Franco Fortini Communism (1958)
I was a communist throughout.
Justly though, the other communists
looked askance at me. I was a communist
despite their certainties, despite my doubts.
Justly they did not see themselves in me.
.
They would not admit my discipline.
My centralism seemed anarchy to them.
My self-criticisms contradicted theirs.
Special communists cannot be:
to think so is not to be so.
.
Justly they did not see themselves in me,
my comrades. Like them, I too
was enslaved. Even more so: I tended to forget it.
They did their work, I followed my inclination.
Exactly that: I was a communist throughout.
.
Despite their certainties, despite my doubts
I always wanted this world ended.
Myself ended too. And it was that exactly
which estranged us. My hopes had no point for them.
My centralism seemed anarchy to them.
.
As if I wanted more, more truth,
more for me to give them, more
for them to give me. Thus living, dying thus.
I was a communist throughout.
I always wanted this world ended.
.
I have survived enough to see
comrades who bruised me broken by intolerable truths.
Now tell me: you knew very well I was with you?
Was that why you hated me? My truth is truly needed,
breathed in through space and time, heard patiently.
--
Translated by Angelo Quattrocchi and Lucien Rey
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