Why did Spinelli become a Communist, and later a Federalist?
By Mikael on Wednesday 8 October 2008, 10:44 - Permalink
Is it really possible to keep European integration and nuclear disarmament
apart? For a philosopher, it is difficult to forget that these issues are
closely connected. Thus, while I intend to speak about Spinelli's ideas and
proposals at the seminar in Aegina, I will try to keep the disarmament issue
constantly in my mind (even without mentioning it!). Btw, I believe that
Spinelli never lost sight of the problematic of the peace.
Will there be other Spinelli-related presentations at the seminar in Aigina? I don't know. If the organizer of the seminar wants me to, I can narrow my focus to presenting either the ideas in the Manifesto of Ventotene (1941), or Spinelli's memorandum on the European Army (1951), or behind the Treaty Establishing the EU (1984).
It could also be interesting to focus on the evolution of the young Communist Spinelli to the slightly older Marxian Federalist Spinelli, whose way of thinking we can study in the manifesto from Ventotene and in his articles from the 1940s. This would mean inquiring into the idea(s) of Europe of the classical Marxists -- Marx and Lenin, in the first place -- and to compare them with those of the young Spinelli.
In his autobiography (in fact, in the article which was published in Preuves in October 1957; later inserted by himself in Come ho tentato di diventare saggio, p 66), Spinelli stresses that it was the world war which had brought him to Communism. While many young persons from his own generation were drawn to "lunatic Nationalism" (nazionalismo forsennato), Spinelli had acquired, so he says, an "insurmountable antipathy" (una insormontabile antipatia) against the very words "nation" and "Fatherland".
Of course, the circumstance vary and people are somewhat different. Therefore it is, in a sense, a truism that Spinelli's road to Communism was different from that of, say, Marx or Lenin. Yet it may be interesting, in view of his later intellectual evolution, to reflect on what it could mean that the first world war was, so to speak, Spinelli's starting point. It is a central tenet of the Federalists, that the Marxist proletarian internationalism does not provide a valid solution to the problem of the peace. Perhaps the very reason why Spinelli became a Communist was also the reason why he left the Communist Party in 1937, having found Federalism to be a better answer to the problem of the peace?
Will there be other Spinelli-related presentations at the seminar in Aigina? I don't know. If the organizer of the seminar wants me to, I can narrow my focus to presenting either the ideas in the Manifesto of Ventotene (1941), or Spinelli's memorandum on the European Army (1951), or behind the Treaty Establishing the EU (1984).
It could also be interesting to focus on the evolution of the young Communist Spinelli to the slightly older Marxian Federalist Spinelli, whose way of thinking we can study in the manifesto from Ventotene and in his articles from the 1940s. This would mean inquiring into the idea(s) of Europe of the classical Marxists -- Marx and Lenin, in the first place -- and to compare them with those of the young Spinelli.
In his autobiography (in fact, in the article which was published in Preuves in October 1957; later inserted by himself in Come ho tentato di diventare saggio, p 66), Spinelli stresses that it was the world war which had brought him to Communism. While many young persons from his own generation were drawn to "lunatic Nationalism" (nazionalismo forsennato), Spinelli had acquired, so he says, an "insurmountable antipathy" (una insormontabile antipatia) against the very words "nation" and "Fatherland".
Of course, the circumstance vary and people are somewhat different. Therefore it is, in a sense, a truism that Spinelli's road to Communism was different from that of, say, Marx or Lenin. Yet it may be interesting, in view of his later intellectual evolution, to reflect on what it could mean that the first world war was, so to speak, Spinelli's starting point. It is a central tenet of the Federalists, that the Marxist proletarian internationalism does not provide a valid solution to the problem of the peace. Perhaps the very reason why Spinelli became a Communist was also the reason why he left the Communist Party in 1937, having found Federalism to be a better answer to the problem of the peace?