WE publish below substantial extracts from an interview with Sergio Garavini, national secretary of the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), which was published in /I Manifesto on April 9, 1991.
W HAT scenario do you
envisage for the near future? The four parties of the outgoing government are pushing to enlarge the majority to include the PDS. The response of the leadership of this party is not convincing: it says yes, but on condition that it is a completely new government. On the one hand, very general expressions are used, which could suit anybody, while on the other, a new electoral law is proposed. It is a fraud. An electoral reform, based on the first-past-the-post system or a bonus to the majority, would seek to marginalize the minorities which express with the most vigour the wave of protest which is sweeping the
Percentage Seats
1987 Diff 1992 1987
34.3 -4.6 206 234
14.3 -0.7 92 94
107
(26.6) (-4.9) 35 (177)
1.7 -1.7 8 3.7 +0.7 27 21 3.0 -0.3 16 17 2.1 +0.7 17 11 5.9 -0.5 34 35 0.5 +8.2 55 1 0.8 +0.4 1 2.5 +0.3 16 13 +1.9 12 country.
• You are against electoral reform
The situation is the following: the social question is being ignored, the entry into Europe continues to be considered as a form of discipline to be imposed on Italian society, there is no autonomy in the field of international policy, despite the dangers of war which exist on the shores of the Mediterranean.
On the other hand, an electoral law is projected whose goal is to strengthen the government. The project seems clear to me: an authoritarian turn in which a part of the left would be complicit and which carries a high price from the social point of view and for the security of the coun
• What would be your position on the idea of a "socialist unity" with the Italian Socialist Party of former prime minister Craxi on the basis of positions very different from those of the past, or indeed with a PSI without
I do not believe that the real tendency, in the framework of a challenge to the right, is towards a left alternative. The real project is that of forming a centre with a government and a majority stretching from the DC to the PDS and the adoption of an electoral reform which will assure that the centre controls the situation... Certainly, if there was unity in opposition of a broad left front, going from the PCR to the PSI, then the rapprochement between the PSI and the PDS would have an interesting aspect. But it seems to me that the context
ITALY of such a rapprochement will be other than this. • You speak of a left united in opposition. The difficulty resides in the fact that the entire opposition only Diff seems to adopt, for the moment, a defensive -28 attitude... -2 At the end of our party congress, I called for a "counter-attack of the left", a demo(-35) cratic counter-attack. I used -8 those terms exactly to signal that the elements of defence, +6 while remaining essential, -1 could not be exclusive. We are +6 against the freeze on the sliding scale of wages, against the - 1 adaptation of wages to the +54 constricting framework of the programmed rate of inflation. + 1
Given that the trade unions do +3 not do it, we are going to +12 advance a proposition for the reorganization of the structure of wages, which starts from the defence of the sliding scale and implies the freedom to bargain that the workers must reconquer... • Do you think that a social opposition such as you describe could be led by the trade unions?
The loss of influence of the trade unions over the workers is one of the elements — although not the only one - which is politically pushing protest towards the right. Beyond this, the trade unions today represent an enormous bureaucratic structure which is legitimated by its relations with the institutions and with the employers. In short, they hold back the entire left.
In such a situation, we wish to lead an open political battle in the trade union movement and not only inside the confederations. This does not mean that we are for the formation of a new trade union. We are going to lead a battle in the existing structures, linking up with what exists at the level of the workplaces, with the goal of opening a new phase of activity. • What do you think of the success of the Lombard League?
It is necessary to look at this from two angles. The League undoubtedly expresses a protest which has not been expressed by a united left opposition. It is on this terrain that it is necessary to intervene immediately, by relaunching the perspective of a left united in opposition. But there is another aspect. The leagues reflect the radical and frankly reactionary tendencies of certain layers of the middle classes in the richest sent a major threat to democracy. it is 7 regions of the country. This could repre-
International Viewpoint # 227 • April 27, 1992
ITALY necessary to take account of it: it is a threat of a profoundly rightwing nature. • Your electoral campaign was centred around an image of Communist continuity. Has the ambition of renewal been cast aside?
Not at all. We represent at the same time two positions, two orientations. On the one side, we will try to establish a link with the Communist tradition of ideas and of political and social struggles. During the electoral campaign, we have been led to stress this element partly because, paradoxically, the PDS took up this theme even more than we did.
The PDS' attitude represented a success for us in the sense that it confirms that we
We need
to win
youth
WE publish below an interview with Livio Maitan, a member of the national political committee of the Italian Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC). The interview took place on April 10, 1992.
M ANY commentators
have used the term "earthquake" describe the effect of the elections of April 5. Do you think this is accurate?
It is certainly a major event in Italian political life, which has surprised many people, even if it was predictable that some tremors were likely to take place. The spectacular decline of the Christian Democrats should be particularly stressed. This party has played an absolutely dominant role for almost half a century and has now fallen below 30% of the votes. This poses some fairly serious problems for quite a few people: not only what is called in Italy "the political class", , but also for different bourgeois layers, the Catholic Church, and, of course, Italy's allies in NATO and the 8 Christian Democrat reversal? • What are the causes of the were right to defend the Communist identity, even at the price of losing votes.
But we are also something else. We come from different critical experiences, inside and outside the PCI. There, in my view, is the most important fact that we should translate into concrete initiatives of cultural and political elaboration. To develop this, it is necessary to have a radical approach towards the social question. The PCI had already renounced such an approach in the middle of the 1960s, at the time of a workers' symposium in Genoa: it reappeared, partially, between 1968 and 1970 and later, with Berlinguer, in 1984 (at the time of the struggle for the defence of the sliding scale). I do not deny that this is an extremely difficult task... *
There are many factors, but I will deal with some of the most important. First, it should be recalled that the DC underwent other crises — it is true less serious ones - with splits within its ranks and loss of political influence, including on the electoral terrain, in the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s. But, in the international context of the time and given that the PCI [the Communist Party] was not yet considered an acceptable governmental party, the Italian bourgeoisie continued to rely on the DC as essential instrument for the maintenance and the functioning of the
Now, very many things have changed. The DC, which remains the largest party, will not be cast aside. But, throughout the election campaign, some representatives of the employers did not hide their discontent, increasingly openly and severely criticizing the Andreotti government and the party system, which, according to them, had shown themselves incapable of resolving the country's economic and financial problems and thus possibly compromising Italy's entry into Maastricht Europe.
They have supported alternatives to the DC, for example the Italian Republican Party (PRI), which, after having participated for a very long time in the government, passed to the opposition. Some layers of small and medium entrepreneurs have not hesitated to support the Lombard League. • Is the bourgeoisie making overtures to the main left-wing party, the PDS?
Absolutely. That is why, moreover, beyond the PSI [the Socialist party], even the DC declared itself favourable to an enlargement of the government after the results of the elections were known. It is possible that this amounts to a purely tactical operation and that they are awaiting the right moment to return to the governmental bloc of four, which remains possible from the point of view of seats in parliament.
Still it remains true that there is no longer a categorical rejection of governmental collaboration with Occhetto and the PDS. On the occasion of the recent visit of President Cossiga to the United States, Bush himself gave the green light for an eventual operation of this kind. • What do you think of the results obtained by the PDS and its current orientation?
The PDS advances the argument that, because it is a new party, any comparison is arbitrary and that, in any case, the decline, in relation to the results of the old PCI, is sensibly less marked, if one takes into consideration not the legislative elections of 1987, but the regional elections of 1990. This second argument is not without foun-
Nonetheless, the goal of the operation which Occhetto launched in November 1989 was to enlarge the influence of the old PCI, particularly through winning what was called at the time "the subterranean left". From this point of view, the setback is obvious. Beyond this, the PDS' strongholds are still in the regions where the former PCI has been particularly strong since the end of the war.
It is very debatable as to whether its margins of manoeuvre are very much greater. There are some openings that we have already mentioned, but it would be extremely risky to go into the government or to support a new coalition from outside, given that austerity measures are inevitable and that the competition from the PRC is very much stronger than Occhetto had • What is your assessment of the electoral score of the PRC?
I think that we can be satisfied, above all if one takes account of the national and international context, which is certainly not favourable to the growth of a party which characterizes itself as anti-capitalist and Communist. This is all the more true in that the percentage of votes is higher in certain significant regions in the centre of the country (between 6.7% and 10.1%) and in some big cities, like Genoa (7.7%), Turin (7.3%), Florence (7.5%) and Livorno (11.1%). The party has a certain popular influence and a not insignificant weight in some working class layers. • What is the orientation of the PRC following the elections?
Decisions will be taken at the next meeting of the national political committee. For the moment, the basic orientation can be found in the interview with Sergio Garavini which also appears in this issue of International Viewpoint. For my part, I think that it is absolutely correct to put the
The crisis of representation
ITALY / FRANCE ver there was a turnout of 68.7%, a record for this level of elections. And this means that the prepared attempts to explain the results, and especially the PS' catastrophe, by a low turnout, were rendered inoperable. Its 18.3% in the regional elections, a loss of 11 points compared to the previous regional contest in 1986, and five points
THE French regional and cantonal elections of March
22 and 29, 1992, registered a shake-up in the country's political landscape. The big defeat of the ruling
Socialist Party (PS) of President François Mitterrand - which got a mere 18% - led to a change of Prime
Minister, with finance minister Pierre Bérégovoy replacing Edith Cresson.
FRANCIS SITEL
HE PS was doomed to fail. As
T
Patrick Jarreau wrote in Le
Monde (May 31, 1992): "Eleven years of rule, and nine in government, have worn away the roots of the
Socialist left. The deterioration has speeded up recently". Not only its electorate but even the PS' activists are turning away.
Knowing what was going to happen,
Mitterrand employed schemes which would allow him to remain in power by taking his distance from his former party.
His idea is that of a presidential majority in which the PS would be but one component, and which would rest on personalities not identified as being on either side of the left/right divide, such as Bernard
Tapie (a flamboyant and shady millionaire entrepreneur), on small breakaway pieces accent on the social and economic demands of the workers and in the first place on the intransigent defence of the indexation of wages to prices. The problem of the strategy and functioning of the trade unions is obviously central.
It goes without saying that we must fight against any reactionary electoral reform and against all restrictions on democratic rights. But I wish to add immediately that we must not adopt a purely defensive approach. It would be an error in my view to centre our orientation on the defence of
At a time when there is a rejection of the political system among very broad popular layers, it would be wrong to appear as a force which is attached to the status quo and thus facilitate the populist mystifications of the right and the far right, who present themselves as innovators. Is it necessary to recall that the workers' movement has always paid a very high price when it has fallen into such traps, for example, at the beginning of the 1930s in
Germany, or in 1958 in France, faced with of the right and on an ecological movement whose way has been prepared by the "Génération ecologie" operation of government minister Brice Lalonde.