Recently started and it’s incredibly insightful, even just for more in-depth historical context around movements of the time period. Also chuckled that the intro mentions a couple times social-democracy being the “left-wing of the bourgeoisie/fascism” 
Also I learned what “Taylorism” is, and I don’t think it can be overstated how much middle-managers have always sucked 🤮 https://web.stanford.edu/class/sts175/NewFiles/Taylorism
Taylorism played a huge role in the Soviet union. Lenin embraced taylorism, though with less enthusiasm than other Bolsheviks, and argued that taylorism was necessary because “Russia was a bad worker” who had to be “Taught how to work”.
Stalin considered taylorism combined with the revolutionary nature of the soviets “The essence of leninism”.
And Gastev put Ford up there with Marx as revolutionary figures.Not to sound too anti bolshevik here. But when you read their writings on taylorism and workers management in general, it becomes pretty obvious that pretty much just Shliapnikov of the initial bolsheviks ever had a factory job
Yeah I was confused by reading that it was embraced since it comes off at face as anti-proletariat. I’d never heard of Shliapnikov, but from a brief scan of his writing (Theses to the Ninth Party Congress “On the relations between the Russian Communist Party, the soviets, and production unions.”), seems more in line with what I’d expect from labor that’s done labor.
Damn - when you’re ignorant on history it makes a pretty good story- I had no idea Mussolini was the leader of the Turin Italian Socialist Party and editor of the party paper before he turned heel
”don’t talk to me until I’ve had my opportunism!” 
The descriptions of the“reformist right” party in early 20th century Italy could be an exact description of the US dems.
- “neither support nor sabotage” - contribute to war efforts, but remain ‘abstentionists’
- ‘’left’ enough to prevent emergence of an organized Left until later
- profoundly alienated the petit-bourgeoisie, providing the social basis for fascism
social-democracy being the “left-wing of the bourgeoisie/fascism”
Gramsci and other Italians have a pretty unique claim to that concept seeing as the fascists and social democrats (Well, the party calling itself “Social democracy”) were part of the same coalition.
Yeah that’s making sense to me now that I’ve almost finished the introductory material lol. Just surprised me seeing the phrase within the first couple pages. I’d literally had no idea of what the political dynamics of the early century Italy (or general Europe outside of WWI); I thought Mussolini just fell out of a coconut tree
🌴
Also figures like Ivanoe Bonomi (Also a social democrat since he was thrown out of the socialist party for publicly disavowing anarchist violence against the monarchy) who were initially supportive of fascism until it came for them personally, and then after the war was over immediately sought to re-establish bourgeois power, played a significant role in the development of Italian social democracy.
Ironically Mussolini’s communist credentials prior to the establishment of fascism meant that when the fascists initially started to make waves, some members of the destra storica (Historical right) were more eager to oppose him than many liberals and softer left wingers based purely on vibes (This ended once he actually took power), and would have done so through force of arms were it not for the king’s personal endorsement of fascism. This isn’t a defense of the right btw, they eagerly became participants in the fascist movement, and many of them had used fascist blackshirts as strikebreakers.
Mussolinis past as an anti reformist communist is also why he attracted people like Bombacci (The “Super traitor”. One of the founders of the Italian communist party, who until the end preached of Fascism’s revolutionary promise) and De Ambris (Author of the fascist manifesto and personal friend of Gabrielle D’annunzio and probably one of the most important figures in the history of Italian syndicalism) and received the pseudo-endorsement of people like Bordiga (Patron saint of leftcoms).Yeah the rapid progression and capitalization on opportunity really drives home the difference of bourgeois and working class interest and the means pursued to meet those. Im interested to read more about Gramscis developing views and later rejection of nationalism wrt sardinia vs mainland. And more about the coalescing of agriculture, manufacturing and fascism (ie fiat).
Idk something about nationalism, isolationist industry, and the willingness of centrists to willingly hand over everything sounds oddly familiar 🧐
I’m almost glad I didn’t get any sort of liberal education on this in high school/college, so I can try and parse this from a more materialist lens than whatever I would’ve been taught via houghton-mifflin
“social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism” is from a speech by Stalin. It’s not really an unusual idea in left wing thought (although not universal, obviously)
Guess I’ll have to actually read more theory and see where else I can spot it in the wild 😜
Also,
GOOD post.
