Critica Sociale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Originally founded by Arcangelo Ghisleri under the title 'Cuore e Critica', Filippo Turati, who had worked on in previously, took over this Republican political journal on 15 January 1891 and renamed it. Critica Sociale became the most influential Marxist review in Italy from 1891 to 1898, and writers such as Turati, Anna Kulischov, Giacomo Matteotti, Claudio Treves, and Carlo Rosselli contributed to it in the period prior to Mussolini's ascent. The review was associated first with the Partito Socialista Italiano, then the reformist Partito Socialista Unitario after its split in 1921.
Contents |
[edit] From Republicanism to Socialism
The 1st January 1893 issue saw it's change in editorial direction, away from Republicanism and towards Socialism. It backed the founding of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) at the party's Genoa Conference and changed its masthead to read: Weekly review of social, political and literary studies of scientific Socialism. Under this brief it tackled all the serious public problems of 1890s Italy: banking scandals, repression of the fasci siciliani unrest, colonial war in Africa, and food riots. It featured writing by the most influential socialist thinkers in Italy and abroad, including Enricco Ferri, Lelio Basso, Paul Lafargue, Ivanoe Bonomi, Antonio Graziadei, Antonio Labriola and many others.
From 1 May 1898 to 1 July 1899, the review was seized by the government and its director was briefly imprisoned.
In 1901 the journal reopened, as Turati, its editors, and the PSI were entering parliament with the support of Giolitti's powerful Liberal Party. In this phase the review became the expression of the reformist tendency inside of the PSI.
From 1902 to 1913 the review was involved in the debate over anti-clerical school reform; discussing the role teachers, their organization, school construction and hygiene, while contesting government budgets that favored the Ministry of War over the needs of public education.
Critica Sociale adopted, in discussing literature, a positivist and Marxist critical methodology and, convinced of the importance of literature, education and libraries, printed the sociological writing of Pietro Gori beside the poetry of Ada Negri and serialized novels by Italo Svevo.
Even if seen as a bit behind the ideological-literary fashions of the age, Critica Sociale tried to inform its readers on new tendencies, giving judgments and appraisals filtered through its socialist outlook.
Showing little acceptance of the then popular ideas of Nietzsche and d'Annunzio, Critica Sociale editors were instead convinced that intellectuals must open themselves up to and promote new modern ideas while inculcating culture with 'scientific' truth and the requirements of a life led for the benefit of society.
[edit] War, Revolution and Fascism
When Italy entered the First World War in May 1915, Critica Sociale did not lose its neutralism nor did it lose its reformist ideals when faced with the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. While not denying the legitimacy of Lenin's revolutionary method, Critica Sociale editors argued it was innapplicable to the Italian situation.
But from 1917, the conflict between the two wings the PSI became incurable. At the Livorno Conference of January 1921, the current lead by Amadeo Bordiga, representing the nacent Marxist-leninist wing, exited the PSI and founded the Partito Comunista Italiano.
Mussolini's rise to power was a second blow to Critica Sociale, making it immediately subject to press censorship and seizures by the government. Deprived of resources, its writers continued to defend the democratic order being swept swept away by the Fascists, and total censorship loomed. It's last political article was published the day after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, an act which Mussolini used to take absolute power in Italy.
Until 1925 Critica Sociale published irregularly, sheltering itself under innoffensive cultural and doctrinale essays. The next year the Fascist government pronunced a blanket ban on opposition press.
The last issue was dated 16 September - 15 October 1926.
Following the fall of the Fascist regime in 1946, it was reestablished, and has remained in print under a succession of ideological viewpoints. It is currently the official publication of the Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI, a social democratic political party.
[edit] Sources
- Translation of http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critica_sociale_%28Rivista%29
- Turati, Trent’anni di Critica Sociale
- The Antonio Labriola Archive, letter to Critica Sociale, 1897[1]
- Enrico Ferri 1902 debating with G. Cassola in Critica Sociale [2]
- Ian Steedman, Socialist Debate on the Theory of Value and Distribution: `La Critica Sociale' 1891-1901. in Socialism & Marginalism in Economics 1870 - 1930. Ian Steedman, ed. Routledge Studies in the History of Economics (1995). ISBN 0-203-20899-4
[edit] Links
Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI at http://www.socialisti.net[3]
