The PCI after Berlinguer At least three events occurred in 1984 to make it an important year in the recent history of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Firstly, the Party had to contend with the extraordinary struggle launched by the factory councils against the government decrees on the sliding scale of wages. Secondly, there was the death of Enrico Berlinguer, the general secretary of the Communist Party, who led and directed it in one of the most difficult decades of its history. And finally, there were the results of the European elections last June, which marked a real triumph for the Communist Party, placing it first in the country, ahead even of Christian Democracy (DC).
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 four 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 'constructive opposition' •to various 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 the Radical Party or by Democrazia Proletaria (DP) or in other areas by the right-wing, 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 wake.
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 choice.
After engaging in months of exhausting negotiations with the three union confederations in an attempt to get agree ment 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.) inet, in pres hand on the Socol it Paab. The presiding committee of the cabwith 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. It 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, neg1. This decree, adopted in February 1984 limited the recovery of wages in relation to inflation to 60 per cent for the year 1984. Furthermore it worked retro-actively. As a result, the four index points due from the last part of 1983 were suppressed. See International Viewpoint No. 51, April 23, 1984. 2. The Italian constitution provides the right for citizens to propose a referendum to overturn a law voted in parliament.
The present Italian government headed by the socialist, Bettino Craxi, comprises five parties: Christian Democracy, the Socialist Party (PSI), the Social Democratic Party (PSDI), the Republican Party (PRI) and the Liberal Party (PLI).
International Viewpoint 11 February 1985
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 strongly influenced the parliamentary battle of the PCI. Saint Valentine decree
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 the 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 simply a matter of further undermining the index mechanism in exchange for a few promises on employment and taxes. An extremely negative agreement, 'the Scotti accords' named after the then employment minister had been signed a year before by the social partners.
In this manner, 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 the Social Democrat Party and the Socialist Party) immediately declared themselves willing to throw out the sliding 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 and more substantial guarantees and concessions from the government in exchange for the sacrifice of a part of the sliding scale.
Finally towards 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 concluded an agreement. 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 signed by all of the three trade union confederations. The CSIL and the UIL were not prepared to take the responsibility of signing a separate agreement of such significance with the government. However, with their explicit endorsement, the government authorised the decree mentioned above, known as the Saint Valentine decree because it was made public on February 14, 1984.
Enrico Berlinguer. (DR)
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 impractical, and 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 movers behind this decision, and the Socialist component, which completely supported the government's line.
The upshot of these events was that a vacuum was created in trade-union 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 PCI.
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 other hand, there was a strong pressure from the intermediary cadres most directly in contact with the base or who had a leftwing tradition. Those sections with a strong tradition of struggle in particular large sections of the FIOM (the engineering section of the CGIL) played a vital role in preventing the National Secretariat from signing the agreements 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 when it witnessed, during the long drawn out negotiations in Rome, the growth of the movement for self-organisation of the most militant workers through the self-convened assemblies. 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 the union. The intiatives 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 in taking initiatives, in organisational support and in political defence, as well as in the practice of 'auto-convocation' through which the unfolding strikes developed.
Differences on tactical considerations, on questions of orientation and on the various options open to them thus came to the surface among the PCI's 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 leadership 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 Socialists.
In other areas, but with the same objectives, 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 threatened by the goverment's manoeuvre. For
4. System ery et tending it on the sliding scale system the system of indexation for all categories of workers.
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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 devel. oping. 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 traditionally taken the initiative in mass mobilisations. The fact remains that 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 workers. The 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 * neat really had had a change of heart in councils and 'movementism'. But it was only a change of circumstance. In reality, the fact that the PCI put all its political and organisational resources into 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 self-organisation or coordination 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 was partially 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 manoeuvers 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 a grand stroke. It had proved that it was 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 splits. The PCI National Secretariat, in particular Berlinguer, had followed the activity of the parliamentary group step by 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 solution. 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 the 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 emergence of 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 conflicting pressures that build up and explode on certain occasions, as happened last year in the case of the factory councils movement.
This means that the PCI is forced to make tactical readjustments, as was the case in the movement for the sliding scale and as will certainly be the case in the future. - The PCI has drawn a negative balance sheet of the experience of national unity and the more comprehensive theory of the historic compromise. The failure of this experiment and the lack of any alternative perspective to put to the mass of workers and the electorate has reduced the PCIs role to the somewhat hazardous one of trying to 'freeze' the energy of the masses. This has already brought many problems and contradictions, and it is a key element in understanding the current choices facing the PCI.
The PCI is very much aware that the path of the alliance with DC is no longer practicable. The struggle of the last few years and the hopes that so many sections of society now place in the PCI (not only sections of the working class but also of the petty bourgeoisie) were evidenced in the electoral successes of 1975 and 1976. This was the time when the PCI decided to put into practice the theory of the historic compromise that had been worked out a few years previously. Thus, they found themselves part of a united national majority that supported a Christian Democratic government following the 1976 legislative elections. In these elections, the PCI made huge gains, whilst bourgeois parties, especially the DC were in deep crisis.
The depth of the economic crisis, which began to become obvious at that time; the strength of the mobilisations and the lessons of Chile all convinced the PCI that it was not enough just to re-route the mass movement: it had to be stopped altogether. For the next few years the PCI seemed to be going along without mishap on this road. The PCI project definitely had some strong points: in Italy it had achieved electoral success; on the continent it had the prestige of the ruling group and especially of the general secretary, Enrico Berlinguer, with his theory of Eurocommunism and the so-called third road. But a crisis awaited it at the next turning.
In the 1979 legislative elections and in the local elections the following year, the PCI was in danger of falling into an irreversible decline. Sometime before, the ruling group had already drawn the lessons of the disillusion of its members and of the popular masses with the nat ional unity strategy. The withdrawal of the PCI from the national unity majority went back as far as the Autumn of 1978. 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 historic compromise completely. Enrico 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: through the governments of national 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 democracy 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 perspective, elaborated by Berlinguer on several 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 special relationship with Christian Democracy was followed up with several more or less thorough self-criticisms of International Viewpoint 11 February 1985 the years of national unity. This in itself is 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 1980 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 to government.
But the tougher stance of the PCI towards the government was in words only. The substance 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 governments. 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 which 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 regime 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 Christian 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 alternative. The Communist factor remains key in the relationship of forces between the classes.
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, demon6. Cassa Integrazione: indemnification of workers who are laid off.
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strates without any doubt the depth of the crisis facing the regime.
The need for capital to strike at certain sections of the middle classes who are traditional stalwarts of Christian Democracy opens up enormous contradictions, not only within the government but also within traditional alliances. 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 itself 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 positions, the consequence of which is the destruction of any kind of stability.
The small traders' strike against the tax proposals on October 29, the bellig erent tone of their statements against the 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 before.
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 Masonic 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 an 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 around with great insistence today, because the PCI is obliged more than ever, with the deepening of the crisis, to define precise political goals.
However, the PCI proposals are invalidated by internal contradictions. The first of these is that it is not possible to 16 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 need to maintain links with the bourgeoisie.
Mobilisations of the masses are of no use to the PCI in 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 open at any moment. The party's honouring its commitment to the working class would mean antagonisms that would explode with great 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 all areas.
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 simply means 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 to stop speculation, parasitism, the Mafia, the Camorra (the Neapolitan mafia), and the sinister forces within the state apparatus linked to the Christian Democracy, by pandering to 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 stability.
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 most important ingredients for the -success of the PCI. But the problems are still there and are bound to increase.
The decision of the PCI to place themselves on the left inside the trade union movement, against the Craxi decrees has certainly prevented splits and oppositions of any great scope from emerging. But it has not neutralized 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 in the unions. Contradictory votes 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 the social 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
BRITAIN.
- term 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'