The XVII National Congress of the PSI took place in Livorno, at the Teatro Goldoni, 15 from January to 21 1921. The delegates of 4.367 sections with 216.327 members took part in the Assise. “The hall of Congress – wrote theCome on! January 16th – looks really impressive. The decoration is properly decorous and elegant, with its festoons following the broad curve of the boxes, with its inscriptions, with its well-combined diffusion of light. But what gives it grandeur and grandeur is the spectacle of the number of guests. We have attended – continued the newspaper – almost all the socialist congresses and we know well not to be surprised by the numerical concurrence of the socialist representations. But this time – reaffirmed Avanti! – the show is really great; these are thousands of participants who represent the largest political force in Italy”.
Was there ever a funeral described in such glowing terms? Nevertheless we knew what the outcome would be: it was enough to read the motions of the five "tendencies" that clashed in the debate and in the final votes: that of the "concentrationists” formed by the reformists (Reggio Emilia motion) which had as its main exponents Turati and Modigliani; the intransigent fraction revolutionary headed by Lazzari; the fraction of "unitary communists"of Giacinto Menotti Serrati, that of the "pure communists" driven by bordiga e terracini and that of "bridges” between the two communist fractions of Marabini e Graziadei.
The crucial question concerned the sharing of the 21 points that the Third Communist International had placed on the parties that intended to join. Among these prejudicial requirements, one explicitly undermined the unity of the party. Point 7 sounded like a fatwa: "The parties wishing to belong to the Communist International are obliged to recognize the complete break with reformism and with the politics of the "center" and to propagate this rupture in the wider communist circle”. The text then took the trouble to call the social traitors by name. "The Communist International cannot tolerate that notorious opportunists, such as Turati, Kautsky, Modigliani, etc., have the right to pass as members of the Third International".
The 21 points had been voted at the II Congress of the Communist International which had taken place in Moscow the previous summer. A PSI delegation made up of Serrati, Graziadei and Bombacci took part. While the latter two had shared the diktat in full, Serrati, while declaring that he was in general agreement, had rejected the point relating to expulsion. Having brought the issue to Italy to the party leadership, Serrati's position was passed with 7 votes against 5. This allowed the party to present itself united in the administrative elections of 31 October and 7 November 1920, in which the socialists won in 2.162 Municipalities (including Milan and Bologna) and in 26 provincial administrations. On November 21st – we recall incidentally – the assault by the Fascists took place on Palazzo d'Accursio.
In view of the convocation of the XVII Congress called to resolve the issue of party unitycertain factions had gathered: in Reggio Emilia the concentration/reformists; in Imola the pure communists. The former, without questioning their membership in the Third International, had spoken out against any discrimination against them and the legal conquest of power. The latter had launched a manifesto signed by Bombacci, Bordiga, Gramsci, Misiano and Terracini in which the fraction's unconditional adherence to the 21 points was expressed. Serrati, on the other hand, had supported with the motion (of Florence) of the unitary communists the need for party unity, since the Italian situation was different from the Russian one.
The debate began and continued amid speeches by the major exponents, controversies and interruptions on the theme of unity or division. In the afternoon of the 20th the votes were held which gave the following results: 172.487 voters; motion of Florence (unitary communists) 98.028 votes; Imola motion (pure communists) 58.783 votes: Reggio Emilia motion (concentrationists/reformists) 14.685 votes; 981 abstentions. After the announcement of the results of the vote, on the morning of 21 January, the communist fraction declared that the majority of the Congress had placed itself outside the Third International and invited its adherents to leave the room and go, at 11, to the Teatro San Marco to deliberate the establishment of the Communist Party, Italian section of the III International. The militants came out to the singing of the Internationale.
