Giacinto Menotti Serrati
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
politician. He was born in Spotorno
Spotorno
Spotorno is a comune in the Province of Savona in the Italian region Liguria, located about 45 km southwest of Genoa and about 9 km southwest of Savona. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 4,171 and an area of 8.1 km².Spotorno borders the following municipalities:...
, near Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
and died in Asso
Asso
Asso is an Italian comune in the province of Como, in Lombardy, Italy. It has 3,524 citizens and an area of 6.46 km², with a density of 546 people/km².-Main sights:Significant historic buildings are:...
, near Como
Como
Como is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy.It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como....
.
Serrati was a central leader of the 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), editor of the paper Avanti!
Avanti! (Italian newspaper)
Avanti! is an Italian daily newspaper, born as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since December 25, 1896. It took its name from its German counterpart Vorwärts.-History:...
(ever since he took over from ousted 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....
in 1914), and during the First World War he pushed the party to the left.
He was an active member of the Zimmerwald Movement
Zimmerwald Conference
The Zimmerwald Conference was held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 through September 8, 1915. It was an international socialist conference, which saw the beginning of the end of the coalition between revolutionary socialists and reformist socialists in the Second International.-...
and, after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
of 1917, Serrati led the PSI into joining the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
. During the second Comintern Congress held in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1920, Serrati served on its Presiding Committee and was also elected to the Comintern Executive Committee that year. However, in 1921 he opposed the Comintern principle of breaking with the reformists and remained head of the Italian Socialist Party during the split into an Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
.
In 1924 he nonetheless led the left wing of the PSI into fusion with the Communist Party, being elected to the latter's Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
.