The fight to stop CRUISE
Cruise missiles in Italy NON BOMBE
Dave HAYES The anti-missiles movement in Italy has found a new spurt of activity centring around opposition to the proposed Cruise missile site at Comiso, Sicily.
On December 18, the long march from Milan to the site ended. Along the route
The anti-missiles movement offered it a way out of this. In addition, the movement offered an opportunity to put the rabidly pro-NATO Socialist Party in difficulties.
The Communist Party did not openly reject the proposed deployment of the missiles, but called for suspension of their installation to allow further nego-
They collected one million
NO AI
is the 'direct action' forces, including the Radical Party and League of Conscientious Objectors. Although not necessarily disagreeing on the shared responsibility of the USA and USSR for the missiles, they are impatient for direct action to prevent their deployment. These forces have been instrumental in setting up the international peace camp at Magliocco it had been welcomed by actions at Pia- tiations. cenza, Parma, Florence, and Rome. The arrival of the march was greeted with a tion. Sicily-wide demonstration. A further protest demonstration from Catania across the island to Comiso was organised by the international peace camp at Magliocco airport near the site on December 23.
E.P. Thompson, one of the standardbearers of the British and European peace movements, toured Sicily during December. He particularly called on the Italian labour movement to involve itself in opposition to the proposed siting of the US Cruise missiles at Comiso. Other protest actions included a hungerstrike by Cagnes, a Sicilian Communist Party leader, and Italian, British, German, and Dutch peace movement activists.
The most significant development is the call of a group of independent left Senators for a referendum to be organised on the proposed siting of missiles at Comiso.
CP MANOEUVRES TO CONTROL
PEACE MOVEMENT
The anti-war movement had taken off in Italy with the monster demonstration of 250,000 in Rome on October 24,1981. Instrumental in the success of this demonstration was the decision of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) to become active on the question.
signatures in support of this proposi-
Throughout 1982, the movement marked time. Although the demonstration against Reagan on June 5, 1982, was big - 150,000 people — it did not reach the scale of the October 1981 demonstration. The PCI was worried about the fate of the shaky Spadolini government; it was anxious to avoid early elections.
TWO LINES IN THE ANTI-MISSILES
MOVEMENT
However, the question of the Comiso site was posed even more sharply, as construction work was now underway. Two divergent currents appeared within the movement. All were agreed that national demonstrations, whatever their size, were inadequate. On one side was the current around the PCI, in which the centrist PDUP plays an important role. These forces work 'from the top' through the October 24 Committee in Rome, a grouping of political leaders and personalities. They orient toward the labour movement, but attempt to tone down any anti-imperialist dynamic, anything that goes beyond their vague calls for peace and negotiations between the two "super-powers. For example, the June 5 demonstration attempted to lay the airport. This current is reluctant to prioritise national initiatives aimed at drawing in the organised labour movement, and displays a degree of 'antipartyism', which is partly a reaction to the caution and lack of perspectives of the PCI. For example, the march from Catania to Comiso only mobilised about 700 to 800 people, half of whom were from other countries. Despite their willingness to act on the missiles these forces have failed to mobilise the labour movement.
network of peace committees exists, but their unilateral and anti-imperialist stand causes the main political forces on the left to prefer national bodies like the October 24 Committee. Thus, aside from Sicily, because of ComiSO, and the Venice area, for specific historical reasons, these committees are not very representative and have weak links with the labour movement. Neverthe less, many rank and file PCI militants particularly the youth, work in them on a clear anti-imperialist basis.
THE POSITION OF THE ITALIAN
FOURTH INTERNATIONALISTS
The Lega Communista Rivoluzionaria (LCR - Italian section of the Fourth International), which is active in the movement, argues against two complementary dangers. The first is to counterblame for the arms race equally at the pose the real necessity of involving the
The PCI had its own reasons for this
One was the possibility that doors of Washington and Moscow. The workers movement to the need for active movement.
strength and breadth of the peace movements in northern Europe might develop outside its control. Moreover, since the on the two "super-powers' to negotiate, leaders move.
end of the historic compromise that
NATO, claiming it is necessary to accept lusion that the actions of the peace move.
the PCI made with Christian Democracy in the late 1970s, the party had been isolated and in a state of paralysis.
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PCI leaders put their faith in the ability of the European powers to put pressure membership of accept Italian
They the 'reality' of NATO's existence.
The alternative within the movement mass-based committees, and consequently to refuse to propose actions until the top
The other danger is to fall into the ilment as such can inspire people to bring about a political victory without invol-
The LCR and other forces like the ghanistan and repression in Poland.
ving the decisive weight of the labour movement.
The LCR supports all initiatives aimed at building the movement - even where there are illusions in direct action tactics such as the peace camp. But the Lega argues that the key task is to build a central national mass campaign to stop the installation of the missiles in Comiso. Calls by the PCI and the others 'peace' and negotiations are diversionary. Serious action would be to win the labour movement to support for stopping work on construction of the site. A REFERENDUM ON THE MISSILES
The initiative of the independent left parliamentarists to try and get parliament to call a referendum on the issue is important. Every opinion poll shows that the answer in such a referendum would be a resounding 'No' to the missiles.
the referendum motion quires the support of an absolute majority of the parliamentary representatives. It is unlikely that Fanfani and his government would placidly accept such a test of
The LCR argues that this is an even stronger reason to back the referendum proposal by building on the one million signatures already collected to accumulate millions more. This type of nationally-organised action would strengthen the chances of success for the parliamentary proposal, and help to reinforce the peace movement itself.
PDUP are discussing this proposal for a mass campaign for signatures with the senators. But the PCI, which could collect as many as eight million signatures (given its two-million membership), is distinctly lukewarm on this proconfrontation with the indicated by its recent acceptance of a social pact to dampen down the huge explosion of workers militancy against Viewpoint No 23, February 7, 1983).
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BURIES
REFERENDUM PROPOSAL
At the National Assembly of Peace Committees on January 22/23, 1983, the PCI did not openly oppose this proposal, but managed to get it buried in a shopmunist Party newspaper Unita reported in its January 24 issue that the meeting, at-
700 representatives from the committees, had agreed on the following points: —The peace movement is against the division of the world into blocs, but does not call for Italy's withdrawal from NATO. -It supports the right of all peoples to self-determination. -It condemns the Soviet invasion of Af-
-It affirms that the movement for peace is independent of all parties, will ask the relevant authorities for permanent offices in every city, and chooses Comiso as the headquarters for the movement and the presiding committee. —The peace movement decides to organise a march on Geneva to put pressure on the participants in the negotiations on Euromissiles. —It supports the referendum proposed by the independent left senators. —The movement calls for a demonstration in Rome on April 5 when parliament discusses the military budget. -It notes that October 23 is World Peace Day. -The movement calls for a demonstration at Comiso on April 30, the first anniversary of the assassination of the anti-missile and anti-Mafia activists Pio La Torre and Rosario di Salva by the Mafia.
COMISO - A EUROPEAN-WIDE
DECISION
E.P. Thompson pointed out during his Sicily tour that the decision on Comiso is important for the whole of the European peace movement. The construction of the base would give a lead to the other European governments presently hesitating under the pressure of public opinion.
Italy plays a particular role in the US plans to provide logistical support for its Rapid Deployment Force in Europe,
"Italian demonstrator makes sure Reagan gets the message(DR)
outlined at the December NATO meeting in Brussels. It has a specific role as a strike force and back-up on the southern flank of NATO. Concretely, this means defence of imperialist interests in the oil-producing region of the Middle East, and in North Africa, and countering a supposed Moscow military buildup in the Mediterranean.
The new importance of Italy as a junior partner of US imperialism is shown in its participation in the international Interposition Force in Lebanon, and the increase in arms spending. This has grown at a faster rate than inflation for the last five years — with a special emphasis on rapid-intervention military material.
The fight against the missiles is a direct opposition to the Fanfani government which is fully committed to its imperialist role, and backed to the hilt by a buoyant Italian arms industry - the fourth largest world exporter of heavy armament systems.
An anti-war movement in Italy cannot be built simply by earnest non-partisan appeals for peace and negotiations. The LCR and the youth groups in solidarity with it raise the slogan 'jobs not bombs'.
no neutron bombs no cruise missiles
They point out the connection between the proposed new cuts in social spending and the attack on automatic cost-of-living increases with the rise in arms spending. And they put the fight against the missiles within the context of the international struggle against the imperialist wardrive.
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STESAN defended by the main Socialist Party leaders around the world, shows the determination of the Prague authorities not to let themselves be influenced by international solidarity campaigns on behalf
Chanta of their victims.
### MULTIPLYING TRIALS
The numerous protests against the sentences meted out to Battek ( the harshest since the Stalinist trials of the 1950s) did not give the authorities any pause, as is shown by the increasing number of trials in the last two years.
In July 1981, Jiri Gruntorad, a young worker signer of Charter 77, was sentenced to four years in prison and three years probation. In the same period, Thomas Petrivy, the organizer of the meeting between Charter 77 and the Polish KOR in August 1978, was sentenced to two years in prison.
Vaclav Umlang, a miner, was sentenced to three years for protesting