THE PRESENTATION of the slates for the European as a left-winger is more undeserved than elections has sparked the explosion of a grave crisis in ever — declared to Corriere della sera
Democrazia Proletaria (DP). Two of its deputies are that: "The epoch of protest strikes is past.
We cannot limit ourselves to rallying disrunning not on DP's slates but on the so-called Rainbow content, we have to show that alternative slates, which also include members of the Radical Party.
lines exist. This is necessary for understanding that we must have proposals to
On the other hand, the best known leader of the Radical mobilize around. Today, we haven't lost a
Party, Marco Pannella, has just sealed a "secularist"
single minute before discussing a general alliance with two bourgeois government parties, the strike."
Republicans and the Liberals', as well as with environmentalists who have broken with the Greens, who
Symbolic general strike participated in the 1987 legislative elections and will also not enough to win be running in the June 18 EEC elections.
In fact, on April 18, the three union federations presented a sort of "counter-plan, mainly involving a reform of the public administration, restructuring property tax, fiscal autonomy for the regions, a capital gains tax and so on. They also proposed to the government that they lodge long- and medium-term securities on the international market, prolong the time-span of debts, and limit the scale of public spending in relation to the Gross National Product. To say the least, these rationalization measures were hardly designed to create enthu-
Finally, the bureaucrats realized that they could not go against the manifest wishes of the workers and, on April 21, they decided to call for a general strike.
(Of course, they claimed that pressure from the base had nothing to do with this decision and tried hard to make people forget their initial statements.)
At the same time, they hastened to explain that they did not have the least intention of bringing down the government - they only wanted to change the
March 23 decisions. As is their tradition, they limited the scope of the strike to four hours in industry, offices and banks, and to two hours on the railways and on urban
The strike was supported massively in every sector and in the whole country
(according to the unions, there was a 90% participation in industry and 70% in the public and service sectors). The demonstrations brought together bigger numbers than in the previous general strike on
November 27, 1987 — a total of a million people according to the unions, with
120,000 marching in Florence and
100,000 in Rome.
Workers have shown that they want to fight. But a symbolic general strike is not enough to force the bosses and their government to abandon their policies of austerity and restructuring. *
HIS CRISIS had already begun to take shape a few months after DP's May 1988 congress (see IV 163). Those who defended minority positions in the congress published a document signed by 22 activists which in effect resumed the debate. More specifically, for the European elections they proposed "a common grouping that would develop rapidly and with sufficient homogeneity to make it possible to present slates backed by DP, the Greens and the Radical Party."
Among the signatories were the former national secretary of DP, Mario Capanna; Lombardy regional councillor Emilio Molinari; and Senator Guido Pollice. And two other quite well-known leaders, Stefano Semenzato and Franco Russo, while they did not sign the document, were quite positive about the initiative.
At the end of October and the beginning of November, the National Delegate Assembly met. This body includes the National Leadership, plus members elected by the federations. There was a very sharp confrontation, despite the attempts at conciliation by the center, in particular by the national secretary, Giovanni Russo Spena. Finally, the idea of an alliance with the Greens and the Radicals was rejected, and it was decided to present DP slates in the European elections (by 129 votes to 60).
However, that was not the end of it. As the elections drew nearer, the proposal for an electoral bloc with the Greens and the Radicals was revived, especially following on an initiative by a group of intellectuals, of whom the best known was Leonardo Sciascia. And he proposed precisely the formation of Rainbow slates including Greens, Radicals and DP members prepared to accept such a move. But, since both the Greens and the Radicals rejected this proposal, the initiative was doomed to failure. In any case, a new DP Delegate Assembly at the end of March confirmed the decision to present DP slates.
An open break with congress decisions
However, despite appearances, the matter was not yet settled. Conflicts broke out among the Greens. And the availability of some Radicals, including one of their leaders, Francesco Rutelli, revived the project of Rainbow slates distinct from the "traditional" Green slates. This time around, Rainbow slates were finally set up. Edo Ronchi and Gianni Tamino, as well as the former chief of the organization's international department, Luciano Neri, were included on them.
This was an open break. DP's National Secretariat met on May 8, that is, two days before the deadline for registering slates, and declared that all those included on slates other than those of the organization "would place themselves de facto outside DP's debate and collective life." The rightwing was not slow in responding. Ronchi and Pollice challenged this decision, declaring that they were not accepting "bureaucratic reprisals," and that the debate in DP would continue after the elections. They were obviously relying on the fact that, according to the statutes, the Secretariat does not have the right to expel members, and that no meeting of the National Leadership nor of the Delegate Assembly is expected before June 18. * 1. The Radicals are present not only on the "secularist" bloc and Rainbow slates but also on the slates of the social-democratic party. Moreover, the Radicals are included in heroiciled antiprohibitionist slates, 9 which are for liberalizing the drug trade.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
Proletaria ITALY
ITALY • ISRAELI STATE
DP
reneges
on accord
with LCR
THE CRISIS In
Democrazia Proletaria has had negative repercussions on the organization's relations with the Lega
Communista
Rivoluzionaria (LCR), the Italian section of the Fourth International, concerning the presentation of slates for the European elections.
T HE CONVERGENCE of the LCR
with DP was supposed to be achieved before June 18 (see IV 163). That was the LCR's proposal, and it was accepted by a majority of the DP Delegate Assembly at the end of March. However, subsequently, the DP Secretariat informed the LCR Secretariat that no meeting of the National Leadership was scheduled before the elections, and that the convergence would have to be postponed to a later date (immediately after the elections, if possible).
In these conditions, the two organizations began discussions about the inclusion of LCR members in DP's slates. (It should be remembered that the LCR and DP have conducted joint election campaigns on several occasions already, whose results were considered quite satisfactory by both
LEGA
10 International Viewpoint #164 • May 29, 1989 sides). An initial accord was reached calling for the inclusion of LCR members in four out of five constituencies, with two, Livio Maitan and Antonio Moscato, heading slates.
Moreover, since Italian law makes it possible to include citizens of other EEC coutries, the accord also involved running Alain Krivine, a leader of the French LCR, in Milan. Subsequently, DP asked the LCR to shift Alain Krivine to Rome. It agreed to this without objections. But at the last minute, when all the administrative procedures had been completed, DP informed the LCR that Krivine would not be a candidate, nor Livio Maitan either. (In the 1987 legislative elections, Maitan had been the head of a slate in Rome.) Moreover, Silvia Zappi, a member of Pierre Juquin's organization, the New Left, was included on slates in both Rome and Milan.
The LCR Secretariat issued a statement that criticized DP's decision in very sharp terms. It said, among other things:
"The exclusion of Alain Krivine's candidacy is a symptom of a choice to play down the presence of the LCR on the DP slates, and it reflects the method used to draw up these slates, a method that once again follows the road of conciliation with a Rainbow' project.
"This scheme represents a negation of the characterization of DP put forward on many occasions by the majority of the leading group as a party seeking a way in the framework of an anti-capitalist and class-struggle perspective.
"The decision to postpone our convergence, as well as the failure to respect the electoral accords, reflects a desire to belittle and minimize the importance that the unification between DP and the LCR could have in the eyes of people we are both talking to, who in the context of the crisis of the left are looking for answers and reference points as a positive signal of a coming together on the left of class-struggle forces."
Nonetheless, the LCR has confirmed its support for the DP slates. It will have two candidates in the Milan-Turin district (Rocco Papandrea, a worker at PIAT; and Edgardo Pellegrini, a journalist), and one in the eastern district (Emanuele Battain, a lawyer), as well as two in the south (Antonio Moscato, who heads a slate; and Angela Mignogna, a teacher). *
MIOCRAN
An earthquake shaking
Israeli society