L’Ordine Nuovo and the workers’ councils movement in Turin in the postwar years (1919-1920)

Published

1 January 2013

Issue

Volume 1 – Number

How to cite

Angelo d’Orsi and Francesca Chiarotto

DOI

ABSTRACT

The first issue of L’Ordine Nuovo (The New Order) “a weekly review of socialist culture”, was published in Turin on an extremely convenient date: May 1, 1919. Despite being listed as “editorial secretary”, Gramsci was, in fact, the foremost promoter of this small Turin-based enterprise. The underlying idea of the newspaper was the need for the working class to build a culture of its own, a crucial part of the development of a revolutionary conscience. Nonetheless, it did not disregard, but rather pre-emptively encompassed, the acquisition of wider and more general cultural instruments. This included major cultural traditions that preceded the advent of the working class in the global scenario, starting from the set of (scientific, artistic, literary, etc…) events that could be summarized with a formula of the great bourgeois culture. Said process was primarily, and understandably, led by Benedetto Croce, undisputed “provoker of theoretical elaboration”. As Mario Montagna, one of the newspaper’s promoters who, after Gramsci’s death, advocated the publication of the Sardinian writer’s work, declared: “L’Ordine Nuovo must become for young socialists what La Voce was for the bourgeoisie: the core around which all intelligence and willpower develops”.

KEYWORDS

L’Ordine Nuovo, Gramsci, Turin, Weekly review, Socialist culture