Giacinto Menotti Serrati

Serrati, Giacinto Menotti 

Born Nov. 25, 1872 (or 1876), in Oneglia, now Imperia; died May 11, 1926, in Asso, Como. Figure in the Italian labor movement.

Serrati joined the Italian Socialist Party (ISP) in 1892 and took an active part in its work. He was arrested and had to emigrate, first to the USA and then to France and Switzerland. He returned to Italy in 1911. From October 1914 to December 1922 he was director of the newspaper Avanli!, the central press organ of the ISP. He fought actively against the imperialist war and participated in the international meetings of the left socialists at Zimmerwald in 1915 and Kienthal in 1916. A leader of the massimalisti, Serrati in 1919 argued for the adherence of the ISP to the Comintern and in 1920 led the ISP delegation at the Second Congress of the Comintern.

In January 1921, at the Seventeenth Congress of the ISP, Serrati, a party leader, objected to a break with the reformists, a position that had an extremely adverse effect on the subsequent development of the Italian labor movement. However, he soon recognized his error. He fought resolutely on behalf of the decision of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern (1922) on union between the Italian Socialists and Communists. Because of such activity, he was expelled from the ISP in August 1923. Together with the other socialist supporters of the Comintern (“third internationalists”), he joined the Communist Party in August 1924. Serrati, who suffered from heart trouble, died en route to an illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party.