Due generazioni a confronto: Carlo Rosselli e Rodolfo Mondolfo

This essay compares the ideas of Carlo Rosselli (1899-1937) with the thought of Rodolfo Mondolfo (1877-1976). It pays attention to the time span from the Great War to the advent of fascism, and in particular to the exchange of interventions published by "Critica sociale” between 1922 and 1923. The reason for this choice is based on the conviction that, placed in the context of the crisis of Italian socialism, the analysis of the dialectical duel between the young Rosselli and the already mature Mondolfo can reveal itself as the synthesis of a rift between two generations, divided not so much from irreconcilable ethical-political values, as from the authors’ opposite judgments on the past and the present, and their divergent answers to the dramatic question “What to do?”. Between Rosselli and Mondolfo the line of understanding is also broken by differences that concern the socialist theory and practice, as well as their vision and temperament.