RENZO FIAMMETTI

Alberto Jacometti dal primo dopoguerra alla stagione del centrosinistra.

La vita e l'impegno politico

N. 160

Summary — This paper draws a biographical and political portrait of Alberto Jacometti. Jacometti was born in 1902 near Novara and joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) at a very early age. His participation during the First world war, a period of crisis for the Italian workers movement, was the beginning of a serious activity as a militant and a leader of the Socialist Party that will last for sixty years. Jacometti shared the principles of the Reformist socialism but didn’t forget Marx’s utopia: he enriched the Marxian doctrine with the Federalist idea to avert the danger of the absolutism. In exile in France in 1926, he published the review "L’iniziativa" and in Belgium in 1929, he collaborated with the review "Problemi della Rivoluzione italiana". Confined to Ventotene island in 1941, member of the National Committee of Liberation for the Novara province (CLN) during the Resistenza, Jacometti became secretary of PSI after the elections of April l8th 1948, with the task to lead the Party back to an independent position against the Popular Front. Forced to resign by the opposition of Nenni and Basso in 1949, Jacometti continued his political activity like a deputy. He wrote several books on literature and theatre, poems and memories and, in 1954, he founded the Italian Cultural and Recreational Association (ARCI). The criticism of Jacometti about the choice of "centro-sinistra" in 1964 and the conflict with the leadership of Bettino Craxi after 1976 forced Jacometti to leave the PSI in 1984. Alberto Jacometti died in January 1985 in Novara.