Italian Federation of The Socialist Party of America

ITALIAN FEDERATION OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF AMERICA. Founded in 1910, the Italian Federation of the Socialist Party of America (IFSPA) was formed when a group of reformists split away from the predominantly syndicalist Italian Socialist Federation, which had been established in 1902. Although the ideological boundaries between the two federations were vague, the tactics of the IFSPA were decidedly reform oriented: unions and ethnic mutual aid societies were major focuses of activity, and immigrants were encouraged to participate in the political life of the United States by learning English and acquiring US citizenship and voting rights.

Although its membership rarely exceeded a thousand, (rising to 1,400 in 1914 owing to its opposition to the war), the IFSPA enjoyed significant influence within the Italian immigrant community. The federation published three weekly newspapers—La Parola dei Socialisti (later renamed La Parola Proletaria, La Fiaccola, and finally L’Avanti), La Fiaccola of Buffalo, and La Fiamma of Camden, New Jersey—with a combined circulation of approximately 7,000. The upper echelons of the organization, most notably Giuseppe Bertelli, Alberico Molinari, and Girolamo Valenti, while not charismatic leaders, were able to provide valuable guidance, often based on the significant political experience that they had acquired in Italy. While they never rose to positions of influence within the American party, the Italian leaders of the federation played an important role in several labor organizations, especially in the “new unionism” with roots in the garment industry. The federation rarely took the lead in any strike activity, but it actively supported the garment workers’ and cigar workers’ strikes in Chicago and Tampa, respectively; it remained on the fringes of the labor struggles in East Coast textile centers such as Lawrence and Paterson. The electoral position of the IFSPA hindered relations with the Italian Socialist Federation despite the fact that, among the memberships, there was continual movement in either direction across organizational lines. The Italian Socialist Federation merged into the Industrial Workers of the World in 1921. The IFSPA, having survived its split with the Communists during the early 1920s, engaged in various antifascist activities and published La Stampa Libera and Il Nuovo Mondo; it survived into the forties.

The history of the IFSPA sheds light on an important cause of the weakness of the Socialist Party in the United States: like other foreign federations, the IFSPA—the protests of its leaders notwithstanding—was not extended any decision-making powers within the Socialist Party. The IFSPA was hamstrung by a Socialist Party that effectively ignored the “new immigrants” and the problems of their community. The lack of interest showed how far removed the party was from the real life of foreign-born industrial workers in the United States.

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Miller, Eugene, and Gianna S. Panofsky. “The Beginning of the Italian Socialist Movement in Chicago.” In Support and Struggle: Italians and Italian-Americans in a Comparative Perspective, edited by Joseph L. Tropea, James E. Miller, and Cheryl Beattie-Repetti. New York: American Italian Historical Association, 1986.

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Vezzosi, Elisabetta. “La Federazione Socialista Italiana nel Nord America tra autonomia e scioglimento nel sindacato industriale, 1911–1921.” Studi Emigrazione XXI, 73, March 1984.

Foreign Language Federations (1890s-1930). Italian Federation and Bureau. Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/lf/lfeditalian.html