to
which all Socialists are opposed.

The resolution finally adopted by the Congress was drawn up by Turati
and others who represented the views of the majority of reformists.
While purely negative, it was quite clear, and the fact that it was
finally accepted both by Bissolati and by Modigliani is highly
significant. It concluded that "the Socialist group in Parliament ought
not any longer to support the government _systematically_ with their
votes." It did not declare for any systematic _opposition_ to the
administration, even at the time when it is waging this war. It did not
even forbid occasional support, and it left full discretion in the hands
of the same parliamentary group whose policy I have been recording.

As a consequence the Italian Party at this juncture intentionally
tolerated two contradictory policies. Turati declared: "We are in
opposition unless in some exceptional case, in which some situation of
extreme gravity might present itself." Rigola, who was one of the three
spokesmen appointed for the less conservative reformists (with Turati
and Modigliani) said: "We have been ministerialists for ten years, but
little or nothing has been done for the proletariat. Some laws have been
approved, but it is doubtful if they are due to us rather than to the
exigencies of progress itself." In other words, Turati and Rigola
thought there could be occasions for supporting capitalist ministries,
though the present was not such an occasion; while the latter
practically confessed that the policy had always been a failure in
Italy. But in the face of all criticism Bissolati announced that he
refused absolutely _to pass over to the opposition to the ministry of
Giolitti_. Turati and his followers, now in control of the Party, might
tolerate this position; the large and growing revolutionary minority
would not. This could only mean that Socialist group in the Italian
Parliament, like that of France, and even of Germany, would divide its
votes on many vital matters, or at least that the minority would abstain
from voting. Which could only mean that on many questions of the highest
importance there was no longer one Socialist Party, but two.[104]

Turati himself wrote of the Modena Congress:--

"Only two tendencies were to be seen in the discussion and the voting;
_two parties in their bases and principles_: the Socialist Party as a
party of the working people, a class party, a party of political,
economic, and socia