The Ventotene Manifesto, officially entitled 'For a Free and United Europe. A Draft Manifesto' (Per un'Europa libera e unita. Progetto d'un manifesto), is a political statement written by Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi, and Eugenio Colorni, while they were imprisoned on the Italian islet Santo Stefano of the island of Ventotene during World War II. Completed in June 1941, the manifesto was circulated within the Italian Resistance, and it soon became the programme of the Movimento Federalista Europeo. It called for a socialist federation of Europe and the world. In the text, European federalism and world federalism are presented as a way to prevent future wars. Vayssière notes that the manifesto is widely seen as the birth of European federalism. Spinelli, who was later elected to the European Parliament within the Italian Communist Party lists, became a leader of the federalist movement due to his primary authorship of the Manifesto and his postwar advocacy. The manifesto called for a break with Europe's past to form a new political system through a restructuring of politics and extensive social reform. It was presented not as an ideal, but as the best option for Europe's postwar condition.

Key text

The Ventotene Manifestos key proposal was a federated European republic. Once this was established, it would wait for the possibility of world federalism. The Manifesto criticised the "capitalist imperialism which our own generation has seen expand to the point of forming totalitarian states and to the unleashing of world wars". It took aim at the League of Nations which was described as useless and "even harmful". The League had no military force and therefore could not impose its decisions. The most important assessment was the assertion that

Socialism and communism

The document declared that "the European revolution must be socialist, that is it must have as its goal the emancipation of the working classes and the realization for them of more humane living conditions". However, it opposed "doctrinaire" formulations of transitions to socialism and said "private property must be abolished, limited, corrected, extended: instance by instance, however, not dogmatically according to principle". It commended communists for being the most efficiently organised of political groupings, but said they had flaws in that they had a "dependence upon the Russian State" and possessed a sectarian nature which prevented them from working with others, which can weaken "the sum of the progressive forces". A movement should criticise "old, political statements" while knowing how to collaborate with other groups without becoming "ensnared by the political practices of any of these".

Editions