Communist Party youth join Socialist
ITALY
This project started off from a very general correct observation: "A large part of the most important struggles in recent years are owing to the youth - the light for peace, for saving the environment, against the criminal powers (the Mafia and the Camorra), for a new quality of life and a new culture." It explained, "Young peo-
International ple seem more and more to come into political activity via choices on big issues, such as peace, freedom and defense of the environment. On the basis of these big op-
THE HEAD of the Italian CP youth organization's international relations, Luciano Vecchi, announced at a press conference on October 6 that the Federazione
Giovanile Communista Italiana (FGCI, Italian
Communist Youth Federation) would henceforth participate in the Socialist Youth International as a
"consultative partner."
Vecchi said that a proposal by the leaders of the social-democratic organization had been sent to the
FGCI before the Socialist Youth International's recent conference in Brussels. After a discussion in its leadership and its Federal Council, the FCI decided unanimously to accept. The Brussels congress of the
Socialist Youth International voted to admit the FGCI, with only one abstention.
The FCI leaders explained that joining the Socialist
International was not incompatible with remaining in the
World Federation of Democratic Youth, which is made up largely of the youth organizations of the various
Communist parties.
LIVIO MAITAN
T IS USEFUL to go back over the the vicissitudes of the Italian CP youth organization in recent years. The FGCI encountered difficulties in the 1950s.
but it experienced a certain revival in the
1960s, when the youth radicalization began to take form. However, it was precisely when this radicalization took off, taking it by surprise, that the FCI went into a sudden decline.
The great majority of the youth, especially in the high schools and universities followed the far left movements. To them, the FCI seemed a conservative organization incapable of giving political leadership to their mobilizations, while at the same time it latched onto them at the last minute simply to avoid total isolation. A rather long period opened up in which the
CP youth were relegated to the sidelines, even though, thanks to the growth of the party's influence in the mid-1970s, its membership remained in the tens of thousands. So, at the beginning of the 1980s, the FCI was unable either to polarize mass movements or to influence major sectors of the youth. It was no longer a reservoir of recruitment for the party. In fact, its weakness aggravated the CP's problem of an aging membership. Some significant statistics should be noted, taken from the party's own publications:
Parent party refounds youth organization In the second half of 1984, for example, the PCI (Partito Communista Italiano) had 187,000 members over 70 years of age and 178,000 under 30.1 Some 4.62% of its members were over 80, and 4.10% under 26. At the time, the average age of the membership was 49. The situation has not changed notably since then.
At the end of 1984, the PCI Central Committee endorsed a project that the FCI leadership had prepared for the youth organization's Twenty-Third Congress. The aim of this scheme was to founding the organization and open up a full-fledged phase of rebuilding."
tions, the problem arises of giving the organized forces themselves a new identity."
The crisis of the traditional youth organizations linked to parties and which only transmitted a political line determined by the adults was considered absolutely "irreversible." In this project, the conclusion was drawn that the FCI had to acquire full independence from the party and transform its structures quite radically. "We have to to envisage a very broad network with a pronounced federal character to assure that young Communists are on the spot." More concretely, the FCI had to maintain "a federation of several organizations with their own membership card systems and their own leading groups." Abandoning of democratic centralism
Four organizational levels were envisaged: 1) a league of Communist high school students and a league of Communist university students; 2) a league of the unemployed and of young workers; 3) a league of clubs organized on a territorial basis; 4) initiative centers.
The Twenty-Third Congress of the FGCI held in February 1985 approved this project and the changes it involved. At the same time, it decided to abandon democratic centralism. Two years later, the Modena conference pushed the organizational transformation still further in the direction of decentralization. The Communist Party daily I Unità of February 10, 1985, explained, "The leagues, clubs and centers will be grouped in territorial federal councils made up half of members elected by the organization as a whole, and half of members elected on a proportional basis by the structures existing in the territory covered by the council." A national federal council was to be elected on the same
This organizational change was not accompanied by real changes on the politica level. The leitmotiv of the resolutions, reports and innumerable articles and interviews by leaders, notably with Pietro
Folena, the secretary of the organization was the repeated proclamation of the need for "taking a qualitative leap,"
"renovating " "discovering", "inventing," "refounding", and so on and so on. But
_i The PC's membership oscilates around 15 19
November 9, 1987 • International Viewpoint
ITALY most often such fine intentions led only to the emission of vague concepts and a terminology that was supposed to be sophisticated, or to idealist or even moralistic interpretations fundamental ideas of Marxism and the workers' movement.
For example, the document of the Twenty-Third Congress spoke of a "new socialism," explaining, for example, modification of society, the constant process of the socialization of formerly private functions, is a need that cannot be avoided. But at the same time, such a need arises only if you make an ethical
Folena, made a realistic accountparty Central Committee. The FGCI was present in only 20% of high schools, schools and higher education and universities, in 15% of the local government districts and in a derisory number of faceven thinner on the ground."
The election results, moreover, According to a study that no one while the PCI got 26.6% of the vote; the Socialist Party (PSI), 14%; and the Christian Democrats (DC), 24%, among the youth the PCI got
PER CAMBIARE choice in favor of the values of equality, justice and liberty... For us, socialism is no longer a pro-
14%; the PSI, 18.4%; and the
DC, 24%. (In the big cities, the respective percentages were
15.8%, 20.2% and 22.3%). So, cess desired and thought about E LA SOCIETA by a single protagonist, the working class, which as it liberates itself will liberate the whole of society. It is, rather, the construction of various protagonists [sic!] looking for answers to the crucial questions of our age.
The debate at the congress offered hardly any more clarification. L'Unità itself remarked in its commentary that the speeches did not provide a lot of elements for making proposals to young people or for indicating what should be done.
The fact is that the FCI had no political project of its own, and still does not. Fundamentally, its strategic axes remain the same as those of the Communist Party, and it has followed the CP's more and more open evolution toward social democracy. The FCI accepts the framework of bourgeois society, limiting itself to proposing reforms of the system. It likewise shares the party's "European" perspective It opposes "both blocs, " which it puts on the same level. But it accepts NATO's false pretences of being "defensive pact." In passing, it should be noted that there was a very sharp debate on this question at the Twenty-Third Congress, because delegates proposed that the FCI declare itself in favor the Italy withdrawing from NATO. The leaders extricated themselves by proposing an ambiguous amendment that enabled them to maintain the essential orientation of their project.
Nonetheless, in the framework of its organizational independence, all of this has not prevented the FCI at times from adopting attitudes different from those of the party. For example, when the PCI's parliamentary group took an ambiguous position in the debate on nuclear power, in substance approving the government's energy plan, the youth organization publicly expressed its disagreement. Then it engaged in the campaign of collecting signatures for the three referendums on nuclear power, while the PCI advocated a purely
20
Most recently, the FCI criticized the International Viewpoint • November 9, 1987
PCI's decision to vote for former premier Spadolini, a hard-nosed Reaganite, for president of the Senate. On several occasions, it has not concealed its discontent with the unions, criticizing them, for example, because they called no strikes to coincide with the March for Jobs launched very successfully in December 1985 by movements organizations.
Debate following electoral
From the organizational standpoint, the FCI has not been able to increase its strength substantially, even if it has been able to report some recruitment over recent years. At the beginning of 1985, it had 45,000 members, including 16,000 women. Two years later, at the Modena conference, it set the goal of 55,000 members (and 100,000 for 1990). It should be added that its standards for membership are not terribly strict. One need only note that in the preparatory meetings for the Twenty-Third Congress, only members participated, and in the preparations for the Modena conference, only 13,800. The reporter at the latter conference, Pietro Folena, even mentioned members who had only one contact a year with
At the end of 1986, the FCI pointed up successes in the elections for the high school councils. Its "Rainbow" slates got, from area to area, between 40% and 50% of the votes. But these elections have a very limited importance, since only a small minority of the students participate
The debate following the PCI's electoral defeat in June 1987 was also an occasion for drawing a balance sheet of the youth organization. In fact, the secretary, Pietro the PCI and the FCI have good It is clear that the FCI's decision to join the Socialist Youth International was prompted by a hope that the organization could widen its room for maneuver internationally and to reinforce the relations that it already had with Socialist organizations, first of all the youth of the German social democracy.
In the spirit of what it calls "new interna-
— in other words, an internationalism that implies the most motley sort of international relations without any com-
- the FCI leaders explained that joining the Socialist International was not incompatible with membership in the World Federation of Democratic Youth, to which the FCI has belonged since it was
It should be stressed that the FCI's decision, which — needless to say — was taken without calling any congress or national conference, provoked reactions in the party. This led l'Unità on October 8 to publish an article by Armando Cossutta, one of the best known oppositionists calling for a discussion in all the party leadership bodies.2 He expressed his disagreement with the GI's action, saying notably: "The Socialist International is a world organization (not just European) made up of Socialists and social democrats. Why should Communists enter it?"
In the same issue of the paper, the PCI's press bureau published its own commentary explaining that "the FCI's decision is not only an action in the framework of long-established independence but it is also in harmony with the PCI's general orientations."
This last point could not be challenged. The FCI's decision corresponds to an undeniable political logic. Whether Cossutta likes or not, the Italian "Communist" youth have chosen a home that suits them perfectly. * 2. See "Italian CP sinks deeper in reformist mire," IV
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