Leonida Bissolati

Leonida Bissolati ( born February 20, 1857 in Cremona, † March 6, 1920 in Rome ) was an Italian politician ( Partito Socialista Italiano) and in 1912 the founder of the Socialist Reform Party of Italy ( Partito Socialista Italiano Riformista ).

Career

Bissolati was an illegitimate child, which bore the name Leonida Bergamaschi up to 18 years. He was then adopted by Stefano Bissolati (* 1823), who had filed with 37 years of his priesthood and became director of the town library Cremona. Bissolati received his law degree from Bologna at the age of 20 years and was a socialist councilor in his hometown. As a practicing lawyer, he has published numerous professional articles. From 1889 to 1895, he initiated a project to improve the living conditions of farm workers. In 1889 he founded the newspaper " L' eco del Popolo " (People's Echo), which was subsequently the official organ of the Partito Socialista Italiano in Cremona. He has published in, among others, the Communist Manifesto. In 1896, he became chief editor of the party organ Avanti! , Which he headed until 1903 and then again from 1908 to 1910. In 1897 he was delegated by the constituency Cremona in the Camera dei deputati. His refusal to speak out against the war in Libya, forced him to resign in February 1912 as a parliamentarian; five months later he was excluded from the party.

Bissolati founded the Partito Socialista Italiano Riformista and received in 1916 a post as minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Paolo Boselli. After the end of World War I he argued for, so to draw the new boundaries according to the principles of the League of Nations ethnicity. When he did not come through with this principle, he put the end of 1918 his offices. He died after a postoperative infection.