The PCI after Berlinguer activists. Likewise, the enlightened spirits in the apparatus recognize Stalin's crimes of democracy the East European countries.
is still a long from that to the epitaph for the special relationship with the CPSU.
At least three events occurred in 1984 to make it an important year in would lead immediately, as has been the reo nt history of the attra mary sit are a by the Parry seen in many other parties in capitalist
Europe, to the emergence of factions councils against the government decrees on the slaing scale or wages.
based on support for the USSR. To prot-
Secondly, there was the death of Enrico Berlinguer, the general secretary ect the USSR, the PCF is thus obliged to of the Communist Party, who led and directed it in one of the most diff do a tight-rope act that borders on the icult decades of its history. And finally, there were the results of the
European elections last June, which marked a real triumph for the Com-
The present decline of the PCF is
Democracy Jacing it first in the country, ahead even of Christian in the party's history.
unprecedented has experienced periods of retreat in the past, they corresponded to defeats for the working class.
time, to the contrary, the PC's electoral decline and its loss of credibility and influence accelerated while the working class was showing its determination at the ballot box to get rid of the right. These negative developments have continued to
To compensate for its setback, the
Communist Party cannot shift into a phase of promoting struggles, without running the risk of setting in motion mobilizations that would go over its head. A prisoner of its need to maintain the internal equilibrium required for unity and survival of the apparatus, the PCF can only organize its retreat on the basis of what remains of its influence.
It may be able to stem the decline in membership and the fall in its vote, but it has few means at its disposal for regaining its influence in the working
However, the Social Democracy is unable to profit from this critical situation. Bearing virtually the entire responsibility for the government itself, it is experiencing processes those from which the PCF is suffering among its base of electoral supporters and activists.
not very distant future, the activists who challenge the PCF's present line most clearly in the CGT. A number of them are waiting to see what happens at the Twenty-Fifth Congress to decide about their membership in the PF.
An accentuation of the present chauvinist course, playing up industrial counterplans cast in the framework of adminthe crisis,
"properly understood" profit, and all this linked to maintaining strict centralism and loyaty to the that is not a very attractive combination for the rank-and-file activists who are looking for a different sort of response to the problems of their party's decline. • nunist Party Elettra DEIANA
1984 also marked a sharp turn to the left by the PCI. In the recent period it has opted for a much clearer and more radical policy of opposition than in the past. This was especially the case in the campaign of obstruction carried out by the PCI in parliament against the Craxi government's decree on the sliding scale (1) and afterwards with the referendum initiative (2) for recovery of the index points lost when the decree was made law. Without a shadow of a doubt these were very different decisions from the ones which its members and public opinion alike had learned to expect from the PCI over the years of the policy of national unity from 1976 to 1979 and, following that, in the long phase of opposition' to governments.
Parliamentary obstruction, which as a tactic had been forgotten for decades (the last great campaign of obstruction by the PCI was in 1953), along with the referendum for restoration of the lost index points are both initiatives that contrast strongly with the fetishisation of bourgeois institutions, of parliamentary sovereignty, and with the strict observation of the formal rules of democracy that have characterised the PCI up till now. The recourse to a referendum, in particular, taken on other occasions by
For by Democrazia Proletaria (DP) or in other areas by the has always been looked on with suspicion by the PCI. In fact referendums were even openly condemned as a means of corrupting and exploiting the 'fight for democratic policies'.
The accusation thrown at the PCI today by the Confindustria (the Italian bosses organisation), the government and the most moderate wing of the trade-union movement are all, for good reasons, of the same ilk. Nowadays, something seems to have destroyed the continuity of direct class collaboration practised by the PCI for so many years. Not surprisingly, the attacks on it aim to call the PCI to order and to warn of the possible constitutional chaos and political confusion that the referendum could bring in its
These were the arguments that the PCI used to present to its members and to the working class more generally to get them to swallow the worst aspects of its policies. But now the PCI had no other
After engaging in months of exhausting negotiations with the three union confederations in an attempt to get agreement on certain restrictions of the sliding scale, the government was confronted last February with the decision of the CGIL to break off the talks. (The CGIL is the main trade-union confederation in industry. It is close to the PCI, but also includes Socialist and far-left members.)
The presiding committee of the cabinet, in the hands of the Socialist Party, with the agreement of all the other parties in the government (3) decided to go ahead with issuing a decree that removed eight points from the 1984 index. By this initiative, the Craxi government sought to achieve three objectives. wanted to attack the sliding scale in accordance with the wishes of Italian employers who had been trying to do this for three or four years. It wanted to install a new system of relations with the trade-union movement in order to show that it could put a stop to the long period of exhausting mediation, neg
This decree, adopted in February 1984 limited the recovery of wages in relation to inflation to 60 per cent for the year 1984. Further more it worked retro-actively. four index points due from the last part of 1983 were suppressed. See International Viewpoint No. 51, April 23, 1984.
The Italian constitution provides for citizens to propose a referendum to overturn a law voted in parliament.
The present Italian government headed by
Craxi, comprises Liberal Party (PLI).
International Viewpoint 11 February 1985
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ITALY.
otiations and conflicting vetos that had characterised relations between the social partners. It wanted also to marginalise the left opposition and above all the PCI.
The reaction of the Communist Party was first of all to respond to the politcal project behind the Craxi decree. It showed that contrary to the hopes of the government and the Confindustria, the PCI commanded a huge organisational capacity in the country and an equally large social weight. But there was more to it than that.
The response of the PCI would not have been nearly as radical, at least in form, if the concern of the ruling group to safeguard the position and prestige of the party had not been reinforced by strong pressure from the base. The initiative came from the factory councils, from the most class-conscious sections of the CGIL apparatus, from the worker militants of the PCI and from several thousand factory delegates little inclined to let the government get away with making such a show of force. The Craxi decrees provoked a reflex action and mobilisation throughout the country. This movement both preceded and strong y influenced the parliamentary battle of the PCI.
Certain facts must be briefly recalled here in relation to the PCIs need to come to grips with a mass movement of enormous scope characterised by a strong tendency towards self organisation.
In the autumn of 1983 central negotiations were opened up between unions, the Confindustria and the government with the aim of reaching an agreement on the sliding scale. In the minds of the government and the bosses it was
La matter of further undermining the index mechanism in exchange for a few promises on employment and taxes. An extremely negative agreement, Scotti accords' named after the employment minister had been signed a year before by the social partners.
according to the schema worked out by Craxi and the Confindustria the way would be open for the complete collapse of what was left of the 1975 sliding scale agreement.
The CISL (the trade union confederation linked to Christian Democracy) and the UIL (the federation linked to
Party) immediately declared themselves willing scale completely. The CGIL, which was also represented at the negotiating table, whilst pretending to cooperate began little by little to harden its position and to insist on demanding more substantial and concessions from the government in exchange for the sacrifice of a part of the middle of February, the CGIL withdrew from the negInternational Viewpoint 11 February 1985 otiations protesting against the attitude of the government but without giving clear marching orders to the workers. The other parties present never conagreement. In fact, according to the Federal Pact that the CGIL, the CISL and the UIL had made ten years before, no agreement is valid unless it is all of the three trade union confederations.
not prepared to take the responsibility of signing a separate agreesignificance government. However, with their explicit endorsement, the government authorised the decree mentioned above, known as
Valentine decree because was made public on February 14, 1984.
The government's action sent shock waves throughout the Italian trade-union movement: the profound crisis in the United Federation was evidenced on this occasion in all its depth and irreversibility. From that day onwards, the more moderate sections of the union coalition and the leaderships of the CISL and the UIL as a whole had a perfect way of showing that the unitary path was imand that from now on it was everyone for themselves.
The decision by the majority of the CSIL to withdraw from the negotiations created deep divisions, which have not yet been overcome, between the Communist component who were the main this decision, and the Socialist component, which completely supported the government's line.
The upshot of these events activity which the factory councils were able to fill. In this situation, the decisions and political behaviour of the worker and trade-union cadres of the PCI carried a decisive weight. They exercised an influence in the CGIL apparatus and outside it, in rank-and-file trade-union structures, amongst the workers and of course
In the CGIL bureaucracy several major contradictions began to emerge. On the one hand there was a fear that they would come out of any conflict with the government with the role of the union badly weakened (the process had already begun in the preceding years). Most of all there was a fear that the CGIL would be politically marginalised. On the hand, there was a strong pressure from the intermediary cadres most directly in contact with the base or who had a left-
Those sections with strong tradition of struggle in particular large sections of the FIOM (the engineering section of the CGIL) played vital role in preventing the Secretariat from signing on the sliding scale with the government. The CGIL leadership was even more afraid of increasing the tensions between itself and its working class base it witnessed, drawn out negotiations in Rome, the organisation of the most militant workers through the self-convened Affecting all the major towns this movement was expressed in city-wide assemblies of factory councils, in the regions and nationally, outside the structures of came from groups of factory councils or from one, particularly important, factory council.
In the course of this movement, there were two national meetings of the factory councils and a limited national coordination functioning between January and April. PCI members played a decisive role taking initiatives, organisational support and in political defence, as well as in the practice of 'auto-convocation' which the unfolding strikes
Differences on tactical considerations, on questions of orientation and on the various options open to them thus came to the surface among the PCIs worker militants. Some saw the self-organisation of the councils as a necessary step on the road to changing the union in order to give more room for action at the base. Others, on the contrary, were afraid that the councils had too much autonomy. This latter group agreed with the CGIL and saw the councils movement as merely a tactical expedient for getting to grips with the situation suing from the crisis of the United Federation and to overcome as quickly as possible the internal contradictions in the CGIL between the Communists and the
In other areas, but with the same the leadership of the CGIL and the PCI found themselves in agreement on the need to ride this movement and become its unique exponent at the trade-union as well as on the political •and institutional level, in order to retake the initiative. This would reinforce their role, which had been goverment's manoeuvre.
a flicting pressures that build up and them it was a question, and this is what actually happened in the end, of wearing this movement out. They sought to deny it the possibilities for autonomy and self-organisation that were already underway.
They had to prevent an uncontrollable social and political dynamic from developing. The PCI and the CGIL formally adopted the demands of the movement for the withdrawal of the decrees and for focusing on jobs. This was the most effective means of controlling the movement and of depriving it of its legitimacy in the eyes of the workers since in this way the CGIL and the PCI took the place of the factory councils which had tradtaken the initiative in mass here they had to tackle a political and social phenomenon of enormous scope which put their credibility as an opposition party and as the main force on the left on the line, in front of millions of strength, determination and potentialities of this movement were manifestly very powerful. On the other hand, the CGIL had also great difficulty in giving a satisfactory response that would both harnass and neutralise the movement's potential without causing splits in the long run. The PCI was therefore forced to become directly involved in the battle and throw all its strength and prestige into the balance.
In reading the PCI press in the last few months one would think that it really had had a change of heart in 'movementism'. But it was
In reality, the fact that the PCI put all its polinto this fight was just to make it easier to take the political initiative away from the factory councils and the delegates and to deprive their actions of political legitimacy. The battle was no longer to be fought on the terrain of the factory councils or through strikes of a limited character. Now the important thing was to get one million people to Rome on March 24, 1984, something only the powerful apparatus of the PCI and the CGIL could do. Now it was a question of challenging the government in the parliamentary arena.
As a result, the government's anti-working class provocation defeated when it was shown politically that an opposition to the government and a left one at that, actually existed and had to be taken into account. However, the workers lost less than anticipated because of the Communist Party were able to pull. After the first decree was defeated in parliament, because of the PCI's obstruction, the government presented another one, which limited the blocking of the index to one six-month period. Thus it stole only four points instead of eight from the workers. This time the PCI gave up any thought of putting up a tough fight.
The PCI had, thus, accomplished grand stroke. It had capable of great tactical flexibility in its relations with the mass movement. It had managed to get its leading group as a whole to fall uniformly into step behind the tactic of obstruction, which had threatened to provoke irreperable
The PCI National Secretariat, in particular Berlinguer, had followed the of the parliamentary group step step to make sure that the obstructionist tactic was correctly applied. It is well known that several Communist MPs and senators were not in favour of this action. But the fact that the struggle was, in the end, waged by everyone together strengthened the credibility of these leaders in the eyes of the members, of the left-wing electorate and in the eyes of the public as a whole.
The wave of feeling following the death of Berlinguer, which occurred several weeks after the March 24 mass demonstration and right in the middle of the European election campaign, gave the PCI once again a unique opportunity to assert itself. In an atmosphere of upturn in party activity, this helped to bring about a huge success in the June 17 elections.
But these points in the PCI's favour at the beginning of 1984 did not by any means resolve all the problems facing the party. On the contrary, in one way they made it more difficult to find a lasting National unity
Three basic elements are combined in the political choices facing the PCI. - The reformist strategy which accepts the framework of the capitalist system, both on the level of the economy and in social relations, as well as on the level of political institutions. This strategy objectively entered a crisis a long time ago, following the disastrous effects of economic crisis and the austerity policy adopted by various bourgeois governments. The extreme crisis of the regime and of the Christian Democracy gave rise, in successive waves, to the so-called moral question. (5) But the PCI never challenged the capitalist regime: they were happy to adapt the demands and hopes of the working masses to the system, using the lowest kind of trickery for the purpose. - Strong tensions in the activist base of the party. The PCI appears to be in good shape if you look at it from the electoral point of view. And despite some setbacks, in the course of the last few years it has achieved a certain stability. This is all the more true if you compare its ratings to the much lower ones of the other European Communist Parties. But this electoral stability, this political standing, this room for manoeuvre in relation to the mass movement, exist alongside big internal tensions, real political differences and conof national facing the PCI.
obvious at ruling group 5. At regular intervals, after big scandals the PCI always relaunches its campaign on the 'moral question' with the aim of showing that all the ills which beset Italy stem from the absence of integrity of its bourgeois leaders, forgetting to mention that such leaders are only a by-product of a regime based on exploitation and profit.
International Viewpoint 11 February 1985
It was an empirical exit dictated mainly by a concern not to worsen relations with the whole sections of workers. This comes out explicitly in the theses for the Fifteenth Congress of the PCI in 1979. Here the difficulties encountered in relation to the unions and the FGCI (Federation of Young Communists) were underlined. The theses stated clearly that the party was facing serious problems 'in maintaining and consolidating, in a permanent way, and at each phase of the struggle, relations with all the different sections of the working population.' However, the correction of this orientation and the identification of the project of national unity as a major cause of the failure of the PCIs policies and of their electoral setbacks were not immediately forthcoming. Berlinguer speaks out
The theses of the Fifteenth Congress spoke of the difficulties and tensions between workers and the PCI, but without explaining the causes. It was to be more than a year and a half before the PCI abandoned the strategy of the histcompromise Berlinguer, the main theoretician of this strategy also presided over its burial. He did so in a famous interview given to the daily La Repubblica on June 28, 1980, in which he stated that 'After the legislative elections in 1979, we ran the risk of a defeat that would have brought us to our knees. Not so much through losing our say in things, although this is important, but rather, in another way: unity, we lost our direct and consistent contact with the masses. I can assure you that we will not enter into an experiment of this kind again.'
At the end of 1980, an official party document came from the leadership with a full correction. It said; 'Christian Democracy has shown itself incapable of bringing about the moral stabilisation of the state ... It is the task of the PCI to be the promoters and guarantors of a government that expresses and galvanises the superior energies of Italian and draws competent and honest people together from all the different parties as well as from outside them.' It was in this way that the phase of the democratic alternative' was launched. This was a semi-strategic, semi-tactical concept that was different from the historic compromise but remained within the more general framework of the strategy of class collaboration practiced by the PCI. This perspseveral occasions is one of a multi-class government of "honest people and true, of a government that can bring together people who may not be from the left but who would remain faithful to the constitution of the republic.
The break with the strategy of a Democracy was followed up with several more or less thorough self-criticisms aternational Viewpoint 11 February 1985 the years of national unity. This in itself symptomatic of a certain malaise brought on by the new policy in the party. There was no question of a linear break or of the beginning of a profound struggle to define the objective conditions for an alternative to Christian Democracy, in the class collaborationist form envisaged by the PCI.
The return to opposition did signify a partial change of the policies of the PCI in relation to subsequent governments. A certain workerist language from Berlinguer during periods of heightened class tension as for example in autumn during the Fiat struggle, was the evidence of an attempt to mend the divisions opened up in the years of national unity between the PCI and large sections of workers. At the same time, the attitude to the PSI became more critical, especially when the line of the new secretariat led by Bettino Craxi was confirmed and after this party was returned
But the tougher stance of the PCI towards the government was in words only.
of the austerity line, theorised by Berlinguer in the period of national unity was not challenged in the following period. With great stubborness, the workers were led down a dead end of 'sacrifices in exchange for jobs and increases in productivity.' In the name of this line, the PCI endorsed and justified and made others swallow the most anti-working class plans included in the austerity policies of the various bourgeois The need for an alternative
This defeat at Fiat in the autumn of 1980 had an important effect on the Turin workers movement and had some nasty consequences for the trade-union movement on a national level. This defeat was made possible because the PCI, whilst making a lot of noise in favour of workers in struggle, did nothing, in reality in the union, at a national level or in parliament to stop this attack on the workers by the boss of Fiat, Agnelli.
On the contrary, the PCI used its prestige and influence to force the acceptance of the infamous agreement - the Cassa Integrazione (6) under 23,000 workers were laid off and have not returned to the factory. This agreement provoked anger among one of the key groups of workers in the country.
The same reasoning was applied to the sliding scale, which the bosses and the government had targetted since 1980 and which the workers had been defending with great tenacity for a long time. The PCI contributed resolutely on the ideological level and concretely, to break the "taboo' of the sliding scale. In this way they disarmed the workers and gave the enemy the advantage.
As far as the question of government and the need for an alternative goes, the PCI has confined itself to general propaganda without any political cutting edge. It is only on certain occasions that are especially explosive that a fighting alternative has been put forward. To take, for example, the emphasis the PCI placed on denouncing the Christian Democrats' mismanagement of the disasters brought on by the terrible earthquake which hit the Southern population in the autumn of 1980. On this occasion, the PCI was forced to say that 'nothing will ever be the same as before' and that the moral issues involved demanded a fundamental fight for an alternative.
On other occasions, the moral issue (such as the web of scandals and the consequent impotence of the typical of bourgeois administration in Italy) has constrained the PCI to adopt harder positions in the fight against the government and for a real alternative. But up until this year, it amounted to no more than a bit of noise to remind the public that the party was still there.
In the course of the last year and in particular in the last few months, the theme of an alternative seems to be coming to the fore again in the party's propaganda and in its internal debates. This element, when added to the general description at the beginning of the article, permits a greater understanding of the actual problems that the party faces and the direction it may go. Several factors come together here. The election results not only raised the PCI to the position of first party in the country, they also showed clearly the failure of Craxi's project. The possibility of building a strong Socialist Party does not exist in Italy today. It is not possible to build a party whose function would be to balance between the PCI and the
Democracy (as Craxi had hoped) nor a PSI based on the so-called secular alternative (PLI, PRI, PSDI) which would govern by isolating the left opposition. The electoral stagnation of Craxi's party, occurring at the same time as the reorganisation of the Christian Democracy shows the fragility of this scheme for a governmental alter-
The Communist factor remains key in the relationship of forces between
At the same time there is a deepening crisis of the regime, with increasing centrifugal pressures on the social bloc on which Christian Democracy's power has been based for decades. On the one hand, there are scandals and corruptions. On the other, there is the need for capitalism to attack middle layers of society and the petty bourgeoisie, as well as the working class, in order to be able to reaccumulate capital.
The conflict that has opened up recently over the government's proposals on taxation drawn up by a Republican minister), which attempts to introduce certain very limited measures of control on the income of small traders, demon-
Cassa Integrazione: indemnification of workers who are laid off.
15
strates without any doubt the depth of the crisis facing the regime. certain sections of the middle Christian Democracy opens up enormous contradictions, not only within the government but also within
If the Christian Democracy shows itself incapable of defending the privileges of certain sectors which it itself has created and provided for, for decades, it is inevitable that poor election returns will result. It is no accident that the Craxi government has found on the edge of the precipice several times in the last few weeks because of the tax issue. Contradictory interests, such as the desire for capitalist rationalisation on the part of the PRI versus the conservatism of Christian Democracy, have come out here. At the same time, the social bloc on which Christian Democracy rests is polarised around different the consequence of which is the destruction of any kind of stability.
The small traders' strike against the tax proposals on October 29, the belligerent tone of their statements against government and the trade-unions, which, with remarkable political shortsightedness, support the republican minister's measures, all illustrate a possible dynamic toward the break up of social stability such as has never been seen
At the same time the moral issues have also shaken up both the government and the more general equilibrium of society. The most recent illustration of this was the 'Andreotti affair, concerning a key personality within Christian Democracy. Andreotti was implicated very heavily in all the worst scandals of the regime (involving the Masonie Lodge P2, the Mafia etc.) (7) Alliance of producers
In this framework, the PCI tried to believe and to make workers believe that its alternative proposal could constitute the pivot for new political alliances, new social blocs and a positive outcome to the crisis. In order to understand this, it is sufficient to follow the particular numerous statements put out by the PCI leaders in the last few months and reiterated by the new general secretary, Natta, in an interview in the weekly La Repubblica on 29 September, 1984. The PCI is hoping for a 'secular' alliance against Christian Democracy. Such alliance must be supported by a further 'alliance of producers' that is between fair-minded employers and the working class. The 'alliance of producers', an old theme of the PCI's is being campaigned great insistence because the PCI is obliged more than ever, with the deepening of the crisis, to define precise political goals.
However, the PCI proposals are invalinternal contradictions. first of these is that it is not possible to reconcile the PCI's turn to the left with the relaunching of a governmental alternative. Both those perspectives spring from the accentuation of the crisis, but they correspond to antagonistic demands on the party. On the one hand, there is the need not to grow apart from the masses. And on the other, there is the maintain links
Mobilisations of the masses are of no trying to get the 'alliance of producers' on the road. For, in reality there is a latent war going on between the so-called producers, which could break out into
The party's honouring commitment to the working class would mean antagonisms that would explode violence as they did last winter. The PCI does not want this. It is not surprising then that after the return to work in September, in order to avoid social repercussions, the party endorsed the CGIL leadership's document, which virtually abandons the sliding scale. This document passes over the whole issue of a referendum on the restoration of the four index points, and takes an essentially passive stance toward processes that are developing rapidly and threatening thousands and thousands of jobs in virtually
This does not of course mean that if a big movement were to develop at the base, as was the case last year with the factory councils, that the PCI would not attempt to take the leadership of it. It that such a choice does not conform to the strategy for a democratic alternative that the PCI is elaborating and for which the leading group in the party has to draw up more precise proposals than they have done in the past.
There is a further weakness. It is the illusion that has existed for many years that in Italy it is possible to separate income and profit. This goes hand in hand with the notion that is possible stop speculation, parasitism, the Mafia, Camorra (the Neapolitan mafia), and the sinister forces within the state apparatus linked to the Christian Democracy, pandering the forces within capitalism and advocating an alliance between these forces and the workers movement. This perspective has no structural, objective or political basis. The link between income and profit is in fact one of the inherent elements of Italian capitalism. Moreover, according to the PCI, the bosses should get rid of the only instrument of leadership they have at their disposal, Christian Democracy, and replace it with the Communist Party. This is absolutely impossible. The project of a secular social pole of attraction having failed, the Italian bourgeoisie are obliged to put their trust in Christian Democracy.
There is a further consideration to be taken into account: the struggle against Christian Democracy that the PCI will have to wage in order to flesh out its alternative perspective will, in the first instance, draw together all the discontent and all the hopes of the working class, it could become a factor of social opposition and political instability that would be difficult to control, not only for the workers but even for those forces who look to Christian Democracy. The small businessmen's strike on October 29, is only one example of what could happen in Italy if Christian Democracy really found itself in the eye of the storm.
And if there is one thing that the PCI fears above all else and that they would do anything to avoid, it is precisely the break-up of the existing
The position that the new PCI general secretary has inherited will not be easy to manage. Natta is doing it by situating himself in a line of continuity with Berlinguer, on the one hand, giving his backing to the new strategy for a democratic alternative, and on the other, looking for a way to maintain a direct dialogue with the working class. The adroitness that Berlinguer demonstrated on more than one occasion is certainly one of the important ingredients for the success of the PCI. But the problems are still there and are bound to increase.
decision of the PCI to place themselves on the left inside the trade certainly prevented splits and oppositions of from emerging. But it has ized the process of differentiation that is becoming typical of the activity of the worker militants and Communists inside the trade unions in the factories and at a local level. From now on party discipline will count for little or nothing
Contradictory and proposals are nowadays a constant feature. Moreover, during the big movement of factory councils, the PCI had to pose as the direct representative of the workers, over the head of a union in crisis that could no longer play its role in channelling the pressure from the base. It was therefore forced to find its own solution to the problem through the parliamentary struggle, and it will do this increasingly in the future. For, as and political crisis deepens and as the structural crisis of the economy continues, political forces will play a preponderant role, taking precedence over trade-union ones. Therefore growing tensions and contradictions are apt to build up the pressure on the party. This is in a context, moreover, in which the party's waiting game, its stand-pat atti tude, the policy of "freezing" the mass movement that it adopted after the end of its national unity policy, will run up against acute political, constitutional, and governmental problems. 7. Suspected of having helped the Mafioso banker, Sindona, to leave Italy to escape charges following his spectacular bankruptcy, Andreotti had to defend himself in front of parliament and managed once again to get round the problem. Several parliamentary groups were demanding his resignation from the post of foreign affairs minister.
International Viewpoint 11 February 1985
'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' from their rules and to decide at their next Congress what words to adopt in its place, and of the Japanese Communist Party to drop the words "Dictatorship of the Proletariat' and even MarxismLeninism'. Specifically this debate is