GIACOMO MATTEOTTI, LA GUERRA, L’ANTIFASCISMO E LA CRISI DELLA DEMOCRAZIA

The murder of Giacomo Matteotti is often remembered by liberals and socialists as a crime to suppress an opponent of the nascent fascist regime. This judgment is correct, but it is only part of a more complex truth. Matteotti had a conception of the political struggle for «socialist reformism» that could not have asserted itself without a liberal state, with institutions determined to defend the fundamental values of civil coexistence. Therefore, Matteotti opposed the Communist Party, which justified the conquest of national power with violence and fought to relaunch the Workers’ International and «the formation of the United States of Europe», at the end of the First World War. In conclusion, for Matteotti, international violence represented a mortal threat to the survival of national democracy. This is a valuable lesson today, in a world where war has become a permanent threat and democracy is in danger everywhere.