Filippo Turati | |
|---|---|
 Turati c. 1920 | |
| Member of Chamber of Deputies | |
| In office 15 June 1896 – 9 November 1926 | |
| Constituency | Milan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1857-11-26)26 November 1857 |
| Died | 29 March 1932(1932-03-29) (aged 74) Paris, France |
| Political party | POI (1886–1892) PSI (1892–1922) PSU (1922–1930) |
| Domestic partner | Anna Kulischov |
| Occupation | Jurist, poet, journalist, politician |
Filippo Turati (Italian:[fiˈlippotuˈraːti]; 26 November 1857 – 29 March 1932) was an Italian sociologist,criminologist, poet andsocialist politician.
Born inCanzo,province of Como, he graduated in law at theUniversity of Bologna in 1877, and participated in theScapigliatura movement with the most important artists of the period inMilan. Turati became interested in politics, being attracted to thedemocratic movement before joining the more specific socialist groups.
In 1886, Turati wrote the words of theWorkers' Hymn, a popular socialistanthem that was set to music byAmintore Galli,[1] and is considered among the most significant historic songs of the Italian workers' movement.[1][2] By this time, Turati was associated with the Milanese Socialist League, a supporting group ofCostantino Lazzari'sItalian Workers' Party. Turati was reluctant to compose the anthem, but was persuaded by his mother, Adele.[1] He was ashamed of the final text, and promised Lazzari, who commissioned it, that he would rewrite it, but Lazzari accepted it.[1][3] The anthem was published on 7 March 1886 inMilanese newspaperLa Farfalla,[1][4] crediting Turati.[1] Despite the anthem's success, Turati later called the anthem "a juvenile poetic sin",[1][5] retorting in his 1898 trial:[3]
They have put me on trial so many times for those verses as incitements for class hatred. Instead, they should have sentenced me to death for inciting a crime against Poetry.
His most important sociological work of this period isIl Delitto e la Questione Sociale, in which he examines how social conditions affect crime. He metAnna Kulischov while working on a survey of social conditions inNaples. Kulischov was an exile fromRussia who had become the companion ofAndrea Costa, anAnarchist leader – when she converted to non-Anarchist Socialism, Costa followed, sending an important letter to his anarchist comrades in which he abandoned the movement. Kulischov and Costa had split by the time she met Turati. The two immediately fell in love, and lived together until her death in 1925.
In France, Turati had a close relationship with the Italian lawyer Giuseppe Leti (1866–1939), former head of theSupreme Council of theScottish Rite national Freemasonry who resided in France from 1929 to 1937. Leti was familiar with other Italiananti-fascist politicians such asFrancesco Saverio Nitti,Alberto Cianca,Pietro Nenni,Emanuele Modigliani andEmilio Lussu.[6]
Turati and Anna Kulischov were the most instrumentalintellectuals involved in the founding of theItalian Socialist Party (PSI) in 1892 (it took that name in 1895). They werereformists, believing that Socialism would come about gradually, primarily through action in theItalian Parliament,labour organization, and education, spreading their ideas through their journalCritica Sociale – a review founded by their friendArcangelo Ghisleri under the titleCuore e Critica. It was the most influentialMarxist review in Italy before World War I. Shut down byBenito Mussolini'sFascist regime, it was reestablished after World War II and is still in print.
In the years following the party's foundation, the Italian government attempted to suppress it. Turati advocated alliances with other Italian democratic forces, meant to defeat the government'sreactionary policies, and to advanceleft-wing causes. In 1898 Turati was arrested and charged with being the inspirator of thepopular riot that broke out in the whole country against the rise of the bread price. He was freed the following year.
UnderPrime MinisterLuigi Pelloux, the country was governed by highlyconservative politicians who were met with stiff resistance from the left, and in 1899 they were defeated thanks in large part to the PSI's policies. In 1901,Giuseppe Zanardelli, aLiberal, became Prime Minister – accompanied byGiovanni Giolitti as theMinister of the Interior – Giolitti who would dominate Italian politics until 1915. This Liberal cabinet risked losing a vote in Parliament, with the possibility that a more conservative politician,Sidney Sonnino, would come to power; Turati urged that the Socialist deputies vote for the Zanardelli government. When the party Directorate refused to sanction the vote, he convinced the deputies to do so anyway.
The vote brought the incipient split in the party between right and left wings to a head, even if the Liberal government had allowed workers theright to strike, and despite the fact that the subsequent strike wave resulted in improved conditions in industry and on the land. Between 1901 and 1906, power in the party seesawed between the Turati-led reformists and the revolutionaries under various leaders. After 1906, splits surfaced among the reformists themselves. In 1912, as a result of the Socialist reaction against theItalo-Turkish War (1911–1912), revolutionaries took over the party.Benito Mussolini, one of their leaders, became editor of the party newspaperAvanti!; Turati opposed Mussolini, but proved unable to dislodge him. He had opposed the conflict, and would oppose Italy's entrance into World War I – while Mussolini moved to anirredentist position (and came to be expelled from the PSI after arguing for Italy to join theEntente Powers). Despite the fact that he was a pacifist in June 1918 he strongly supported theItalian Army that was fighting theBattle of Solstizio.[7]
Following World War I, Mussolini created theparamilitaryFasces of Revolutionary Action, then renamedFasces of Italian Combat in 1919 and finallyNational Fascist Party in 1921, and he came to power in 1922 (after theMarch on Rome). Filippo Turati and Anna Kulischov, who knew Mussolini well, were major opponents offascism, and lived under constant surveillance and threats. In a series of prescient speeches, Turati argued that the new revolutionary program adopted by the PSI in 1919 would lead to disaster, and he advocated political alliances with other opponents of Fascism. This policy was rejected and thePSI split in 1921, with the formation of theCommunist Party of Italy. In 1922, Turati's group was expelled and a new group, theUnitary Socialist Party (PSU), was established. In 1924, Turati's disciple and Secretary of the PSU,Giacomo Matteotti, was assassinated by Mussolini'sCeka; this seminal event prompted Mussolini to formalize hisdictatorship between 1925 and 1926.
In 1926, Turati fled Italy in a dramatic escape to France – aided byRiccardo Bauer,[8]Carlo Rosselli,Ferruccio Parri,Sandro Pertini (the futurePresident of the Italian Republic) andAdriano Olivetti, of theeponymous typewriter company. In Paris, he was the soul of the non-Communistanti-fascist resistance, travelling across Europe and alerting democrats to the Fascist danger – which he saw as a phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. He died in the French capital in March 1932.
After World War II, Turati's remains were transferred to Milan'sCimitero Monumentale, where he was buried next to Anna Kulischov.
In theFlorestano Vancini filmThe Assassination of Matteotti (1973), Turati is played byGastone Moschin.
| Election | House | Constituency | Party | Votes | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1896)[a] | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 2,200 |  YElected | |
| 1897[b] | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 2,564 | YElected | |
| (1899)[c] | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 4,343 | YElected | |
| (1899) | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 4,346 | YElected | |
| 1900 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 5,883 | YElected | |
| 1904 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 4,572 | YElected | |
| 1909 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 5,225 | YElected | |
| 1913 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan V | PSI | 13,506 | YElected | |
| 1919 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan | PSI | — | YElected | |
| 1921 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan | PSI | — | YElected | |
| 1924 | Chamber of Deputies | Milan | PSU | — | YElected | |
intinto di pece massonic
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