Critica Sociale
Encyclopedia
Critica Sociale is a left-wing Italian newspaper. It is linked to the social democratic Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI party. Before Benito Mussolini
banned opposition newspapers in 1926, Critica Sociale was a prominent supporter of the original Italian Socialist Party
(PSI), which included a spectrum of views from Socialism to Marxism
.
founded a republican political journal called Cuore e Critica in the late 19th century. A former employee, Filippo Turati
, succeeded Ghisleri on 15 January 1891 and renamed it Critica Sociale. On the 1st January 1893 it moved its political stance, towards socialism
. It backed the founding of the PSI at the party's Genoa Conference and changed its masthead to read: "Weekly review of social, political and literary studies of scientific Socialism".
It became the most influential Marxist review in Italy from 1891 to 1898, tackling all the serious public problems of 1890s Italy: banking scandals, repression of the Fasci Siciliani
unrest, the colonial war in Africa, and food riots. It featured writing by the most influential socialist thinkers in Italy and abroad, including Enrico Ferri
, Lelio Basso
, Paul Lafargue
, Ivanoe Bonomi
, Antonio Graziadei
, Antonio Labriola
and many others. From 1 May 1898 to 1 July 1899, it was seized by the government and its editor was briefly imprisoned.
In 1901 the journal restarted, 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 organisation, school building and hygiene, while opposing government budgets that favoured 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 lagging 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.
's revolutionary method, Critica Sociale editors argued it was inapplicable to the Italian situation. But from 1917, the positions of the two wings the PSI became intractable. At the Livorno Conference of January 1921, the nascent Marxist-Leninist wing led by Amadeo Bordiga
left the PSI to become the Partito Comunista Italiano. Critica Sociale continued to support the reformist Partito Socialista Unitario
.
Benito Mussolini
's rise to power was a second blow to Critica Sociale. Press censorship and seizures by the government led to irregular publication.
Deprived of resources, writers such as Turati, Anna Kulischov, Giacomo Matteotti
, Claudio Treves
, and Carlo Rosselli
continued to defend the democratic order which was being swept swept away by the Fascists, and total censorship loomed. Its last political article was published the day after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti on 10 June 1924, an act which Mussolini used to take absolute power in Italy.
Thereafter the editors sheltered behind inoffensive cultural and doctrinale essays. The next year the Fascist government pronounced a blanket ban on opposition press; the last issue was dated 16 September - 15 October 1926.
regime in 1946, it was reestablished, and has remained in print under a succession of editors-in-chief: Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi, Umberto Giovine and Carlo Tognoli
(with Paolo Brera
as deputy editor). It is currently the official publication of the Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI, a social democratic political party. In recent years it has paid particular attention to the reinvention of British left-wing politics under New Labour, and has published articles by both Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown
.
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
banned opposition newspapers in 1926, Critica Sociale was a prominent supporter of the original Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
(PSI), which included a spectrum of views from Socialism to Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
.
From republicanism so Socialism
Arcangelo GhisleriArcangelo Ghisleri
Arcangelo Ghisleri Ghisleri was born in the comune of Persico Dosimo .A well known geographer by profession, he created numerous maps of Africa...
founded a republican political journal called Cuore e Critica in the late 19th century. A former employee, Filippo Turati
Filippo Turati
Filippo Turati was an Italian sociologist, poet and Socialist politician.-Early life:Born in Canzo, province of Como, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna in 1877, and participated in the Scapigliatura movement with the most important artists of the period in Milan, publishing poetry...
, succeeded Ghisleri on 15 January 1891 and renamed it Critica Sociale. On the 1st January 1893 it moved its political stance, towards socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. It backed the founding of the PSI at the party's Genoa Conference and changed its masthead to read: "Weekly review of social, political and literary studies of scientific Socialism".
It became the most influential Marxist review in Italy from 1891 to 1898, tackling all the serious public problems of 1890s Italy: banking scandals, repression of the Fasci Siciliani
Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori , were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894...
unrest, the colonial war in Africa, and food riots. It featured writing by the most influential socialist thinkers in Italy and abroad, including Enrico Ferri
Enrico Ferri
Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist, and student of Cesare Lombroso. However, whereas Lombroso researched the physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic factors. Ferri was the author of Criminal Sociology in 1884 and the editor for...
, Lelio Basso
Lelio Basso
Lelio Basso was an Italian democratic socialist politician and journalist.-Early life:Lelio Basso was born in Varazze into a Liberal bourgeois family. In 1916, he and his family moved to Milan where he attended the Berchet grammar school...
, Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue was a French revolutionary Marxist socialist journalist, literary critic, political writer and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law, having married his second daughter Laura. His best known work is The Right to Be Lazy...
, Ivanoe Bonomi
Ivanoe Bonomi
Ivanoe Bonomi was an Italian politician and statesman before and after World War II.Bonomi was born in Mantua. He was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1909, representing Mantua as a member of the Italian Socialist Party...
, Antonio Graziadei
Antonio Graziadei
Count Antonio Graziadei was an Italian academic and politician. One of the co-founders of the Italian Communist Party, he was Professor of Political Economy at the Universities of Cagliari and Parma and a member of the Italian Parliament from 1910 to 1926. In 1928 he went on a self imposed exile...
, Antonio Labriola
Antonio Labriola
Antonio Labriola was an Italian Marxist theoretician. Although an academic philosopher and never an active member of any Marxist political party, his thought exerted influence on many political theorists in Italy during the early 20th century, including the founder of the Italian Liberal Party,...
and many others. From 1 May 1898 to 1 July 1899, it was seized by the government and its editor was briefly imprisoned.
In 1901 the journal restarted, as Turati, its editors, and the PSI were entering parliament with the support of Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th Prime Minister of Italy between 1892 and 1921. A left-wing liberal, Giolitti's periods in office were notable for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms which improved the living standards of...
's powerful Liberal Party
Liberalism and radicalism in Italy
- Background :The formation of political groups in the 19th century in divided Italy is based on personalities, like Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Mazzini. Both the Historical Right and the Historical Left were composed of monarchist liberals, while radicals organised themselves as the Radical...
. In this phase the review became the expression of the reformist
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
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 organisation, school building and hygiene, while opposing government budgets that favoured 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
Pietro Gori
Pietro Gori was an Italian lawyer, journalist, intellectual and anarchist poet. He is known for his political activities, and as author of some of the most famous anarchist songs of the late 19th century, including Addio a Lugano , Stornelli d'esilio , Ballata per Sante Caserio Pietro Gori (14...
beside the poetry of Ada Negri
Ada Negri
Ada Negri was an Italian poet and writer.-Biography:She was born in Lodi into an artisan family to Giuseppe Negri and his wife Vittoria Cornalba. She attended Lodi’s Normal School for Girls and earned an elementary teacher’s diploma...
and serialized novels by Italo Svevo
Italo Svevo
Aron Ettore Schmitz , better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian writer and businessman, author of novels, plays, and short stories.- Biography :...
. Even if seen as lagging 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.
World War I and opposition to Fascism
When Italy entered the First World War in May 1915, Critica Sociale did not lose its neutrality nor did it lose its reformist ideals when faced with the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. While not denying the legitimacy of Vladimir LeninVladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's revolutionary method, Critica Sociale editors argued it was inapplicable to the Italian situation. But from 1917, the positions of the two wings the PSI became intractable. At the Livorno Conference of January 1921, the nascent Marxist-Leninist wing led by Amadeo Bordiga
Amadeo Bordiga
Amadeo Bordiga was an Italian Marxist, a contributor to Communist theory, the founder of the Communist Party of Italy, a leader of the Communist International and, after World War II, leading figure of the International Communist Party.- Early life :Bordiga was born at Resina, in the province of...
left the PSI to become the Partito Comunista Italiano. Critica Sociale continued to support the reformist Partito Socialista Unitario
United Socialist Party (Italy, 1922–1930)
The United Socialist Party was a social-democratic political party in Italy, active from 1922 to 1930....
.
Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's rise to power was a second blow to Critica Sociale. Press censorship and seizures by the government led to irregular publication.
Deprived of resources, writers such as Turati, Anna Kulischov, Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Fascists committed fraud in the recently held elections, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes...
, Claudio Treves
Claudio Treves
Claudio Treves was an Italian politician and journalist.-Youth:Claudio Treves was born in Turin into a well off assimilated Jewish family...
, and Carlo Rosselli
Carlo Rosselli
Carlo Rosselli was an Italian political leader, journalist, historian and anti-fascist activist, first in Italy then abroad...
continued to defend the democratic order which was being swept swept away by the Fascists, and total censorship loomed. Its last political article was published the day after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti on 10 June 1924, an act which Mussolini used to take absolute power in Italy.
Thereafter the editors sheltered behind inoffensive cultural and doctrinale essays. The next year the Fascist government pronounced a blanket ban on opposition press; the last issue was dated 16 September - 15 October 1926.
Revival after World War II
Following the fall of the FascistNational Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
regime in 1946, it was reestablished, and has remained in print under a succession of editors-in-chief: Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi, Umberto Giovine and Carlo Tognoli
Carlo Tognoli
Carlo Tognoli was an Italian politician, who was Mayor of Milan and minister of the Italian republic.-Biography:Tognoli was born at Milan and entered the Italian Socialist Party in 1958....
(with Paolo Brera
Paolo Brera
-Biography:Paolo Alberto Brera, an Italian novelist, journalist, economist, and translator, is the third son of writer Gianni Brera and teacher Rina Gramegna. He earned a degree in Political Economy from Bocconi University, where he was Assistant Professor of Economic History from 1974 to 1978.In...
as deputy editor). It is currently the official publication of the Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI, a social democratic political party. In recent years it has paid particular attention to the reinvention of British left-wing politics under New Labour, and has published articles by both Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
.
External links
- www.criticasociale.net Official site
- www.socialisti.net Partito Socialista Nuovo PSI