ABSTRACT

After a brilliant academic start he abandoned the university, joined the Italian Socialist party (1913) and became a journalist for Avanti and Il Grido del Popolo, writing a regular theatre column. With his colleagues, Angelo Tasca, Umberto Terracini and Palmiro Togliatti, he conducted educational campaigns in the working class, setting up the club di vita morale (clúbs for moral living). All were greatly influenced by the Russian revolutions of 1917 and thereafter supported a revolutionary end to Italy’s disastrous participation in the First World War. Together, they established the newspaper Ordine Nuovo (1919), which promoted the creation of factory councils which would teach workers how to manage economic production.