Guerre fra compagni a cavallo del 1900. Il movimento socialista italiano in Svizzera ed il socialismo elvetico fra classe e nazione

Within the consistent Italian migratory fluxes to Switzerland during the second half of the 19th century, there was also a small, but very active minority of political migrants: some socialist groups whom the Swiss Confederation provided an ideal ground for development, but also and above all, an arena for conflicts with the strong autochthonous Helvetian Socialist Movement. Officially, both political movements originated from the same international koine, however, they were profoundly different in the way they interpreted the socialist ideals and had divergent views on operational practices. These controversies derived directly from age-old quarrels within the Socialism of the Second International as Maximalism vs. Reformism, Social Consultation and Dialogue vs. Class Struggle, Governing Aspirations vs. Irresponsible Opposition, Proletariat vs. Nation. The present paper focuses on the analysis of the Romande context, as the francophone region became for historical and economical reasons the core of Italian Socialism in Switzerland, it also discusses those idiosyncrasies that opposed the above mentioned socialist movements as for the role to be played by the working class in the crucial years between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. While Italian Socialism in Switzerland focussed on revolution and maximalist opposition to sweep away the era of capitalists, of social classes, of private property and of national borders, Helvetian Socialism was uniquely concerned with reforms, aiming at empowering democracy and extending the rights to all social classes within historic national borders and with providing a system of individual freedoms, that should be guaranteed by the law.