Italy's communists Livio Maitan has mixed feelings about the recent congress of the Party of Communist Refoundation Since its foundation in 1991, the PRC has had a turbulent history. Only two of the seven initial leaders remain: Bianca Braccitorsi and Guido Cappelloni. Neither is still in a central leadership role. Lucio Libertini died, and the others all led splits from the party: Armando Cossutta (formerly president of the PRC), Sergio Garavini (formerly first secretary), Ersilia Salvato and Rino Serri.
The 1999 Congress was called to give Armando Cossutta's minority a chance to oppose the end of PRC support for the centre-left government. After Cossutta split from the PRC in October last year, it became unclear what the convention would be about. To heal the split with an opposition outside the organisation?
The need to address strategic themes and to debate both the concept and functioning of the party was clear. But it was equally clear that it would be impossible to accomplish that goal within the two month pre-Congress discussion period.
The majority emphasised that its aim was to more clearly identify the party's policies in the current period. The project of defining a general plan for a left opposition would be undertaken in the period between this convention and the next. Limited aims
Given these circumstances, this convention had much less weight than the two previous gatherings: that of 1994, concerned with the problem of political alliances on the eve of the elections, and that of 1996, which took on the question of participation in the parliamentary majority coalition.
The results were easy to predict: scattered interventions by delegates, with very little real politics discussed. And vicious, prolonged struggles within the majority over the composition of the eadership bodies.
The main report by party leader
Fausto Bertinotti confirmed the ongoing radicalisation of the PRC, its opposition to the centre-left government, its criticisms of the main coalition party, the Left Democrats (formerly the Socialist Left Democrats), and its anti-imperialist
Bertinotti opened his remarks with a quote by Che Guevara, translated into the Kurdish language: "We must always be able to feel deeply in our own being any injustice against any other person, in any other part of the world: that is the best quality of a revolutionary."
This internationalist tone was underlined by the presence of more than a hundred foreign guests, ranging from other European Communist Parties, through Cubans, North Koreans, Latin Americans, and South Africans, anti-imperialist organisations from many developing countries, to environmental groups and far left groups like the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) of France. The Fourth International was represented by François Vercammen.
Bertinotti didn't try to answer all the strategic question facing the party. He concentrated on the main political orientation, and the PRC strategy for opposing the centre left government. Given the national and international balance of forces, he argued, the task facing the PRC was to articulate an alternative social project which, while not going beyond capitalism, could be a radical rupture with the economic and intellectual aspects of neoliberalism.
He talked about neo-Keynesian economic strategies, and the need to oppose the introduction of a more authoritarian version of bourgeois democracy. This author and others disagreed with Bertinotti's exact formulations, but we absolutely agree with him that these are the issues we need to concentrate on. What we used to call our transitional objectives, in a very unfavourable
One obvious priority was to mobilise against the referendum with which the that since the PRC had broken with the centre-left government, it should not seek local alliances. I wouldn't go that far. The real problem, in many regions, is that programmatic agreement exists on paper, but is not respected by the centre-left parties in practice. Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli is preparing a series of privatisations, which explicitly contradicts the local agreement with the PRC.
Bertinotti also suggested an agreement with the centre left in selecting
Italy's new president. That seems like a good idea, since the right wing may well propose a candidate who wants to reform the constitution in a prsidentialist and authoritarian direction. But we don't share Bertinotti's enthusiasm for exPrime Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Minister of Economics in the centre-left The reshuffled minority
Half of the traditional left opposition in the national leadership (CPN) led by myself and Franco Turigliatto, supported Bertinotti's motion on PRC withdrawal from the government majority. The other half of the left opposition, led by Marco Ferrando et Franco Grisolia, supported the PRC withdrawal, but presented their
Turigliatto and I saw no reason to present a minority motion, given the refocusing of the party towards the left under Bertinotti's leadership, the fact that this congress concentrated on the immediate political line, and the debate on the strategy and nature of the party was delayed until a future date.
For us, the priority was to contribute to the renovation of PRC work, particularly the major reorientation of the party towards intervention in day-to-day struggles, the efforts to build social roots, and the construction of party organisations at the various levels.
The reaffirmation of the PRC's pluralist nature, and the majority's decision to leave the big debate on strategy for a future congress reinforced our decision to join the majority current.
True, Bertinotti's CPN text avoids the necessary negative evaluation of PRC support for the Prodi government. But we shouldn't base our attitude solely on past disagreements. The current convergence of thinking is more important.
The other part of the old minority
International Viewpoint #312 June 1999 15
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* Europe argued that a self-criticism on support for essential.
Prodi absolutely was
Bertinotti's change of direction, and the
PRC passage into opposition, was, they warned, nothing more than a conjunctural, short-term swing. The Bertinotti current would swing back towards the centre left as soon as it became possible, they warned. This was why they insisted on presenting a separate motion.
There is a partial basis to their arguments. But their text is a mixture of eternal truths and general statements. It is
Internal pluralism is very real. All a propagandistic text, rather than a real, members can express themselves freely, concrete proposal to take the party, or at inside and outside party meetings, and in least large sections of it, forward, and party and non-party publications. Local orienting them towards concrete party bodies discuss conflicting congress mobilisations. It is difficult to see on texts, and after each conference the what basis they hope to build a revolutiovarious currents have proportional
The minority won 5,300 representation in the party leadership.
But there are a few problems:
(16%) of delegate votes,
• Only 47% of members participated compared to over in the local pre-Congress discussions.
8,000 for the larger minority at
• Because congress decisions are deci-
1996 congress.
ded by adding together all the local votes, delegates have little possibility only a minority of to discuss and possibly change their
• The party leadership produced canselves "Trotskyist."].
didate lists for each provincial con-
Since many of the new gress, often including people from minority's votes come from
'out of town." In Rome, which elects new or rejoined PRC members, or from
26 delegates, there were ten such
"suggestions." Only one regional the large fringe of protest voters, it is clear that a significant part of the old federation insisted on choosing all its minority has realigned itself with the own delegates without regard to the central leadership's suggestions.
majority Bertinotti current.
• Those who propose amendments
Shadows have no right to present their argu-
There was a very difficult debate ments at local or provincial pre-Congabout the composition of the new PRC ress meetings, or at the congress itself.
leadership bodies. The results were
• Amendments rejected by the 250disappointing, and cast a shadow over the member National Political Council party's future development..
(CPN) were not even published in the
The PRC is still one of the most conference discussion documents.
democratic workers' parties in the world.
• Amendments could only be presen-
Party received 27% of the vote. The