Manifesto to the Socialists and the people of Italy and program of the Italian anarchist socialist party : Resolutions of the Italian Socialist Congress of Capolago

The Congress of Capolago.

To the Socialists and the people of Italy.

Old and yet new is the story of the popular miseries. Slave, servant or wage-earner, the people has always worked for others, has always been the beast of burden or slaughter of a privileged few. The uprisings have succeeded the uprisings, the social institutions have changed, the form of denomination has changed, some minimal fractions of the people have succeeded in emancipating themselves and being welcomed among the ruling classes; but the conditions of the mass have always remained essentially the same. Made tool of production to the advantage of others, it always remained subject to the conditions of production; and its position in the material and the moral followed the vicissitudes of the ways of production, and is lowered or raised depending on the year of production favored or hindered its development, and requiring more or less intelligence or automation.

A radical and lasting remedy to the misery of the worker could not be found, since its causes were ignored.

But little by little, experience fallacious all the ways of emancipation so far attempted, had glimpsed the real source of social ills, and came from the very bosom of the people, helped by thinkers fair, a new concept by pointing to the causes of misery and subjection and the means to eliminate them. he enlightened the whole field of social struggle with new light.

The present society is the consequence of the struggles between man and Man and between people and people, which have plagued the life of humanity from the very beginning. Those who in these struggles brought him victory, and took of the earth, and how much more they could of natural wealth and forced others to work for them; and, taking the direction of all social relations, them to govern according to their interests, and forces all organized and disciplinarono to the guarantee and defense of their own domination.

Thus the victory that at the beginning was due to inequality and natural accidents, was fixed by the social institutions in the descendants of the primitive victors.

Sometimes the power of a class of denominators was defeated; but, always lasting the struggle between men, the new victors replaced the Ancients and the people had only changed their masters.

The principle of solidarity, according to which the good of one is the good of all or the good of all is the good of each.

And just as the struggle had necessarily led to the hoarding of wealth and power for the benefit of the few, so Solidarity had to find its expression and its possibility in common property and power to all.

No longer profit or domination of man over Man. The aim of society is to ensure the greatest possible prosperity and freedom for each of its members.

This is Socialism, the great hope, the great promise of civilization. For socialism or against socialism we fight all the battles of today, for all those who understand the time in which they live.

Socialists of Italy

Solemn is the present time.

The conditions of the people, miserable always, become more intolerable every day. Bourgeois society, beaten to death by the fatal evolution of its institutions, trembles and wavers despite its lies and murderous bayonets. Emancipatory ideas shake and enlighten the conscience of the oppressed, and a tremor of revolt agitates the proletariat from one end of the Civil world to the other.

A great revolution is imminent. All the feel, all now confess; and in the meantime, the socialists, from whose action will depend on whether the next revolution will mark the end of misery and oppression, or will be a useless shedding of blood, only good to change the form of domination under which people lie, they were in Italy, completely unorganized, and therefore unable to hear the influence that pertains to them, and for their number and for their energy and for the value and the flow rate emancipatrice of their program.

The organization of the scattered forces of Italian socialism was necessary and urgent in the face of the precipitations of events. And the need was so felt that at the same time the proposal for a Congress, from which the initiative of the desired organization had to come, came out from many groups.

But a first difficulty arose at the initiators of the Congress.

The Socialists of Italy, for many years, were divided into two hostile fractions.

On one hand there were the anarchists, with their anti-owner and anti-government, of course, anti-parliamentary and revolutionary, who boasted of being always remained faithful to the socialist agenda, never to have transatto with the bourgeoisie, and have always rejected such methods of struggle tend to inspire in the people a faith in an illusion in bourgeois institutions, and in their peaceful evolution,

On the other hand there were the so-called legalitarians, that is, those who take part in the struggles of the elections and the parliamentarians, and between these it was necessary to distinguish a whole series of gradations that ranged from those that in the elections they see a simple means of agitation and socialist propaganda, and even those that prostitute themselves to all political parties, for the hope to cadge a seat in parliament, and his place in the midst of the bourgeoisie.

Should the Congress understand only anarchists or bring together all those who, rightly or wrongly, call themselves socialists?

It was clear that among the anarchists, who propose violent revolution for the victory of the whole socialist agenda, and those of the revolution are considered enemies and make socialism a simple weapon electoral, there was no possibility of agreement, because there was no common ground of action.

However, as the result of a few who really take advantage of the socialism to make their way in the midst of the bourgeoisie, there is a large mass of workers genuinely revolutionary, which are deceived and believe in good faith to serve the cause in ways that anarchists consider to be fatal to socialism and the revolution, it was useful before the organization of the party, to meet and discuss to see what were the disagreements that you actually responded to differences of ideas, and what of those who depended only from the misunderstandings and mutual ignorance of men and things.

For this, the anarchists promoters and organizers of the Congress headed the invitation to all the socialists of Italy without distinction of method or school.

They did not wish to see confused in one party men who have different tendencies and purposes; but they wanted to put an end to the misunderstandings and that everyone should clearly state his ideas and intentions. Irreconcilable differences would remain, the different schools would have retained their character; but it would be seen who wants to and who is not a complete break with the bourgeois parties, who want to and who is not violent revolution. It would have been possible to see which ways are compatible with the Revolutionary end, and if it is possible, and to what extent, to reach an agreement between those who, even having the socialist ideal as their guide, go along different paths to achieve it. A wide-ranging, frank discussion, conducted in contradiction between those who are most engaged in one way or another and over whom responsibilities are most burdened, could only benefit the truth and those who sincerely seek the truth.

After this, everyone would have understood or organized with those who had the same program and the same intentions.

But the legalitarians, already at Ravenna, had shown, with the exclusion of the anarchists, that they urged the more the electoral concerns that those of Socialism, after you have used unnecessarily, the most petty maneuvers for not making a successful Congress, abstained, less a few honorable exceptions, from participating, and especially not those who, when he captained the movement legalitarianso and profittandone personally with the be appoint deputies, most of them had the duty to come to explain their conduct.

Before this attitude, not only to the anarchists who take note of the fact, additarne to his companions the meaning, and proceed with the constitution of the Socialist-anarchist-revolutionary.

Reaffirm, therefore, the fundamental bases of the program of the socialist-anarchist — abolition of private property, abolition of the State, violent revolution — the Congress declared, constituted the Party , or formulated the criteria with which the party deals with the various issues that this time needed his attention.

Comrades anarchists, examine the resolutions we have taken and we come to submit to you. And if will seem that we have been faithful to the program and that we are rightly inspired by the needs of the struggle that we must fight; if you believe that the usefulness, the necessity of union and cooperation on the harmony of all in the common work, in a hurry to do acceptance of our proposals, and go to work because the life of the party be the life of active and fruitful of results.

And you the socialists of other schools, that while following the streets we considered to be wicked, kept alive in the soul, the worship of the socialist ideal and quiver of impatience waiting for the revolution, the redeeming work that must put an end to the miseries and humiliations of the human, you listen to our words, which are words of socialists and revolutionaries.

The struggle between anarchists and legalitarians has been made concrete and expressed mainly on the question of the participation in the political and administrative elections. This narrowing of the question has had its reason to be, because in reality the elections were the cause and the occasion for which it is a part of the socialists are placed on the slope of the transactions and of the abdication, and remain, the great means with which the bourgeoisie tries, and not always in vain, to lure and corrupt the revolutionary movement.

However, we must not forget that behind the question of the ballot box, it hides a far more important question, far more general, that of the integrity of the socialist program, and the separation between the socialists and the bourgeoisie, between the revolutionaries and the reformers.

Masked opponents and misguided or misguided friends have tried to divide socialism into a thousand small quistionelles, which, taken separately, do not matter, nor do they have the possibility of an effective solution. They seek to raise in the minds of the proletarians in the hope deceiver of the solution gradually to the social issue through a series of reforms obtained through the cooperation of a part of the bourgeoisie. Do not follow them on that path, which is the path of cowardly abdication, of cowardly devotion to the bourgeois parties disguised as friends of the people.

Everything is closely linked in society. The social question is one and must be resolved entirely and by action of the people — or not solved.

The Socialism or the emancipation of the integral of man, the abolition of all profit, and of every domain of man over man, or is it also a means to lull the people with the hope vane's reforms, which would only benefit old and New Dominators.

Individual property and government are two aspects of the same thing, of the exploitation of Man by man. Not to abolish one without abolishing the other; and the one and the other does not abolish, if not to the middle of the revolution made by the people against all the owners, against all the politicians, against all the bourgeois of any color.

Non-anarchist socialists, we do not ask you to sacrifice your convictions until you are convinced of your mistake. But if you are really socialists, do not make transactions with the bourgeoisie, do not make yourselves an instrument of the ambition and vanity of anyone, do not let yourselves be fixed by the chariot of political parties. Once the bourgeoisie, which has an interest in dividing us, has been removed from the midst of the ambitious exploits of us, the artificial differences will soon disappear and the Socialist Party as one is true socialism will be one.

Think, comrades, of what we have told you. It is a question of saving socialism,of sparing humanity New deceits and New subjection.

People of Italy

You don't need to enumerate your pain. You hear them, and you see them, and you tremble to flee from poverty, which from year to year, from day to day becomes more grievous.

Hurry to the rescue; do not let yourself starve to the point where you no longer have the strength to turn.

You believed in the priests and hoped for God; but God was deaf to your prayers and the priests allied themselves with your masters and gained weight behind you. You believed in the Patriots; you fought to conquer a homeland, and the country evicted you, hungry, humiliated. You believed in freedom; for freedom you conspired and fought and freedom proved bitter irony, which only leaves you free to starve. You believed and still believe in charlatans who, under the pretext of doing your good, ask you to support your vote or your arm; and The Charlatans make a stool of you and go up to the top oppress you, irritate you, exploit you.

If you want to be free, if you want to enjoy the fruits of your sweat, if you want to live a life worthy of men, count only on your own strength. People who live on your job can't be friends with you.

You suffer hunger and cold because you have nothing, and you must beg the labor of those who have taken over the land and capital, and suffer the harsh conditions. Take the land and the capital, which belongs to everyone, and work on your own.

You are a slave because few privileged people have made themselves Government and impose their will on you. Hunt down the government and provide for your own interests.

A hundred times you saw your masters and governments tremble; but you always fell into bondage, either because you were an instrument of others, or because you were victorious, and hastened to submit yourself to new masters, and put back the chains used.

Once again, turn from you and on your own. Take over the government; take possession of the land, houses, machinery, food, everything that exists, and organize production and consumption by yourself for the greater benefit of all. Above all, do not renounce in the hands of anyone the freedom you have conquered.

We don't ask you to rely on us. I give birth to you, oppressed and hungry workers ourselves, we claim our place of battle among you.

Together with you we want to conquer for us and for all the bread and freedom that we lack.

PROGRAM OF THE ITALIAN FEDERATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHIST SOCIALIST PARTY

PRINCIPLE

1. Expropriation of individual property.

2. The abolition of all political orders, because the cause and source of privilege, of inequality c of exploitation and economic — and specifically the abolition of the centralization of the political-administrative bureaucracy of parliamentary representation, power, financial and military, in a word, the abolition of the Government and of the State.

3. Organization of the production of the consumption in common through the Workers ' Associations United together by free pact, and Federated these associations among themselves according to the needs of common needs.

TRANSPORTATION

1. Propaganda in every form.

2. Participate in all the unrest, and to all of the workers ' movement with the purpose to propagate their principles and push the masses to their implementation; and result in the translation into practice of all the aspirations of popular revolutionary, that is radically adverse to the current state of things; inspired by always in propaganda and in action to the principles of socialism, namely, the raising of popular consciousness, and the pooling of wealth for the well-being and for the freedom of all.

3. Revolutionary own initiative.

It is also called upon to organize the unemployed workers, to spread in every way and on every occasion among the masses ideas of revolt, and, if possible, to lead the people to the Social Revolution.

ORGANIZATION

The Congress, considered that, beyond the tasks to which the individual initiative is sufficient, there are those that demand the participation of several individuals and common means; and considering that the general revolution needs the participation of all the revolutionary anarchist forces organized and agreed, approves the following:

ORGANIZATION SCHEME

1. It is constituted the revolutionary anarchist socialist party — Italian Federation.

2. The organization is composed of all adherent groups and individuals, who aim to cooperate in the implementation of the principles proclaimed above by the means indicated above.

3. The groups in each region shall appoint a correspondence Commission, which shall be kept in constant contact with the Commissions of the other regions, the isolated groups or individuals in those regions, where there was no correspondence Commission.

4. Each group shall bear the costs of the Regional Commission for a share to be determined by it.

5. the groups are autonomous. The regional committees do not interfere in the internal affairs of the groups.

6. The regional correspondence commissions are intended to promote the extension of the party in regions lacking a correspondence Commission and to connect with the anarchist socialist parties of other countries.

7. At the request of one or more groups, the regional correspondence Commission shall forward its proposals to the other groups or committees; however, the deliberations taken do not bind only those who have accepted them.

RESOLUTION

of the General Congress of Capolago

I. participation in elections

a) the Congress, recognizing that the Revolutionary Socialist Party can only benefit from the electoral struggles, that of propaganda, and that this advantage is better achieved by advocating abstention in the ballot box;

considering that the participation in the election of legislators and administrators serves to increase strength and prestige to the government, contradicts anarchist socialist principles, causes a squander of useful forces and activities and fosters discord and corruption among party members;

It decides on the abstention, and invite the companions to make anti-parliamentary socialist propaganda during the struggles and electoral organizing, the strike of the urn; and to enlighten the masses of workers on the inanità of riformette legislative devised for cullarle in the false hope of the improvement of the rest partial and ephemeral, and stornarle from large claims, and by the revolution, and only those can be achieved.

(They approve all the members of the Congress, except the representatives of the Socialist Workers ' beam of Cesena and surroundings, the socialist beam of Savignavo, Sogliano and their respective districts, and two non-representative members. They vote for the following statement::

"The Congress, recognizing that the socialist revolutionary party can draw no more direct profit from the electoral struggles than that of propaganda, leaves various groups free to conduct themselves according to local circumstances. »

(The Socialist Federation of Bologna abstains.)

II. On relations with socialist revolutionaries who have so far participated in the elections

The Congress, still remaining the declared principles:

— wanting to take a step in the via della conciliazione and the meeting of all the forces socialist revolutionary; — and considering that for this time, the moral damage and material of the competition of the socialists at the polls is already completed; proposes to the socialist revolutionaries, who have so far participated in the elections, to invite the socialist members not to take part in the work of the legislative Chamber, and make use only of the booklet rail to make propaganda genuinely socialist; in case of refusal, sconfessarli and definitively abandon the struggles of the elections.

If they are truly socialists, they will either completely give up their mandate or return to fighting for the revolution in the midst of the revolution.

(Approved by all members of Congress, minus one member representing no association, and two abstentions. The representatives of the beam of Cesena, Savignano, Sogliano and districts Reserve).

III. On relations with the Republicans and with the irredentists

With regard to relations with the other parties, the Congress decides :

(a) with regard to irreversibility,

that no agreement or cooperation is possible with this party, which has for its purpose to enlarge the circle of the territory of the State to the advantage of the Italian middle class and the antagonism of the bourgeoisie of other countries: while the socialist party, the anarchist has proclaimed the most genuine brotherhood among all peoples.

(b) in respect of republicanism, that the change of the form of monarchy-parliamentary form of republican-parliamentary government is not solving the comput social, because it does not matter the conquest of the social wealth for the part and to the benefit of the whole people, the socialist party, the anarchist revolutionary has no common purpose with the republican party.

Consequently, stigmatizing any transaction or combination also passengers co’ parties, irredentism and the republican as contrary to the principles of Socialism, and harmful to the cause; because it prevents the clear delineation of the forces of the bourgeois reactionary side, and the workers', socialist, revolutionary on the other — profiling, which only open the way to Social Revolution.

Of course, in revolutionary events, the participation of all volonterosi is allowed, without any transaction on the principles of the party.

(On this declaration, 16 members of the Congress voted for the simple and simple agenda, 33 voted only for the last paragraph, that is, “ in facts of a revolutionary nature, the participation of all the willing, without transactions on the party principles is allowed” and 31 approved the entire declaration.)

IV. On the agitation of 1.° May

Congress,

Considered that the great labor movement of 1. May 1890 spread the ideas of international solidarity among all workers and social renewal in the population;

Considering that it is the debt of a revolutionary party to take advantage of all of the occasions of agitation and struggle, and to give the movements popular a character as much as you can revolutionary, agitating the masses, not the flatters of partial and addormentatrici improvements, but by inculcating the need to overthrow the current political order and economic order to establish the fraternal coexistence of the workers have cooperative and solidarity on the basis of the wealth made in the common or of the equality of conditions is;

It adheres to the Universal feast of the 1.° of May,

It invites all workers to a general strike to date from 1. May next.

It invites the adherent groups and comrades willing to spread in the countryside, in the workshops, among the military, appropriate posters inculcating the necessity of this strike.

Transitional deliberations

l. All members of the Congress are invited to submit the resolutions to the various groups they represented and other groups of socialists of the respective regions, or to cause their membership to the Federation.

2. An interim committee is hereby appointed to collect such accessions and to invite groups to promote regional congresses for the appointment of regional correspondence commissions.

3. Tasks of the provisional Commission are, beyond what has just been stated.,

a) draft and publish the report of the Congress;

b) publish a manifesto on behalf of the Congress to the Socialists and workers of Italy;

c) to communicate as soon as possible the deliberations of the Congress to all adherent groups and individuals or that they believe may join the party;

d) to end comrades to the various locations, providing expenses, to spread the deliberations of the Congress within the socialist groups.

4. Having carried out this task as quickly as possible, the Commission will send a report on its work to the regional correspondence committees, to the groups, and will be deemed to have lapsed from its mandate.

5. In order to facilitate the work of the provisional Commission, the members of the Congress shall, within 20 days, communicate to the provisional Commission the deliberations on membership or other decisions taken by the groups which they represented.

(Congress appoints the provisional commission; agreements are made for the drafting of the Manifesto, and to ensure the existence of a newspaper to be published preferably in Rome).

6. The Congress invites all the comrades, who can, to take part in the socialist legalitariansan Congress, which will take place in Italy, and appoints four of its members, in particular, to support its deliberations.