Today--I will shout it out loud--anti-war propaganda is the propaganda of cowardice. It works because it titillates and excites the instinct for self-preservation. But this in itself makes it anti-revolutionary propaganda. It is fine coming from lay priests and Jesuits who have a material and spiritual stake in the conservation of the Austrian Empire; it is fine coming from bourgeois, black-marketeers, or worse who--especially in Italy--show their pitiful political and moral inadequacy; it is fine coming from royalists who, especially if they are decorated with the laticlave, cannot bring themselves to tear up the treaty of the Triple Alliance which guaranteed--apart from peace (and we have seen what sort of peace!)--the continued existence of the throne. This coalition of pacifists knows exactly what it wants and we can form a clear picture of the motives which inspire its attitude. But we socialists, we have always represented--except in the dark periods of mercantile and Giolittian reformism--one of the "living" forces of the new Italy: do we now want to attach our destiny to these "dead" forces in the name of a "peace" which does not save us from the disasters of war today and will not save us from the infinitely greater ones tomorrow, and which in any case will not save us from shame and from the universal derision of peoples who have lived through this great tragedy of history? Do we want to drag out our miserable day-by-day existence--content with the royalist and bourgeois status quo--or do we want instead to break up this murky conspiracy of dull-witted schemers and cowards? . . . These disturbing questions (which I, for my part, have replied to) explain the origin and purpose of illusions about the difficulties of the undertaking. They are many and complex, but I have a firm faith in my ability to overcome them. I am not alone. Not all my friends of yesterday will follow me; but many other rebellious spirits will gather around me. I will create a newspaper which is independent, totally free, personal, mine. I harbor no aggression toward the Socialist Party, or against the organs of the Party, in which I intend to stay, but I am prepared to fight anyone who tries to stop me freely criticizing a cast of mind which for various reasons I consider disastrous to the national and international interests of the Proletariat. . . .

I am on my way! And taking up my march once more--after what was a brief respite--it is you, the young of Italy, the young of the workplace and the universities, the young in years and in spirit, the young who belong to the generation which destiny has charged with "making" history, it is you that I hail with a cry of greeting, in the certainty that it will not fall on deaf ears in your ranks, but summon forth a powerful response.