EconomicMarginalismandSocialism:ItalianRevolutionarySyndicalism andtheRevisionofMarx

EconomicMarginalismandSocialism:ItalianRevolutionarySyndicalismandthe RevisionofMarx

byMarioSznajder

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Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:1/1991,pages:114127,onwww.ceeol.com.

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HISTORICAL CHRONICLE

ECONOMIC MARGINALISM AND SOCIALISM: ITALIAN REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM AND THE REVISION OF MARX
Mario Sznajder One of the most crucial aspects of the development of Italian Fascism was the ideological inspiration it drew from Revolutionary National Syndicalism. This is clearly reflected in the first fascist political programs of 1919-1920. Revolutionary National Syndicalism was the post World War I heir of Revolutionary Syndicalism, the movement that constituted the activist left wing of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during most of the first decade of this century. Many of its intellectuals and leaders became prominent fascists, deeply influencing Benito Mussolini and fascism.1 An analysis going beyond immediate political needs, doctrinal confusion or superficiality, in order to explain this passage from radical left to radical right, is the subject of this work. The political migration from Marxist socialism to fascism was long and complicated, including many factors and influences. Georges Sorel was the most influential theoretician of Revolutionary Syndicalism in France at the time, and as such, his work was thoroughly analysed and examined by the leaders of Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism. Sorels revision of Marx led him towards a voluntaristic and moral conception of revolution that set him against Marxist Revolutionism as well as Bernsteins Reformism. Direct action, violence and the social myth of mobilisation were all concepts that the Italian revolutionary syndicalists borrowed from Sorel. It was around these concepts that a new brand of active, voluntaristic and elite Socialism was to be defined by Arturo Labriola, Enrico Leone and their intellectual followers. Sorels contribution to Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism is extremely important. The Italian revolutionary syndicalist theoreticians, from their side, contributed to the revision of Marx by attempting to integrate economic marginalism with Marxs theory of value. This revision brought an ideological change, which, coupled with Sorels influence, shifted Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism away from its Marxist origins producing, in the wake of World War I, a new brand of socialism. With the growth of radical nationalism fuelling this quasi-socialist fire, the conditions were set for the foundation of the Fascist movement after the war.2 The purpose of this paper is to examine Arturo Labriola and Enrico Leones contribution to the revision of Marx, and to demonstrate its centrality in the ideological migration from left to right. As the main theoreticians of Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism, they developed and Redigitized 2004 by Central and Eastern European Online Library C.E.E.O.L. ( www.ceeol.com )

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expounded what they considered to be the necessary adaptations to Marxs economic theory. In order to provide a sound and scientifically modern way to fulfill socialist ideals, they formulated an ideal free producers society to function on the basis of a completely free market, where the hedonistic nature of economic man would be the main criterion. Market forces would operate without non-economic limitations and the state would be reduced to a minimum, thus achieving a general equilibrium. This marginalist view of economics was denominated liberismo in Italy.3 Applying its principles, Labriola and Leone hoped to achieve an ideal situation where organized labour would confront organised capital, without the state defending the interests of the latter, and without a revolutionary war process. The article will focus on this revision of Marx. The first part includes the background and discussion of Sorels influence. The second explains the syndicalist need for the revision of Marxs economics. The third deals with the integration of pure economics into Marxs theory of value. In the following section, the revised theory is presented, and the fifth section deals with its influence on syndicalist socialism. Conclusions constitute the last part of this work, completing the examination of one of the first and main stages that made the evolution of the revolutionary syndicalist ideology from socialism to fascism possible. I At the beginning of the twentieth century many socialists doubted the Marxist predictions about the cyclical and deepening crises of capitalism that would bring about a revolutionary situation. On the contrary, it seemed that the contrast of interests between capital and labour was decreasing, that the old socialist revolutionary tactic based on class antagonism was failing completely.4 The pressure created by capitalist economic development was being regulated by mechanisms of evolutionary, and not revolutionary, nature. Organised labour was able to obtain direct benefits for the working class through negotiations. The political system adapted to this situation by legitimising the presence and activities of socialist parties, within the liberal democratic framework. For those who could not accept the idea of compromise with capitalism within the framework of a liberal parliamentary democracy, socialist reformism was a symptom of the deep crisis in Marxist socialism. The Italian revolutionary syndicalists, influenced by Sorels ideas on the creation of an embryonic socialist society within the existing labour movement, opposed the direction socialism was taking towards political integration within the existing system. In 1905, Ivanoe Bonomi, a socialist leader who would later play a central role in Italian politics, wrote about the possibility of distinguishing between two strands within Italian (Revolutionary) Syndicalism: one strand was represented by Leones wing, based on Sorels Avenir socialiste des syndicats, driving towards a superimposition of the syndicate over the political party. For Bonomi this kind of Syndicalism was to become a type of British Trade Unionism if it could develop its own political ideology

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while remaining resolutely anti-state. The other strand of syndicalism was propounded by the Avanguardia socialista, led by Arturo Labriola, suggesting a clear direction to the politically organized syndicate: the conquering of political power through the use of a violent revolutionary general strike.5 Undoubtedly Labriola, Leone and Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism as a whole had absorbed much of Sorels influence in its developmental stages. The different strands mentioned by Bonomi are products of different stages in Sorels thought. In Avenir socialiste des syndicats Sorel expresses the need to concentrate on the renovating forces of society in the syndicate, where a new elite should be educated morally and technically to be able to take over the production process from an already decadent bourgeoisie. In the next stage, in the Reflexions sur la violence, violence is seen as the renovating force in history and as the way to bring the masses into action.6 The use of the concept of pure economics in order to explain and solve what they saw as the crisis of Marxism was common to Sorel, Labriola and Leone, but it led to different conclusions. Sorel centers his analysis on the concept of violence transformed into direct action exercised by a revolutionary elite. The recruitment of the forces of change should be made through the socially mobilizing myth of the revolutionary general strike. Leone does not include the use of violence in his model because he sees it as an extra economic category.7 His economic theory keeps him attached to a material, rational dimension, breaking away from Marxism on the points where, according to Leone, Marx had departed from economics into sociohistorical considerations. Sorel, by using the economic critique of Marx to leave the realm of economism, becomes antimaterialistic and antirationalistic in his analysis.8 Labriola falls somewhere between Sorel and Leone. The revolutionary syndicalist intellectuals attacked the political attitudes of the Partito Socialista Italiano and proposed to place the workers revolutionary actions directly in the economic arena, in the field of production. Thus, for the Italian revolutionary syndicalists, the basic unit striving to eliminate capitalism is the syndicate itself, not the political party led by intellectuals detached from the realities of the workers lives.9 For Labriola the essence of social revolution was to bring about the autonomous control of production by the associated working class, an economic process that can not be managed by an assembly of people detached from it. This kind of process must be the result of the autonomous development and spontaneous initiative of those directly involved in the production process.10 Since the workers lives, according to the revolutionary syndicalists, took place between the factory and the syndicate, socialist political theory had to be constructed around these two dimensions of proletarian reality. The factory represented actuality, the place where the production process took place. The syndicate represented the future, the place where the workers were to be morally and technically educated in order to be able to take over the direction of the production process from the capitalists. Revolutionary Syndicalism wanted to eliminate from the production process any kind of

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hierarchy that was not absolutely necessary for its technical improvement. The result would be a society organised solely on the basis of the fulfilment of economic needs, on consensual ties and on the technical discipline of production.11 The revolutionary syndicate is seen as the weapon of the working class. The socialist party, led by intellectuals, is seen as alienated and distanced from those really striving for deep socio-economic change. The party becomes reformist, compromising and parliamentarian. According to the revolutionary syndicalists, the party leaders are so far from the production process that they do not understand its basic realities. The differences in spheres of action of the syndicate the economic field, the party and the political field defines itself the different nature of syndicalist as opposed to party action. The syndicate leans on direct action in the economic field, the party on indirect action in the political field. Since Revolutionary Syndicalism believed that real changes had to take place in the realm of economic activity, theoretical problems in this area became the province of study that attracted the attention of Labriola and Leone, its main ideologues in Italy. II The revolutionary syndicalist analysis tried to discover what was wrong in Marxs economic vision. The intention of Leone and Labriola was to adapt socialism to the latest developments of economic science, not only to be able to read correctly the mechanisms of society and history, but also to prove that the revolutionary syndicalist way was the only one that would lead the masses towards a classless utopian socio-economic organization, the free producers society.12 This need for the revision of Marx was stressed on the basis of the gap between the latest development of the economic science and the old and surpassed Marxist forms.13 Revolutionary Syndicalism was looking for a superior synthesis: a more satisfying and higher formulation of theoretical socialism, that would fit better with the latest developments of economics.14 Labriola was deeply interested in understanding the functioning of the market in order to be able to understand the economic process as a whole, and the socio-political conclusions to be drawn from it. This interest led him, and Leone too, to try to integrate Marxism and pure economics. The study of economics had for Labriola, as Perri rightly stresses, two aspects: the one Marx dealt with was the political economy which dealt with the creation of wealth and the different historic forms of association between men, in order to produce it. The other aspect was that of pure economics, based on the analysis of the behavior of the homo oeconomicus.15 Labriola wrote that the economic process could be seen from different points of view. This was to say that for the workers it was legitimate to see economics as surplus value appropriation by the capitalist. But the economic process could also be seen from the capitalist point of view, where capital Investment produces legitimate profits. The purpose of taking these different

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viewpoints was to look for the causes of different kinds of behavior and to introduce an ethical point of view into economics. Labriola knew that Marx had seen the process from a proletarian viewpoint and his analysis, with his value theory, was the result of it. Given that the ethical and metaphysical sides had already been taken care of by Marx, Labriola wanted to complete the model, establishing not only the causes but also the ensemble of conditions that acted upon economic behavior within the market framework.16 For Leone, Marx had advanced a scientific criticism of classical economics that was considered valid at the time.17 Then, it was up to the modern revisionists to close the gap between socialism and economics. Marx had made clear the social need to supersede capitalism, but he had lacked economic precision. Pure economics, being a value-free scientific instrument, could provide the necessary theory and formulation for the elaboration of a strategy to lead socialism out of its impasse in which, according to the revolutionary syndicalist theoreticians, it had found itself by the end of the nineteenth century.18 The crisis of theoretic Socialism, as already stated, became unavoidable, due to the chasm between the old Marxist forms and the latest developments of economic science. To fill this gap: this was the task of the actual movement of ideas directed to solve the crisis.19 III The revolutionary syndicalist theoreticians thought that the economic process had to be analysed in terms of a free market with a natural tendency to achieve equilibrium. Labriola refers us to those who had subscribed to the General Equilibrium Theory in economics (Pareto, Walras, Edgeworth and Jevons) as his mentors.20 Favilli shows how Labriola distinguished, in his writings, between Marxist economics and the psychological-mathematical hedonistic school. According to the revolutionary syndicalist author, the first deals with laws and structure of capitalism and the formation of capitalistic profit, while the latter deals with profit distribution between the different capitalists.21 Economic Hedonism and the General Equilibrium Theory are part of what Simon Clarke defines as the marginalistic revolution, led by Stanley Jevons in England, Leon Walras in Switzerland and Carl Menger in Austria. They attacked classical political economy by replacing labour with utility as the basis of value.22 The field of economics was detached from politics and transformed into a technico-scientific discipline, their area of analysis becoming that of pure economics. Leone and Labriola, good socialists as they were, tried to integrate the marginalist methodology with Marxism. Their formula was to update Marxist economics through the incorporation of the techniques of marginalism. This meant looking into the economic process regardless of ethical or metaphysical considerations, on strictly empirical grounds, in order to understand its functioning. Although Marxist ideals of a classless society

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were accepted, Marxist economic analysis was seen by Labriola and Leone as obsolete. This line of economic thought had been preceded in Italy by the theories of Achille Loria. As one of the founders of the economistic school in his country, he had tried to clarify the problem of the average rate of profit between capitals of different composition, and also the link between value and price.2 The solution he proposed took into consideration constant capital volume and salaries, while the latter were linked to the consumption goods needed for subsistence.24 Loria was not the only Italian economist to adopt the principles of marginalism. As Favilli has shown, Maffeo Pantaleoni and Vilfredo Pareto were also using this kind of analysis contemporaneously with Loria.25 Pantaleoni and Pareto were also closely linked to the teachings of Leon Walras, one of the main figures of the new school.26 In Loria we find some of the central elements that influenced Labriola and Leone in their revision of Marx. The reliance on pure economics, based on the observation of the behavior of the homo conomicus, was meant to give Lorias thought the same scientific basis that Marxism had lost in the eyes of Leone and Labriola while becoming metaphysical and value laden.27 Loria spoke against the coercive association of labor, about the need to achieve general equilibrium together with a kind of free association of labor, and saw this as the supreme objective towards which must converge all the forces of social renovation.28 He was seen by many good socialists as one of them, trying to blend the last achievements of economics with socialism, in spite of the criticism levelled against him by high calibre intellectuals like Antonio Labriola and Benedetto Croce.29 Loria was strongly criticized by Croce who accused him of plagiarising Marx, on the basis of the introduction Engels wrote to the first Italian edition of the third volume of Capital, published in Rome in 1896.30 Croce traced Lorias success within Italian socialism to the lack of knowledge of Marx, along with doctrinal confusion. But his critique was against the man, not the intellectual direction. Croce himself was quoted by Leone as stating that in hedonism he saw a totally scientific treatment of economics, reflecting a new theoretical path that could expand side by side with Marxist theory, neither interfering with the other, although departing from different starting points and seeking different goals.31 In his writings Benedetto Croce had recognized the scientific value of economic hedonism, regarding the formation of capital profit as depending on the different degrees of utility of present and future goods.32 From this point of view, Marxist economics completed the picture by providing an analysis of the sociological side of capital profit. Although Loria, Croce and other thinkers who worked on the revision of Marx provided a good opening, from a socialist point of view, for the formulation of the correct solution to his lack of precision, their answers were not seen as completed and satisfactory by Labriola and Leone.33 The need arose for a further exploration of the economic grounds that they considered as the basis of modern socialism.

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IV Leone wrote about the ideal economic man acting in hedonistic terms. In this respect, his position was purist to such a degree that he was even criticized by Vilfredo Pareto.34 The Italian professor from Lausanne wrote about the link between economics and sociology, and about pure economics as a part of a general discipline. For him, mathematical economics was merely the instrument of analysis, to be used on the problems of equilibrium. However, Leone tried to look into socialist ideals on a hedonistic economic base. He was convinced that this was the way to clarify the causal relationship of economic phenomena.35 Leone tried to leave outside his model all elements considered extraeconomic, and to concentrate on the hedonistic behavior of man. Together with Walras, he was convinced that pure economics would prove that the maximum harmonious good of the society and the individual is reached through the free functioning of the law of individual egoism.36 The hedonistic economic principles were universal because they were related to human nature. This meant that all people, including the workers, would try to achieve maximum benefit while investing minimum effort. In a completely free market, equality of costs, and effort from all men, and equality of profits, salaries and pecuniary gains, for all men, was an ideal to pursue. Leones problem was how to equate the results of a free market function equilibrium and proportional equality to the egalitarian principles of socialism. According to hedonism, men act in the economic field because they have needs. Social needs are the sum of individual needs. Private and public economic activity are two ways to satisfy individual needs, privately or collectively. Here Leone uses the distinction made by Sax between these two kinds of economic activity, both directed towards the same end.37 Therefore, individuals and groups both act according to hedonistic economic principles. Men form economic associations to bring them closer to fulfiling their economic needs, that is to say, they behave in a hedonistic way. Leone had to prove that acting within a liberal economy it was possible to achieve equality between the producers. For him, achieving equality in complete economic freedom was the meeting point between Liberismo based on economic hedonism and socialism. This model necessitated freeing everyones economic egoism. The state, parliament, bureaucracy, courts and especially the intellectuals reformist socialist as well as liberal in short, all the structures and individuals linking the economy to the narrow interests of the bourgeoisie, had to be eliminated. Leone believed that the application of private and collective hedonism towards a state of general economic equilibrium could do away with the contradiction between freedom and equality. For Leone, these were two sides of the same coin. In a state of absolute economic freedom, total economic equality could be reached. In a society of this kind, all producers would compete freely and capital would be created

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only as a result of saving, and not as profit by the capitalist class. In fact, without the state defending the privileges of capital, Leone assumed that only natural profits the difference between cost and utility would exist, while capitalistic profit remuneration without cost would disappear.38 The moment capital became an exclusive product of saving, it would become accessible to all the participants in the production process. People would save according to their hedonistic tendencies. They would postpone consumption in order to better satisfy their needs. The goals of Liberismo, economic freedom, and of socialism, economic equality would integrate to become the two sides of the same coin. Leone wanted to free socialism from its metaphysical stage he called it almost theological based on objective social power. Here he refers to a proletarian organization built upon social consciousness. Instead, he proposed to base the syndicates on the subjective and voluntaristic power of proletarian energy. In other words, they were to represent the sum of the hedonistic impulses of the majority of society, that is to say, of all the individuals that compose the working class. For Leone, surplus value in Marxs terms was the product of a conceptual abstraction worked out with philosophical procedure.39 It might be a good basis to establish a political goal the need to eliminate surplus value through revolution - but it could not serve as a scientific explanation for the damage caused to the economic interests of the workers. He explained surplus value in hedonistic terms, using graphic curves representing pleasure and pain. Here capital, because of its monopolistic character, its control of the means of production and its preferential links with the existing political and legal structure, was able to force the worker to produce beyond the point of balance between pleasure and pain (termed economic momentum). For the particular worker, this is the point of equilibrium between effort and utility. In this situation the worker produces, according to Leone, supramarginal portions of utility. The supramarginal effort in the curve of utility done by the worker, turns into product surplus value in Marxist terms for the capitalist, and is valueless for the worker.40 In a situation of natural economic equilibrium, where capital lacks coercive power and the market functions freely, the above mentioned scenario could not take place because the worker would have stopped producing when he reached economic momentum. Therefore the capitalist would not be able to obtain surplus value, the main source of economic inequality. In other words, Leone claims that free economic interaction would help to fulfill the socialist ideals, by precluding the formation of monopolistic capital, through the elimination of the possibility of the accumulation of surplus value. Thus, the real conflict of interests was the one presented in hedonistic terms, and it was valid for every worker and person because it was rooted in the economic egoism inherent in human nature. Marxs surplus value was a conceptual category, and the social class whose self-identity depended on that concept also became for Leone and many revolutionary syndicalists a concept and not a reality.41 Leone regards Marx as a critic of classical

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economy, not an alternative to it, because of the lack of scientific precision in economics, ergo the need for its revision.42 It was Labriolas and Leones search for a more functional analysis to be adapted to the needs of socialism that produced the revision of Marxs economics by the revolutionary syndicalist theoreticians. They were not rejecting the ideals of Marxism but trying to update socialism by providing it with a solid scientific basis in the field of economics. The theoretical solution Labriola and Leone provided integrated marginalist economic analysis with the goals of socialism. Freeing the economy from any extra-economic intervention or restriction would bring it to a state of general equilibrium in the workers interest because the capitalists would be deprived of surplus value. This, in turn, would create the possibility of economic equality, bringing the society nearer to the ideals of socialism. A completely free market Liberismo in revolutionary syndicalist terms would permit the workers to compete freely against the bourgeoisie for control of the production process on their way to a free producers society. Then again, according to Labriola and Leone, Liberismo and Socialism would work in tandem towards the same goal. According to Leone, proletarian socialism had to become integral liberismo in order to be functional again.43 V This revision of Marx leads towards the abolition of class struggle. No proletarian consciousness nor political revolution was required because economic egoism and the economic tendency to reach equilibrium were universal. Labriola and Leone tried to understand the motivations of the economic man through the use of empirical and psychological tools, while Marxs economic objectivity was meta-empirical and logical.44 Marx was too abstract for the revolutionary syndicalist thinkers. They tried to be attached to reality. Leone claims that Marxs contribution to socialism was mainly qualitative, while the quantitative side of Marxs economic analysis was insufficient forming the need for the hedonistic approach to economics. The integration of pure economics into Marxism was meant to provide socialism with an optimal combination between the qualitative and quantitative dimensions, so that everyone could maximalize his own wellbeing within the norms of economic freedom.45 Beyond the aspirations towards equality there were only psychological needs. The worker was motivated by his economic egoism, not by class consciousness. Following this kind of reasoning, the revolutionary syndicalist thinkers denied the validity of an analysis that drew conclusions from historical research. They preferred to base their theories on the behavior of men as economic agents. For Leone, class struggle was the unavoidable result of the competition between labour and capital, and would lead to the amelioration of conditions

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for the workers/producers and a worsening of the situation for capitalist profit.46 The organization of the workers in a revolutionary syndicalist pattern was explained through the common hedonistic forces that impelled the workers to try to reach an equilibrium between labor and capital. The syndicalization of labor in a revolutionary way was the proletarian response to the barrier posed by the private and monopolistic nature of capital, defended by the establishment and the legal system.47 The syndicate was the organizational framework of the workers movement, and the revolutionary general strike was the chosen method for shocking, weakening and destroying the capitalist system. Clearly, this kind of ideological set-up sought a reduction of the influence and size of the state, mainly on economic grounds. It meant to eliminate government intervention in the economy, to reduce as far as possible economic legislation and, in the specific Italian revolutionary syndicalist context, to abolish economic protectionism.48 The revolutionary syndicalist rejection of the state was formulated according to the Marxist ideal that saw the capitalist state as a defender of the interests of the bourgeoisie. But this rejection had also to do with the marginalist position that strove to limit state intervention in the economic area, to protect domestic producers against foreign competition, to intervene abroad to secure foreign markets, and to regulate the finances and stimulate investment.49 Again socialism and Liberismo were seen to be marching hand in hand towards freedom and equality. The struggle against socialistic reformism provided another anti-state consideration. The mainstream of the Partito Socialista Italiano was seen by the revolutionary syndicalist wing as too willing to compromise with the state, on the basis of the acceptance of the principles of parliamentary liberal democracy by the socialist side, and the granting of all kinds of benefits to it by the liberal system. Labriola and Leone were aware of the fact that a large group of political supporters of the socialist party were tied to the interests of the industrializing North. They benefited from a strong state that protected their industries with trade barriers. These policies were able to further socialist reformism through a compromise of interests. The socialist party would gain and provide benefits for its political clients within the industrial proletariat and in exchange would abandon the cause of socialist revolution and at the same time leave undefended the non-industrial masses, mainly in the South. Many revolutionary syndicalist leaders, coming from the South including Labriola and Leone were sensitive to this line of thinking, and acted accordingly - opposing the state and the reformist socialist policy at the same time, in the name of true socialism. This position did not make them totally anti-political but made clear their anti-system position.50 Arturo Labriola dealt with the ideal liberal image of the free producers society in I limiti del sindicalismo rivoluzionario, two articles he published in Il Divenire sociale, in August 1910. In these articles he made clear that protectionist policies, in spite of their industrial developmental character, could easily become reactionary. Workers might enjoy the

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benefits of such policies only as long as the economy flourished. The moment an economic recession occurred, it would be contrary to the workers interests to continue the socialist reformistic cooperation associated with protectionist policies. This was so because decreasing profits for the capitalists limited their capacity to respond to the demands of reformist socialism. The workers aspirations could not be fulfiled any more through compromise and negotiations. Labriola claimed that at this stage the workers understood the value of the anti-reformist positions of Revolutionary Syndicalism, which sought a radical solution to their economic struggle. Labriola and Leone focused on the strife of socialism in the economic field while at the same time rejecting the mechanistic economic conclusions about the circular widening crisis, bred by capitalism, that would finally destroy it. VI At the turn of the century, when the revolutionary syndicalist revision of Marxist economics was being formulated in Italy, the movement, ideologically and pragmatically, was extremely active and anti-bourgeois, but things were to change. Revolutionary Syndicalism eventually came to see the social struggle in terms of different categories than those used by Marx. People who participated directly in the production process became producers, those who did not, parasites. The question of private property was left to the free market, operating without state intervention. Then the producers, theoretically including the owners of productive capital, the technical and administrative industrial and agricultural sectors including transport and commerce could develop common interests and solidarity. Their social enemies would be the members of the parasitic class. The confrontation between a producers class and a parasitic class was very different than the class war predicted by Marx. It is at this point that this revision broke away from Marxism and opened the possibility of replacing the social class, as the basic historic subject, with a new one. The political experience of Revolutionary Syndicalism within the socialist ranks, the fact that politically it became marginal in the Partito Socialista Italiano and in the National Work Confederation (CGL), its total opposition to socialist reformism and political liberalism, the practical experience of the general strikes and the failure of the involved workers to bring the revolution, and the internalization of Sorels social mobilizing myth are the main factors that created a break between socialism reformistic and orthodox and Revolutionary Syndicalism. It was the second generation of revolutionary syndicalist leaders and thinkers, men like Panunzio, Orano, Olivetti, Lanzillo, Bianchi and Rossoni, who started their political careers as revolutionary syndicalist socialists and finished as fascists. Their political education, which included the revision of Marx along with Sorels doctrines, provided the grounds for their socialism. They became anti-Marxist, elitist and voluntaristic. Their revolution was to be ethical, requiring higher moral values such as heroism and social altruism, and the will to fight and conquer.

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This new kind of socialism found a common language with Radical Nationalism and shared with it the enthusiastic Interventionism in the Lybian War and in World War I. Revolutionary Syndicalism was becoming the National Syndicalism of post-war Italy. The nation had replaced the social class as the subject of history. It was National Syndicalism that gave fascism its first political programmes and a sound ideological background. The claim that theoretical considerations become automatic ideological guidelines, translated into practical politics through programmes and political action, is not universal.51 Nevertheless, there is a close relationship between these different levels of dealing with the political phenomena, especially when the theoreticians are also publicists, and sometimes occupy positions of political leadership, as occurred with Arturo Labriola, Enrico Leone and other main figures of Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism.52

NOTES
1. On this subject see D. D. Roberts, The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1979), R. De Felice (Mussolini il Rivoluzionario, Torino, Einaudi, 1965) and Z. Sternhell, M. Sznajder, M. Asheri, Naissance de lideologie fasciste (Paris, Fayard, 1989). 2. This argument is developed in detail in Z. Sternhell, M. Sznajder, M. Asheri, Naissance de lideologie fasciste, Chapters III-IV. 3. On the Marginalist revolution in economics see S. Clarke, Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology. From Adam Smith to Max Weber (London & Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1982), 145-147, 151-156 and 166-170. 4. E. Leone, Il sindacalismo (Palermo, Sandron, 1910), 35. 5. I. Bonomi, Le due tendenze del sindacalismo, Critica Sociale, XV, 1905, reprinted in Critica Sociale, a cura di M. Spinella, A. Caracciolo, R. Amaduzi, G. Petronio (Milano, Feltrinelli, 1959), (vol. I), 233-234. 6. Z. Sternhell, M. Sznajder, M. Asheri, Naissance de lideologie fasciste, 206. 7. Leone, Il sindacalismo, 221. 8. E. Zagari, Marxismo e revisionismo (Bernstein, Sorel, Graziadei, Leone), (Napoli, Guida, 1975), 275-277. 9. A. Labriola, Riforme e rivoluzione sociale (Lugano, Societa Editrice Avanguardia, 1906), 6-7. 10. Labriola, Riforme e rivoluzione sociale, 10. 11. Labriola, Riforme e rivoluzione sociale, 14. 12. A. Labriola, I limiti del sindacalismo rivoluzionario, Il Divenire sociale (1.8.1910), 214. 13. E. Leone, La revisione del marxismo (Roma, Biblioteca del Divenire sociale, 1909), 65. 14. Leone, La revisione del marxismo, 52. 15. S. Perri, Economia politica o economia pura? Arturo Labriola e la revisione del marxismo, in R. Faucci ed., Gli italiani e Bentham (Milano, Franco Angeli Editore, 1982), (vol. 2), 252. 16. A. Labriola, Sul momento attuale della scienza economica, Pagine libere (15.12.1907 [1906]) 13. 17. E. Leone, La revisione del marxismo, 51. 18. E. Zagari, Marxismo e revisionismo (Bernstein, Sorei Graziadei, Leone), 287-288. 19. E. Leone, La revisione del marxismo, 65. 20. A. Labrioia, Sul momento . . . , 17. 21. P. Favilli, Economia e politica del sindacalismo rivoluzionario. Due riviste di teoria e

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socialismo scientifico: Pagine libere e Divenire sociale, Studi Storici (num. 1, 1975), 211. 22. S. Clarke, Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology. From Adam Smith to Max Weber, 145-147. 23. A. Loria, Analisi della propriet capitalistica, Opere, (Editrice Torinese) 1957 [1879]) 638-656. 24. C. Ottaviano, Una disgraziata polemica: Achille Loria e la Critica Sociale (1892 1895), in R. Faucci ed., Gli italiani e Bentham (vol. 2), 200. 25. P. Favilli, Il socialismo italiano e la teoria economica di Marx (1892-1902) (Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1980), 29-31. 26. A. Labriola, Sul momento . . ., B, 14, 19. Pareto influenced Mussolini and the development of fascist ideology. His theories on the role of the elites, the social myths and his rejection of parliamentary democracy were absorbed by Revolutionary Syndicalism and later by fascism. In 1922, Mussolini made Vilfredo Pareto a senator of the realm. Maffeo Pantaleoni was Arturo Labriolas professor of economics and introduced him to Pareto in Lausane, where Labriola became the latters assistant for a brief period. Pantaleoni, nationalist and antisemitic, is seen by fascism as one of its intellectual mentors. Pantaleone served also as DAnnunzios Secretary of Finance and the Treasury during the Fiume affair. 27. G. Cavallari, Classe dirigente e minoranze rivoluzionaire. Il protomarxismo italiano (Universit di Camerino, Jovene Editore, 1983), 32. 28. A. Loria, The Economic Synthesis. A Study of the Laws of Income (London, George Allen & Company, 1914), 362-363. 29. P. Favilli, Il socialismo italiano e la teoria economica di Marx (18921902), 13-14, 51. 30. B. Croce, Materialismo storico ed economica marxista (Milano-Palermo, Sandron, 1900), 40. 31. E. Leone, La revisione del marxismo, 50. 32. B. Croce, Materialismo storico ed economia marxista, 113114. 33. Arturo Labriola held a personal grudge against Benedetto Croce. He saw himself as a victim of Croces appropriations of ideas he had expounded in his book La teoria del valore di C. Marx. Studio sul III libro del Capitate. On this point see D. Marucco, Arturo Labriola e il sindacalismo rivoluzionario in Italia (Torino, Einaudi, 1970), 110-111. Labriola referred negatively to Croce and his arrogance that led him to deal with everything, and the phenomenal puerility of the solutions he has the habitude to coin. See A. Labriola, Il capitalismo (Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1910), 383. 34. V. Pareto, Le mie idee, Il Divenire sociale (16.7.1910), 195. 35. E. Leone, Leconomia pura in raporto al socialismo, Il Divenire sociale (16.21.3.1909), 66. 36. Leone, Leconomia pura . . ., 67. 37. Leone, Leconomia pura . . ., 68. 38. Leone, Leconomia pura . . .,69. 39. E. Leone, Il plusvalore nelledonismo e nel marxismo, Il Divenire sociale (16.7.1909), 184. 40. Leone, Il plusvalore . . ., 184-185. 41. Leone, Il plusvalore . . ., 184. 42. Leone, La revisione del marxismo, 62. 43. Leone, Leconomia pura . . ., 70. 44. Leone, Il plusvalore . . ., 185. 45. E. Santarelli, Calcolo edonistico e sfruttamento del lavoro nel marxismo microeconomico di Enrico Leone (1898-1916), in R. Faucci ed., Gli italiani e Bentham (vol. 2), 89. 46. Leone, Il sindacalismo, 178. 47. Leone, Il sindacalismo, 163-164. 48. While still in Napoli, before 1902, the main exponents of revolutionary syndicalism Leone, Labriola and Ernesto Cesare Longobardi adhered to the anti-protectionist forces there. Undoubtedly, economic protectionism favored the industrializing North and worked against the agrarian exporting South. On this point see G. Cavallari, Classe dirigente e minoranze rivoluzionarie. Il protomarxismo italiano, 31. Labriola joined the bourgeoise antiprotectionist league led by Giretti, Einaudi and De Vitti de Marco, in 1904, see A. Labriola, Storia di dieci anni 1899-1909 (Milano, Feltrinelli, 1975 [1910]), 133-134, and A. Riosa, Il

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sindacalismo rivoluzionario italiano e la lotta politica nel Partito Socialista dell eta giolittiana (Bari, De Donato, 1974), 77. 49. S. Clarke, Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology. From Adam Smith to Max Weber, 149-150. 50. It is D. D. Roberts, in his extremely well researched The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism, who expounds the anti-political nature of Italian Revolutionary Syndicalism (see Ch. III). While agreeing with the basic thesis of Roberts about the ideological link between Revolutionary Syndicalism and Fascism, we must stress that Labriola and Leone held a position that was not anti-political but against the politics of compromise of reformist socialism and democratic liberalism. They were against the party, parliament and the actual shape of the state and believed all could be changed through the syndicalization of revolutionary struggle. In their vision, the syndicates were the institutions that were able to forward working class interests. The theoretical model they created led towards a corporative model of representation and government. Their conflicts within the Socialist Party, their theoretic and publicistic writings, along with their polemics are more than enough proof that they were not anti-political but were trying to change the shape of politics according to their views. 51. On this point see P. Favilli, Riformismo e sindacalismo. Una teoria economica del movimento operaio tra Turati e Graziadei (Milano, Franco Angeli Editore, 1984), 14. 52. D.D. Roberts, The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism, 12-16.

Praxis International 11:1 April 1991

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