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Angelica Balabanoff's autobiography My Life as a Rebel,1 which John Reed suggested she write, is an important source for the history of European socialism in the early 20th century, especially for Italian socialism, the second International, and the Comintern.
The Russian-born Balabanoff (b. Chernigov, Kiev, 1869; d. Rome, 1965) came from a wealthy family of landowners. She studied at the Universite Nouvelle of Brussels in 1897, and then spent a year of post-doctoral work at the University of Leipzig before going to Italy, where she studied with Antonio Labriola at the University of Rome. It was in Rome in 1900 that she was converted to Marxism and joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). She lived in Switzerland as a propagandist among Italian emigrant workers in 1903-07, during which she met and helped tutor the young socialist Benito Mussolini. In 1911 she joined the intransigent faction of the PSI and the following year supported Mussolini's motion to expel the reformists from the party. From late 1912 to 1914 she assisted Mussolini in editing Avanti!, the PSI's official daily, and served as a member of the PSI's executive. When World War I broke out she became an ardent internationalist and in 1915 was forced to flee to Switzerland, where she acted as a link between the PSI and the Zimmerwald movement. She grew increasingly leftist and at the Kienthal conference in 1916 she voted for the Leninist resolution that called for the conversion of pacifism into proletarian revolution. She returned to Russia in May 1917 and became a Bolshevik. Eventually disillusioned with the Comintern, in 1921 Balabanoff migrated again to Western Europe. In Paris she served as editor of the now exiled Avanti! and was active among anti-Fascist emigrete;s. In 1936 she moved to the United States, going back to Italy in 1948 and joining the Social Democratic party.2
My Life as a Rebel is today well known among students of Italian Fascism for its mocking sketches of Mussolini, both as an exile in Switzerland in 1902-04 and as the editor of Avanti! in 1912-14. Less known is Balabanoff's account of a young Italian woman who worked closely with her in Switzerland, and with whom she founded and co-edited a newspaper for Italian women workers, Su, Compagne!...