A Turning Point for the Italian CP?
By Elettra Deiana
The reaction of the leadership of the Italian CP (PCI) to the Polish events was determined by two main concerns. need to take its distance from yet another confirmation of the authoritarian character of the East European regimes. The other was to do everything it could to head off possible repercussions of this in
The document adopted at the end of December 1981 by the national leadership, and the orientation that emerged from the debate at the Central Committee meeting, in fact, represented nothing new in the process of drawing away from Moscow and of accepting Western links and models. is what has more and more characterized the PCI's "Eurocommunist" line in recent years.
The PCI's denunciation of the East European regimes and the Kremlin's role in the Polish events is unquestionably clearer and sharper than before. formulas used, in particular by Enrico Berlinguer, who talked about "the exhaustion of the wave initiated by the Soviet October," are designed to show that the PCI is now determined to cut itself off from its old roots and end what constituted the "historical specificity" of the PCI. This does not, however, involve explicitly accepting the social, economic, and political model of the capitalist West, as is done by the theories of the Social Democrats or a complete rejection of the international role played by the USSR.
It is clear that after the Polish events, the PCI's de facto acceptance of the Western model and of the logic of imperialism is going to be reinforced. Direzzione Nazionale's (National Leadership) high-pressure operation to get the activists to go along with the new orientation.
The PCI leadership made quite a remarkable exertion, and this was the real new element in the party's policy in the current phase.
Never before when faced with international events that starkly highlighted the political features of the East European regimes has the Direzzione Nazionale of the
PCI mobilized with such determination to "orient" its rank and file. Today we are seeing a systematic operation directed from above aimed at establishing new approaches, criteria, and orientations for dealing with the question of the East European regimes that are quite different from those that up till now have guided thousands upon thousands of the PCI's members, especially those in the sectors most closely linked to the historic experience of the PCI and the myth of the Soviet
The PCI leadership is striving to create a new mentality among its adherents, and at the same time to rid itself of the image of a party that supports anything the East European regimes might do or might have some sympathy for
The articles in l'Unita, the members assemblies, regional congresses recently held have been utilized for that
The leaders did not put agenda the problem of with the Polish workers nor the need for understanding what really happened in Poland.
The attitude of the PCI leadership toward the revolutionary experience of the Polish workers beginning in August 1980 represents, moreover, another key test of the limits, ambiguities, and the falsifications that mark the line developed by the party.
Like the other parties that more or less clearly identify with "Eurocommunism" (The Spanish, Belgian, Finnish, Swiss, British, Japanese, and Mexican CPs), the PCI had to recognize the economic failure of the Gierek leadership and to center the debate around the problem of the "lack of democracy" in the East European countries.
Since August 1980, the PCI has made numerous criticisms of the ineffectiveness and the bureaucratic character of the Polish government and of the Polish CP
It pointed to the grave errors that had been made in the management of the economy, as well as in politics and in the functioning of the institutions of
On several occasions, the PCI criticized the "excessive rigidity" of the system, expressing the hope that the "positive social dynamic" created by the workers struggles would help to create the conditions for "moving forward along the road of economic reforms and of broader demo-
"This is an area--democracy, involvement of the masses, istration of the economy and of the society--where we Italian Communists have been carrying on discussions for years; we have been making proposals; we have our position not only by our political activity in Italy but also by our encounters with the European Socialist and Social Democratic parties and with the Communist parties of both East and West Europe. fact that (in the East European countries) grave questions arise on such matters as the recognition of the right to strike, freedom of expression, and ending government interference in the unions shows unfortunately that in socialist countries there is no mechanical relationship between the elimination of class conflicts and achieving mass involvement and democracy. is still more complicated, it seems, in systems built on the basis of a fusion between the party and the state. " (Fabrizio d'Agostini, Rinascita, the PCI weekly, August 22, 1980).
The opening up of a new social situation in Poland and the emergence of marked pluralist tendencies in various strata of workers went hand in hand, however, with the illusion that it would be possible to undertake a gradual reform of the system. This process was supposed to be directed by the very leaders that the Polish masses challenged more and more sharply and openly, to whom they denied any legitimacy.
What needs to be especially stressed is that the social upsurges, the involvement of the workers, "renewal, " suited the PCI as long as the democratization process remained in a controlled and controllable framework, one that did
13
not fundamentally put in question the existing regime.
During the first phase of the workers upsurge in Poland, the PCI seemed especially open and well disposed toward the workers. It pointed with satisfaction to their sense of responsibility, realism, their desire to involve themselves in the running of the economy and society and to get their views
But at the same time, the PCI began to sow a lot of illusions about the possibility of reconciling the opposing interests of the ruling bureaucracy and of the workers from whom political power has been expropriated, about the possibility of a painless change in the system. It created the impression that it was possible to have confidence in the Polish CP leadership.
On August 31, 1980, after the signing of the accords between the workers and the government, l'Unita wrote in its editorial: "The readiness of the party and the government to negotiate, the prudence and awareness of the dangers that they demonstrated, along with the maturity of the strike movement, were the driving force in achieving this settlement."
The editorial continued: "This is why the first observation that has to be made is that Poland has emerged from this acute test of strength profoundly transformed. It has been transformed as a result of the vitality shown by the country's social forces in their positive reaction to the crisis, and as a result of the capacity demonstrated by the leadership of the party and the state to comprehend the meaning of this abrupt summons to take up its new tasks."
The possibility of democratization in Poland was always seen as depending on the leaders of the Polish CP. The PCI called on them to "see" the signals that were being given off by the society and to "take advantage of the positive new developments in the
Here are a few examples to illustrate the way in which the PCI continued to sow illusions about the capacity and the will of the successive post-August 1980 party secretaries to carry out reforms:
"Edward Gierek's policy seems the only one that can keep the situation from degenerating--a failure of his present line would create a dangerous power vacuum in Poland. In an international situation as tense as the present one, it is desirable that Poland be able to carry out changes that will 14 solve its problems without having to go through serious disturbances. " (Francesco Cataluccio, Rinascita, August 22, 1980).
"By declaring that the Baltic accords represent 'our most valuable political and moral achievement, ' Stanislaw Kania unquestionably created the conditions for a resumption of dialogue between the party and the society. At the same time, he brought the Polish United Workers Party out of a phase of oscillations that seemed to make impossible a rapid and positive solution to the
"Stanislaw Kania is unquestionably an honest leader endowed with a great sense of realism. He has not appealed to the Polish nation and Polish patriotism as Edward
He seems to prefer understanding and seeking an accord with the new forces that are emerging in the country." (Adriano Guerra, Rinascita, September 26, 1980.)
Similar statements have been made in recent months about General Jaruzelski. Moreover, although the Ninth Congress of the PUWP was marked by the marginalization of the wing favorable to "renewal, " the PCI nonetheless hailed it as a milestone on the road to the transformation of
"It is hard not to have the impression that the Ninth Congress of the PUWP is going to put a lot of things in question, and that, fundamentally, it represents not only the victory of the current of renewal that pervades Poland but is also an event that can change the political and conceptual horizon of the European left. is, it can open new horizons, at least in the sense that it can make it possible to get out of the morass of old ideological debates and to put to the forefront the search for answers to the crisis of the industrial societies. Then, while arguments may still be unavoidable, they would at least not be based on old black-and-white
"There is an important new
In an East European coun the largest after the Soviet Union, a political straitjacket has been broken and a form of rule another road has been It is the road of consensus within confrontation, which there is a plurality of forces, needs, and even of prota-
The historic merit of the PUP is having understood that in order to achieve national renewal, it had to start by reforming
"The conservatives and the partisans of renewal in other parties in Europe are also involved in this process. In the West also, many commonplaces have to be reexamined--the claims that socialism has failed, Marxism is dead, or the idea that the history of 'living socialism' can only lead to tragedies and that the East European societies are incapable of renewing themselves." (Renzo Foa, l'Unita, July 21, 1981).
With respect to the role of the USSR in this whole process, the PCI has unquestionably sharpened the tone of the argument. edly, it has stressed both the need for "the Poles to be able to solve their own problems" and the danger that a Soviet intervention in Poland would represent to the international equilibrium. PCI would be obliged to accept all the consequences of a foreign intervention in Poland and a test of strength against that country," l'Unita wrote on December 10, on the occasion of a visit to Rome by Soviet party leader Vladimir Zagladin. Similar statements appeared several times in the press of the PCI. In the latest statements of position, they have been generalized into an overall critique.
At the same time, however, the PCI has progressively changed its attitude to the Polish working class. Facing a movement that was tending to become more and more explosive, reflecting the needs and aspirations of the masses, and seeing that the question of power was beginning to be posed by the activity of Solidarnosc and of the movement for self-management, the PCI adopted a suspicious and critical attitude. The statements of principle about the workers' rights, pluralism, and democratization did not stop. But they were accompanied by an essentially negative assessment of the orientation Solidarity took in its attempt to win the workers'
The PCI's new attitude was motivated by two factors, both of which flowed from the gradualist illusions and the logic of a conservative bureaucratic apparatus that determine the line of the
On the one hand, there is the fear that a prolonged conflict between the Polish working class and the Polish bureaucracy would have dangerous effects on the international balance. On the other, there was the suspicion the PCI has always had of all movements and forces that develop outside of what it considers the
necessary framework and limitations.
The upshot of all this is that over the last year the PCI did nothing to educate its members about the need for solidarity with the Polish working class, about the need for understanding what was really going on in the country. It never provided the rank and file with information to refute the bourgeois propaganda that portrayed Solidarnosc as dominated by the Catholic church and deeply influenced by the capitalist West. It did not do anything to familiarize its ranks with the issues and to prepare them to respond properly to the coup d'etat by the Polish
In particular, in response to the First National Congress of Solidarnosc, l'Unita's Warsaw correspondent, Romolo Caccavale, tried to point to the existence in the Polish union of extremist, ultraleftist, and workerist positions. As against this, he sought to highlight an openness to dialogue, a sense of responsibility, a desire for "renewal" on the part of the PUWP.
The headlines of Caccavale's articles themselves tell the story: "The Resolutions of this Congress (of Solidarnosc) Seem to Reduce the Room for Negotiations": "Disturbing Questions in Warsaw after the Solidarnosc Congress"; "Solidarnosc Defies the Government! "; etc. He took quite a different tone toward the government: Work Together!"; "Prudent Message from the Government to the Union Congress."
After the coup, the PCI tried to lessen the direct responsibility of the PUWP in it by giving credence to the view that the initiative was taken by the military hierarchy. cisms that Caccavale made of the Polish workers have been repeated and extended in the document of the Direzzione Nazionale and in the discussion at the December meeting of the Central Committee of the PCI. tion to take the power, the process of politicalization bound up with their extraordinary experience of struggle and selforganization are dealt with as follows:
"There were strong pressures, inacceptable interference, aggressive political and ideological campaign against the striving for renewal by an important part of the PUWP, Solidarnosc, and the Church. A1l this helped to make it more difficult to isolate and defeat the
Berlinguer and Brezhnev : Happier Days (DR) various surges of extremism that appeared in Polish political life, in the union movement as well as in the party and which were pushing things toward a confrontation.
"These surges of extremism led Solidarnosc to advance some demands that were incompatible with the economic reality and productive capacity of the country. But it has to be said too that even these bouts of extremism that kept the Polish working class from fully assuming its responsibility as a national ruling class were, to cess that has been developing over the years and led to a moving away from politics of a large section of the working class and of other strata, including the young generations. (Document of the Direzzione Nazionale of the PCI, published in l'Unita of December 30, 1981.)
There is a correspondence between the model of the working class that the PCI proposes for Italy and its judgment of the Polish workers. In both cases, it denies the working people any autonomy and real decision-making capacity. In both cases, the capacity to become a ruling class is presented as an ability to accept sacrifices and to coexist with other forces (in Poland with the ruling bureaucracy, in Italy with a bourgeois government, assisted in various ways by the workers' parties and the trade-union bureaucracies) that make decisions behind the backs of the working masses. As soon as the workers go outside this framework, the PCI denounces them and attacks them.
In Italy, we have had an additional demonstration of this on the occasion of the publication of the results of a referendum that the unions organized in the workplaces in an attempt to get the workers accept a scheme based on the improbable prospect that inflation would not exceed 16%. jection of the union leaderships' proposal by broad sections of the masses was portrayed by many PCI members as an expression of immaturity and a lack of understanding of the problems. of them, such as the general secretary of the Lombardy region-
Pizzinato, went so far as to say that the massive "no" vote by the workers at the Alfa Romeo plant in Milan was playing the game of the Red Brigades.
The Polish events will profoundly mark the dynamics and future evolution of the PCI. ideological campaign aimed at convincing the PCI ranks that bourgeois democratic institutions are excellent and that they are the best of all possible worlds, could not eliminate the contradictions. They have emerged in the internal debates of recent weeks. The end of reformist illusions about the East European countries is forcing the FCI to accelerate its march toward Social Democracy and away
Enrico Berlinguer's policy is designed to win the party an image in the eyes of the Italian and of the Western bourgeoisie in general of an acceptable partner in govern-
That is the purpose of his presenting the PCI as independent of Moscow, the special relations he has developed with China and Yugoslavia, and his flirting with the Western Social Democratic
After General Jaruzelski's coup, to maintain credibility, this policy required taking a definitive step toward the West on the political and ideological levels and not just on that of practical politics. required a similarly definitive historical criticism of the whole Soviet experience. But that would have involved too violent an upset in the party ranks. In fact, large sections of the party membership continue to regard the USSR as their ideological reference point, even if what it is supposed to represent is more and more contradictory and confused.
This contradiction created a two-sided response. On the one
15
hand, certain aspects of the Soviet experience have been rehabilitated. For example, the Twentieth Party Congress is still being presented-even in the recent statements--as a key development that could have started off a process of renewal in all the East European countries. On the other, the PCI has relaunched the idea of the "third road" and renewed the PCI's commitment to follow such a path.
However, despite all the PCI's propaganda efforts, the shape and content of this "third way" are more and more vague and fluid. This is more true now when the PCI has found it necessary to downplay its "historical specificity. "
A few months ago, up until the time of the Polish crisis, Enrico Berlinguer distinguished his "third way" ideologically and politically both from the Soviet model and the Social Democratic model on the basis of the specific history and identity of the PCI. On the level of practice, nothing differentiated the PCI's line from that of the Social Democratic parties, including the Italian one, the PSI. But without an identity of its own, without a project that differs at least in some respects, at least in the literary formulas it adopts, the PCI would become the prey of centrifugal forces and begin to plunge into deep crisis. That was the reason for the reference to the "third way," for Enrico Berlinguer's insistance on the "specific" features of the PCI.
However, today this "historical specificity" is becoming more and more of an encumbrance. And many of the party leaders--not just Giorgio Napolitano--would be glad to get rid of it. Once all reference to the past and the specificities of the PCI are abandoned, the "third road" is reduced to pious wishes, to a futile maneuver to hold on to the whole body of the membership.
The only real alternative, both to the bureaucratic oppression that exists in the East European countries and to accepting Western and Social Democratic values was rejected a long time ago by the
It is the road opened up by the Polish workers.
This lack of perspectives and clear reference points has aggravated by the outspoken disagreement of many members with their leaders' recent statements of position. The views of Senator Armando Cossutta, who argued energetically that the PCI could not give up its links with the "Socialist Camp, " got little support in the Direzzione Nazionale and the Central Committee. But the advocates of these positions are much less isolated among the ranks. Massive Repression
In his recent speeches, Armando Cossutta has not taken a position on the events in Poland. And this silence reveals the ultimate limitations of his positions and his acceptance of the antiworking-class logic of the bureaucracy. - But there is no doubt that a series of arguments he has raised on the nature of imperialism, the need to avoid making absolutes out of the values of Western democracy, and on the differences of camp that remain between the West on one side and Cuba and Vietnam on the other represent real problems. They reflect the sensibilities of those sections of the party that are most strongly attached to class and internationalist conceptions of political struggle, no matter how deformed these may be by the Stalinist frame of reference and the myth of Moscow.
In such a situation, the debate on the Polish events inside the PCI appears likely to be long and turbulent. It is difficult to foresee today exactly what the repercussions will be but they will certainly be major at every level. Enrico Berlinguer's perspective of a "third way" will be less and less able to answer the thousand questions that the party members will raise about the historic identity, perspectives, and the political tasks tody of the PCI.
A