Election defeat sharpens sented by its participation in the fiveparty ruling coalition, it has opted for alliances with the center, bringing down some left administrations even before the elections.
However, above and beyond the role internal conflicts played by
PSI, the
'red" local adthe ministrations have in their turn paid the price of the economic crisis and stagnation and of the government's economic in Communist Party and financial measures. For example, the former mayor of Rome, Vetere, said that the law legalizing housing constructed without permit, because of its ambiguous character, had a bad effect on
The rebuff the Italian Communist Party (PCI) suffered in the May 12 elections has provoked very sharp internal debates.
cities record attendance has been seen at activists' assemblies.
ample, in Rome the first scheduled assembly had to be postponed until a larger hall could be found.
The May became an important sounding board for the criticisms and self-criticisms appearing at all levels.
Over the past thirty years - that is, since the denunciation of Stalin's crimes at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union - the PCI has on several occasions experienced debates and differentiations over tactical and strategic questions. But rarely, if ever, have what the participants themselves call
[Alessandro Natta, the party secretary emerged so clearly, or have tactical and strategic options so explicitly been put in question. (1)
Livio MAITAN
At the center of all the speeches at the Central Committee (CC), reprinted at length in the party's daily l'Unita, were questions about the reasons for the electoral defeat.
Almost all the speakers have to be given credit for not having looked for easy ways out and for having made an effort to develop analyses of the setback on various levels.
the first place, pointed to what might be called a structural weakening that has weighed negatively on the workers movement in general and on the PCI particularly. For example, the former mayor of Turin, Novelli, stressed with justified anxiety profound malaise, characterized by a lack of confidence and hopelessness that has been provoked by the high rate of unemployment." He referred as well to
"the sense of uncertainty, of instability, of fear on the part of those who have jobs today but no guarantee for the future" and have the feeling of belonging to "a species that is dying out."
Occhetto, a member of the National
Secretariat, talked about "processes of disintegration in the old social milieus that are putting in question the old forms of class solidarity.
Another speaker,
Gerace, used still more drastic language:
"The weakening and in some cases even the crumbling of our social bloc under the blows of the restructuration of production have led to a lack of confidence and abandonment of the struggle by
- somey popular strata and with our
Ingrao did not hesitate to say that
"the main force in the vote was the capitalist reorganization."
Finally, referring more specifically to the situation in the plants, Bisca, a worker at Ansaldo in
18
23-25 Central Committee plenum
"diverse and clashing views" drew attention to the upsetting of the "old relationships" brought about by the restructurations and by the rotation of workers because of the unemployment scheme ("every month we have to rebuild our organization"). (2)
In such a context, the union organizations find themselves, in a manner of speaking, out of the game. While they try general questions, "in the factories...the workers are no longer refusing overtime. demand it, they ask for it so as to be able make ends meet."
worker, Batacchi, from Nuovo Pignone in Florence, the May 12 defeat "resulted fom a steady loss of power in the workplaces by the workers vis-a-vis consequence of such structural changes is a weakening of the positions and essential instruments of the party," that is, besides the unions, the local authorities and the parliament. Reichlin]- Ingrao noted, "In the last thirty years, a democratic struggle has advanced on three legs — the united trade-union movement, the parliamentary battle and the local authorities. All three of these forms of struggle are now being seriously undermined." Since the May 12 elections were at the local government level, the discussion in the CC centered mainly on the second area. Twilight of "red" local government
With respect to local government, almost all the speakers stressed the growing difficulties being experienced by the left administrations. (4) In some cities such as Turin and Florence, the crisis has been provoked by the Socialist Party's policy of alliances with bourgeois forces. In line with the choice reprethe PCI's electoral base in two respects. On the one hand, the conditions were too burdensome." On the other, "for some, it represented a liberation from the feeling of being outside the law" and thus touched off conservative instincts.
Similarly, the former mayor of Turin pointed out how increases in the rents for low-income housing imposed by the CIPE (5) had created discontent in working class neighborhoods where the majority voted for the PCI. In some areas, the PCI lost up to 15% of its vote. This loss of credibility, Fassino, the secretary of the Turin federation, pointed out, is all the more grave because the voters could wonder "Is a force that is associated with decay and stagnation where it governs on the local level credible as a force at the level of national government? (6)
All of these analyses more or less explicitly involved self-criticism. The left governments were said to have been unable to respond, to launch initiative, to base themselves on the active support of the masses, and they tried to maintain themselves by means of maneuvers and compromises at the top that forced them to go more and more on the defensive, and in the last instance aggravated
Even in the PCI's bastion of EmiliaRomagna, according to the regional chairperson, Turei, himself, there have been "delays and resistance to concretizing adequate plans for governing and carrying out transformation, other than the said outright: "The problem is how to manage
Loftsuch dire. for his part, alluded to the dangers to the unity of the party if a series of political difficulties
"cassa integrazionne", the unemploy stated nich protect one all being consigned to long-term unemployment, but also has the effect of maintaining a high "unfavorable evolution of the relationship of forces and among the classes." phenomenon were "fading," "dimming," and
Comitato Interministeriale Programmazione Economica, the authority that oversees prices and economic policy.
Fassino was the speaker who drew the harshest balance sheet. According to him, in fact the Turin city government had suffered from "attrition on all four of the "aspects" that the PCI had focussed on in the 1980 election campaign, that is, "stability, clean hands, extension of the welfare state. and participation."
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985
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ITALY,
traditional policy of services." The consequence of all this has been that "citizens participation in city government" has, to use the words of some of the
"gone into a nose dive. point stressed by several speakers is that the disintegrating processes produced by the crisis and the problems of the unions and the workers are opening the way for a revival of the poliey of paternalism, handouts and patronage that has been one of the traditional pillars of the Christian Democracy. In the absence of other prospects, the victims of the crisis are clutching at what seems to be a life preserver.
This phenomenon was pointed to, for example, in Ingrao's speech. that even Catholic communalism could find new openings "in an ever more differentiated civil society" and in the context of "devastating processes of fragmenspecial-interest groups and atomization."
For his part, Santostasi, secretary of the PCI federation in Bari, a city where the party suffered a particularly hard blow, went on, after pointing to the ebb Communist Party leader Alessandro Natta addresses a party rally in Bologn of the mass movements and the fact that the PCI limited itself to propaganda and did not advance "a real project for development," to conclude: "It is a bitter thing, but it is not surprising that up till now the world of the southern cities has preferred the paths of deals, adjustments and trading with the existing sys"The Democratic Alternative' lacks substance"
In the course of the debate, various assessments were expressed about tactical errors that might have been made during the election campaign. speakers - Pajetta, Parisis and from another standpoint Cossutta - questioned the advisability of advancing the theme of
"il sorpasso" [the PCI's lead over the Christian Democrats] and still more of talking about the consequences the election could have on naparliamentary politics. the legitimacy of demanding that Communists have the right to form a gov-
But others considered this tions in the PCI's polemics with the PSI [Partito Socialista Italiano] came in for criticism, in particular the terms of the polemics against the PSI secretary and present premier. (See, for dexample, Spriano.) Finally Pajetta denounced more generally a "wrong, aggressive tone," and an exaggeration of the political significance of the May 12 election.
Others argued that the poor electoral results reflected to some extent uncertainties, ambiguous positions or outright errors by the leadership of the party and the unions. example, the positions adopted by various leadership bodies of the party on the building of a nuclear power station at Trino Vercellese came in for criticism, as did the fiscal measures International Viewpoint 15 July 1985 instituted by the minister Visentini and the unions' positions on tax evasion, which were seen as hostile to merchants. There was also criticism of the party's reticence about denouncing the notorious case of the sale to private interests of the public industrial trust SME. Behind such differences, there were sometimes more general disagreements.
However, above and beyond the tactical aspects of specific questions, two other factors were mentioned that were much more significant. In the first place, there was unanimous agreement about the decline of the mass movements in the second half of 1984 and in 1985, even though the assessments and stresses of course differed. (8) It should be noted, however, that this ebb of the mass movements was presented essentially as an objective fact, and the question of how much the leaders of the unions and workers' parties contributed to this by the options they took was minimized. (9)
The second factor was indicated already by Natta in an interview that appeared right after the elections. (10) "In the immediate and as a political solution, the Democratic Alternative appeared to lack substance and concrete possibilities." In the CC, he repeated the same idea, adding that the Alternative appeared "weakened" also "on the level of local government solutions."
A series of speeches took up the same question, not infrequently in still clearer terms, stressing the scant credibility of the Alternative in the short run (Morelli) or a failure to translate it into "concrete initiatives" (Melchiorre). At the same time, criticisms were raised about the Alternative being restricted to a short-term parliamentary objective (Magri) or denouncing its "ambiguity" and "contradictory character." For example, according to Barca, there were three "versions" of the Alternative.
The secretary of one of the traditi ly strongest federations, Bertolini, for hi part, lamented that the PCI had appeare as "the part of the red city governmen and the unions" and that its image" had been "obscured." Leaving aside the cautious language he used, he raised a substantive point: went down to defeat because it was unable to advance an overall political per-
At the beginning, I pointed to the "diverse and clashing" views expressed at this CC, and then I indicated the differences that emerged on some points. In fact, from a more general angle, a series of speeches expressed tions and criticisms that might be termed "right-wing." The burden of them can be summed up as follows: Not only the party's line in the most recent period is being challenged but more generally the policy followed since the turn from the National Unity to the Democratic Alternative policy in 1979. Back to "National Unity"?
This attitude was concretized on two levels. In the first place, there was a more or less explicit critique of the Democratic Alternative project from a standpoint harking back to the era of "National Unity." In the last years. there have been "steps backward," Perna said, explaining at the same time 7. See the speech of Politano. The secretary of the Molise federation, Lombardi, called attention to the spread of the "political network involved in patronage operations." 8. See, for example, the speeches of Barca and Ingrao. 9. Barca stressed the crisis of the unions, but included among objective factors, although here the subjective factor is all the greater. 10. "L" Unita,' 23 May.tem
19
DEFEAT OF THE REFERENDUM TO SAVE THE SLIDING SCALE
We publish below the statement of the LCR (Italian section of organisation of the 1975 agreement on the sliding scale even the outcome of the June 9 though this was not the issue in the referendum itself. The referendum in Italy. The referendum was initiated by the PCI victory of the 'no' vote was not a foregone conclusion, even the governmental decree of taking into consideration the outcome of the May 12 elections.
February, 1984 which introduced a temporary reduction in It only became inevitable as a result of a combination of factors, one of which was the political inertia of the PCI, who were,
The outcome was a victory for the government coalition after all, the initiators of the referendum.
The supporters of a 'no' vote were very determined and led they were in favour of the government's measure, and 45,7% a forceful political and ideological campaign. They used their voted 'yes' indicating that they supported the position of the monopoly of the television and had recourse to all manner of
PCI which was also supported by the DP and the MSI blackmail and political intimidation. The support for them
(Movimento Sociale Italiano). The fact that two of the three of a reasonably large section of the trade unions undoubtedly main trade union federations — the CISL and the UIL called aided their project of sowing division and confusion amongst for a 'no' vote and that the socialist component of the CGIL the working class electorate and aided the negative result of also took the same position undoubtedly contributed to this the referendum. This determined action on the part of the defeat. Two aspects must be emphasised. First, those parties supporters of a 'no' vote was not matched by an adequate calling for a 'no' vote in the referendum did fail to mobilise mobilisation of the 'yes' supporters. From the beginning there the total 60 percent of the votes that they had mustered in was no organisation, there was no clear expression of the May 12 local elections. There was therefore a shift on the willingness to use any eventual victory in the referendum to part of the electorate who did not vote along party lines as map out a way forward for the workers. The PCI, having set up the referendum then disassociated from it in practice, and the Fourth International)
and was intended to challenge the points on the sliding scale of wages.
of five parties; 54.3% registered a 'no' vote indicating that they had before.
According to some observers, an important section of the was looking for mediation up until ten days before the vote. In socialist electorate voted 'yes' to the referendum on the sliding the end they very half-heartedly led a campaign for a 'yes' scale but on the other hand, an overwhelming majority of the
MSI electorate must have voted 'no'.
Following the June 9 defeat it is necessary to have a debate
Furthermore, the results in working class areas show a large majority in favour of a 'yes' vote, along with the poor, peasants necessary to organise straight away a strategy for defending and the petty bourgeoisie in the South of the country.
the movement against the new attacks of which the denunciation
The victory of the 'no' votes in the June 9 referendum by the employers of the 1975 agreement on the sliding scale constitutes a serious defeat for the workers movement and the is a first step. Such a task must be accomplished above all forces of the opposition. This defeat is all the more serious through factory councils and left-wing caucuses in the unions following as it does on the May 12 elections which which can organise at the base unitary action by all workers, the bosses and the government and will give legitimacy to the without waiting for decisions which are anyway unlikely to methods put forward by the prime minister, Bettino Craxi arrive from the trade union federations.
which involve forcing through decisions at any price and which open up the way for a series of new attacks. This was confirmed
Statement of the Political Secretariat of the LCR, Milan, June by the denunciation by the president of the employers' that "democratic unity is an historic process of advance by the entire body of the nation, which opens up opportunities of a fundamental importance for those who are working for a change in the framework of civic and human progress for the entire society." (11)
Perna argued that this perspective had been blocked by unexpected clashes with unforeseeable consequences" and by
"flareups of sectarianism that threaten to put a lot of things in discussion."
The subject of sectarianism respect to program and alliances — was also touched on by Napolitano, the chair of the party's parliamentary fraction, who stressed, moreover, that the Alternative should not be relegated to "a vague future" and came out for "a new government alliance for reform."
As I noted before, Barca criticized
"alternative"
concept (in principle, you cannot fault him for that!). For his part, he recommended adopting the version of
"Alternative as an alternative to the
Christian Democratic system of rule and liances, Policy of a certain bloc of al-
This suggests that in the framework of a different "system of rule" and a "different bloc of alliances," you could have a new agreement with the Christian
10, 1985. Democracy, that is, a new version of the historic compromise.
However, Quercioli, the deputy mayor of Milan, did not hesitate to draw the conclusion that others were unable or unfor tactical reasons, to draw: "The abrupt turn in 1979 was provoked and desired by other people, need remained, in order to get the country out of the tunnel, for unity agreements among all the democratic forces. Instead of proposing the Alternative, we should have stuck firmly to the proposal of solidarity that was inspired by the problems of the nation." That is what you call clear!
Moreover, the "right-wing" positions that emerged at the CC were expressed in the criticism of the attitude taken toward the PSI, which was considered sectarian, and the proposal for a change of direction. The first to raise this problem was the historian Paolo Spriano and Perna agreed): "The gravest error was to intimate to the voters that the precondition for a resumption of understanding and mutual collaboration was a stinging defeat of the present leading group and its leader in person."
Now, this position might be defended in the abstract, from the standpoint of method, but it does not make much sense and trade-union movement. But it is also in the concrete context of the policy the PSI is following and of its present funetion, to say nothing of the conduct of the Craxi government.
The question was posed in more concrete terms by other speakers. For example, Bufalini criticized "a harmful negative notion of the PSi leadership of the government, which on one hand does present negative aspects and threats that we have denounced, but that at the same time reflects a shift to the left."
What Bufalini was proposing appeared, moreover, from his denunciation of another "wrong perspective": "A notion has started going round of a decisive push rather than the democratic way that advances through mass movements, parliamentary battles, and a constant effort to build political relationships on the left and with democratic, progressive, lay and Catholic forces." In other words, the PCI had sinned again by lack of sufficient dedication to gradualism.
As for Napolitano, he returned to the question of the PSI in an interview fol-
On international questions, Perna criticized "L'Unita's" account of the discussions between Cervetti and Gorbacheu, which concluded with the statement: "There and Soviet Communists." are • ПО unresolvable problems between Italian
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985
TO CUMUNSA TAVANO lowing the CC, in which he renewed the PCI's overtures and spoke more explicitly about the PCI's "errors and responsibility" for the problems. In particular, the PCI was supposed to have been "late in understanding that the PSI had grasped real problems of renewing the left, its ideological and programmatic bagage, and its social base." (L'Unita,
June 16, 1985.)
If you consider the direction that the PSI charted for this "renewal" of the left in its congresses and conferences in these SUSTO BARELIA last years and how it has operated concretely in the government and the local authorities, then the enormity of the sort of self-criticism Bufalini made becomes glaring. And its objective becomes equally obvious — to shift the PCI further over to Social Democratic positions in order to get it out of "isolation"!
Finally, it is worth mentioning the speech by Napoleone Colajanni, who in the wake of the elections raised a trial balloon about replacing Natta with Luciano Lama. On this point, Colajanni reversed engines. But he confirmed his intentions by launching the formula of "renewal outside of continuity." And so, more clearly than Napolitano, he was saying that in order for the PCI to integrate itself better into the political game it should break its last links with its past. The "left wing"
"Left-wing" positions and sensitivity were again expressed at this CC, especially by Ingrao, who resumed his traditional themes, stressing in particular the importance of the mass movement at various levels. It is worth noting, however, that he opposed the offensive of the "renewers" on two fundamental points. In the first place on the analysis of the de-
### CARB gards the placing of some personalities might be debated.)
This center defines itself largely in a negative way. In this respect, Occhetto's formula of refusing to choose between "continuists" and "renovators" is symbolic. In substance, it harks back to the Berlinguer tradition. spirit, it tries to defend the party's identity in the style of the late national secretary. involves reaffirming the reformist conception of gradual transformations moving in the direction of socialism and renewing the overtures to European Social Democratic parties (in the present phase, especially the West German and Swedish
But at the same time, it means rejecting homogenization, with the Social
PCI demonstration on May Ist (DR)
And it was up to other leaders of the "center" to specify more to this CC, as they had already done in innumerable articles and interviews, the direction in which they thought the party should move. Whether they did so remains, to say the least, doubtful.
For example, after absolutely empty declarations • (13), Occhetto explained that it was necessary "to have the courage to discuss the limitations of our social bloc" and that "the left must renew itself, but without abandoning its role of representing the interests and ideals that are under attack by the opposing forces. He raised a trial balloon for programmatic convention" (in which, we might suppose, "specialists"
feat:
"We lost votes, not because we criticized the leadership of the PSI and the five-party coalition too much, but to the in which Natta got out of a tight spot by contrary, because our real criticism and our concrete struggle against the policies lous party, but in the sense that we are conducted by the five-party coalition and the PSI leadership were weak."
In the second place, Ingrao defended - in his own way of course - the PCI's distinctness, arguing that it should act in "exactly the opposite way" to the "homogenization that is demanded of us with so much furore (and also with visible anxiety) by the apologists of the present system."
It might be added that, although with a different tone and different terms, the PCI's specificity was also defended by Cossutta: "We must be what we have always been, but which we have been less and in a confused way for too long." (12)
Among the positions that emerged, in a manner of speaking, on the right and Ingrao and Cossutta's positions, a center again took form, although with very vague outlines. (In fact, the classification attempted here is approximate and as reInternational Viewpoint 15 July 1985
This is the drift, for example, of a recent interview in Critica : Marxista; saying: "If you like, we are an anomaa party that is because of its strength is in a class of its own in the European political panorama." His followers are free to choose whatever interpretation they like of this delphic utterance.
More concretely, the center, worried that the counterpositions may create a dynamie dangerous to the unity of the party, maintain the general formula of the Democratic Alternative. debate, sciousness emerges that for us the Alternative is a process. And so it requires gradualness, stages, successive gains. The Alternative is a perspective that we do not consider either immediate or as something to be relegated to the heaven of strategies and to the historic time scales of the socialist transformation." such clarification, it is to be expected that after a time, the unfortunate Barca will be obliged to list more than "three versions" of the Alternative!
could have a field day!). Obviously, what this all contributed to clarity was not much. Nor have the rehashing of sociological analyses by Peter executive secretary of the West German Social Democratic Party, which for some time have been showing up in the PCI press, helped much to clarify
As for another of the more prolific leaders, Alfredo Reichlin, he did not have much to offer either. He noted that "the heart of a reform program" is "relaunching development, cleaning up state finances and redistribution of income." The condition for putting it into pracrent, he sale, that is, to ak the anti.
12. Cossutta denounced the lack of a fullfledged party program. " But the weight of this denunciation is reduced by the positive assessment he continues to make of program Togliatti presented to the Eighth Congress in 1956, and which in fact was one of the bases of the PCI's theoretical and political regression. 13. One pearl is enough to give an idea of this: "The objective problem is the capacity of the left to guide and direct on another level of social awareness, the innovating process that is underway.
21
liance between wage earners and the "modern" "reforming" entrepeneurs (as Reichlin has argued frequently in other places).
On the political level, the solution has now been found ("the conclusion I have come to," Reichlin announced): "We can break out of destructive competition between ourselves and the PSI by going beyond the confines of the left." Unfortunately for Reichlin, the "confines of the left" have something to do with social reality and the interests of classes, and you cannot get around this fact simply by terminological and conceptual
It might be noted that the ideas exfinal session of the CC, after all, were not exactly new, and that the differences that emerged were already outlined in past years, to say nothing of those that appeared as far back as the mid-1960s (for example, with respect to center-left governments). we should not let ourselves be dazzled by the declarations of the protagonists (it has become traditional for a lot of
P.C.I. PCI leaders to come up with something "new" every ten seconds or to proclaim or call for "qualitative leaps").
A similar caution should be made about the differentiations that I have tried to take stock of. The personnel has changed to some extent, for biological reasons, but in a general way, Ingrao continues to dominate the left, while the right, with Amendola dead, continues to identify explicitly with his Failure of "Eurocommunism"
It would, however, be an error to see in the present events only a repetition of the past. As I stressed at the beginning, differences may never have emerged so clearly on both tactical and strategic
There were also some quite polemical remarks on the party's internal regime, which is an unmistakable sign of
In the second place, although with their traditional concern continuity, the party leaders undoubtedly continued their long march toward total integration into the framework of bourgeois democracy, that is, not only toward a practice but also conceptions that are more and more organically Social Democratic. The process has already reached the stage of an identity crisis incomparably graver than any other crisis in the past.
However, what is more important is the context in which all this is happening. The contradiction between the PCI's political scheme and the dynamic of social and political forces, between a reformist or neoreformist project and the difficulty of putting it into certainly not new. However, it has never been so acute.
The PCI experienced a strong advance - especially in the electoral sphere, which is the decisive thing for its leaders - al22 ready in the mid-1970s. In the 1976 elections it hit its peak, which it reached again in the 1984 European elections. In the ten years since 1975, it has tried out two different policies, the policy of National Unity and that of the Democratic Alternative. Both have led to failure. On May 12, the PCI paid the price for this in electoral terms. The working class began already five years ago to pay the price in social and economic
After May 12 and its success in the June 9 referendum on the sliding scale, the bourgeoisie and the center coalition - in its present form or similar ones -can look forward with some assurance to greater political stability, however relative it may be in a general sense, and to dealing new blows to a new working class that has been further weakened.
to have grave consequences for the
In fact, from the end of the 1960s up to the onset of the economic crisis, the working class managed to win a series of substantial economic, political and organizational gains, and the PCI was able to appear to be the principal political instrument for achieving them (and to grow). Now there is much less room, although it has not entirely disappeared, for this sort of thing, and the fundamental sterility of neoreformist gradualism is bound to emerge more glaringly.
On the international level, moreover, the Eurocommunist project has failed miserably, with the fragmentation and chronic crisis of the Spanish Communist Party and the repeated defeats of the
French CP. The opening toward some Social Democratic parties cannot offer more than a very partial compensation, in particular since what is involved here is just vague projects and some incipient tendencies and not successful experiences. The dreary balance sheet of the left government in France has become, more or less directly, another blow to the PCI's strategy of gradual transformations. And it cannot look to a better one on the part of Gonzalez's Social Democratic government in the Spanish state.
The PCI leaders realize the impasse in which they have ended up and the dangers inherent in a course aimed only at preserving past gains. published after the referendum, l'Unita
"The fact has not escaped the Communists that the very possibility of the working class taking the leadership of the country and thus the perspectives for Italian democracy are at (June 23, 1985.)
That statement may be overdramatized, but it reflects a justified concern. In the coming period, the party will find itself having to operate in more difficult conditions. So, the internal conflicts seem bound to continue and to deepen. • 14. For example, while Natta defended the method of seeking consensus, others - Novelli, Villari declared for a clear delimination of majorities minorities. There were derticipations by the raers in decision making moreover, lack of participation and the method of presenting the party with faits accomplis. (Perna, Colajanni). Libertini bemoaned what he called "a chaotic policentrism."
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985