For some time after 1900 the Government was not only sympathetic, but in
some degree dependent on the party for support. As in other countries,
there is a reformist or moderate and a revolutionary wing in the Italian
socialist party. The latter takes a _syndicalist_ or trade-union form
and is largely imbued with anarchism. At the congress at Rome in 1906 a
new movement called _integralism_ became supreme. The integralists aimed
at combining the best and most effective methods of all sections,
gradual reform when possible, but violence also, and the general strike
if necessary. They are anti-monarchical and anti-clerical.
The Italian socialists have been active not only in organising strikes
but in municipal work and in co-operative undertakings. A marked feature
in the brief history of the party has been its success in organising the
peasantry. One of these peasant combinations, with a membership of
200,000, held a national congress at Bologna in 1901 and formed a
national federation. In that and the following year many agrarian
strikes were successful, and brought a little improvement in the hard
lot of the rural workers in Italy. It was a notable awakening of labour,
in which the party took a leading share. When we consider the very
backward condition of Italy and the short period during which the party
has been in existence, we must regard its success as remarkable.
After making some progress the Working-Men’s Socialist Party of Spain
has declined in recent years. The number of its votes for the Chamber
decreased from 26,000 in 1904 to 23,000 in 1905. It has, however,
succeeded in sending representatives to a good number of municipalities
and communes. The political and industrial life of Spain has been in a
most depressed condition.
Besides the Parliamentary Socialism, which is based more or less on
Marx, anarchism has always found a congenial soil in Spain, Italy, and
other countries where misery and oppression have been hereditary for so
many centuries, and which even yet have not learned habits of
self-control, of free discussion, and open action. It is such an unhappy
environment that produced the assassins of President Carnot, the Empress
of Austria, and King Humbert of Italy. Anarchism is very powerful and
widespread in the south of Spain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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