Left-interventionism

This article is about the early-20th century Italian political movement. For interventionism in other political contexts, see Interventionism (politics).

Left-interventionism was that part of the progressive interventionist movement of various matrices (Mazzinian, social-reformist, democratic socialist, dissident socialist, and revolutionary socialist) who saw in the Great War the historical opportunity for the completion of unification of Italy, and for those who later became part of the Italian fascist movement, such as Benito Mussolini, as the palingenesis of the Italian political system and the organization of the economic, legal, and social system, and therefore a profound change. It was a minority position among socialists, such as the young Palmiro Togliatti, that, in the words of Battista Santhià, distinguished "between the imperialist war and the just national claims against the old imperialisms; they did not consider it right that some Italian provinces should remain under the dominion of a foreign state, moreover a reactionary one."

History

Filippo Corridoni with Benito Mussolini during a 1915 interventionist demonstration in Milan

Left-wing interventionism originated from a process of internal self-criticism carried out by a substantial part of the revolutionary syndicalist movement, which, after the failure of Red Week in June 1914, gave rise to a theoretical evolution of its thinking. In the following weeks, Alceste De Ambris declared himself in favour of Italy's entry into the Great War alongside France, a fact that cost him his expulsion from the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI). This led first to the simultaneous voluntary expulsion from the USI, headed by the neutralist and internationalist anarchist Armando Borghi, of the strong Milanese section, led by Filippo Corridoni, and then to the expulsion of all interventionist sections. These went on to join with Futurist interventionism, which was already creating unrest in the squares with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Umberto Boccioni.

On 5 October 1914, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti created the Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Interventista, into which all the movements in the area converged, and at the same time a manifesto, a political program supporting left-interventionism, was promoted. The movement aimed to operate a strong critique of the Italian Socialist Party and its neutralist position, seeing its failure to support the war as a lack of political perspective and reactionarism toward history in motion. The Great War was seen as a historical opportunity to be exploited, a historical coincidence that could have acted as a catalyst for the revolutionary impulses of the Italian people, which, forged by the wartime experience, or what came to be termed as the trinceocrazia, should become aware of their potential by overthrowing the constituted powers of the state. In conclusion, the left-interventionists argued that if the people could not find within themselves the spark to ignite change, it would have to be an external factor, such as the war itself.