Amadeo Bordiga
Amadeo Bordiga (
June 13,
1889 -
July 23,
1970) was a prominent
Italian Marxist and a key contributor to
Left Communist theory (see also
Council Communism).
Early life
Bordiga was born at
Resina, in the
province of Naples.
An opponent of the
Italian colonial war in
Libya, he was active in the
Italian Socialist Party (PSI), founding the
Karl Marx Circle in
1912. He rejected a
pedagogical approach to political work and developed a
"theory of the Party", whereby the organization was meant to display non-immediate goals, as a rally of similarly-minded people, and not a necessary body of the
working class. He was, however, deeply opposed to
representative democracy, which he associated with
bourgeois electoralism:
Thus if there is a complete negation of the theory of democratic action it is to be found in socialism. (
Il Socialista, 1914)
Therefore, he opposed the parliamentary faction of the Socialist Party being autonomous from central control. In common with most Socialists in
Latin countries, Bordiga campaigned against the
Freemasonry, which he identified with as a non-
secular group.
In the PCd'I
Following the
October Revolution, he rallied to the Communist movement and formed the Communist
Abstentionist faction within the Socialist Party.
Abstentionist in that it opposed participation in "bourgeois elections", the group would form, with the addition of the former
L'Ordine Nuovo grouping in
Turin around
Antonio Gramsci, the backbone of the
Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I) —founded at
Livorno in January
1921. This came after a long internal struggle in the PSI: it had voted as early as
1919 to affiliate to the
Comintern, but had refused to purge its reformist wing. In the course of the conflict, Bordiga had attended the 2nd Comintern Congress in 1920, where he had added 2 points to the 19 conditions of membership proposed by
Vladimir Lenin. Nevertheless, he was critisised by Lenin in his work
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
Bordiga was leader of the PCd'I until his arrest in 1923 (part of the political repression carried out by the
Fascist regime of
Benito Mussolini). After successfully defending himself at his trial, he nevertheless refused to rejoin the Executive Committee and, in
1924, refused to be named as the Vice President of the Party. He attended his last meeting of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in
1926, the same year in which he confronted
Soviet Union leader
Joseph Stalin face-to-face, accusing him of betraying the Revolution (calling Stalin "the gravedigger of the revolution"); he was the last person to do such a thing and survive. In
1930, he was expelled from the PCd'I for taking the defence of
Leon Trotsky.
Opposition
With his expulsion, Bordiga left political activity until
1944. He was to refuse to comment on political affairs even when asked by trusted friends. However, many of his former supporters in the PCd'I went into exile and founded a political tendency, often referred to as
Italian Left Communism. Bordiga would again work with many of these comrades following the end of
World War II.
After 1944, he first returned to political activity in the
Naples-based
Faction of Socialists and Communists. But, when this grouping was dissolved into the International Communist Party, Bordiga refused to join in. However, he did contribute anonymously to its press, primarily
Battaglia Comunista and
Prometeo, in keeping with his conviction that revolutionary work was collective in nature, and his opposition to any form of (even incipient)
personality cult.
When the ICP split in two in 1954, he took the side of the grouping that retained the name, publishing its
Il Programma Comunista. Only some time later did he formally become a member of what was known as the ICP(PC). On the theoretical level, Bordiga developed an understanding of the Soviet Union as a
capitalist society. In addition to this, he continued to view himself as a
Leninist, while he remained a constant critic of
Stalinism.
Amadeo Bordiga died at
Formia in
1970.
*
The International Library of the Communist Left - Bordiga Page*
Bordiga Archive at Marxists.org.
*
Archives of "Sinistra comunista 'italiana' " - Hundreds texts of Bordiga at "n+1" Review
*
Libertarian Communist Library Amadeo Bordiga archive*
Antagonism Bordiga Archive
