Biographical Notes and Glossary

• Bakunin, Michael (1814-1876): Russian anarchist leader. Exiled to Siberia, Bakunin escaped to Italy in 1861 where he founded a secret international anarchist organisation known as the International Alliance of Social Democracy. In 1868 he joined the First International but separated from it in 1874 after disagreements both political and personal. Central to his ideas were a belief in complete freedom in all spheres and a belief in the natural solidarity of man.
• Boulanger: After the famous Wilson scandal in France in 1887, General Boulanger led a movement of Conservatives, Royalists and Radicals against the coalition government of the Republic. For a short period he enjoyed immense popularity. In 1889 he was elected for the Seine Department by a majority of 80,000 votes. The movement ended with his flight and suicide, in Brussels, in 1891. The main financial support for Boulanger came from the Monarchists.
• Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (1888-1938): Russian Communist leader and theoretician, was born in Moscow. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1906, and in 1912 he collaborated with Lenin in editing Pravda. After the Revolution Bukharin became a member of the Politburo. From 1926-1929 he played a prominent part in the Executive Committee of the Communist International. In 1934 he became editor of Izvestia, but in 1937 he was arrested on charges of conspiring with followers of Trotsky. In 1938 he was executed.
• Cavour, Count Camillo Benso di (1810-1861): Italian statesman and architect of Italian unity. Having first been appointed Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in the Kingdom of Sardinia he rose rapidly to chief minister. It was his policy of economic and military development coupled with a shrewd international policy which helped to achieve what the national revolution of 1848-9 had failed to establish—Italian unity. But despite his temporary alliance with Garibaldi his methods were rather those of diplomacy than of revolution. The result of his work was the transformation of Piedmont into the Kingdom of Italy.
• Croce, Benedetto (1866-1954): Italian idealist philosopher, born at Pescasseroli in Apulia and educated at the University of Rome. In 1910 he became a senator and from 1920-1921 was Minister of Education in the Giolitti government. A strong opponent of fascism, Croce went into retirement during the Mussolini régime.
• D'Annunzio, Grabriele (1863-1938): Italian poet and adventurer. Supporter of fascism from its inception. Born at Pescara, D'Annunzio was educated at the Collegio Cicognini at Prato. He worked assiduously to induce Italy to enter the First World War. From 1915-1918 he served in the Army, and in 1919, with a small band of officers he seized Fiume in an attempt to prevent its going to Yugoslavia. D'Annunzio was greatly influenced by the ideas of Nietzsche.
• De Leon, Daniel (1852-1914): American Socialist leader, born in the Dutch West Indies. Lectured in International Law at Columbia University; then, after joining the Socialist Labour Party, he became in 1891 editor of the party's paper The People. In 1905 helped to form the Industrial Workers of the World (q.v.). Although a Marxist, he accepted many syndicalist ideas; but he favoured a centralised and militant labour movement and the participation of the workers in political struggle.
• Gentile, Giovanni (1875-1944): Italian philosopher and politician, appointed professor of the philosophy of history at Rome in 1918. In that year Gentile became a senator. He supported fascism from the start. Mussolini appointed him Minister of Education and from 1926 to 1928 he was president of the Supreme Council of Education. He was responsible for a revival of religious teaching in the schools. Assassinated at Florence on April 5, 1944.
• Gentiloni Pact (1913): An important landmark in the history of relations between the Italian State and the Catholic Church. Count Gentiloni represented the interests of the Catholic electors in negotiating the pact with Giolitti, the Prime Minister. In return for the support of the Catholic deputies, Giolitti agreed not to mention divorce, not to tamper with the Church schools, and to respect other Catholic susceptibilities.
• Giolitti, Giovanni (1842-1928): Italian statesman, was born at Mondori in Piedmont. In 1884 he was elected to the Chamber as a member of the Left, and in 1892 he became Premier. He was responsible for introducing fiscal reform and the kind of progressive legislation which in England was associated with Gladstone. He was inclined to be neutral or even sympathetic towards the growth of trade unions. In 1911 Giolitti introduced the law of universal suffrage. He showed some weakness towards fascism at first but in 1924 went over to the opposition.
• Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.): A militant working class organisation, founded in the United States in 1905, whose aim was to unite all workers into one large union. It was not only aimed at bettering immediate conditions but also at the overthrow of the capitalist system. From 1905 to 1908 it was under socialist influence (v. De Leon) but afterwards it came under syndicalist influence. It received support especially among the unskilled and immigrant workers who were thoroughly dissatisfied with the craft unionism and conservatism of the American Federation of Labour. The Industrial Unions, it was believed, could form the basis of the future socialist society, thus "forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old". The I.W.W. played an important part in raising the class consciousness and fighting spirit of the unskilled workers of the U.S.A. After the First World War, however, the movement began to decline, as a result of very severe repression and internal dissension. Some I.W.W. leaders such as William Z. Foster later joined the American Communist Party.
• Labriola, Antonio (1843-1904): Italian Socialist philosopher, professor at the University of Rome, 1874-1904. A great teacher and controversialist, only a small portion of his ideas appear in his books. Influenced by Hegel, Herbert and Marx, he was an advocate of historical materialism.
• Luxemburg, Rosa (1870-1919): One of the founders of the German Communist Party. Assassinated in 1919 by officers of the "Free Corps". Author of The Accumulation of Capital (1913) and other important contributions to Marxist theory.
• Michels, Robert: French sociologist, professor of political economy at Basle University and honorary professor at Turin University. Two of his books have been translated into English: Political Parties: a sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy (London, 1915), and Eugenics in Party Organisation (London, 1912).
• Popular Party or Partito Popolare, a Catholic political party, in some senses the forerunner of the Christian Democratic Party of today. After the First World War the Vatican was at last reconciled to the formation of the Italian state and consequently it did not oppose the formation of the new party. It was founded in 1919 by a Sicilian priest, Don Luigi Sturzo. The basis of its programme was that though property itself was instituted by God, man can sometimes make a travesty of it. The party therefore defended the small property owners while attacking the landlord and capitalists. It had its right wing who regarded the party as a defence against socialism, and its left wing, those who were strongly influenced by the ideas of primitive Christianity. After 1919 it grew rapidly. That same year it had 101 deputies in Parliament; together with the Socialists, the "left" parties held half the seats in the Chamber. But they did not co-operate and made no attempt to form a government.
• Red Week: This was the week in June 1914 when a general strike was called in Italy. The Red Flag was hoisted on the town hall of Bologna, and in the Romagna and the Marches a republic was declared. Order was more or less restored by the time of the outbreak of the World War in August, 1914.
• Salvemini, Gaetano (b. 1873): Italian historian and publicist, was appointed to the chair of history at Florence in 1917. He edited the Liberal newspaper L'Unità. A vigorous critic of Giolitti's corrupt electoral methods and the half-heartedness of the socialists, Salvemini became an M.P. from 1919-1921. In 1925 he was arrested by the fascists but released provisionally soon afterwards; he left the country for the U.S.A. where he became a professor of history at Harvard University. Author of Under the Axe of Fascism (London, 1936).
• Savonarola, Fra Girolamo (I452-I498): Dominican friar who preached religious and civil reform in the Florentine Republic at the end of the 15th century. As preacher and prophet he inspired the revolution which in 1494 expelled the ruling house of Medici. But within four years his position had collapsed. In 1498 he was burnt as a heretic and false prophet. Machiavelli, who sympathised with many of his aims, despised his methods and termed him an 'unarmed prophet'.
• Soderini, Piero: Member of a leading Florentine family at the end of the 15th century he sided with the popular faction in the short-lived republic of 1494-1512. In 1502 he was elected chief magistrate of the Republic for life in an attempt to bring stability into the constantly shifting political life of the city. In this office he worked closely with Machiavelli who was secretary of the Republic. When the Republic was overthrown by force in 1512 both Machiavelli and Soderini were exiled.
• Sonnino, Sidney, Baron (1847-1922): Italian statesman and financier, born in Florence. Noted for an exhaustive study of the conditions of the Sicilian and Tuscan peasants. In 1877 he published, in co-operation with Leopoldo Franchetti, his work on Sicily (La Sicilia). Elected Deputy in 1880 and in 1893 became Minister of Finance during a severe monetary crisis. Prime Minister 1906-1909; Foreign Minister 1914-1919.
• Sorel, Georges (1847-1922): French philosopher, theoretician of revolutionary syndicalism (q.v.). He was a pessimist with a strong conviction of the moral degeneration of the bourgeoisie. He attacked the idea of inevitable human progress. In his book, Réflexions sur la Violence, Sorel attempted a synthesis of Marxist ideas of class struggle with the ideas of Proudhon. Sorel combatted any idea that social change was historically and economically determined; the victory of the working class depended on its own militancy, and in this the "myth of the general strike" would play an important part. He was less interested in the workers fighting for higher wages than in creating a social élite of "heroes" who would usher in a new civilisation as a result of a "social war". (See Syndicalism.)
• Syndicalism: Derived from the French word syndicat, a local trade union. Syndicalism is an offshoot of the ideas of anarchist-communism. Sorel and Pelloutier are looked on as its chief exponents. They placed special emphasis on the use of the trade unions in creating a new society. The unions in a certain locality should jointly operate all industries in that area; then these self-governing communities should form themselves into a loose federation. The syndicalists were opposed to the state and centralisation in any form; they urged the workers to ignore political parties. They relied on short strikes to better their conditions, but were against building up union funds or coming to agreements with employers as this would reduce the militancy of the workers. They put forward the aim of the "general strike to overthrow capitalism", but Sorel regarded this as only a "necessary myth". Syndicalism was strongest in France and Spain—especially Catalonia where it still exerts influence.
• Tasca, Angelo: Italian communist leader, born at Moretta in 1892. A syndicalist of Turin he worked closely with Gramsci, Togliatti and Terracini. After the Livorno Congress, 1921, Tasca joined the Italian Communist Party. During the fascist period he lived in France, Germany and Russia, returning to Italy in 1945 to become director of the Party's newspaper L'Unità.
• Turati, Filippo (1857-1932): Italian socialist leader, was born into a well-to-do Lombardy family. In 1890 he became editor of Critica Sociale the organ of the socialist intelligentsia, and in 1896 he was elected to Parliament. Turati was a leader of the reformist section of the socialists. He urged them to abandon revolutionary methods and realise their aims through gradual reforms and constitutional methods. However, all the institutions he had helped to create, such as trade unions, co-operatives and educational bodies, were destroyed one by one by the fascist government after 1922. Turati himself escaped to Corsica in 1926 and died in Paris.
• Vico, Giambattista (1668-1744): Neapolitan philosopher. His great work is his Scienza Nuova. Vico believed that history could provide knowledge no less certain than natural science. Vico put forward the idea that history was the process of the rise and fall of civilisations; each civilisation, he thought, goes through the age of gods, the age of heroes and the age of man, after which it declines into barbarism when the whole cycle begins again.