Italian communist
Party - exception or
International Viewpoint #73 • November 13, 1989
BRAZIL / ITALY
A government of the PT and the Brazil People's Front can carry through the demo cratic and popular tasks in the country, which have an anti-imperialist, antilatifundist and anti-monopoly character.
Carrying out such measures, even if they are not explicitly socialist, will clash directly with the structure of capitalism here, and they can only be adopted by a government of social and political forces in conflict with the bourgeois order, a government under the hegemony of the workers.
The PT does not believe in the possibili-
THE reaction of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) to the ty of a stage of "people's capitalism" in the events of the last few months in the USSR, Poland, Hungary country. To the contrary, through a simultaneous process of accumulating strength, and China has been no great surprise. The party broke Its confrontations and victories for the workers decades-old links with the Soviet leadership a long time ago, we will create the conditions for beginning and no longer considers Itself part of any international social transformations in Brazil.
Communist movement or current, in any form whatever. It
In these conditions, the people's democratic government and the beginning of the could, then, only seize the opportunity offered to reaffirm Its transition to socialism are parts of the same condemnation of "actually existing socialism", Its definitive process. The passage from one to the othabandonment of revolutionary conceptions, its reformist er, however, is not automatic, nor a result of a "withdrawal from the scene" of the privivision, and its adherence to the foreign policy of the Italian leged minorities, who through their power and by denying democracy have historically subjugated the workers and people of this country. The full People's Democratic Program can only be carried out with a socialist revolution.
From our point of view, our intention, our political determination, our programmatic proposals go in the direction of winning power through the will, the mobilization and the struggle of the majority, and not through a vanguardist putsch. We want to gain power and build socialism through victory over the bourgeoisie and its ideological apparatuses of domination.
The PT does not believe in a socialist party without workers. Nor does it consider it possible to build socialism without the decisive action of the workers, in the process of building socialism itself. Historical experience has left us the conviction that socialism will either be the achievement of the workers, or there will be no socialism.
The experiences of building socialism - especially where bureaucracies have usurped political power in the name of the workers and alienated them from the exercise of power - shows that no real socialism can exist without a deepening and thoroughgoing defense of democracy.
In the process of building socialism, the workers have intransigently to defend party pluralism, freedom of trade-union activity and of the press, the existence of real conditions for exercising these freedoms and consistent respect for human rights, which are major gains for humanity.
We do not consider democracy a concession from the ruling class, from "those on high," nor as an occasional formality, as the bourgeoisie has done in our country, striking it down every time the workers broaden their rights. Democracy is a gain for the workers, won in political struggle against the ruling classes. *
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WO examples, among the more significant, confirm this. On 7 June 1989, after the crushing of the mass movement in Beijing, party secretary Achille Occhetto declared that "the PCI today is taking a step forward" in declaring that "not only has the propulsive force of those models and those societies of so-called actually existing socialism' been exhausted"', but also that "the PCI is, irreversibly, outside of, and opposed to, such experiences".
Democracy conceived as universal values
The PCI could not be reproached for condemning the bureaucratic regimes, but more than that is involved here. In its view, what has to be rejected is the communist project in its entirety, and, in the last analysis, the October revolution itself. Its alternative is the model of democracy conceived as a "universal value" above classes and historic contexts; in fact, a capitalist parliamentary democracy, more or less improved and developed
The second example is still clearer. In an article published 21 September 1989, Wlodek Goldkorn, a Polish collaborator of L'Unita (organ of the PCI), stated unambiguously that, in the future, humanity must follow a course opposite to that of the Bolshevik revolution: "one must attempt a transition from totalitarian communism to a pluralist democracy (...) The transition from a centralized economy to a free market, from a totalitarian regime to democracy must come bourgeoisie. LIVIO MAITAN about, not by a revolutionary road, but by a gradual evolution. The task facing the élite that governs the Polish state is truly of historic dimensions. It adds up to a reversal of all the dogmas that for a hundred years have been the basis for the activity of the European left".
I cannot recapitulate the trajectory of the PCI since its foundation. But it should be remembered that this party accepted, after the end of the 1920s, the Stalinist dominance of the international Communist movement and endorsed all the mistakes, all the betrayals, and all the crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy.
PCI supported crushing of
Hungarian revolution
Moreover, it did so despite the disagreements that were expressed, including at the leadership level, and despite the criticisms that Antonio Gramsci made from prison. It was only after Khrushchev's report to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU that it began to take its distance and mark out a partially independent course (supporting, meanwhile, the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by the Soviet Army).
Two other important dates have marked its evolution. In 1968, the PCI condemned the intervention of Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. In 1981, after General 1) The idea of the exhaustion of the "propulsive force" of the October revolution had been advanced by Berlinguer, after Jaruzelski's coup in Poland.
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model?
Jaruzelski's military coup, Berlinguer made a resounding declaration about the exhaustion of the "propulsive force" issuing from the October revolution. The party leadership drew from this the conclusion that henceforth, the party would maintain its relations "with all the Communist parties, as with all Socialist, revolutionary and progressive forces, without any special relationship with any
Since then, the PCI has continued its evolution, distancing itself more and more explicitly, not only from Togliatti, but also from Berlinguer, the hero of Eurocommunism and of the "third road", in other words a road different both from the Soviet model and the social democratic model. The positions taken at the 1986 party congress marked the culmination of this process, with the PCI clearly proclaiming its "integration into the European left"2 Its long march towards social democracy was coming to an end. Despite all the fuss about a "new course", the readjustments registered at its last congress were very much more tactical than strategic, and these were combined with the introduction of ideological formulas of a more overtly "liberal socialist" coloring " Leaders preen themselves on their originality
Today, the question is whether or not the transformation of the PCI represents an exceptional case. Its leaders like to preen themselves on their originality and their merits, and do not conceal their satisfaction at being considered a "model" by a whole series of other Communist parties. Certainly, one cannot ignore or underestimate the specific factors that have influenced the evolution of the PCI over the past decades. But if you focus on these alone, you cannot grasp the essential
The essential thing is that the "Stalinized" Communist parties have been marked, since the 1930s, by an intrinsic contradiction. They were fundamentally governed by the interests and changing orientations of the Soviet bureaucracy. It should not be forgotten that, for a whole period, this link represented an essential element of their strength. But at the same time, this subordination went contrary to their need to root themselves more deeply in their own national workers' movement, to respond to its needs and aspirations, to follow its rhythms of political, theoretical and organizational maturation. In 1938, Trotsky had already evoked this problem and sketched out a perspective that was later shown to be correct: to wit, that the crisis of the "Stalinized" Communist International would break out before the crisis of the bureaucratized system within
The history of the PCI can only be understood correctly from the perspective of this contradiction. During the period from 1944 to 1948, this was not clear, inasmuch as there was a large enough convergence between the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and those of the PCI bureaucracy. In 1943, Stalin had dissolved the Communist International in the context of his agreement with the imperialist powers. For the Communist parties, notably in Western Europe, he advocated a policy of national unity and integration into the bourgeois democracies for the post-war period. The leadership of the PCI, which had already since the mid1930s renounced any revolutionary perspective, accepted this approach without difficulty, and resolutely set itself on the path of rooting and developing its party in the framework of post-fascist bourgeois society.
### Adaptation to Italian bourgeois society
The difficulties began with the turn in the world situation which culminated in the Cold War, the formation of the Cominform s, a new international structure which was partial and ephemeral, and with the Stalinization of the "People's Democracies". As the PCI reinforced its national roots, acquired its own strength, and adapted itself to the socio-political mechanisms of Italian bourgeois society, its interests came increasingly into conflict with those of the Kremlin bureaucracy, pushing it to act in a more or less independent fashion.
Nonetheless, it maintained its allegiance to the Kremlin for a decade after the war, despite the costs it incurred by doing so, notably in the electoral field, which had become most important for it. The PCI began definitively to distance itself from the Soviet bureaucracy only after 1956. From then on, it sought to overcome the intrinsic contradiction that had previously marked it. Its leadership realized that any attempt to resolve this contradiction without renouncing the concepts and practices of the Stalinist epoch would have had disastrous implications for its projects.
Certainly, this contradiction was not merely "Italian". Nor was the dynamic that impelled the PCI to overcome it by choosing a "national" road. In this sense, the evolution of the PCI, far from being exceptional or specific, was typical and corresponded to an underlying general tendency. The paradox is that there are undoubtedly special features that have permitted this general tendency to express itself in the "purest" reaching fashion in the PCI.
So far as the PCI's attitude to perestroika and glasnost is concerned, it would be wrong to see some contradiction between its support for glasnost, on which we are to a large measure agreed, and its support for perestroika, which we do not share. In fact there is an unquestionable consistency in the attitude of the PCI leadership.
ITALY They do not hail glasnost because it is creating a more favourable terrain for the struggle for socialist democracy as we conceive it, but because it represents in their eyes a confirmation of their theory of the "universal value" of democracy and, thus, a rehabilitation of classical bourgeois democracy and a corresponding abandonment of the Marxist critique of this democracy). In their opinion, it legitimizes their position on the market economy which, if not a "value", will be at least a universal necessity.
### Gorbachevism warmly welcomed
Finally, the conceptions sketched out by the Gorbachevite wing of the Soviet bureaucracy are being warmly welcomed by the PCI, because they seem to confirm its reformist conceptions. For the PCI, these conceptions are of universal validity, not only in the capitalist industrialized countries, but also in the under-developed countries, as well as in the bureaucratized transitional societies. In the case of the latter, in particular, the PCI leaders posit a self-reform of the bureaucracy that is translated today into their support for Gorbachev and their favourable attitude to the Polish "historic compromise"
In the context of their orientation, it is probable that the leaders of the PCI will undertake actions convergent with those of revolutionary Marxists, such as the demonstrations against the repression in China. But the conceptions and the orientations of this party can contribute nothing to a positive recomposition of the workers' movement in an anti-bureaucratic and revolutionary sense. On the contrary, they run counter to the fundamental political and theoretical clarification that is now more than ever necessary. * 2) The PCI henceforth considers the Wester European social democratic parties as its major partners. Its youth federation is now integrated (with a special status) in the Socialist youth International, and it sent observers to the last congress of the Socialist Interational. Moreover, it is no longer represented on the editorial board of the New International Review, which is conceived as a sort of residual link between a series of communist parties. 3) "Liberal-socialist" refers to a current in Italy in the 1930's that tried to occupy a middle ground between bourgeois liberalism and socialism. On the PCI's last congress, see /V number 92, 10 February 1986; number 99, 19 May 1986; and number 163, 15 May 1989. 4) Trotsky, Writings 1938-9, "A Fresh Lesson". 5) The Cominfor was created 5 October 1947, to ensure the unity of action of Communist parties under the control of the USSR: nine Communist parties participated, namely the CPSU, the parties of Eastern Europe, the PCI and the French CP. 6) The PCI's support for the April 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia — the prelude to the installation of a too l the die con of the Popular Democratic Front, 19 bureaucratic Stalinist dictatorship - undoubtedly conwhich had lasting consequences.