Founding congress of
Party of Communist
ITALY
S
OME 1178 delegates, elected by regional congresses on a proportion of one for every 100 memparticipated bers, in the congress. This gives a clear idea of the number of members of the organization at
Refoundation around 120,000. It must be noted that all members are not necessarily militants in the strictest sense of the term. In this sense the MCR follows the tradition of the former Italian Communist Party (PCI) most
THE once mighty Italian Communist Party (PCI) disappeared in February 1991, to be replaced by the new Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). Many former PCI members, however, refused to accept this decision, seeking instead to re-appraise the crisis of the PCI tradition from a leftwing point of view and seek unity with other forces on the left.
This led to the formation of the Movement for Communist Refoundation (MRC) whose congress took place as planned from December 12 to 15 in Rome. The decision was formally made to build a party which will be called the Party of Communist Refoundation (CR). The importance of this event cannot be over-estimated in spite of all the difficulties that the new organization has experienced from the beginning and which carried over to the congress itself. Contrary to what has happened in the Communist Parties of other countries, the split that took place following the last congress of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in February 1991 is unquestionably a break to the left involving a large number of militants. ANTONIO GIULIANI of whose members did not have specific political assignments. It is not surprising therefore that less than 40% of the members took part in the local pre-convention discussions in preparation for the December congress!
This does not lessen the fact that more than 100,000 people participated in the foundation of a new party identified with communism and the traditions of the workers' movement. This is significant given the current national and international situation. If the PCR is able to seriously re-appraise the key problems of the workers' movement after the failure of the bureaucratic regimes and the identity crisis of the Social Democratic parties, with a view to the development of an anticapitalist strategy for the industrialized capitalist countries and on the basis of real integration in the traditional and new mass movements, this new party could constitute the beginning of a revitalized Italian workers' movement.?
Limited goals of leadership
To what degree did the congress actually move in this direction? It must be said that the provisional leadership set a limited goal for itself. It was clear that in the space of two or three months it would have been impossible to prepare a serious discussion on all the questions involved in refounding a communist movement today. On the other hand since it appears that legislative elections will be held in the spring, the congress could not be held later than December. This is why it was decided to hold a founding congress with the goal of founding the party, of setting up elected leadership bodies at all levels, and of charting a political orientation for current struggles. A second congress will take place several months after the elections.
More concretely, a political resolution, a resolution on the organization of the party and a draft of its statutes were submitted for discussion.
The provisional leadership submitted texts on these questions. However, only two to three weeks was allowed for discussion by the rank and file. Nevertheless, 1. See the article on the formation of the MRC in International Viewpoint, no. 209, June 24, 1991. 2. A survey of the around 700 delegates revealed that there were 108 blue-collar workers, 289 white-collar workers and 82 students (teachers, of which there were 15 many, probably appeared under the white-collar working heading). Women made up 21.2% of the delegates.
International Viewpoint #220 • January 20, 1992
ITALY in the majority of branches there were lively debates in which the most varied opinions were expressed on all problems, even if they were not on the congress agenda. The political resolution was widely considered to be inadequate and a large number of amendments were proposed.
Unfortunately, the input from branches was restricted due to a method of preparing the congress which had the opposite effect of what was intended. The intention had been to allow the freest expression from the rank-and-file and to avoid any intermediate structures that would intervene between the local and national bodies. Thus, the decision was made that votes on the resolutions, amendments, and agendas would essentially take place at branch level and that the regional congresses would merely elect delegates to the national congress. But these very measures caused major problems.
The regional congresses could not elect their delegates on the basis of clear political criteria and the congress was literally flooded by thousands of amendments and resolutions from the branches which it was impossible to review and discuss not only in the plenarary meetings, but also in the sub-committees.
No vote on political resolution
The result was that neither the political resolution proposed by the outgoing leadership nor the branch resolutions could be voted on. The report given by Sergio Garavini in the name of the outgoing executive was not submitted to a vote either. Only resolutions on social struggles and on international questions were adopted by a majority, almost without discussion.
For the most part, the amendments and resolutions, especially those on international questions, outlined more precise orientations than those of the first political resolution submitted for discussion. For example, while a debate had been launched around the demand for "going beyond NATO", which was criticized by numerous local branches, a congress resolution demanded the dissolution of NATO and the departure of Italy from that organization. At the same time it rejected any European military organization whether through NATO or the Western European Union (WEU) - and had nothing positive to say about the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), unlike the original text. The conference also came out against any eventual sending of a European contingent to Yugoslavia.
The congress also mandated the parliamentary groups of the PCR to vote against the ratification of the Maastricht accords. The solidarity campaign with Cuba was vigorously relaunched and the address of 16 • the Cuban ambassador - the sole foreign guest beside the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) -was given a standing ovation by the dele-
The resolutions on the crisis of the trade unions and social struggles set the goal of a mobilization in defense of a sliding scale of wages which, as a result of a recent agreement between the unions, the employers and the government, is to be dismantled in a few months (a new agreement around this issue is not likely for the moment). The resolution also stresses the demand for a reduction in the number of working hours without a reduction in pay as a means of fighting against unemployement and proposes the formation of commitees of struggle for work and for a definition of "the social goals of work".
There was no discussion of an overall union orientation on the agenda. This is a thorny problem as there are a number of different opinions on this in the organization. The majority of the members of the new party are active in the CGIL union confederation. Many of them helped organize the class struggle "Essere indicato" (Being a unionist) tendency at the CGIL's confederation in October 1991 which registered significant scores, passing the 30% mark in some industrial branches. Other PCR members are active in other unions or are leaders of the COBAS rankmanagement groups which engage in similar struggles (the most notable of these so far being at Alfa Romeo in Milan).
Campaign to defend wage indexation
It will be recalled that during these last months the PCR's predecessor, the MCR, has been mainly involved in two campaigns: That conducted in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies against the government's budgetary law which represents new blows against workers' standard of living, and the campaign against the president of the Republic Francesco Cossiga, who in violating the letter and spirit of the constitution has become the principal protaganist of a campaign for constitutional changes in a PopulistReactionary direction.
On this plane the MCR has a partial convergence with the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) who took the initiative in Parliament of formally accusing Cossiga. In the next electoral campaign the PCR will carry out a more general strug gle for the defense of democratic rights, including proportional representation, and against various plans for revising the constitution of 1947 in a reactionary man-
By majority vote the congress adopted the statutes of the new organization. There were two tense moments associated with these statutes. The first was during the debate around the name of the party with the delegates divided between the name Party of Communist Refoundation, and simply Communist Party. After lively exchanges the former name was adopted, but a certain number of delegates left the hall in protest (they explained that in a meeting held in May 1991 it was decided to call the organization the Communist Party and that this decision could not be
The second source of tension concerned an article in the statutes affirming the right of women comrades to meet in "womens' spaces". Three positions were expressed on this topic: Those of the comrades who defended this statute, that of other comrades who wanted to amend it, explaining that the "womens' space" should not constitute actual organizations, and those of women comrades who came out against all forms of autonomy for women as well as youth and so on. The amendment presented by the comrades supporting the second position being defeated, the article was submitted for a vote in its original form. It was defeated with many delegates abstaining or not particating in the vote. This caused much tension at the congress. Accordingly, the decision was taken to open a discussion of these questions in the
Strengthening the weight of local organizations
Furthermore, the statutes contained a rather radical innovation concerning the election of leadership bodies. The pressure to strengthen the weight of local organizations and make recall possible led to a situation where 80% of the members of the national leadership will be elected at the regional level and 20% directly by the national congress. Finally, the statutes assure future minority members a series of democratic rights including the right to organize in defense of their positions though not of maintaining permanently organized groups.
But the most dramatic part of the congress occurred during the night before the closing of the conference. The question arose of whether or not the party should have only a secretary or a president as well. This involved defining the roles of the two best known leaders, Sergio Garavini and Armando Cossutta. An agreement had already been made on the candidacy of Garavini as secretary. The question was whether or not Cossutta would be elected president or not. No agreement was possi ble before the end of the congress. It was therefore decided to call a final session of the conference on January 19 to elect the new leadership and overcome the exisiting difficulties.
There was much discussion over whether the new party should see itself as in continuity with the old PCI or if it should begin on a new footing. Though partisans of the former position were numerous, a majority supported the second position. It must also be recalled that the party includes forces of different origins.
Though a very large majority come from the February 1991 split in the PCI, others had quit the PCI at different times since the end of the 1970's, some were former members of the Democratic Party of Proletarian Unity (PDUP), still others of Democrazia Proletaria (DP) and other far left groups who have come out of retirement to become politically active again.? It should also be noted that the weight of former PCI members is less among the active members of the new organization.
The pluralistic character of the PCR was