1941 The Manifesto of Ventotene.pdf

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The Manifesto of Ventotene (1941)
Caption:
In 1941, the anti-Fascist activists Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli, placed under house arrest on the Italian
island of Ventotene, draw up a manifesto for a free and united Europe.
Source:
SPINELLI, Altiero; ROSSI, Ernesto. The Ventotene Manifesto. Ventotene: The Altiero Spinelli Institute for
Federalist Studies, [s.d.]. p. 75-96.
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URL:
http://www.cvce.eu/obj/the_manifesto_of_ventotene_1941-en-316aa96c-e7ff-4b9e-b43a-958e96afbecc.html
Publication date:
02/12/2013
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The Manifesto of Ventotene
I — The crisis of modern civilization
Modern civilization has taken as its specific foundation the principle of liberty which says that man is not a
mere instrument to be used by others but that every man must be an autonomous life centre. With this
definition in hand, all those aspects of social life that have not respected this principle have been placed on
trial in the grand, historical process that has begun.
(1) The equal right shared by all nations to be organized into independent states has been recognized. All
peoples, defined by ethnic, geographic, linguistic and historical characteristics, were to find, within the state
organization created according to its own particular concept of political life, that instrument best suited for
satisfying its own needs independent of any outside intervention. The ideology of national independence
was a powerful stimulus for progress. It helped overcome narrow-minded parochialism with a sense of the
vaster solidarity against foreign oppression. It eliminated many of the obstacles that hindered the circulation
of people and merchandise. It extended within the territory of each new state the institutions and systems of
more advanced societies to those populations which had remained undeveloped. It also brought with it,
however, the seeds of capitalist imperialism which our own generation has seen expand to the point of
forming totalitarian states and to the unleashing of world wars.
No longer is the “nation” considered to be the historical product of the communities of man that, as the
result of a lengthy process of increasing similarities of custom and aspiration, find their state to be the most
efficacious form of organizing collective life within the framework of the entire human society. It has,
instead, become a divine entity, an organism that has to consider only its own existence, its own
development, without the least regard for the damage this might cause to others.
The absolute sovereignty of national states has given each the desire to dominate, since each one feels
threatened by the strength of the others, and considers as its living space an increasingly vast territory
wherein it will have the right of free movement and can ensure itself of the means of a practically
autonomous existence. This desire to dominate cannot be placated except by the predominance of the
strongest state.
As a consequence of all this, from guardian of civil liberty, the state was transformed into the master of
vassals bound into servitude, and it held within its power all the faculties needed to achieve the maximum
war-efficiency. Even during peacetimes, considered to be pauses during which to prepare for subsequent,
inevitable wars, the military class predominates by now in many countries over civilian society. Expressions
of civil policy, therefore, such as schools, research, productivity, administrations, function with difficulty
and are mainly directed towards increasing military strength. Women are considered merely as producer of
soldiers and are awarded prizes in much the same way as they are awarded to prolific cattle. From the very
earliest age, children are taught to handle weapons and to hate what is foreign. Individual liberty is reduced
to practically nought since everyone is part of the military establishment and constantly subject to recall in
the armed forces. Repeated wars force men to abandon families, jobs, property, often demanding the
ultimate sacrifice for reasons of which no one really understands the value. It takes just a few days to destroy
the results of decades of common effort made to increase general well-being.
The totalitarian states are those that have most consistently achieved the unification of all forces, in effecting
the greatest concentration and the highest degree of self-sufficiency. These are the organizations which have
proved to be most suited to the current international environment. If even one nation moves a step towards a
more accentuated totalitarianism, it is followed immediately by the others, drawn through the very same
furrow by their will to survive.
(2) The equal right of all citizens to participate in the formation of the intentions of the State has been
recognized. This was to have been the synthesis of the freely expressed changeable economic and
ideological needs of all the social categories. A like political organization has allowed for the correction or
at least the minimizing of many of the most jarring injustices inherited from previous regimes. But freedom
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of the press, of assembly and the extension of suffrage, made the defence of old privileges increasingly
difficult, while maintaining a representative system of government.
Those who owned nothing slowly learned to use these instruments to battle for the rights acquired by the
privileged classes. Taxes on unearned income and on inheritances, increasing duties to be paid on
increasingly large incomes, tax exemptions for low incomes and on prime necessities; free public schooling;
increased social security spending; land reforms; control of factories and of manufacturing plants — these
were threats to the privileged classes in their well-fortified citadels.
Even the privileged classes who had consented to the equality of political rights, could not accept the fact
that the under-privileged took advantage of this in order to achieve economic and social equality in fact as
well as word, and that would have lent concrete significance to the liberty these rights promised. After the
end of the First World War, the threat became too serious; it was only natural that certain classes warmly
approved and sustained the installation of dictatorship. Legal weapons were thus struck from the hands of
popular adversaries.
On the other hand, the formation of gigantic industrial and banking groups, and of trade organizations
bringing together whole armies of workers; groups and unions pressuring the government to obtain that
policy which most clearly responded to their particular interests, threatened to dissolve the very state into so
many economic baronies bitterly fighting among themselves. Liberal, democratic instruments became the
tools these groups used to exploit all of society even more, losing the prestige they had had. In this way, the
conviction took hold that only a totalitarian state, in which individual liberties were also abolished, could
somehow resolve the conflicts of interest that existing political institutions were unable to control.
In fact, then, the totalitarian regimes consolidated, generally speaking, the various social categories at those
levels they had reached a bit at a time; using police control of every aspect of each citizen’s life, and through
the violent silencing of all dissenting voices, these regimes barred every legal possibility of further
correction of the actual state of conditions. This ensured, then, the existence of a thoroughly parasitic class
of landowners who contributed to social productivity only by cutting the coupons off their stocks; the
monopoly holders and the chain stores that exploit the consumers and volatise the sums set apart by small
investors; the plutocrats hidden behind the scenes pulling strings on the politicians and running the
machinery of the State for their own, exclusive advantage, behind the appearance of higher national
interests. The colossal fortunes of a very few have been preserved, and the misery of the masses as well,
excluded from the enjoyment of the fruits of modern culture. Another expression has been preserved
substantially in the economic regime in which material reserves and labour, that ought to be applied to the
satisfaction of fundamental needs for the development of vital human energies, are instead addressed to the
satisfaction of the most futile wishes of those capable of paying the highest prices; an economic regime in
which, through the right of inheritance, the power of money is perpetuated in the same class, and is
transformed into a privilege without any correspondence to the social value of the services rendered. The
field of proletarian possibilities is thus reduced, and in order to make a living, workers are often forced to
accept exploitation by anyone who offers a job.
In order to keep the working classes immobilized and subjugated, the trade unions have been transformed
from the free organizations of struggle that they were, directed by individuals who enjoyed the trust of their
associates, into police surveillance organs run by employees chosen by the ruling class and responsible only
to them. If improvements are made in this economic regime, it is simply and solely dictated by the needs of
militarism, that has joined with the reactionary ambitions of the privileged classes in giving rise to and
strengthening totalitarian states.
(3) The permanent value of the spirit of criticism has been asserted against authoritarian dogmatism.
Everything affirmed must have reason in itself, or it must disappear. The greatest conquests our society has
made in every field are due to the methodicalness of this unbiased attitude. But this spiritual liberty did not
survive the crises created by the totalitarian states. New dogmas to be accepted like articles of faith, or to be
accepted hypocritically, are taking over all fields of Knowledge.
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Albeit no one knows what race is, and the most elementary notions of history emphasize the absurdity of the
statement, physiologists are held to believe, demonstrate and convince that one belongs to a chosen race —
simply because this myth is needed by imperialism to excite the masses to hate and pride. The most evident
concepts of economic science must be anathema if the autarchic policy, balanced trade and other old stand-
bys of mercantilism can be presented as extraordinary discoveries of our times. Because of the economic
interdependence of all parts of the world, the vital space needed by any population which wants to maintain
a living standard consonant with modern civilization, must be considered the entire globe. The pseudo-
science of geo-politics has been created, however: it will demonstrate the consistency of the theory of living
spaces, giving theoretical cover to the imperialist desire to overpower.
History is falsified in its essential data, in the interests of the ruling classes. The shadows of obscurantism
newly threaten to suffocate the human spirit. The social ethic of liberty and equality is undermined. Men are
no longer considered free citizens who can use the State in order to reach collective purposes. They are,
instead, servants of the State, which decides their destinies, and behind the will of the State is masked the
will of those who hold the power. Men are no longer the subjects of law; arranged hierarchically they are
expected to obey without discussion all their superiors, culminating in a suitably deified Chief. The caste
regime is born, arrogant, out of its own ashes.
This reactionary, totalitarian civilization, after having triumphed in a series of countries, finally found, in
Nazi Germany, the power that was thought to be capable of drawing the final consequences. Its victory
would mean the final consolidation of totalitarianism in the world. All its characteristics would be
exasperated to the greatest degree, and progressive forces would be condemned for long years to the role of
simple opposition.
The traditional arrogance and intolerance of the German military classes can give us an idea of what the
character of their dominance would have been like, after a victorious war. Victorious Germans might even
concede five years of generosity towards other European peoples, formally respecting their territories and
their political institutions, in this way satisfying the false sentiment of patriotism of those who consider the
colours of the boundary fence, and the nationality of the politicians in the forefront; and instead it is the ratio
of power and the effective content of state organs, that warrant attention. However camouflaged, the reality
is always the same: a new division of humanity into Spartans and Athenians.
Even a compromise solution between the two sides in battle would be one more step ahead for
totalitarianism. All those countries which had eluded Germany’s grasp would be forced to adopt its same
forms of political organization, in order to be adequately prepared for the next war.
Hitler’s Germany, however, did succeed in felling the minor states one by one, and this action forced
increasingly powerful forces to join battle. The courageous fighting spirit of Great Britain, even in that most
critical moment when it faced the enemy alone, was the cause that brought the Germans to collide against
the valiant resistance of the Red Army, and gave America the time it needed to mobilize its boundless
productive resources. And this struggle against German imperialism is closely linked to that of the Chinese
people against Japanese imperialism.
Immense masses of men and wealth are already drawn up against totalitarian powers whose strength has
already reached its peak: at this point it can only gradually consume itself. The opposing forces, instead,
have already overcome their worst moment and are now on the way up.
The war of the allies awakens more forcefully each day the desire for liberation, even in those countries
which had submitted to violence and had lost their way due to the blow they received. And even in the very
Axis populations this desire has been re-awakened: they realize they have been dragged into a desperate
situation, simply to satisfy the lust for power of their rulers.
The slow process, thanks to which enormous masses of men passively let themselves be formed by the new
regime, adjusted to it and even contributed to its consolidation, has come to a halt. And the opposite process
has begun. Within this immense wave, slowly gathering momentum are included all the progressive forces,
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the most enlightened groups of the working classes that have not let themselves be swayed, either by terror
or by flattery, from their ambition to achieve a better quality of living; it included as well the more aware
elements of the intellectual classes, offended by the degradation of human intelligence; businessmen and
investors who, feeling they are capable of new initiatives, want to free themselves of the trappings of
bureaucracy and national autarchy, that encumber their every movement; and all those others who, due to an
innate sense of dignity, cannot bend before the humiliation of servitude.
Today, the salvation of our civilization is entrusted to these forces.
II — Post-war duties — European unity
Germany’s defeat would not automatically lead to the reformation of Europe according to our ideal of
civilization.
In the brief, intense period of general crises (during which the fallen governments lie broken, during which
the popular masses anxiously await a new message and are, meanwhile, like molten matter, burning,
susceptible to being poured into new moulds, capable of welcoming the guidance of serious
internationalists), the classes which were most privileged under the old national systems will attempt,
underhandedly or violently, to quench the thirst, the sentiments, the passions groping towards
internationalism, and they will ostentatiously begin to reconstruct the old, state organs. And it is probable,
that the English leaders, perhaps in agreement with the Americans, will attempt to push things in this
direction, in order to restore the policy of the balance of power, in the apparent and immediate interests of
their empires.
The conservative forces, that is: the directors of the fundamental institutions of the national states; the top-
ranking officers in the armed forces up to, where it applies, the sovereign; the groups of monopolistic
capitalists who have bound their profits to the fortunes of the states; the big landowners and the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, who can expect their parasitical income only in a stable, conservative society; and
following these, the interminable band of people who depend upon them or who are simply blinded by their
traditional power. All these reactionary forces already sense the structure creaking, and are trying to save
their skins. A collapse would deprive them in one blow of all the guarantees they have had up to now, and
would expose them to attack by the progressive forces.
The revolutionary situation: old and new trends
The fall of the totalitarian regimes will have the sentimental meaning for entire populations as the coming of
“liberty”; all restrictions will disappear and, automatically, complete freedom of speech and of assembly will
reign supreme. It will be the triumph of democratic tendencies. These tendencies have countless shades and
nuances, stretching from very conservative liberalism to socialism and anarchy. They believe in the
“spontaneous generation” of events and institutions, in the absolute goodness of impulses from the lower
classes. They do not want to force the hand of “history”, or “the people”, or “the proletariat”, or whatever
other name they give their God. They hope for the end of dictatorships, imagining this as the restitution to
the people of their inalienable rights to self-determination. Their crowning dream is a constitutional
assembly, elected by the broadest suffrage and with the most scrupulous respect of the rights of the electors,
who must decide upon the constitution they want. If the population is immature, the constitution will not be
a good one; but it can be corrected only through constant efforts of persuasion.
The democratic factions do not deny violence on principle: but they wish to use it only when the majority is
convinced of its being indispensable, that is, when it is little more than an almost superfluous “dot” over the
“i”. They are, then, useful leaders only in times of ordinary administration, during which the population is
generally convinced of the validity of the fundamental institutions, and if they are to be modified, then only
in relatively secondary aspects. During revolutionary times, when the institutions must not simply be
administrated, but rather created, the democratic procedures fail clamorously. The pitiful impotence of the
democratic faction during the Russian, German, Spanish revolutions are the three most recent examples. In
these situations, once the old state apparatus has fallen, along with its laws and its administrations, there is
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