Letters from Prison

Piero Sraffa, born in Turin in 1898, studied at the D’Azeglio Lyceum and later at the University of Turin, graduating in law. He met Gramsci in 1919, was part of the group of Turin socialist students, and was close to the weekly l’Ordine nuovo The New Order, for which he translated several texts from English. He held a journalist's card for l’Ordine nuovo when, in 1921, he traveled to England for a study trip. At that time, some of his notes on the "Open shops drive" and "Labour Leaders" appeared in the newspaper. A letter of his was published in l’Ordine nuovo, Series III (April 1-15, 1924) with a commentary by Gramsci. He began teaching at the universities of Perugia and Cagliari; appointed to Cambridge in 1927, he was a professor of political economy for many years at King’s College and Trinity College. After Gramsci’s arrest, he did his utmost for his friend, keeping in contact with him through Tatiana, working for the revision of the trial, and bringing the case to the attention of international public opinion, among other things with a letter in October 1927 in the Manchester Guardian. In that year, he visited Gramsci in Milan at the San Vittore prison. In 1931, after Gramsci’s first serious crisis, he went to Turi, though he did not obtain the desired interview. He forwarded to the P.C.I. Italian Communist Party in Paris the letters from Gramsci that Tatiana transcribed for him and went to visit his friend in Formia and at the "Quisisana" clinic in Rome. After Gramsci’s death, Tatiana wrote to him the letter that we publish in the appendix.

Giuseppe Berti, born in Naples in 1901, joined the socialist youth movement in Palermo in 1918. In 1921, he was secretary of the Communist Youth Federation and director of the communist youth weekly l’Avanguardia The Vanguard. Arrested in 1923, he was acquitted in October of that year in the first trial brought against the leaders of the P.C.d’I. Communist Party of Italy. In 1926, he was arrested again and sent to the place of internal exile in Ustica, where he was reported to the Special Tribunal for anti-fascist activities carried out while in exile. Released in 1930, he emigrated and carried out anti-fascist activities first in France, then in the United States. Returning to Italy in 1945, he was elected deputy and then senator. He is the author of various historical works.