The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-20
SignOr MOdigIiani
and FaSCiSnl
BY A. K.

democratic leaders to try to make the
Communists responsible for the coun-
ter-revolutionary terrorist regimes.
The rise Of fascism in Italy, the forest
of gallows in Bulgaria, etc.--all this
was natural reaction to the work
Of the Communists"
This old and rather worn out story
was retailed once again a few days
ago by the Italian reformist Modi-
gliani in q speech delivered to the
Berlin social democratic workers.
Modigliani and his bosom friends
have received marching orders from
Mussolini, after having done his work.
Modigliani declared:
Thus was fascism born! In the
middle of 1919 the last efforts were
made. The factories were occupied
by the workers. Who was the insti-
gator of this action? Mussolini! And
what were it's consequences The
workers were driven from the fac
tories and the peasants from the larg-
er estates. And the worst was that
the bourgeoisie was indirectly sup
ported by the Communists. Moscow
dispatched ridiculous orders which
had no sense for Italy. They made a
united resistance impossible and as
sisted in the victory of fascism."
Flourished Because of InactiOn.
This contention simply turns all the
facts on their heads. 1t is generally
known today that fascism became
powerful in the state and finally be-
came the state itself, not on account
of any revolutionary action of the
proletariat, but because, thanks to
Modigliani and his friends, such revo-
lutionary action did not materialize.
Even Karl Kautsky, who certainly
cannot be suspected of being direct
actionist, has to admit that. He
writes in his foreword to the second
volume of his popular edition of
Marks Capital. translated from
the "Volksausgabe des Kapital" 111a
Band):
"How little the proletariat has won
when it has only gained control of
production, was shown in 1920 in
Italy when the revolutionary workers
occupied the great works without
meeting with any resistance. They
managed to maintain production for
a while, but they were not able to
maintain circulation: the supply of
raw material and supplementary ma
terials, the disposal of the finished
commodities. Very quickly, the pro-
cess of production itself began to
come to halt, the workers exhausted
their supplies and there remained
nothing for them to do but to bow
their shoulders once again under the
yoke which must have seenned to them
to be their salvation.
with this the working class had
suffered the most serious of all de-
feats. Not defeat met with in the
struggle, such defeat can have a
morally uplifting effect, but defeat
without struggle, caused by the col
lapse of their own measures on ac-
count of their complete insufficiency."
Didn't Go On.
If We ignore the confusion which
is inevitable in Kautsky's present
works, then we see that the above
quotation declares that fascism only
became victorious because the revolu-
tionary action of the proletariat was
not carried far enough.
This observation of Kautsky is also
in accordance with everything that we
know about the chief cause of the vic
tory Of fascism. The victory of fas-
cism was the punishment for the lack
of courage to act in a revolutionary
manner, or rather to pursue the revo-
lutionary action to its logical end.
This fact is also to be seen from
letter written by Modigliani himself
to the Berlin "Vorwaerts". At the
time of the occupation of the fac
tories, writes Modigliani, Mussolini
was still undecided. Mussolini was
not the instigator Of the occupation
of the factories, but declared himself
ready to support the metal workers
Of Milan. (Modigliani corrects the
false report of the "Vorwaerts"):
Reformists Befriend Benito.
That is not only historical process
sion, but, as we have already shown
above, logical train and consequence,
and the responsibility for it rests
solely with the reformists, the friends
Of Signor Modigliani who sabotaged,
throttled and betrayed all the mass
movements of the proletariat after
the war, who paved the way for fas-
cism by their complete passivity, who
have offered to Cooperate in a tech
nical fashion" with Mussolini and who
deliberately let the elementary indig
nation of all the toiling masses of the
population, at the murder of Matteoti
in 1924, run to seed.
II the Communists had had the
power that Modigliani and his friends
possessed, then it would never have
come as far as fascism. The Com