T HE DEADLINE for foreign workers filing requests to regularize their status, in accordance with Law 943, ran out on October 30. This law was adopted by the Italian parliament in 1986, with the support of the entire parliamentary left. Since that time, the noose of this legislation, vaunted as Europe's "most democratic" immigration law, has been slowly tightening around the necks of thousands of immigrants from non-EEC countries. According to the data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, there are 103,053 documented immigrants, of whom 60,217 are on the unemployed rolls and 42,836 have jobs. These figures represent only the tip of the iceberg. Reliable sources estimate that there are another 1,500,000 foreign workers in Italy (720,000 in 1984), a large proportion of whom have been forced into clandestinity by Law 943 and the rules governing the entry of immigrants into Italy. Italy has been transformed from an exporter to an importer of labor power, and this presents not only the state legal system but also the workers' movement with problems that have to be faced urgently if we are to avoid the emergence of new dangers of division and defeat for all working people. Super-exploitation of immigrant workers The wave of immigration that has reached our country has features different from previous ones, which included thousands of Italian workers. These differences reside in part in the economic conditions in the immigrants' countries of origin, more and more strangled by imperialist exploitation, finding its most acute expression in the terrible restrictions imposed by the IMF. But above all, they lie in the fact that this wave of immigration does not corre-
spond to a demand for labor power but comes in a situation in which there is already a labor surplus (that is, three million unemployed in our country.
The immigrants are therefore forced to accept situations rejected by Italian workers: a total lack of protection, super-exploitation as regards hours and wages, marginal jobs in the dark corners of the urban economy, precarious earnings from selling costume jewelry, wallets and so on. And this hand-to-mouth existence is made worse by a more general marginalization, the impossibility of getting a house, linguistic and cultural ghettoization, the lack of social centers, lack of social welfare and, last but not least, the constant fear of being picked up by some overzealous cop, and then, maybe after a beating, being sent back to their countries of origin.
Social marginalization in the big cities
This situation offers a section of the petty bourgeoisie, condemned to proletarianization by the laws of capitalism, a chance to gain a higher profit margin through ferocious exploitation of immigrant labor and to enhance their own social image by employing three Filipino maids instead of one İtalian one. On the other hand, it is producing a phenomenon of social marginalization that, especially in the big cities, is assuming very disturbing dimensions.
Episodes such as the one in Via Vasari or Lambro Park in Milan, where the cops cleared out dilapidated buildings devoid of the least hygienic facilities, even water, that had been used as dormitories for hundreds of workers, have pointed up the conditions in which tens of thousands of people are living in our civilized country. There are also the special problems of women immigrants, who in many cases are "acquired" for marriage or prostitution.
The situation is aggravated by another element. In the rest of Europe, the laws and regulations covering immigration and residence permits are leaving less and less room for immigrants, either clandestine or official. Italy remains the easiest country to enter because of its geographic position and less rigorous police checks. So, in addition to the stable immigrants, another layer of immigrants is developing who want to use Italy as a bridge to other European countries.
The answer of the state institutions and the Italian government to all this is quite clear to anyone who wants to see. For the bourgeoisie, certain partially contradictory needs have to be met:
• There is a problem of uniformity with the rest of Europe, demanded by the EEC with a view toward the Single European Market of 1992, involving a common blocking of the frontiers.
• At the same time, there is a need to maintain a reserve army of labor in order to intimidate employed workers in anticipa-
ITALY tion of the ferocious attacks the bourgeoisie is preparing against the workers and all the disadvantaged social layers.
• It is also useful to have a scapegoat, again in anticipation of a sharpening social contradiction, in order to be able to divert explosions of social discontent against the immigrants (as in the case of the Jews in the 1930s).
• It is necessary to safeguard the interests of those who are exploiting the immigrants" labor.
• At the same time, some sections of the petty bourgeoisie feel that they are being harmed economically by those whom the press denigratingly calls the "you buys" (the merchants, obviously).
• A further concern, but hardly an unimportant one, is to maintain the reputation of the happy Italian spaghetti-eaters, of capitalism with a human face, in order to facilitate economic operations at the expense of dependent countries (such as the accords reached recently with Senegal and Tunisia) or provide a cover for imperialist military actions.
These needs are hard to accomplish within the same legislative framework. That is why the state is operating on various levels, adopting a policy of flexibility.
The left, the trade-union organizations and sections of immigrants responded positively to Law 943. Today, more than two years after its approval, judgements are beginning to be more cautious, although they remain mainly in the framework of calling for reform of the law or denouncing the "failure to apply it."
For its part, the LCR immediately expressed a different sort of position, denouncing the discriminatory and racist intent of Law 943 and criticizing all the left parties, including Democrazia Proletaria, that supported its passage in parliament.
Repressive forces police immigrants
Today, when our assessment is being confirmed, it should be clarified in the light of the evolution of the situation. It is true that a part of the law has not yet been applied (especially as regards the setting up of consultative bodies, which in any case would have no serious financial backing, to deal with the problems of integrating the immigrants — those with papers, of course).
But the core of the law is fully operative. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are being forced by the requirements of the law into an "irregular existence." In this way, regulating the flow and presence of immigrants is being left entirely to the repressive forces, who can apply "flexibility," tightening or loosening the margins of tolerance.
The conditions in which the immigrants are forced to live have no effect on this operation. To the contrary, the Mafia or other criminal organizations have the satisfaction of having another social sector from which to draw labor power.
The proposals for changing the law under discussion in the government go in the same direction. The first, presented by Minister of the Interior Gava, aims at seriously tightening the rules on admitting foreigners and granting residence permits. All those who violate tax regulations or are found to have insufficient funds to maintain themselves will be liable to expulsion. All these rules will widen the discretionary powers of the police.
A second proposed change to Law 943 is to be presented by Minister for Special Affairs Rosa Russo Jervolino. The terms of it are not yet known, but the fact that it is being presented by the same person who proposed a police state against drug addicts is grounds for worry.
Trade-union organization is necessary
The workers' movement is lagging far behind the needs of the situation. It is necessary immediately to propose trade-union organization of the immigrants, thereby forming a common front with Italian workers against the same enemy. But to this end a change in policy is necessary.
The central problems for immigrants fundamentally are the same as for Italian workers - jobs, homes, social services. Only a general answer to these problems can prevent a division among workers and at the same time offer hope of victory. This is without denying any of the special problems that immigrants have also in these areas.
At this stage, it is an essential task to fight for a series of concrete objectives, perhaps even minimal ones, but still very important for instilling confidence and countering the dispersal of foreign workers. Local initiatives against any form of abuse of power, for opening public and self-managed reception centers for immigrants, for exposing and shutting down the concentration camp buildings in which many foreigners live, for fighting against unprotected jobs and defending foreign peddlers from the seizures that the police carry out daily — all these are important elements for building a national struggle in the future.
Today, alongside these mobilizations on such specific questions, alongside solidarity with immigrants and defending them against discrimination, it is necessary to oppose any police policy of regulating the flow of immigration.
If they are not accompanied by such concrete initiatives, responses in other areas (for example, the right to vote in administrative elections or cultural demands) run the risk of only being cosmetic operations. The substance of the problem, day-to-day marginalization and oppression of the immigrants, would remain essentially un- 15 changed. *
PORTUGAL
Pragmatic reformism
АНОЯТ 21939 and revolutionary rhetoric
THE TWELFTH CONGRESS of the Portuguese
Communist Party (PCP) was held in Porto from
December 1-4, 1988. It attracted special attention because of its quite unusual character. In fact, the congress broke with routine because, for once, the delegates had to debate and decide on fundamental documents. The most notable of these was the proposal to revise the old 1965 program, which had been perceived as etched in stone.
But above all, for the first time in the history of this party, the opening of the congress was preceded by a very sharp internal and public debate. The PCP's crisis is all the more threatening and explosive because it is breaking open under the double pressure of the international debate over the reforms in the Soviet Union and a period of social agitation that has produced deep divisions among CP trade unionists.
analysis.
Indeed, Cunhal denies the fact that today Portugal is a bourgeois democracy, and maintains therefore that "the continuity of the revolution, notably, offers new opportunities for participation in the state apparatus". Thus party members are being educated in a mixture of a pragmatic reformism on a day-to-day basis and intransigent revolutionary rhetoric.
Other positions have appeared in the context of this crisis within the PCP, for example that of Zita Seabra, ex-deputy and one of the former principal leaders of the Communist Student Union (UEC). While still a member of the Political Commission of the CC, Seabra broke the party leadership's discipline leadership and shattered the official unanimity. First she was expelled from the Political Commission. and then from the Political Commission, and then from the Central Committee, but not from the party.
### Political conflicts unleashed by perestroika