Thirty years after the death of Arrigo Cervetto, we are publishing here the concluding passages of the introduction to his Opere Scelte (“Selected Works”) for the series Biblioteca Giovani (“Publications for young people”), soon to be published in Italian.
The 1944-45 partisan war in Italy. The political battle within libertarian communism. The Korean War, and the watchword of “neither Washington nor Moscow”. The layoffs at the Ilva and Ansaldo factories, the political battle and trade union defence in the struggles of post-war restructuring. From 1953 onwards, the crisis of Stalinism, the 1956 Suez crisis, the Hungarian uprising, the 1957 Theses and the challenge of theory and strategy vis-à-vis the tendencies of unitary imperialism. The political struggle within Azione Comunista (“Communist Action”) and the Movimento della Sinistra Comunista (“Movement of the Communist Left”). From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the internationalist battle over anti-colonial revolutions and the conflicts involving young capitalisms: the Algerian War, the Indochina Wars, and the Arab-Israeli Wars. The crisis between China and the USSR throughout the 1960s; the opposition to Maoism and to the Third-Worldist or Castroist ideologies of underdevelopment. The battle against the European Common Market and European imperialism, the “third bloc” of unitary imperialism.
Also in the 1960s, the political battle within the early struggles of workers’ spontaneity, guided by the study of the “American script” applied to Italian development. The 1968 invasion of Prague and the cracking of the Yalta equilibrium; the scientific achievement of the “true partition” between the US and the USSR. The Leninist tactic within the crisis in higher education and the battle over the prospects for trade unionism, with the workers’ wage struggle on the offensive. The 1973 oil crisis and the restructuring crisis. The “orderly retreat” in the transition to defensive class struggles and the “general task” of our organisation; the battles of Genoa and Milan against Stalinism’s campaign of slanders. The battle of Turin in 1980, amidst the restructuring of the car industry. The invasion of Afghanistan and martial law in Poland, the internationalist battle in the “new contention” of the 1980s, with the decline of the two superpowers and the rise of Europe and Japan.
The political and organisational battle against the backdrop of social change; the articles “Technician-producers” and “A Party of Scientific Order” for the political work on the new generations. The internationalist battle over the end of Yalta, with the implosion of the USSR, German reunification, and the Gulf War, the irruption of Asia and China, a change of course in global development comparable to the one in the 16th century.
These twenty battles of Arrigo Cervetto, made up of dozens of other theoretical, political, and organisational combats, form the plot of the Opere Scelte. What ties them all together is his political career as a revolutionary leader and, above all, his strategic thinking, which combines the times of capitalist development and an evaluation of its contradictions in the form of crises, wars, and in the struggles between classes and States.
The question is: why should a young person be interested in a political figure from the last century and in writings that date back 30, 50, or 75 years? Two answers. The first is more general. The Opere Scelte by Cervetto for the Biblioteca Giovani follow the volumes dedicated to Marx and Engels and to Lenin. They chart three cycles of revolutionary strategy. Marx and Engels founded political science during the 19th century of national revolutions and the bourgeoisie’s rise to power; Lenin updated the theory and strategy for the era of imperialism; Cervetto restored and advanced the theory of Marx and Lenin on imperialist development and on the State and the party. His specific contribution is to have demonstrated that the Bolshevik model of a party could be established in a metropolis at the maturity of imperialism, and to have developed analysis and theory needed to act in this mature phase. This is the “unprecedented task”, the establishment of a European Leninism, with an obvious clarification: while it is by historical chance that the Bolshevik model was developed in Europe through a battle against European imperialism, it is by virtue of this entrenchment that such experience can now reach out to young people and proletarians all over the world.
The second answer is more specific, and concerns the battles faced in the 30 years since Cervetto’s death. There is no battle in which we have not drawn strength from past theoretical and political experience; if Lenin consulted with Marx and Engels, and Cervetto consulted with Lenin as well as the two founding fathers of Marxist science, it has been our rule in the last three decades to consult with Cervetto, Lenin, and Marx and Engels.
The Yalta Conference is 80 years old, and so is the fight of the GAAP (“Anarchist Groups of Proletarian Action”) against the ideologies of that imperialist partition, under the watch-word of “neither Washington nor Moscow”. The scientific discovery of the “true partition” — the convergence of the US and the USSR against European imperialism — is almost 60 years old. Yet, even a glance at newspapers and television reports on the last act of the war in Ukraine is enough to realise how vital that scientific legacy is for understanding the current battle for influence on Europe, with its past similarities and differences.
The 1957 Theses are almost 70 years old. Their strategic cycle ended with the irruption of imperialist China from what was then the “backward area” of the world market, but their conceptual framework remains indispensable for understanding how imperialist development has led to a crisis in the world order.
Scientific analysis and internationalist battles over the imperialist world war — Cervetto’s first political experience — over national anti-colonial wars, the wars of the new contention, and the wars of the break-up of the USSR, have marked half a century of science and struggle, and allow us today to face the wars of the crisis in the world order.
The reflection on the “general task”, the organisational link that allows us to face every crisis and every unpredictable complication, is 50 years old, and has been the key to transforming the crisis of the pandemic of the century into the battle for a new cycle of development of the party.
The first studies on demographic trends towards a falling birth rate are almost 50 years old, and the analysis of the social change of late imperialist maturity, from the multi-income family to the stratifications of white-collar and technical workers, started 40 years ago. The ruling class today is coming to terms with its shortsightedness in the face of the demographic winter, which is creating huge labour shortages.
The deep theoretical analysis of imperialist democracy is 45 years old, as is the beginning of the reflection on monetary power. These have been the basis for comprehending the plurality of powers of European imperialism and its core in the euro federation, just as they form the conceptual grid for understanding imperialist democracy in China.
There are many further examples: the analyses of the Italian political imbalance, the European political cycle and the American one, and the analysis of uneven development and the balance of power, all framed by delving into the Marxist theory of international relations.
There’s no doubt about it. For any young person with “a taste for understanding, a taste for fighting” these pages are essential reading.
Lotta Comunista, February 2025