pick Bordiga». As long as I didn’t have to list positive and negative elements in each
. There were enormous problems that required analysis, and it wouldn’t be possible to resolve them definitively, but at least one could try for a scientific approximation:
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that today it’s not possible to objectively define imperialism as a unitary phenomenon, and especially to define the structure (or social nature) of the Soviet Union. When Marx wrote Capital the bourgeoisie’s economic revolution was already over (the Industrial Revolution came to an end in 1825, he started Capital in 1850. Lenin wrote Imperialism in a period of flourishing economic development (imperialism taken as beginning between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Today it’s totally impossible to define this new economic phase, presenting as it does so many new features and phenomena (’super-colkos’ ‘agrogorod’* etc) and which is spreading to new and larger areas (China etc). Still, we need to study the problem to get to even an approximate assessment. Approximation is a tool for working on theory, and above all for political direction. Working on theory is hard, and you need to equip yourself for it. But we shouldn’t be discouraged by our theoretical failings, nor should we fall back on mechanical slogans152. [The highlighting is the editor’s.]
An invaluable comment, in which may be glimpsed the germ of the scientific newspaper
and of the concept Cervetto would arrive at as to its use in relation to political struggle. His eventual claim that Lotta Comunista would be The Economist of the revolutionary movement was based not on mere presumption, but on the notion that if militants could have even slightly more information than their opponents, it would be an advantage. Here lay the importance of approximation as a tool for political direction: it could only be a partial result, but that partial result could help to equip militants.
A further decisive aspect was that scientific investigation was conceived as a plan, without anxiety about the size of the task. In a collective laboratory – today we could add ‘that has been in operation for generations’ – no small step forward is ever lost; every partial result remains a weapon for the political struggle.
«Order» is another term Cervetto frequently uses in referring to the connection between the work of theoretical investigation and the training of militants. In his letter of 7th June he mentions that there are major theoretical problems to deal with, but that
were calm, and in good order. It’s the harbinger of the party of scientific order Cervetto was to define in the 1980s, directing the work of the party towards recruiting the next generation of militants.The connection between theory and the consolidation of militants, the connection between strategy and tactics established through scientific study, even the issue of prioritising political activism over trade union activism is found again and again in various jottings: «we must study the course of imperialism in the years to come»153; Vinazza must remember
not to prioritise his trade union work over his political activism. Thereforefewer committeesand «more reading and studying for the members of GAAP.154
The Turin group crisis
The confrontation took on harsher tones towards the end of September. Cervetto had gone on a mission to report to the National Committee on the confusion and disorder in the Turin group. One of the group – a Piedmontese anarchist and trade unionist, who had fought in Spain and had taken part in founding GAAP in 1951, had left the Turin group and intended to join the PCI. Cervetto noted that this comrade hadn’t been attracted so much by Stalinism as by reformism
: he’s «a reformist who’s joining the PCI», but lessons needed to be learnt from his case. In a face-to-face discussion, Cervetto found that such issues as the State, revolutionary power and the dictatorship of the proletariat seemed to be «news» as far as this particular comrade was concerned, and the rest of GAAP’s political programme appeared to him as inadequate and limited to theoretical abstractions
. Cervetto’s conclusion was that lack of clarification and debate on such issues had contributed to theoretical weakness and disorientation
.
The same applied to other issues intertwined with that of the State, such as the nature of the USSR and opposition to imperialism. In the Turin group, noted Cervetto, a number of comrades expected that «within five years bread would be free in the USSR». «The National Committee knows my opinion on this, and how I have always posed openly and clearly the problem of the PCI, of the social nature of the USSR, of blocs, and of trends in imperialism». The organisation faced a new and alarming phenomenon the danger of orientalism
that was not limited to the Turin group.
We need to face this in the knowledge that its development is favoured by a specific political, economic and social situation in Italy and the world. I’ve repeatedly warned that we must get better at analysing the problems caused by imperialism, and now here’s one that’s directly affecting us. Let’s consider the USSR’s current position, its propaganda about building communism [in which the Turin group had apparently ‘hoped’ if not ‘believed, editor’s note], the poverty and unemployment in Italy. We cannot, therefore, confront the above problem in a mechanical or sectarian way. It’s not a question of intransigence, but of tactics. We have to face this danger with a more precise formulation of our ‘political line’ in relation to imperialism and opposition to it, the situation in Italy and the revolutionary struggle.155
The problem of European imperialism
In preparation for an extended National Committee meeting on 16th October 1952, there was an exchange of letters between Cervetto, Masini and Vinazza. The problem was no longer the USSR alone, but the need for a complete evaluation of unitary imperialism, the clash between Europe and the USA, and the deadlines for crisis and a new world war. Now the question of times was making itself more urgently felt: here was the seed of the analysis of a European imperialism that was distinct from the formal position of the two blocs.
In a letter dated 8th October, Cervetto asks for Masini’s opinion on Stalin’s Economic Issues of Socialism and Malenkov’s Report to the XIX USSR Communist Party Conference. Masini’s lengthy reply confirms his view that another war, on which the Third Front initiative had been based, was imminent. The sole aim of the Malenkov Report was to mobilise forces in the face of increasing tension between the two blocs. It was predictable: war is bearing down on us. Moscow was playing for time in order to gather its forces, but war was inevitable:
It won’t be long now [...] I don’t think the USSR will succeed in gaining much time, nor do I think any intermediary element (a social-democratic Europe, for example) will come into the game: American pressure will choke off any resistance, whether from Bevan or de Gaulle. In fact, European unification, which the Vatican supports, is one element of the American game.156
Only the working class could prevent war, but it was divided in its internationalist opposition by the existence of the Stalinist USSR. Masini believed that if the USSR hadn’t gone Stalinist, «today there would be the same conditions as in -»; but the ‘socialism in one country line’ could never identify with world revolution: sooner or later it would end in tragedy:
I think we’re very close. The world working class cannot but follow the path of independence from the war and the forces in conflict: a path of opposition to it. Already we can see the signs: the working class of the western world will fight against American imperialism, but it won’t fight for the USSR: an indication of this, even in its current imperfect form, is Bevan’s ‘Zimmerwaldian Right.
The USSR, Masini insisted, was forced to use the ideal of peace so the masses would fall in behind its war-chariot: «we revolutionaries can only be pleased that in order to carry out their schemes the enemies of the working class have been forced to make use of the self-same ideals of the working class». Facts would soon give them the lie but in the meantime they have to lend credibility to this flag they’re forced to fly
.
Furthermore, many of Malenkov’s statements confirmed that his was a propaganda document. As far as Malenkov was concerned, the Second World War had weakened imperialism, whereas in fact imperialism had been strengthened by the defeat of the working class. There had been no mass action against this world war, as there had been in the First. Malenkov «had produced a propaganda overestimation of the contradictions within the western imperialist capitalist bloc» – «a war between capitalist States was more likely than a war between the capitalist States bloc and the socialist States bloc». Such contradictions did exist, but were very weak and easily overcome: the bourgeoisies of Italy, Great Britain and Japan aren’t in the least bit worried about the situation of their own States and Malenkov contradicted himself by stating that enormous profits were being accumulated by British monopolists, and by the capitalist monopolists of France, Italy, Japan and other countries
.
In addition, Masini considered that Malenkov, still in propaganda mode, had overestimated the drive for independence among the colonised populations, which Masini saw as being contained within the limits of an imperialist readjustment crisis
. One only had to look at the economic and above all at the financial conditions
of the colonial possessions to conclude that aspirations towards independence would end by being satisfied «but within the framework of the Atlantic strategy»: «their current situation of colonial political subjection will turn into a new State of political subjection that will better correspond to imperialism’s level of development, and this will also change the role played by the presiding States of the former colonised world: France, Britain, the United States».157
The first reply, from Aldo Vinazza, was one of unequivocal disagreement:
It seems to me that on the contrary (I’ve had a lengthy discussion with Cervetto about this) the western bloc isn’t at all in a favourable situation (economically or psychologically) for any war any time soon. Nor do I think the USSR is in war mode. The clashes and contradictions within the western bloc are much deeper and more pronounced than as described in your letter.158
In support of his position, Vinazza quoted a long series of events, from the position of the Radical Party in France to the tensions between Labour currents in Britain, and above all the friction between the US and French governments, with Prime Minister Pinay’s rejection of American advice
. Then there was the economic crisis in Europe, the delegation of European industrialists on a visit to Moscow, general coldness towards Eisenhower’s call to liberate the countries oppressed by the USSR which has been opposed by all circles (government and others) in the USA and Europe
. Plus «Japan’s push towards increasing trade», Yoshida’s enthusiasm for America diminishing
, the failure of Belgium’s attempt to lengthen the term of obligatory military service, and a precarious world economic situation «in which the USA will be unable to continue indefinitely down the road of total rearmament». «The psychological offensive in favour of war has not caught on in the world» and in addition differences are appearing between the European powers and the USA:
I believe we’re heading towards a gradual separation between the European countries and America, especially on the economic level. It’s inconceivable that things can go on like this much longer. I think your interpretation of the international situation is too mechanical and that the recent fold peace’ formula is more appropriate to describe what the future situation is likely to be.
We’ll have an America no longer able to bind the western countries to itself (how can it resolve their problems while itself in a crisis spiral?) while as the media reports, the petty bourgeoisie of the western States will accept to do business with the Soviets (see the recent agreement for Great Britain to buy 5 million tons of cereals from the USSR). We may continue to have a (formal) political Atlantic Pact, with in reality (substantial) anti-Atlantic trade». [The highlighting is the editor’s.]
The final sentence laid out the notion – undeniably Cervetto’s, since it is to be found further developed in his mature work – that the relationship between political forms and economic tendencies is not automatic. Masini replied point by point: the key to the controversy was the effective dimensions of European resistance. Vinazza had cited both «cases of working-class reaction and cases of ineffectual bourgeois resistance»:
I stated only that the working class would oppose Atlantic policies: the bourgeoisie wouldn’t. So there’s no point quoting the latter as an example of the West’s lack of cohesion. We know that already: we’re counting on it, but we’re not counting on any bourgeois resistance. Think about Pinay – a gesture: about Daladier and Herriot — one flare-up and it’s over. The Stalinists are bound to exaggerate the importance of these gestures for the purposes of their propaganda. I think they count for very little in the face of the massive pressure from America (on this, see the stats on the economic and financial power of the USA in comparison with the European States). There will be no shortage of hesitations, doubts and uncertainties, but the American steamroller will crush them. The USA is so little worried about European resistance that they favour European union, which could be a union of that resistance, if there was enough of it.159 [The highlighting is the editor’s.]
Masini was weak in dialectic, as can be seen by comparison with Vinazza’s key theories, clearly inspired by Cervetto. The latter contained the notion of the transformation of Euro-Atlantic relations, which any concept not based on dialectic cannot grasp, and which Cervetto was to develop in the early 1970s. It was the embryonic heart of the theories on the true partition and on European imperialism.
Masini saw only one side: the tactic of calculated ambivalence with which the United States went along with European integration so long as it did not threaten the Atlantic relationship, only to move to block it when it acquired strategic independence. Even on the issue of war psychology
raised by Vinazza, Masini saw saw the American party making progress: The traditional nationalist movements, which should place themselves in the vanguard of resistance, are today the vanguard of the Atlantic Alliance. He held the same view on a political level: within parliament, the pro-American groups were stronger
.
In terms of the economic crisis, which in Vinazza’s theory would prevent the USA from keeping Europe tied to it, Masini continued to reject that the powers of the Old Continent had any margins of autonomy:
The economic crisis? I don’t see it, in spite of rearmament. American imperialism has potential for development right up to the point of war. You say “I believe we’re heading towards a gradual separation between the European countries and America, especially on the economic level”. I see no sign of this. France is tied to America by its colonial policy [...] Germany because it wants to take over the Eastern European countries, even Poland. Austria – much the same, Italy in terms of recovering Trieste, and Spain for tacit support. And its Commonwealth binds Britain to a defensive policy in the Pacific, while the defence of its metropolises relies on the Atlantic Pact. Im not talking here of these countries’ ‘irredeemable’ subjection on the economic plane. You think that America can’t keep going down the rearmament road. I think that unfortunately America can only keep going down the rearmament road. This is the tragedy of capitalism.
In relation to the USSR, Masini turned Cervetto’s urgings as to the need for analysis into expressions of «hesitations and uncertainties»:
In my opinion the USSR and the USA constitute a single bloc: imperialism. You say this opinion is mechanical, trivial and simplistic. Right now Im working on documents from the PC (b) Congress, and every thing I read confirms my views. Certainly, what’s lacking is work on an organic theory of imperialism as it has taken shape after the Second Imperialist World War for example, like Lenin’s study just before the First). Its lacking and this lack leads to hesitations and uncertainties. We have to fill this gap. For my pari, I’ve already begun to take notes. Its possible to find some material here and there. But its not a case of discovering new theories: its a case of demonstrating a theory, finding more and more material to support it: the theory of working class autonomy in the face of the conflict between Moscow and Washington.
Probing further into the USSR issue via Malenkov’s report and Stalin’s writings, Cervetto was struck by extraordinary statistics on Russia’s growth rate (13%). He arranged to study this further along with other comrades, but the overall picture remained clear: the USSR was two-thirds weaker than the USA, which determined its specific policy. Analysing this did not affect the general assessment of the imperialist nature of the USSR: on the contrary, it allowed the issue to be grounded in reality, which in turn helped to direct militants.
There were to be further developments on the question of the USSR’s rate of growth. In -, when the USSR imploded under the pressure of the world economic cycle, Cervetto was sceptical of the theory that Togliatti, as a ‘prisoner of the Russian party’ had been playing a double game all along. After all, Togliatti could have followed the Yugoslavian model, presenting himself as a possibly heretical but ‘nationalist’ communist, without being much damaged by any Russian Fronde.
After all Herbert Wehner, part of the Internationale Secretariat along with Togliatti, recycled himself into German social democracy. In Cervetto’s opinion, if Togliatti hadn’t done the same it was because he had made a genuine but mistaken assessment of the imperialist cycle: he believed the USSR would grow faster than the West. Not well-versed in economics – with the soul of a lawyer and public prosecutor for Stalinism, in the caustic words of Trotsky160 – Togliatti had been deceived by the acclaimed but exceptional growth rates of the 1950s.
In these considerations, in 1952, we see Cervetto assessing the USSR as inferior to the USA by two-thirds, while puzzling over its very high rates of growth. Less well-developed, and therefore less clear, are his reflections on the USSR as a «social democratic factor161». a recent part of the theory of social democracy as created to restrain working-class movements. Cervetto’s mature work would leave this reading aside in favour of social democracy as the «working-class bourgeois party», using its influence on the upper strata of the working class in the struggle among its fractions. In terms of the Italian metropolis of the time, this was Stalinist maximalism as substituting for European social democracy.
Masini, far more than Cervetto, was trapped by an already invalidated maximalism. For Masini, the «world working class cannot but follow the path of independence from the war», but it was hard to understand why, given the way the working class had been used in the Second World War, and given how it had meekly submitted to Yalta, with its lethal myth of Russia’s false socialism.
According to Masini, faced with a war the working class would fight against the USA but not for the USSR, as demonstrated by Bevan’s Zimmerwaldian Right
. Masini takes Vinazza – and by implication Cervetto – to task for seeing a mix of working-class and bourgeois forces in the European resistance to the USA, but this demonstrates that Cervetto had no illusions regarding the class position and levels of internationalism of the various Labour and social democratic left wings. Finally, Masini seemed to think Cervetto was influenced by Damen’s theories: as we shall see, this was only one factor in Cervetto’s thinking, but Masini seemed to find it more convenient to treat it as orientalism
.
Open disagreement
The differences between Cervetto and Masini became open disagreement at an extended meeting of the National Committee at Nervi on 26th October 1952. To a Turin comrade who had written requesting information, Vinazza replied along the same lines as in his letter to Masini, and on issues such as European anti-Atlanticism and the significance of Stalin’s Economic Questions of Socialism, even more explicitly. The overall significance of the letter was to mark the disagreement
between Cervetto and Masini on the issues of timescales and war. By now Cervetto had excluded the possibility of an imminent conflict: Masini considered it inevitable and originating from the USSR precisely because it was the weaker.
In 1968, writing on the true partition
between the USA and the USSR162, Cervetto listed various hypotheses on the circumstances in which the USSR might be the prime mover in a war, arguing that the very weakness of the USSR excluded conflict. War is possible if the contenders have comparable strength, not when there is such a marked disproportion of forces. But above all the strategic framework within which the true partition
should be viewed must include a scientific understanding of the role played by European imperialism. The USA and the USSR converged in their desire to contain European imperialism, thus invalidating the theory that either would have an interest in moving towards war. Having developed the tools necessary to understanding the power balance, the analysis could then be stripped of all the doubts and ideological elements that were around in 1952, such as ‘psychology of the masses’ and the ‘popular drive for peace’ of which it was said Stalin was forced to take account.
Vinazza’s letter contains a reference to a two-hour contribution of Cervetto’s to the National Committee, which appears to clarify the logical connections:
«Cervetto holds that:
Contrary to appearances, the imperialist West is not totally homogeneous. It’s true that a ‘network of interests’ exists among the big business groups of the various nations (eg. there are ties between Fiat and Ford, as between all of the West’s car manufacturing industry) but it’s also true that there are those who aren’t part of this network, who remain outside of this ‘shared’ dividing up of monopoly profit: large sectors of the petty, middle and even a part of the grand bourgeoisie – the industrialists who went to Moscow, who want to trade with China and with the People’s Democracies. You couldn’t say that those who are excluded are very fond of a West that puts them in crisis, that favours the monopolies to the point of threatening them with bankruptcy (this is a law of capitalism, but it’s also a law that those under threat resist, become obstinate and reject the superiority of the Western way. All this has nothing to do with ideology, whether Eastern or Western: it’s all about material interests».163
Reflecting the debates of the time, the use of terminology is still imprecise, but the concept is clear: a plurality of business groups exists: it’s not just a case of ‘American monopolies’. Contrary to previous formulations, here it’s stated clearly that even ‘grand bourgeoisie’ groups are breaking away from the USA and seeking a relationship with Moscow. This observation is extended to the political, and defines as bourgeois those political forces that Masini saw as separate from the bourgeoisie and constituting a «Zimmerwald Right». Here, in embryonic form, is Cervetto’s 1968 observation on the «true partition»: in the absence of a concept of European imperialism, the revolutionary party lacked both strategy and tactics. It highlights the accurate assessment of Bevan’s Labour Left, and of the currents Masini believed were signs of working-class rejection of war and a move towards a new Zimmerwald: in addition to the Labour Left, the MLI and the left-wing of the SPD, when many of these were already potential recruits to the future autonomist current of the PSI. Cervetto saw these as bourgeois parties; his formula was as yet incomplete, but he was able to grasp their nature because he could differentiate between European and American big business groups. If there were European big business groups whose interests diverged from the interests of the USA, there would also exist the expression of this in terms of political forces. Masini, on the other hand, was dreaming of Zimmerwald and gathering together the nascent currents of European imperialism.
Vinazza’s letter continues with his report on Cervetto’s contribution:
Politically, this resistance turns into the bomb Herriot and Daladier dropped at the congress of the French radicals, condemning German rearmament and the Atlantic Pact because it didn’t offer sufficient guarantees. It turns into the economic nationalism that’s developing in the Japanese bourgeoisie, who want access to Chinese markets again, into Italian economic nationalism. Nitti, Labriola, Molé, etc — what are they but the representatives of that part of the Italian bourgeoisie that’s outside the network of interests?
Not to mention the left wing tendencies of German and British social democracy: if it’s true that they represent the workers, it’s also true that in certain sectors they represent the petty and middle bourgeoisie.
As for Moscow: We know that the USSR is economically weaker, so we know that objectively the USSR has no interests in starting a war
.
In fact, Masini’s theories were all based on a war starting.
Vinazza writes of this:
On the international problem, he doesn’t believe what Cervetto says.
He thinks that American pressure will eliminate any differences and will keep the colonial bourgeoisies happy while keeping them under its heel. He thinks that resistance from certain bourgeois sectors is all in the game.
Regarding the USSR he thinks that although the USSR doesn’t want a war, it will be forced to act to break out of its straitjacket (Korea, where the USSR as the weaker has sought a response to American pressure, is an example). He does think that
America has the initiative as far as war goes, but he believes that the USSR, just because it’s the weaker, will fight against being suffocated (which is what American military bases all over the world amounts to).
At the congress* everything was reduced to the Soviet attempt to recreate a 1917 environment.
After a few weeks’ silence, this clash ended as had that on the State: study Marxism. An explicit exchange of letters took place at the beginning of December. Masini wrote that there was a danger of dogmatism: Scattoni wanted a debate on the nexus between theory and practice – comrades should be engaged in practical activity in order to avoid these fixations
.
* The XIX Congress of the USSR Communist Party, to which Malenkov's report was presented.
«I don’t know of any anarchist economists»
Around a month of silence: then, in December 1952, Cervetto wrote that he was studying political economy: Rosa Luxemburg, Sweezy’s ‘Theory of Capitalist Development’. He mocks: I’ll write it all up: «of course I’ll be writing about Marx and Lenin and openly supporting their theories». «In political economy, more than in any other branch of study, Marxist economics is the only way. Anyway, I don’t know of any anarchist economists.
On the problems debated, he adds that I thought it best to put them away, in order to take them up again in the future
. It was better to leave these issues unsolved and study – political, Italian, American economy – which with time could contribute to a solution. The intention to avoid tensions comes across clearly. Cervetto declares himself to be more circumspect
, having changed his opinion on some details. However: «By this I don’t mean that I’ve abandoned what I stated at Nervi. By and large, I still maintain the theory I set out then».164