A Political and Philosophical Interview

My intellectual origins were similar to those of virtually all Italian intellectuals of my generation. Their starting-point during the last years of fascism was the neo-idealist philosophy of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile. I wrote my doctorate in 1949 on Croce’s logic, although I was already by then critical of Croceanism. Then between 1949 and 1950 my decision to join the Italian Communist Party gradually matured. I should add that this decision was in many ways a very difficult one, and that—although this will perhaps seem incredible today—study of Gramsci’s writings was not a major influence on it. On the contrary, it was my reading of certain of Lenin’s texts that was determinant for my adhesion to the pci: in particular, and despite all the reservations which it may inspire and which I share towards it today, his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. At the same time, my entry into the Communist Party was precipitated by the outbreak of the Korean War, although this was accompanied by the firm conviction that it was North Korea which had launched an attack against the South. I say this, not in order to furbish myself with an a posteriori political virginity, but because it is the truth. My attitudes even then were of profound aversion towards Stalinism: but at that moment the world was rent into two, and it was necessary to choose one side or the other. So, although it meant doing violence to myself, I opted for membership of the pci—with all the deep resistances of formation and culture that a petty-bourgeois intellectual of that epoch in Italy could feel towards Stalinism. You must remember that we had lived through the experience of fascism, so that all the paraphernalia of orchestrated unanimity, rhythmical applause and charismatic leadership of the international workers’ movement, were spontaneously repugnant to anyone of my background. Nevertheless, in spite of this, because of the Korean conflict and the scission of the world into two blocs, I opted for entry into the pci. The left-wing of the psi did not provide any meaningful alternative, because at that time it was essentially a subordinate form of Communist militancy, organically linked to the policies of the pci. It is important to emphasize the relative lateness of my entry into the Party—I was about 25 or 26—and my lack of the more traditional illusions about it. For the death of Stalin in 1953 had a diametrically opposite effect on me to that which it had on most Communist or pro-Communist intellectuals. They felt it as a disaster, the disappearance of a kind of divinity, while for me it was an emancipation. This also explains my attitude towards the Twentieth Congress of the cpsu in 1956, and in particular towards Khruschev’s Secret Speech. While most of my contemporaries reacted to the crisis of Stalinism as a personal catastrophe, the collapse of their own convictions and certitudes, I experienced Khruschev’s denunciation of Stalin as an authentic liberation. It seemed to me that at last Communism could become what I had always believed it should become—an historical movement whose acceptance involved no sacrifice of one’s own reason.

My membership of the Party was an extremely important and positive experience for me. I can say that if I were to relive my life again, I would repeat the experience of both my entry and my exit. I regret neither the decision to join nor the decision to leave the Party. Both were critical for my development. The first importance of militancy in the pci lay essentially in this: the Party was the site in which a man like myself, of completely intellectual background, made real contact for the first time with people from other social groups, whom I would otherwise never have encountered except in trams or buses. Secondly, political activity in the Party allowed me to overcome certain forms of intellectualism and thereby also to understand somewhat better the problems of the relationship between theory and practice in a political movement. My own role was that of a simple rank-and-file militant. From 1955 onwards, however, I became involved in the internal struggles over cultural policy in the pci. At that time, the official orientation of the Party was centred on an interpretation of Marxism as an ‘absolute historicism’, a formula which had a very precise meaning—it signified a way of treating Marxism as if it were a continuation and development of the historicism of Benedetto Croce himself. It was in this light that the Party also sought to present the work of Gramsci. Togliatti’s version of Gramsci’s thought was, of course, not an accurate one. But the fact is that Gramsci’s writings were utilized to present Marxism as the fulfilment and conclusion of the tradition of Italian Hegelian idealism, in particular that of Croce. The objective of the internal struggles in which I became engaged was by contrast to give priority to the knowledge and study of the work of Marx himself. It was in this context that my relationship to Galvano Della Volpe, who at that time was effectively ostracized within the pci, became very important for me. footnote¹ One outcome of the theoretical struggle between these two tendencies was the entry of Della Volpe, Pietranera and myself into the editorial committee of Societ`, which was then the main cultural journal of the Party, in 1957–8.

It was a consequence of Hungary, for a very simple reason. After the rising in Budapest, the majority of Italian Communist professors abandoned the Party, which was left virtually without university luminaries. One of the few professors who remained in the Party was Della Volpe. The new situation induced Mario Alicata—who was then in overall charge of the Party’s cultural policy, and who, it must be said, was a highly intelligent man—to change his attitude towards Della Volpe, who had hitherto been intellectually proscribed within the Party. The result was that Della Volpe was finally accepted on to the editorial board of Societ`, and with him a good part of the Della Volpean tendency, including Giulio Pietranera (who died today) and myself. This lasted until 1962. In that year, the Party then decided to dissolve Societ`, for reasons which were not only ideological but political. The suppression of the journal was basically motivated by the fact that after the composition of the editorial committee had changed, the review became steadily radicalized, if only on an ideological level: Marxist and Leninist articles were becoming predominant, and this theoretical turn to the left disquieted the Party leadership for a very good reason. The pci had for many years previously ceased to recruit young people. But from 1959–60 onwards, it started to register gains amongst youth once more—especially after the popular demonstrations which overthrew the Tambroni government in 1960. There now started to emerge a new levy of young Communist intellectuals—some of whom occupy comparatively important positions in the pci today, while others have left it—influenced by Della Volpean positions. Alarmed by the leftward shift of these younger intellectuals, who soon dominated the Youth Federation of the Party, the pci leadership decided to suppress Societ` as the source of their theoretical inspiration.