Editing Antonio Gramsci (section)

===Communist Party of Italy===
[[File:Julia Schucht with sons 1930s.jpg|thumb|Julia Schucht with sons]]
The failure of the workers' councils to develop into a national movement convinced Gramsci that a [[Communist party]] in the [[Leninist]] sense was needed. The group around ''L'Ordine Nuovo'' declaimed incessantly against the PSI's centrist leadership and ultimately allied with Bordiga's far larger abstentionist faction. On 21 January 1921, in the town of [[Livorno]] (Leghorn), the [[Communist Party of Italy]] ({{Lang|it|Partito Comunista d'Italia}}, PCd'I) was founded. In opposition to Bordiga, Gramsci supported the ''[[Arditi del Popolo]]'', a militant anti-fascist group which struggled against the [[Blackshirts]]. Gramsci would be a leader of the party from its inception but was subordinate to Bordiga, whose emphasis on discipline, centralism and purity of principles dominated the party's programme until the latter lost the leadership in 1924.{{sfn|Hoare|Smith|1971|p=xlvi}} In 1922, Gramsci travelled to Russia as a representative of the new party. Here, he met Julia Schucht (Yulia Apollonovna Schucht, 1896–1980), a young [[Jewish]]<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii102/articles/antonio-gramsci-jnr-my-grandfather|title=My Grandfather|first=Antonio Gramsci|last=Jnr|date=1 December 2016|journal=New Left Review|issue=102|pages=68–75|via=New Left Review}}</ref> violinist whom he married in 1923 and with whom he had two sons, Delio (1924–1982) and Giuliano (1926–2007).<ref>[http://www.antoniogramsci.com/moglie_figli.htm Picture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070614104957/http://www.antoniogramsci.com/moglie_figli.htm |date=14 June 2007 }} of Gramsci's wife and their two sons at the Italian-language [http://www.antoniogramsci.com Antonio Gramsci Website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020802000537/http://www.antoniogramsci.com/ |date=2 August 2002 }}.</ref> Gramsci never saw his second son.<ref>Crehan, Kate (2002). ''Gramsci, Culture, and Anthropology''. University of California Press. p. 17. {{ISBN|0520236025}}.</ref>

[[File:Antonio Gramsci commemorative plaque Moscow.jpg|thumb|left|200px|A commemorative plaque for Gramsci in [[Mokhovaya Street]] 16, Moscow. Translated, the inscription reads: "In this building in 1922–1923 worked the eminent figure of international communism and the labour movement and founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci."]]
The Russian mission coincided with the advent of fascism in Italy, and Gramsci returned with instructions to foster, against the wishes of the PCd'I leadership, a [[united front]] of leftist parties against fascism. Such a front would ideally have had the PCd'I at its centre, through which Moscow would have controlled all the leftist forces, but others disputed this potential supremacy, as socialists had a significant, while communists seemed relatively young and too radical. Many believed that an eventual coalition led by communists would have functioned too remotely from political debate, and thus would have run the risk of isolation.

In late 1922 and early 1923, [[Benito Mussolini]]'s government embarked on a campaign of repression against the opposition parties, arresting most of the PCd'I leadership, including Bordiga. At the end of 1923, Gramsci travelled from Moscow to [[Vienna]], where he tried to revive a party torn by factional strife. In 1924, Gramsci, now recognised as head of the PCd'I, gained election as a deputy for the [[Veneto]]. He started organizing the launch of the official newspaper of the party, called {{Lang|it|[[L'Unità]]}} (Unity), living in Rome while his family stayed in Moscow. At its Lyon Congress in January 1926, Gramsci's theses calling for a united front to restore democracy to Italy were adopted by the party.

In 1926, [[Joseph Stalin]]'s manoeuvres inside the Bolshevik party moved Gramsci to write a letter to the [[Comintern]] in which he deplored the opposition led by [[Leon Trotsky]] but also underlined some presumed faults of the leader. Togliatti, in Moscow as a representative of the party, received the letter, opened it, read it, and decided not to deliver it. This caused a difficult conflict between Gramsci and Togliatti which they never completely resolved.<ref>Vacca, Giuseppe (2012). ''Vita e pensieri di Antonio Gramsci''. Turin: Einaudi.</ref>