Italy's communists
Livio Maitan has mixed feelings about the recent congress of the Party of Communist Refoundation Since its foundation in 1991, the PRC has had a turbulent history. Only two of the seven initial leaders remain: Bianca Braccitorsi and Guido Cappelloni Neither is still in a central leadership role. Lucio Libertini died, and the others all led splits from the party: Armando Cossutta (formerly president of the PRC), Sergio Garavini (formerly first secretary), Ersilia Salvato and Rino Serri
The 1999 Congress was called to give Armando Cossutta's minority a chance to oppose the end of PRC support for the centre-left government. After Cossutta split from the PRC in October last year, it became unclear what the convention would be about. To heal the split with an opposition outside the organisation?
The need to address strategic themes and to debate both the concept and functioning of the party was clear. But it was equally clear that it would be impossible to accomplish that goal within the two month pre-Congress discussion period.
The majority emphasised that its aim was to more clearly identify the party's policies in the current period. The project of defining a general plan for a left opposition would be undertaken in the period between this convention and the next. Limited aims
Given these circumstances, this convention had much less weight than the two previous gatherings: that of 1994, concerned with the problem of political alliances on the eve of the elections, and that of 1996, which took on the question of participation in the parliamentary majority coalition.
The results were easy to predict: scattered interventions by delegates, with very little real politics discussed. And vicious, prolonged struggles within the majority over the composition of the eadership bodies.
The main report by party leader Fausto Bertinotti confirmed the ongoing radicalisation of the PRC, its opposition to the centre-left government, its criticisms of the main coalition party, the
Left Democrats (formerly the Socialist Left Democrats), and its anti-imperialist stance.
Bertinotti opened his remarks with a quote by Che Guevara, translated into the Kurdish language: "We must always be able to feel deeply in our own being any injustice against any other person, in any other part of the world: that is the best quality of a revolutionary."
This internationalist tone was underlined by the presence of more than a hundred foreign guests, ranging from other European Communist Parties, through Cubans, North Koreans, Latin Americans, and South Africans, anti-imperialist organisations from many developing countries, to environmental groups and far left groups like the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) of France. The Fourth International was represented by François Vercammen.
Bertinotti didn't try to answer all the strategic question facing the party. He concentrated on the main political orientation, and the PRC strategy for opposing the centre left government. Given the national and international balance of forces, he argued, the task facing the PRC was to articulate an alternative social project which, while not going beyond capitalism, could be a radical rupture with the economic and intellectual aspects of neoliberalism.
He talked about neo-Keynesian economic strategies, and the need to oppose the introduction of a more authoritarian version of bourgeois democracy. This author and others disagreed with Bertinotti's exact formulations, but we absolutely agree with him that these are the issues we need to concentrate on. What we used to call our transitional objectives, in a very unfavourable context.
One obvious priority was to mobilise against the referendum with which the
Italy * government hoped to replace Italy's proportional electoral system with a "first- past-the-post" system. This would remove any chance of electoral representation for the PRC, even if it won 10-12% of the vote. Concerning the municipal, regional and European elections in June, Bertinotti argued for the PRC to form agreements with the centre-left, but excluding any centre or centre-right parties. Programmatic convergence was possible, he argued
Some left currents in the party argued that since the PRC had broken with the centre-left government, it should not seek local alliances. I wouldn't go that far. The real problem, in many regions, is that programmatic agreement exists on paper, but is not respected by the centre-left parties in practice. Rome mayor Francesco Kutelll is preparing a series of cesco Rutelli is preparing a series of privatisations, which explicitly contradicts the local agreement with the PRC.
Bertinotti also suggested an agreement with the centre left in selecting Italy's new president. That seems like a good idea, since the right wing may well propose a candidate who wants to reform the constitution in a prsidentialist and authoritarian direction. But we don't share Bertinotti's enthusiasm for exPrime Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Minister of Economics in the centre-left government. The reshuffled minority
Half of the traditional left opposition in the national leadership (CPN) led by myself and Franco Turigliatto, supported Bertinotti's motion on PRC withdrawal from the government majority. The other half of the left opposition, led by Marco Ferrando et Franco Grisolia, supported the PRC withdrawal, but presented their own motion.
Turigliatto and I saw no reason to present a minority motion, given the refocusing of the party towards the left under Bertinotti's leadership, the fact that this congress concentrated on the immediate political line, and the debate on the strategy and nature of the party was delayed until a future date.
For us, the priority was to contribute to the renovation of PRC work, particularly the major reorientation of the party towards intervention in day-to-day struggles, the efforts to build social roots, and the construction of party organisations at the various levels.
The reaffirmation of the PRC's pluralist nature, and the majority's decision to leave the big debate on strategy for a future congress reinforced our decision to join the majority current.
True, Bertinotti's CPN text avoids the necessary negative evaluation of PRC support for the Prodi government. But we shouldn't base our attitude solely on past disagreements. The current convergence of thinking is more important.
the pa manority The other part of the old minority
International Viewpoint #312 June 1999 15
Europe argued that a self-criticism on support for Prodi was absolutely essential. Bertinotti's change of direction, and the PRC passage into opposition, was, they warned, nothing more than a conjunctural, short-term swing. The Bertinotti current would swing back towards the centre left as soon as it became possible, they warned. This was why they insisted on presenting a separate motion.
There is a partial basis to their arguments. But their text is a mixture of eternal truths and general statements. It is a propagandistic text, rather than a real, concrete proposal to take the party, or at least large sections of it, forward, and orienting them towards concrete mobilisations. It is difficult to see on what basis they hope to build a revolutionary current.
The minority won 5,300 (16%) of delegate votes, compared to over 8,000 for the larger PAR minority at the
1996 congress. [In both cases, only a minority of these delegates considered themselves "Trotskyist."]. Since many of the new minority's votes come from new or rejoined PRC members, or from the large fringe of protest voters, it is clear that a significant part of the old minority has realigned itself with the majority Bertinotti current. Shadows
There was a very difficult debate about the composition of the new PRC leadership bodies. The results were disappointing, and cast a shadow over the party's future development..