ALBERTO CASTELLI

La scelta federalista di Andrea Caffi

N. 183

Summary — An introduction to the intellectual origins of Caffi’s federalist thought shows that Caffi knows not only the tradition of federalist thought but also the French and the Russian ones. However, the work that is analysed first, La Pace di Versailles (1919) written by Caffi and Umberto Zanotti Bianco, deals with the situation of Europe after the First World War. In this work Caffi and Zanotti Bianco propose a solution to the European problems which illustrate their the influence on them of Giuseppe Mazzini's ideas, and how far they are from the federalist ideas, supported in the same years by Luigi Einaudi, Attilio Cabiati and Giovanni Agnelli. In the twenties Caffi got in touch with Carlo Rosselli and contributed to Rosselli’s socialist review "Il Quarto Stato ". In his essays Caffi shows a great interest in European integration but his thought cannot be considered federalist yet. From 1930 to 1935 Caffi took part in the activities of Giustizia e Libertà, an antifascist political movement founded by Rosselli. In this period he definitively agrees that a peaceful society in Europe can be created only through federalism. The author compares Caffi’s thought with the ideas of the most important intellectuals who wrote in those years about peace in Europe and federalism According to Caffi, federalism is also a suitable means for creating a free, democratic and fair society. So Caffi thinks federalism should concern not only European international organization, but also the internal juridical structure of States. In this sense Caffi agrees with Silvio Trentin and Georges Gurvitch, who wrote about democracy and federalism in the same years as Caffi.