Filippo Turati (26 November 1857-29 March 1932) was an Italian socialist politician who served in the Chamber of Deputies from 10 June 1895 to 9 November 1926.
Biography[]
Filippo Turati was born in Canzo, Lombardy, Italy in 1857, and he studied at the University of Bologna and in 1883 publsihed Il delitto e la questione sociale, in which he argued for a causal link between crime and social deprivation. In 1889 he co-founded the Milanese Socialist Association, and in 1892 founded the Italian Socialist Party, which was committed to fight social injustice through gradual, democratic means. He was able to impress the party with his pragmatic course until 1900, but thereafter his position was significantly weakened by constant inter-party struggles about whether to co-operate with or confront the government. He was against Italian entry into World War I, and found himself in a minority within his own party afterwards when the opposed the ideal of a communist revolution. Expelled from the party for his anti-fascist efforts, he founded the Unitary Socialist Party, of which his close political ally, Giacomo Matteotti, became secretary. Following Benito Mussolini's establishment of a fascist dictatorship in response to Matteotti's murder, Turati fled to Paris, where he remained active in his fight against fascism and contributed to the reunion of the two socialist parties in 1930. He died in Paris in 1932 at the age of 74.