"The dividing line between progressive and reactionary
parties no longer coincides with the formal lines of more
or less democracy', or the pursuit of more or less socialism,
but the division falls along a very new and substantial
line:
those who conceive the essential purpose
and goal of struggle as being the ancient one, the conquest
of national political power, and who, albeit involuntarily,
play' into the hands of reactionary forces, letting the
incandescent lava of popular passions set in the old moulds,
and thus allowing old absurdities to arise once again, and
those who see the main purpose as the creation of a solid
international State, who will direct popular forces towards
this goal, and who, even if they were to win national power,
would use it first and foremost as an instrument for achieving
international unity."
For a Free and United Europe -
A Draft Manifesto, Ventotene, 1941
For additional information about Altiero
Spinelli and the Ventotene Manifesto, use this
link.
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