GIOVANNA ANGELINI

Gnocchi-Viani e ĞLa Plebeğ

N. 175

 

Summary — Gnocchi-Viani’s collaboration with the paper "La Plebe" begins in September 1875 and during a period of two years produces a deep modification in the theoretical background of the paper. Enrico Bignami, "La Plebe" ‘s editor-in-chief, had sent to the General Council the registration of Lodi’s local party branch to the International Working Men’s Association, which was guided by Marx and Engels. Gnocchi-Viani, instead, had taken a peculiar position inside the Working Men’s Association, because he refused the insurrectionary methods of the anarchists but also rejected the general strategy of Marx and Engels, who considered the dictatorship of the proletariat and the use of impositions from above as capital means of building a society of freedom and justice.

Thanks to Gnocchi-Viani’s teaching, the whole group that was gathered around the "Plebe" understood the dictatorial risks hidden inside Marx’s doctrine and decided to refuse the politicized behaviour of the General Council. The group accepted the concept of socialism as given by Gnocchi-Viani, who, remembering Mazzini’s teachings, always kept a strict relationship between materialism and idealism and tried to enrich the economic policy with an ethical and voluntaristic approach, which certainly did not belong to the marxist tradition.