Many fundamental problems for the PRC were dealt with in a fragmented and intermittent way. Sometimes the party leadership was over-cautious, or plain wrong.
As those on the left of the party have long argued, the PRC has failed to produce a strategic alternative that corresponds to the current phase of the class struggle. It goes without saying that the party has never developed any long-term strategy for the anti-capitalist struggle.
The party led an often valuable current of resistance to the government, from its foundation in 1991 until it more or less joined the government in 1996. But the lack of a strategic perspective often limited the party's effect.
More recently, the party's support for the Prodi government has obviously worsened the situation, and reintorced a tendency towards passivity among party members and supporters.
It has also complicated the party's work with the few social movements that have confronted the government. The PRC's ambiguous role affected its credibility among the unemployed movement in the less-developed southern half of the country, and among students. "You are here, but your comrades are sitting in parliament and voting for the education minister we are fighting against," students shouted at members of the Communist Youth during the demonstra-
The PRC's trade union work has been unsystematic. Although the party has considerable implantation in the labour movement, its sympathisers are divided, even fragmented - even within the broader "class struggle" left in the largest trade union confederation, the CGIL.
The way the split with Cossuta finally occurred also shows a complete lack of awareness in the PRC about how to organise the internal life of a working class and communist party at the end of the 20th century. In the run-up to the split, a majority of PRC parliamentarians refused to vote in line with policy approved by a very large majority of votes in the party's most representative leading body. And, when the moment came, Cossuta was able to organise a significant split in a matter of days or
We see, now, what a bad state the PRC was in. On the one hand, the party Secretariat (from which the left minority was always excluded) had too much power, creating a vertical power structure, where the secretary and president had excessive influence and power. gradually accepted that party leaders and members of parliament could make press statements whenever they felt like it, including betore the party leadership could discuss the issue in question. Not surprisingly, during the key weeks ot the crisis with Cossuta, many rank-and-file militants felt that they were being manipulated like puppets. Party leaders were attacking and insulting each other in public, without bothering to consult party members before they did so.
Cossuta even claimed that the party was dominated by "authoritarian dynamics", that it had undergone a "genetic mutation." A strange discovery, for a man who had been a central leader of the party for years, and who had been scrupulously silent whenever the left in the party, or even the majority, had criticised bureaucratic practices.
If the PRC is to learn anything from the split, it must clearly discuss the internal functioning and basic conception of the party at the congress to be held in several months. A challenging period
It is too early to evaluate the cost of the split for the PRC. But if parliamentary elections are held soon, the party may lose many of its elected representatives. This would not just provoke a financial crisis for the organisation, but it would be much more difficult for the PRC to play a major role in the country's
In any case, things will never be the same as before. The political identity of the party, and the way it works can only
Before the split, about half the militants were former members or supporters of the PCI. But now, the majority come from other backgrounds: the far left, the socialist left, other currents, or from no particular current.
Excitingly, the Communist Youth -most of whom entered politics too late to have an organic relationship in one of the pre-PRC groups- is increasingly important within the party. Support for Cossuta was much lower among the youth than in the rest of the party.
Most of the supporters of the "Togliatti culture" -the gradualist, moderate, parliamentary, institutional, almost social-democratic approach that was so influential in the old Communist partyhave left with Cossuta. Certainly, this current is no longer represented in the party's central leadership, Bertinotti's
This obviously increases the relative weight of the left, which previously had the support of 20-30% of delegates to PRC conferences. And there is growing respect for the left, in recognition of its critical proposals since 1994, and particularly since the party joined the government bloc in 1996.
With most of the party's parliamentary group now gone, the PRC will have to put more emphasıs on its social intervention. And it is no longer handicapped by its support for the governing coali-
In the run-up to the next congress, it will be much easier for the left to stimulate discussion on the concept of the party and its work. It should be possible
Young at heart The Communist Youth of Finland has transformed itself into a party for those of all ages.
The group, which represents a new trend on the Finnish left, is to the left of the Social Democrats and the Leftwing Alliance.
Unlike many Finnish communists, the group thinks the Soviet Union was "state capitalist, and in no way a model of free and democratic socialism.
The organisation, now called the Socialist League, will take part in the 1999 parliamentary elections, as part of the Muutos '99 (Change '99) 4 International Viewpoint #306 December 1998 election agreement. But the group insist that "the main aim of our campaign is not fishing for votes but agitation against parliamentarism for a more democratic society. The Socialist league aims to creating a front for change against the neoliberalist policies...
The group will also mobilise for the June 1999 counter-summits to the EU and G7 meetings in Cologne, Germany. [SL/JD] * Source: Press release, 25 October 1998 Contact: Sosialistiliitto (Socialist League) PO Box 288, 00171 Helsinki, Finland. Tel: 358-9-278 2244. E-mail: <komnuor@dlc.fi> Internet: www.dic.fi/~komnuor/ to achieve positive improvements in these areas and in a more general sense, improve the conditions for refoundation and renewal of Italy's Communist left, and the workers' movement as a whole.
The coming months are full of potential and promise. The risk is that the left in the PRC will fail to seize the opportunities... *