Understanding Italy's Vote

...This hard core still exists, but with the coming of the new prosperity the party now has the allegiance of many small-time industrialists and master builders, shopowners and merchants who associate their economic well-being and social status with the Communists and vote Communist as a guarantee of conservatism...

...And, although no Italian government is likely to be secure before that time, the Christian Democrats must in the meantime decide whether they wish to be a progressive, moderate or conservative party...

...In past years, a large part of the Communist vote was made up of indigent farmers, angry and/or poor intellectuals and frustrated minorities...

...Many people openly admit they would not have voted for the Communists if there had been any chance of the party winning a majority...

...Even national prosperity has helped the Communist cause...

...On the whole, in fact, Italians this year showed more interest and discrimination in concrete political issues than at any time since 1948, when the Christian Democrats took over the reigns of government...

...Similarly, there are some Nenni Socialists who vote Communist to preserve the status quo in their communities...

...the faithful were also rewarded with great spaghetti parties...

...These are communities with a long Leftist tradition, but while the voters sympathize with the formation of a progressive national government, they fear the application of the same formula on the local level...

...their leader, Guiseppe Saragat, has consistently supported the "opening to the Left," without any weakening of the Western Alliance...

...On April 28 and 29, thousands of those who belong to Christian Democratic and Social Democratic unions apparently voted the Communist list as a protest to the Government against the slow realization of the social goals of the "opening to the Left...

...Frequently, too, the threat to the status quo in these communities is not limited to public affairs...

...Togliatti has made the party a home and a refuge for a wide range of different types: the intellectual with vague populist leanings, the poor farm worker who admires the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese Communists, the skilled worker with expectations that rise faster than his salary, the craftsman who has grown fat and conservative over the years...

...When at Christmas or Easter, at vacation or election time, the young people return home with new suits and transistor radios, they also bring to their families new ideas and habits...

...In certain communities of the North and Center of Italy, though...

...In many such towns an alliance of Communist and Socialists—which in some cases includes members of other secular Leftist groups—has ruled since the end of the War...

...the promulgation of the Papal encyclical Peace on Earth...

...Even the fact that the 15-month-old Left-Center Coalition can no longer rule without the open support of the Nenni Socialists may prove a blessing in disguise...

...And the reason for this is to be found in the great social transformation that has occurred in Italy during the past five years...

...Hundreds of thousands of Italians have left their small villages in the South for the Northern industrial centers of Turin and Milan...

...Full employment has given the labor unions the power to bargain hard for a greater share of the national income...

...At their annual convention in mid-July, the Socialists will have to make a clear-cut choice in international affairs...

...At stake as well are local interests in cooperatives and stores, kindergartens and schools, recreation centers and adult education institutes, and hundreds of small companies created by workers who now share in their ownership...

...IN contrast, now that the international situation no longer permits the party in power to put national unity above all other issues, the Christian Democrats have certainly suffered from trying to be too many things to too many people...

...In 1958, these people voted the way their parish priest or town landowner asked them to vote...

...The gains of the Social Democrats are even more significant...

...The Communist vote is worth considering first because it reflects many features common to the entire Italian situation...

...In the end, then, the election may be a healthy sign for Italian democracy...

...they have also increased their strength among the native workers in Turin and in the small towns of Tuscany and Emilia...

...The Communists picked up most of their increase from new voters, from the Left wing of the Nenni Socialists and, to a lesser extent, from former Monarchists, Neo-Fascists and Christian Democrats...

...they could not have withstood the violent Communist attacks without genuine mass support...

...or have emigrated to Switzerland, France or Germany...

...And why, if the voters were rejecting the idea of continuing the "opening to the Left," did they give greater support to the Left than to the Right...

...The party's improved position is open endorsement of this policy...

...Considering the natural erosion of public confidence in any group that has ruled continuously for 15 years, and the additional damage done to the CD by recent revelations of corruption among highly placed political figures, it is remarkable that the Christian Democrats did not incur greater losses...

...Last but hardly least, the Communist electoral success is due to the astuteness of Palmiro Togliatti, the party's long-time leader...

...The local people are proud of their leaders and have no wish to change...

...Today the political education of the migrant reaches back into the villages...

...WHY THE COMMUNISTS GAINED STRENGTH Understanding Italy's Vote By Mauro Calamandrei Now that some detailed analysis of last month's Italian election is possible, it is clear that the final returns raise more questions than they answer: How did the Communists manage to poll a million votes more than they did in the previous general election, in 1958, while Pietro Nenni's Leftwing Socialists held their own and the Social Democrats improved their position considerably...

...the Communist gains also stemmed from opposition to the growing cooperation between Christian Democrats and Socialists...

...If there is one thing the election has proved, it is that they can no longer be all three...

...It is a party of the local ruling groups, largely managerial in function and fairly indifferent and independent of the central party headquarters in Rome...

...The electoral success not only of the Communists but also of the Nenni Socialists and the Social Democrats, indicates that many Italians want the Government to commit itself more seriously to a progressive program...

...and even the meeting, earlier this year, between the Pope and Alexei Adzhubei, Khrushchev's personal emissary...

...In some areas, therefore, the Italian Communist party is as firmly entrenched as the Republican party was for so long in Vermont or the Dakotas...

...True, some of the CD's electoral losses are due to the "opening to the Left...

...If the electorate this year was more disposed to progressive measures than in the past, why did it repudiate the first Christian Democratic Government that sought to institute such measures...

...Their erstwhile fatalism is transformed into anger over past and present injustices, often making them advocates of radical political positions...

...the Church's failure to exert moral pressure on the electorate, as it has in the past...

...Many were so indifferent to politics that they exchanged their ballot for a pair of shoes, a letter of introduction or even a dish of spaghetti...

...Rome has repeatedly used its control over these local municipalities as a political weapon, with the result that many Communist or front administrations have become the most efficient and honest in the country...

...Not too long ago Achille Lauro, the Monarchist Mayor of Naples, distributed one shoe to his "clients" before election, the second shoe afterward...

...or simply have moved to the new industrial districts in Naples, Taranto and other Southern cities...

...It confronts both the Socialists and the Christian Democrats with an opportunity, if not the necessity, of realistically facing the problems of governmental responsibility...

...Right-wing commentators have blamed the loss in CD strength on several factors: the fear of radical changes among many voters...

...Once starving farm workers join a gang of miners or enter an industrial plant, however, they quickly acquire the democratic spirit...

...But the Communists have gained votes not only in the South and among the new urban immigrants...

...What the critics of the Right fail to mention, however, is that these losses might have been much greater had the party decided on a Right-leaning coalition...

...Where did the Liberals, who better than doubled their 1958 total, pick up their new strength...

...The Socialists are organizationally weak and the poorest of the Italian political parties...

...But while it is apparent that hundreds of thousands who once considered the Catholic party a fortress of conservatism voted for the Liberals (actually, despite the name, a conservative group), it is doubtful whether any of the other factors cited had much to do with the election's outcome...

...The youth who have remained at home, even the women, are more inclined to listen to them than to the old father or grandfather...

...Mauro Calamandrei reports for the Rome weekly L'Espresso...

...Thus, in many peasant families the Right-wing vote of yesterday has become the Communist vote of today...