Despite its endorsement from Lenin as the position in Italy closest to that of the Bolsheviks, L'Ordine Nuovo was never able to effectively translate into mass action with the PSI. There are many explanations behind this. The first and major point was the PSI itself. Like many other 'socialist' parties in Europe, there had been a profound internal crisis over the approach to WW I and participation in government. Mirroring the trajectory of the SPD, the PSI moved into a position to neutralize the worker revolts in Bienno Rosso, encouraging the trade unions to accept negotiation from the government. The General Confederation of Labor, the union most closely tied to the PSI, abandoned their fellow workers in factory occupations. The PSI hoped to demonstrate its influence with the trade unions through this and as a result solidify its position in Italian politics. Indeed in the elections of 1919 in Italy, the PSI ended up getting the most seats in Parliament, though not a majority. It was the largest party in parliament, a significant achievement, and was kept out of government by a coalition of other forces. L'Ordine Nuovo's call to factory councils was taken up by workers in Turin, who in turn provided an example for other workers unrest in Italy. In the photo album you can see some pictures of these councils and meetings in occupied factories. It was a great time in Italy, and the bourgeoisie press was filled with fears that a Bolshevik revolution was coming to Italy. That was not to be though. The workers occupations were neutralized by either the trade union leadership selling out to the government, the complicity of the PSI in not effectively going behind the movement as they hoped to become a partner in government, and finally the reactionary back lash to the workers. The latter saw self-styled neighborhood defense set up militias to protect small shops and help break strikes in factories. The most prominent of these groups were the former PSI member Mussolini's Blackshirts, the beginning of Fascism in Italy. As I mentioned in the last thread nearly a year ago (yes, I've been lazy, sorry), L'Ordine Nuovo faced internal disputes, notably between Antonio Gramsci and Angelo Tasca over the role of trade unions. Gramsci took the position that any worker should be allowed onto a council, while Tasca said that only those who were union members should be. This started a divide between the two former comrades which eventually led to Tasca's departure from the group. The end of the Bienno Rosso in Italy, along with similar worker revolts collapsing in the rest of Europe, would present another crisis to Gramsci and the PSI. In a way the position of workers' councils fell out of favor by Marxists, who began to feel the problem of the Bienno Rosso lay more with the absence of a revolutionary party, one that the PSI had abandoned to become a bourgeois party. L'Ordine Nuovo had managed to achieve quite a bit, despite being a small paper that was supported only by its readers. Gramsci's own position within the socialist movement would be elevated by his role in the paper, which would aid him later on as Marxists who supported the Soviet Union prepared to split with the PSI to form the revolutionary party necessary for the times.
