Books on the History of the Italian Left

[StockholmSyndrome]

Could I please get some recommendations for books about the history of the Italian communist left? I am particularly interested in the split that took place between Bordiga and Damen in 1952. I can't read Italian so that may limit my options a bit.

[Zanthorus]

The International Communist Current publishes a book on the history of the Italian Left, The Italian Communist Left: 1926-45, which despite it's name actually covers everything from the foundation of the Italian socialist movement in the 1880's to the dissolution of the Gauche Communiste de France in 1852. Damen himself wrote a book on the split Bordiga, strengths and weaknesses of an experience in the history of the Italian Left, which is unfortunately only in Italian, although the Internationalist Communist Tendency is apparently beggining the work of translating Damen's output, and one of the articles from the book (On the question of centralism within the party) has been translated into English and published on their website here (http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2010-03-17/centralised-party-yes-centralism-over-the-party-no). The ICT have also themselves written an article on the history of the left which goes into the reasons behind the Bordiga/Damen split and can be found here (http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2009-07-01/the-italian-communist-left-a-brief-internationalist-history).

I'm not aware of any Bordigist writings on the split, they tend to skip over the period between the expulsion of the left from the PCd'I and the foundation of the International Communist Party in 1952, or else avoid any kind of detailed examination. The second part of Il Programma Comunista's What is the International Communist Party has a brief history of the Italian Left from their point of view here (http://www.internationalcommunistparty.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=53&limitstart=1). Bordiga himself wrote a four volume work Storia della Sinistra Comunista covering the history of the Italian Left in it's formative period from 1912-1922 which can be bought from Programma. I'm not entirely clear if it's available in English, but if you write to Programma they may be able to help you out (Although the prices given in Internationalist Papers #14 are $30 or €20 per volume so all four together is going to be very pricey).

EDIT: One more thing, a while back I found this particularly interesting piece, Antonio Gramsci and the Bolshevization of the PCI (http://reocities.com/cordobakaf/gramsci_pci.pdf) which explores Gramsci's role in the marginalisation of the Left within the Communist Party of Italy.

[Android]

Philippe Bourrinet was a member of the ICC in the 70s, was the original author of the ICC's book, he has also published his own version since he left the ICC and I believe even the French version originally published was different then the current English one - but maybe others can clarify this.

I've attached Bourrinet's version.