Christian Democrats
Overall, the Christian Democrat defeat Giovanni Spaldolini, for example, gained
The next biggest gainers two points.
were the neofascists of the Movimento a half
Sociale Italiano, million votes over their 1979 score.
Following June 27, nothing has been fail to restabilize bourgeois government in Italy decided in Italy. The political crisis that has been endemic in recent years is going
The failure of the Christian Democrats has not been accompanied by the emergence of an alternative solution. And the bourgeoisie is by no means in-
In a statement issued shortly after the results of the Italian general elections were
Secretariat of the Lega Comunista Rivoluzionaria, Italian section of the Fourth International, made the following major points.
The plan by the Christian Democrats to restabilize bourgeois rule and achieve a moderate shift to the right has failed. The setback of the Christian Democrats and the fragmentation of the bourgeois vote means that the bourgeoisie is further than ever from building an effective political instrument to rule the country in a period of
The growth of the vote for the neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano reflects the fact that the economic crisis, the scandals, and the continued governmental instability are fueling authoritarian tendencies in some moderate sectors.
The increase in the vote of the Republican Party,
3.
cate of antilabor austerity policies, shows that sections of the business class are dissatisfied with the indecisive line of the Christian Democrats as they see it.
The left vote in general held up very well, indicating the continuing combativity of the working class and disappointing the Christian Democrats' hopes for a wearing down of the working-class vote. On the other hand, the complicity of the Communist Party leadership in the policy of austerity, its failure to offer a clear alternative to the bourgeois policy, meant that the CP and therefore the left in general, since the CP is the biggest party, failed overall to take advantage of the revolt against the
Christian Democrats.
The good showing made by the far-left coalition of the Lega Comunista
5.
Rivoluzionaria and Democrazia Proletaria in a number of areas showed the correctness of putting forward a united far-left slate and that a significant section of working class activists are ready to listen to a consistent class-struggle alternative.
The conditions are improved for putting forward the alternative of a gov-
6.
ernment of the workers parties and a working-class solution to the crisis.
icalization of bourgeois party supporters to the right, in particular the vote for the
MSI, shows, moreover, that it is more and more urgent to put forward a working- class alternative in a credible way.
New efforts are needed now to achieve a united front of the working class parties against the austerity policies, which will certainly be stepped up. In particular, it is necessary to press the Communist Party to unite with other working-class forces against austerity rather than to continue to try to accomodate the increasingly discredited Christian Democracy.
We could not get the text of the Italian LCR's statement before press time.
we publish below a review of the results from the July 1 issue of the French LCR paper Rouge written after consultation with the Italian comrades.
There were no winners, but there was one big loser. How can the results of the
Italian general elections be summed up?
The June 26-27 vote substantially changed the electoral map of the country but produced no decisive shift affecting the makeup of the government.
Referring to this paradox, the headline of Corriere della most serious bourgeois prising Election in the History of the
The Christian Democrats, who have been the pillar of bourgeois rule for forty
They suffered the years, were the losers.
biggest defeat in their history, losing 37 seats in parliament and seeing their percentage of the vote drop by 5.4 percentage points. Getting a total of 32.9 percent, they barely held their position as the country's largest party.
"White Whale,"
as the Christian
Democracy has been called, foundered even in its safest waters. It lost 18 percentage points in Soria in Latium and 11 points in Milan, for example.
the most consistent advoThe raddid not benefit the left parties, which were incapable of offering a left alterna-
Despite a slight erosion, the Communist Party maintained its position, with 29.9 percent of the votes. It got very good scores in the big working-class centers in the north and south, gained ground in some big cities such as Rome, Turin, or Naples.
Thus, the CP gained from its tactic of using "radical" language to capture the L'Unita, the party daily, expressed isfaction with the results.
The gains made by the Italian Socialist Party, however, were very much less
It gained 1.6 percentage points, which increased its percentage to 11.4 percent. This represented an implicit disapproval of the Socialist Party's support for the reactionary policy of the Craxi's offer of a "three year pact" with the Christian Democrats.
The vote lost by the Christian Democrats went essentially to the right, to the small "secular" parties less implicated in the regime of "malgoverno" (i.e., misrule). The Republican Party of former premier clined to respond positively to the proposal Berlinguer made shortly after the results were announced for a "broad government excluding the Christian Democrats.
In these conditions, the formation of a cabinet similar to the preceding ones is
But the wheeling and dealing to put together a government is going to be more bruising. ian industrialist put it: the parties have today is the right of veto over each other's proposals."
In fact, only one thing is certain: The new coalition will have very great difficulties in coming up with a coherent program. This is true on the governmental level, where the ruling class has been trying for a long time to build stable structures. This is true on the economic level, where the crisis has generated a 16.4 percent inflation rate and a snowballing of business failures.
Whatever governmental combination is put together, it will have neither the credibility nor the parliamentary base to impose the measures the bourgeoisie is demanding on the working people.
These elections have produced nothing for the workers. They will have to rely on their own strength to win satisfaction of their most urgent demands and to block the attempts of the bourgeoisie to liquidate the main social gains they have made in the last ten years.
The call for this was put forward during the campaign by the far-left slates supported by Democrazia Proletaria and our comrades of the LCR. While the international press has reported only the national average of these slates (1.5 percent), they got very significant results in several working-class cities. For example, they got 3.3 percent in Naples, 8 percent in Termini Imerese (where a very welltrade-unionist at FIAT
4 percent in one Naples district, and nearly 3 percent in Campobasso in Sicily.
representatives of these far-left slates will sit in the next Chamber of
The alliance between the DP and the LCR reflects an agreement on the need to wage a united struggle against
In the area of mass struggle, where the weakening of the Christian offer improved prospects. For example, nounced a demonstration of three thousand persons marched on the Christian
Democrat headquarters in Milan shouted: