Bordiga, Amadeo

Born 1889; died July 25, 1970. Italian political figure.

Bordiga, an engineer by profession, joined the socialist movement in 1910. During World War I he was one of the leaders of the revolutionary (“uncompromising”) wing of the Socialist Party, which demanded the exclusion from the party of reformists who wanted collaboration with the bourgeoisie. After the war he maintained this position and became the leader of the abstentionists, who rejected legal forms of the working-class struggle. His views as leader of the abstentionists were repeatedly criticized by Lenin (“De-tskaia bolezn’ ‘levizny’ v Kommunizme” and the address to the second congress of the Comintern, in Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 41, pp. 49–50 [note], 98–99, 255, 256, 258). Actively supporting separateness from the reformists, Bordiga became a leader of the Communist Party, founded in 1921 after it broke away from the Socialist Party. During the period when fascism began to advance, he pursued a sectarian policy which reduced the fighting efficiency of the party and threatened to alienate it from the masses. In 1923, Bordiga was actually removed from the leadership of the party, and the third congress of the Communist Party in 1926 condemned his views. In 1930 he was expelled from the party. After World War II he was a left-wing anticommunist publicist, but he failed to gain any political influence.