_ ITALY
ITALY
The struggle against the Finance Law THE FOLLOWING article from the December 16 issue of Bandiera Rossa, the paper of the Italian section of the Fourth International, describes the political context of the battles around the Finance Law, the Craxi government's latest austerity legislation. Among other things, this law served as the focus for the massive student upsurge in recent months, which is recounted in the accompanying interthis is the second fact. In explaining his abstention, he recalled the criticisms that various CISL trade unionists made in previous months of the definition of the income categories.
Both in the international incident over the Achille Lauro, which resulted in the death and resurrection within a few days of the five-party government, and in the tempest over the Finance Law we have seen the underlying factors that are eating away at the foundations of the five-party government come to light.
In a few months, these factors have destroyed the momentum that the Craxi and De Mita government gained last spring from its double victory in the administrative elections and the referendum [on abolishing the sliding scale of wages].
view with Sergio Damia. ELETTRA DEIANA
The vicissitudes of the Finance Law serve to highlight two major aspects of the Italian situation. On the one hand, there is the continuation of an acute, endemic crisis of the bourgeoisie's central instrument for governing - the five-party government. On the other, there is the political self-subordination of the major opposition force on the left, the Italian Communist Party (PCI).
The PCI continues to avoid exploiting the contradictions, losses of footing, and outright tumbles of this government so as to make its life impossible. In fact, it is doing everything possible to keep these slides from turning into a disastrous and irreversible fall.
If, despite all its internal problems, the Craxi government manages to survive the battle over the Finance Law, after the Achille Lauro episode, and succeeds in getting through a slightly revised but still essentially antilabor law, the responsibility for all this will fall above all on the PCI.
This party, in fact, is continuing simply to pretend to play an opposition role in parliament, confining itself to the presentation of amendments but in full respect for the rules of the game, without any serious attempt to obstruct or delay the work of the parliament. And, obviously, it has no intention of exploiting the positive thrusts, the will to fight that various sectors of society, including its own activist base, have demonstrated in recent weeks.
This combativity has been shown by the students above all but also by those who thanks also to the initiative of some PCI activists, gave life to an important and significant 4 demonstration in Rome against the finance law.
•The internal rifts and contradictions in the majority have focused above all on Article 27 of the Finance Law, which establishes different categories for medical aid according to income. This is a central point in the five-party government's strategy for attacking and dismantling the welfare state.
Already in the first skirmishes, when the finance law was still in the formative stage, the problem of the income categories stirred up a hornets' nest in the various government parties, in particular in the Christian-populist sections of the Christian Democratic Party. The problem seemed to recede after the readjustment of the first version of the income categories. But on December 5, it rexploded in all its virulence, thanks to an operation by majority snipers. By staying away from the vote, they sabotaged the approval of Article 27 in the Senate.
This was clearly no accident, as the government's spokespersons have tried to get people to believe. To the contrary, it was an unmistakable confirmation of the discontent and conflicts within the government lineup. This is shown in particular by two facts. The defeat of Article 27 came shortly after a Communist Party amendment that called for striking this article was rejected by a tiny majority (119 against, 114 for, and five abstentions, which count as negative votes according to the Senate rules).
Thus, the majority senators knew very well that there was a risk of defeat. Among the abstentions there was a Christian Democratic figure as important as Donat Cattin. And
In the first place, the special preoccupations of each party to maintain a sphere of action and political role of its own have generated disolving and centrifugal tendencies. In particular, the intrinsic competition between the Socialist Party (PSI) and the Christian Democrats has had such effects.
The party whose escutcheon bears the sign of the cross in fact has always looked, albeit with cunning and patience, toward the period "after the five-party government." It has been working incessantly to reestablish the Christian Democratic Party firmly in the center of the stage. And in this respect, Craxi is suffering from a sort of back-to-the-wall syndrome. In fact, he is perfectly aware that if the fish gets away this time, it is not very likely that his electoral fortunes in the future will give him another chance to play the balancing or Bonapartist role that he considers his great mission in life. Bourgeoisie not satisfied
However, the majority also has another sort of problem. Directing the new and difficult phase of austerity that the bourgeoisie wants to impose on the workers and the popular masses requires, in fact, a determination, a tightness, a disregard for political risks that may not correspond to the electoral (or often clientalist) interests of some parts of the fiveparty coalition, in particular the Christian Democracy.
In his speech to a meeting of Confindustria [the employers association] held in late November in Turin, [FIAT boss] Agnelli drastically distanced himself from the Craxi government. He declared that it was necessary to carry out "a deepgoing restructuration of our entire system,
International Viewpoint 27 January 1986
on the economic level, on the level of regulations, on the level of behaviour." It was necessary, he said to have "the courage to make unpopular choices." Industry was doing this, but the state and the government were not keeping pace.
Agnelli's speech was nothing less than a peremptory summons to the government to act in accordance with the expectations and desires of the bourgeoisie, that is, as an executive committee of the ruling class. There is no doubt that these desires are also those of the parties in the majority. But from word to deed the road is neither easy nor straight.
In a bourgeois democratic system such as ours, the government can only hold office with the consent of the electorate. And getting such consent costs something. The government's credit could wear out overnight, because of the discontent that the unpopular choices that the FIAT boss wants could arouse even among the most faithful electoral supporters of the ruling parties.
De Mita [the Christian Democratic leader] and his party are certainly aware of this, and it is no accident that they did not exploit the crisis touched off by the Achille Lauro affair to go for the premiership. In fact, their plans call for Craxi carrying as many of the difficult tasks as possible, such as launching this Finance Law. On the other hand, it is vital for Craxi to succeed in handling this crucial transition in Italian political life if he does not want to lose his credibility once and for all in the eyes of the bourgeoisie.
However, in these days it is not only the government that is showing clear signs of crisis. The whole political and institutional system reveals a state of deepgoing crisis and malaise, in which it has been for some time. The unprecedented confrontation between the president of the republic and the Supreme Council of the Judiciary in the Craxi-Intini-Tobagi case is only a sympton of this situation, although a particularly sensational one. (1)
The rules of the game have been broken, Eugenio Scalfari laments in Repubblica of Sunday, December 8. On the one hand, he sees, "excesses by the judiciary," "exhibitionalist judges looking for cheap publicity," "megalomaniacs with a fascination for slapping handcuffs on people." On the other, he suspects grave interference by the political branch, illegitimate interference by the office of the president of the republic, which, according to the constitution is supposed precisely to safeguard the rules of the game.
Even in the pages of l'Unita you can find concern expressed about the "decline of the democratic system," about the "coming apart of the fiveparty coalition." But for the workers movement, for a left opposition worthy of the name, the task should certainly not be to lament the wearing out of the bourgeois system of rule, the "weaknesses" of the govemment.
This wearing out and these weaknesses should instead be used to make the struggle of the opposition more effective, to make the task of this government more difficult. The potential for a fightback there
Despite the grave difficulties in which the workers movement finds itself today, after the defeats of last spring, there are energies and potential that can be tapped effectively for a deep going struggle against the government and the Finance Law, which would give new thrust and perspectives to the workers who today, feeling the weight of defeats, lack confidence in their ability to stop the government's course of action.
The student movement is demonstrating a determination, the readiness to fight the Finance Law, that few would have suspected, and which the press is trying in vain to cover up. The 20 to 30 thousand women who mobilized in the PCI's campaigns in Rome, already numerous, would certainly be much more
Sit down protest in Rome (DR) so if there had been clear signals for a struggle, if there had been a clear determination to really defeat the government's maneuver.
The same thing goes for the sections of society in a weaker position that were also hit by the Finance Law, such as the old-age pensioners. The same thing goes even more strongly for the workers, who would certainly regain their confidence if there was movement in the situation, if there were a possibility for a real struggle against the government.
Despite the difficulties, despite the PCIs self-subordination in parliament and in the country, this remains an essential task in the coming weeks for those among the rank and file of the PCI, in the unions, among the youth and the women who are continuing to fight to defend the interests of the working people.
Positive results can be achieved today by mobilizing new energies against the Finance Law, by supporting in every way, in the unions and in the workplaces, the demands of the students, by calling in all the workplaces and union halls for a general strike against the Finance Law. This could force the PCI to pull its head out of the sand and make the government's contradictions unmanageable.O
1. The journalist Tobagi was assassinated by the Red Brigades. The assassins were captured and tried. However, Intini, the editor of the PSI paper 'Avanti' protested that the judges had given them too light sentences. He was supported by Craxi.
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International Viewpoint 27 January 1986