Help us publish a Selected Works of Amadeo Bordiga
Comrades and friends,
Historical Materialism are excited to be preparing the first ever English-language volume of Amadeo Bordiga’s writings, as part of our Book Series. Though a major figure of the Third International, the political struggle of this co-founder of the Communist Party of Italy is little-known in the Anglophone world, while in his own country, his legacy has often been neglected. We believe that the publication of an English-language Selected Works can do much to combat the ignorance and misrepresentation surrounding Bordiga, whose journey is undoubtedly of great significance to understanding the history of the Comintern.
This ambitious collection will amount to around 180,000 words, covering his whole political trajectory from his articles in Il Soviet during the working-class insurgency of the 1919–20 biennio rosso to his factional battles within the Communist Party of Italy; his struggle against encroaching Stalinism in the Third International; and his post-WWII writings on the restructuring of a resurgent capitalism and on anti-colonial movements. This volume, edited by Pietro Basso and translated by Giacomo Donis, will thus give a strong sense of the range of his work and his reactions to the great social upheavals through which he lived.
However, though our Book Series is very keen to make such classic texts of the workers’ movement available to a wider public – as with previous translations of Comintern documents and forthcoming anthologies of the writings of revolutionaries such as Evgeny Preobrazhensky and Andreu Nin – we do not have the same funds as commercial publishers. Nor can we rely on institutional backing, given both the parlous state of education funding in Italy and the political anathema against Bordiga. While Historical Materialism can soak up some of the associated costs by providing our labour-power for free, we cannot ask the same of the translator, and therefore have to call on those sympathetic to our Book Series and this translation project to help us.
We need to raise a further £4,000, which is around a third of the total cost of the translation. We hope that you, like us, will recognise the importance of making these texts available to an Anglophone audience, as well as the value of the Historical Materialism Book Series, and thus may be willing to draw on your own resources to assist the publication of this volume. No donation too small (or too large) – we would much appreciate any support you can offer to this very worthy initiative.
We welcome donations by PayPal, visiting Selected Works of Bordiga. If you are interested in our Book Series and would like to help us fund the translation of more such ‘lost texts’, we would also welcome a regular donation via Direct Debit. If you would like details for how to donate by bank transfer or cheque, please contact us at [log in to unmask]
Your help and interest much appreciated,
Regards
The Editors
Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/help-us-publish-a-selected-works-of-amadeo-bordiga
|