"Berlusconism"
International Viewpoint #257 June 1994
THERE can be no doubt that the elections of 27 and 28 March signalled a radical change in the framework of Italian political life. One can legitimately pose a number of questions. Primarily, what is the real significance of the rightwing victory? What are the possible dynamics? Is what has happened in Italy a prelude to similar developments in other European countries? LIVIO MAITAN Rome, 21 May 1994
ET us first examine the parliamentary relationship of forces. In the Senate, the right-wing holds 154 seats, the centre holds 31 and the left-wing (or progressives) has 122. In addition to these elected senators, there are 11 others - former presidents, and cultural and economic figures appointed by the head of State. In the lower house, the right-wing has 366 seats, the centre has 46 and the left-wing (progressives) 213.
On this basis, an initial remark can be made. On its own, the right-wing does not hold an absolute majority in the Senate. Indeed, the Berlusconi government could only be inaugurated following the abstention of 5 senators from
As for the lower house, the rightwing only holds a majority thanks to the new electoral law — a British-style "first past the post" system for 75% of deputies. The 25% of seats elected on a proportional basis gave 43% of votes to the right-wing, a little more than 15% to the centre and a little less than 35% to the left-wing (3.5% went to the former Radical leader Marc Pannella, who allied himself with Berlusconi).
It should be noted that on a proportional basis Berlusconi's formation 32
### ITALY
Forza Italia received 21% of votes (8.1 million votes) while the strongest leftwing party received 20.4% of votes (7.8 million). Overall, the right got 16.5 million votes (a little less than 18 million including Pannella), the centre 6 million and the progressives 13.5 million.
This is the real relationship of forces. This is not meant to minimise the impact of the new formation, Forza Italia, which was able to build itself in the space of two months, against all expectations. It is Forza Italia that played the decisive mediating and hegemonic role for the building of a coalition bringing together two previously mutually unfriendly forces, the Northern League and the neo-fascists of the Italian Social Movement (MSI).
How should one characterise the forces which currently make up the right-wing at the current stage? Care should be taken not to make overly rigid characterisations. Indeed, these are not formations whose nature is definitivel established, and they could undergo significant change in the short or medium term. Moreover, the relationship of forces within each force and between the different forces is by no means stable.
### Appearance
It is sufficient to recall, for example, that in Milan, following the appearance of Forza Italia, the Northern League's score went from 40% in June 1993 to 16% in the March elections. Also, a formation like the anti-mafia Rete (the Network) suffered a big defeat in Palermo only a few months after having scored a major success in municipal elections. The Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), which overtook the Party of the Democratic Left (PDS, ex-PCI) in the June 1993 municipal elections in Milan and Turin, suffered in the same cities
This is not the place to re-state our analysis of the Northern League. Experience has shown that it was wrong to present this organisation as a fascist or fascist-type movement. It was and remains primarily a right-wing populist formation with racist hues, which calls for a federalism that protects the wealthiest regions and advocates a neo-liberal anti-Statism in the economic arena — but prioritises the challenge to the existing political system.
During the campaign, its leader Umberto Bossi attacked Berlusconi on several occasions for being a monopolistic businessman, and also made aggressive denunciations of fascism and its contemporary partisans. He joined the big anti-fascist demonstration of 25 April, defying the insults and taunts of other participants.
As for the National Alliance (AN), the new incarnation of the MSI, here also overly simplistic characterisations should be avoided. No doubt, the MSI was founded to organise those nostalgic for the Mussolini regime. But for decades — while being excluded from the fraternity of parties describing themselves as "constitutional" — it systematically integrated itself into the institutions, and appeared more as right-wing or far-right conservative formation in which the weight of those nostalgic for fascism progressively diminished. Giancarlo Fini's arrival at the head of the movement was the conclusion of a rather turbulent process.
In the last two years, while not hesitating to situate itself on the right, it has considerably developed its populist features — for example, in the popular neighbourhoods of Rome and in cities in the South, where it is a major force.
It goes without saying that, if only for reasons of age, those who were active under Mussolini and the German occupation, only have a minor role in relation to the new recruits. It should be recalled, that even under the leadership of the former secretary, Almirante, an extremist opposition had developed, giving birth to separate far-right groups, some which openly show support for the Nazis and which sometimes resort to terrorist actions.!
Finally, the AN members appointed as ministers all belong to the moderate wing, those who make a point of silencing references to fascism.
That said, there should be no minimising the significance of the change represented by the presence of the AN in
1. Recently, a court confirmed the sentences delivered to members of such groups, guilty of the massacre at the Bologna train station in the early 1980s.
International Viewpoint #257 June 1994 the government. This event symbolises the end of the political order that emerged from the end of World War Two. It is not so much that those who made or accepted this decision have rehabilitated fascism as it is that they have placed fascism and anti-fascism on the same level — relegating both of them to a distant
Secondly, this development will have the effect of further stimulating the spread of a conservative and reactionary ideology and cultural orientation, and aggravating an already seriously deteriorated political climate.
What is more, the legitimisation of the neo-fascist current will encourage its extremist ranks and other neo-Nazis to stage dramatic provocations of varying degrees and to brandish more openly their symbols and slogans. Indeed, immediately after the elections, the headquarters of the PRC were damaged and on 14 May a few hundred neo-Nazi youth organised a noisy demonstration
The new feature since the beginning of the year was the extremely quick rise of Forza Italia, a formation of a type without precedent. All the parties of the post-war period had either established ideological and even organisational links with formations existing before fascism or active among Italian immigrants, or they were born from splits from traditional forces. Only the movement baptised "l'Uomo qualunque" (the Common Man) provided an ephemeral exception.
### Initiative
Forza Italia emerged on the initiative of a big businessman who, in order to reach his goal, unscrupulously uses the structures and infrastructures of his financial kingdom and the powerful mass media that he owns. His "party" was created from above and is identified with himself personally. One could even speak of a Bonapartist undertaking, both due to the role of the decisive role of a leader considering himself to be charismatic and to the mediating and hegemonic role that this leader played from the start to provide a common basis for different sectors of the right-wing. There was a void that had to be filled. Berlusconi understood this in time, and this is the key to his success.
Berlusconi played this same role in the formation of the new government. One need only examine his inaugural speech to see this. Many criticised him for sticking to generalities. This is true, but for him the essential thing was to present himself as the organiser of "new" forces that aim to establish a new political order. He presented himself as a leader making openings in all directions, thus placing himself in the centre and not openly on the right.
This led him, for example, to nuance some of the promises made during the campaign. In the area of employment, for example, after promising the creation of one million new jobs in a year, he stretched out the deadline to two and then to two and a half years.
At the same time, he was rather vague on the question of federalism, the cherished cause of the Northern League, and more generally on the question of reforming the constitution. This attitude led to no small amount of grinding of teeth among his own allies — especially in the League, which paid the price of a dramatic break between its leader, Bossi, and its best-known ideologue, Miglie. This is a taste of the difficulties the coalition will inevitably encounter in
There seems to be a certain amount of cautiousness in the government's economic orientation. Private initiative is obviously given much attention, labour "flexibility" is put forward as a priority solution, and forms of tax-exemption are being suggested as a way to encourage investment. But globally speaking, this is a programme of continuity, of a deepening of (and not a radical break with) the orientation of the Amato and Ciampi governments — a kind of moderate Thatcherism. It is significant that, to the satisfaction of the trade union bureaucracies, Berlusconi said he would respect the tripartite government-trade unionemployer accords made in July 1993 (after those of July 1992 which went in a similar direction).
Events before and after the elections displayed with greater clarity than in the past the differentiations and contradictions that affect all social layers and which, in the last analysis, are the products of the persistance of the long period of stagnation that has ravaged the world economy.
Without going to much into the social composition of the different political formations, it is nevertheless important to underline one striking feature: in the heat of the electoral campaign, the industrial and financial bourgeoisie was clearly divided between the three competing forces.
It is noteworthy that significant sectors of the ruling class supported the progressives. Clearly, they neither trusted the League nor AN and calculated that Berlusconi's project was doomed to failure. As a result, they decided to support the progressives, all the better to shape their policies. After all, PDs leader Occhetto was hardly any more radical than Mitterrand in France or Gonzalez in Spain, and their governments certainly did not threaten the survival and "normal" functioning of the system.
The result of such an attitude was that, during the electoral campaign, Forza Italia and the other sectors of the right were supported more by middle and small industrial layers than by the major employers. This could even be seen after the elections when, for example, in an interview with the new minister of industry, a member of the Northern League, he explained that "compared to big capital, which chose the path of conservation and mediation, the entrepreneurs got moving and now lean towards the forces that make up the government.2
Petty-bourgeois
As for the more specifically petty-bourgeois layers - themselves affected by the crisis, or running the risk of being so — they opted for Forza Italia precise- • ly because it appeared as a break with the current order. As such, Berlusconi's electorate was not fundamentally different from that of the League, with whom Berlusconi inevitably competed in the attempt to win over votes from former supporters of the Christian Democrat and other formations of the centre.
Working class and popular layers displayed a similar voting pattern. Forza Italia scored gains in the popular neighbourhoods of Milan and Turin. Another example is that of the province of Brescia, a city which was the scene of powerful working class mobilisations initiated by a rather radical labour leadership and many activists from the PRC. However, the right-wing had scored well in the region for many years. This is confirmation of the fact that the left is not credible insofar as it proves itself incapable of providing an alternative global political solution.
At the very moment that the elections results were being made public, in a context of heated polemics, a process of self-critical reflection and rectification got underway. The employers lost no time and in the space of a few days rallied behind Berlusconi under the pretext of the need for a stable government, that only the new majority could guarantee.
2. L'Unità, 8 May 1994.
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International Viewpoint #257 June 1994
The FIAT boss, Agnelli, gave a symbolic example. Though for the centre during the campaign, he voted for the new government in his capacity as lifetime senator, allowing it to squeak by with a majority.
On the left, it is a time of polemics and this will continue for some time. Consensus was reached around one point: the progressives were unable to present themselves as an alternative. Voters turned their backs on them, seeing them as supporters of the status quo.
### Consensus ends
But as soon there is talk of what changes have to be made, this is where the consensus ends. According to the current leader of the PRC, Fausto Bertinotti, the progressive coalition's axis has to be shifted to the left, through the adoption of an attitude of radical opposition based on mass mobilisation; the reactionary character of the government should be denounced and there should be struggle against any constitutional change that limits democratic rights.
On the other hand, the PDS feels that the progressives error was that of not making enough effort to come to an agreement with the centre - and that this agreement is now a priority for organising the opposition. The dynamic of such an approach is clear. In fact, the PDS already reached agreement with the centre - deputies from the former Christian Democracy (DC) — to run Naples, provoking a split with the PRC which could only oppose such an alliance. Similar operations are being prepared for the next municipal and provincial
The parliamentary groups of the progressives do not include the PRC, which rightly wanted to defend its autonomy.
Other formations from the progressive coalition — the Rete and, to a lesser highly precarious and the outcome of the current process is in no way foretold. This is why it is too early to tell if this new Italian experience will spread to other European countries.
More specifically, it is by no means pre-ordained that the particular novelty of the Italian situation from a political point of view - the direct management of government by a big businessman who does not break from the powerful economic levers at his disposal - will, at this stage at any rate, spread to other
Indeed, this arrangement not only is an indefensible anomaly from a democratic point of view. It also creates problems from the point of view of the internal relations of the ruling classes themselves. This is an obstacle to the generalisation of "Berlusconism" - to coin a new term — which shouldn't be underestimated. *
Corrections...
Business tycoons into polticians:
that's
"Berlusconism"
Our apologies to Erdal Tan, the author of last month's article on Turkey, Wind in the degree, the Greens — are being torn
Islamic sail, for two errors which crept in unexpectedly. On page 33, 2nd column, 1st apart by internal conflicts and seem to paragraph, line 3: it should read that 6 DEP deputies were arrested (not 96). In the be losing steam.
same column, 2nd paragraph, line 2: it should read that the Turkish army was
There is a debate on the question of responsible for the forced removal of some 300, 000 people in the southeast of the whether Italy is in the process of moving country.", (not the "deaths" of 300, 000 people)
into a Second Republic or if this change has already taken place.
Such a debate has a somewhat
Our second round of apologies go the Revolutionary Socialist Party
Byzantine flavour to it. It is a fact that
(PSR/ASP - section of the Fourth International in Luxembourg) who we inadvertantly the government set up after the fall of left out from those organisations who supported the Appeal for the European elections,
"For a Europe of solidarity, which was also published in last month's issue. o fascism, after a long period of stability, has pitifully crumbled and any turning back of the clocks seems very improbable, if not totally excluded.
It remains the case that the current recomposition and reconstruction are
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MAL FOOTBALL/SOCCER