as 1935 in Civitavecchia , after the start of the season of Stalinist terror . This breakup was formalized in 1937 in Ponza when he was expelled from the party for « ideological deviation and petit-bourgeois presumption ». As for Rossi , his criticism of capitalism and communism – together with a brief reading of texts on English federalism – had persuaded him that only a European federation would ensure greater resources for development , subtracting them from the preparation of wars decided on by the growing power of the military elite and from administrative centralization .
In the Ventotene discussions that preceded the drafting of the Manifesto , the belief emerged that a European federation would be the only reasonable solution to the problem which had plagued Europe since 1870 , i . e . the peaceful coexistence of Germany with the other peoples of the old continent .
A federation would be , above all , a way for democracies to control « those crazy Leviathans » ( in Spinelli ’ s words ), namely the nation states of Europe , since a federal state would prevent them from becoming a means of oppression and they would prevent the federal state from becoming one itself .
Unlike a part of the federalist theory which considered the nation as evil in itself , the authors of the Manifesto believed that the ideology of national independence was « a powerful leverage for progress » but that it brought with it « the germs of capitalist imperialism ».
Spinelli was fully aware of the fact that the federalist culture was alien to the political cultures existing in the countries of Europe , which , he believed , would emerge from the war to try and restore national democracies , despite the universalist origin of Catholic movements , the internationalist origin of socialist and communist
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