Claudio Treves

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b. 1869, Turin. d. 1933, Paris

1 Life
2 Sources

[edit] Life

[edit] Youth

Claudio Treves was born in Turin, 24 March 1869, into a well off assimilated Jewish family. As a student he participated in the Radical mileau of Turin and, in 1888, he joined first his university's student radical circle, then the local independent labor union, influenced by the Milanese socialist Filippo Turati. In 1892 he graduated with a law degree and made his way into the militant socialist community.

[edit] PSI

Treves became a member of the managing committee of the Piemontese regional federation of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), and in 1894, prosecuted under the 'exceptional laws' on sedition, he spent two months in prison. For some years after he travelled abroad, spending two years to Berlin, then on to Paris, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia. All the while Treves was sending reports from these countries to “Avanti!”, the Italian socialist paper. He contributed to several newspapers and periodicals, among which were "Per l'idea", "Grido del popolo" (which he edited from 1896 to 1898), "Critica Sociale", "Lotta", "Lotta di classe", "Rassegna popolare del socialismo", "Riscatto" and, finally, Milan's "Università popolare" where he was on the editorial board until 1915.

[edit] From the PSI to the PSU

In 1899 he moved to Milan to become editor of the daily paper "Il Tempo", which under his stewardship became a leading voice for greater democracy and the Italian Reformist Socialist movement. Working closely with Turati, in 1906 he was elected deputy from Milan. over the next decade, the PSI see-sawed between reformist and revolutionary factions. Seen as far too close to Giolitti and the Liberals, Turati and the Reformists lost control of the party in 1904, regained it in 1908, only to lose it again in 1912. After the Milan confrence of the PSI in 1910 he was named editor of “Avanti!”, a job in which he was succeded in 1912 by Giovanni Bacci and later Benito Mussolini before the one time socialist's drift to the right. As a result of the division in the socialist movement between 'Maximalists' and Reformists, in 1922, with Turati, Giacomo Matteotti, and Treves founded the Partito Socialista Unitario (PSU). He was named editor of the party's paper, "La Giustizia", only to see it closed by state order of the new Fascist government in 1925.

[edit] Exile

In November 1926 it fled into exile, emigrating first to Switzerland and then to France, where he was one of the more assiduous collaborators of the weekly journal of the PSLI, "Rinascita socialista". In 1927 he was named editor of "La Libertà", journal of the Concentrazion Antifascista Italiana‎, a coaliton of non-communist Italian anti-fascist groups. In 1930 he supported the unification of the PSLI (the underground successor of the now outlawed PSU) and the PSI. Always attentive to the evolution of the European Socialism, he participated to the British Labour Party conference of 1930, the trade-union international conference in Madrid in June 1931 and in the conference of the Socialist International in Vienna in July 1931. He died on 11 June 1933, still in exile in Paris, and in 1948 his ashes were returned to Milan.

[edit] Family

Treves son, Paolo Treves, later succeded him as a militant of the PSI and editor of "Avanti!", while his daughter, Annetta Treves, was also active in Milanese politics. His sister was the mother of writer and activist Carlo Levi.

[edit] Sources

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Treves
Patrick Gallo. For Love and Country: The Italian Resistance. Lanham: University Press of America, (2003).
G. ARFÈ, Storia dell'Avanti, Roma, Mondo Operaio/Edizioni "Avanti!", 1977;
Claudio Treves. Il riformismo socialista italiano, eddited by O. PUGLIESE, Venezia, Marsilio, (1981);
A. CASALI, Socialismo ed internazionalismo nella storia d'Italia. Claudio Treves 1869-1933, Napoli, Guida editori, (1985);
A. CASALI, Claudio Treves. Dalla giovinezza alla guerra di Libia, Milano, Franco Angeli, (1989);
S. NERI SERNERI, Democrazia e Stato, Milano, Angeli, (1989);
http://www.liberalsocialisti.org/articol.php?id_articol=52 : Reprint of an article by Carlo Rosselli on Treves.