La Un-Dolce Vita
Ahern, John
- - i LA UN.DOLCE VITA JOHN AHERN The showcase of Italian Communism is in crisis Last March something changed here in Bologna. Something fundamental seems to have been broken, perhaps...
...Whom does this city belong to anyway, the Bolognesi wonder...
...But he keeps these grim thoughts to himself, as he shows his visitors around...
...The first, and simpler, interprets the whole episode as a kind of Guerrilla Theater staged by student groups who think of themselves as belonging to the far left...
...People here note that President Carter's remarks are a little more cautious, and that the State Department seems to want to dissociate itself from the Ambassador's generous remarks about Italian Communists...
...Officially, it is still the Communists, but they are badly shaken, their funds are low, and more than ever they feel dependent upon the Christian Democrats in Rome...
...In the long run, as they continue to join with the shortsighted mercenary Christian Democratic hacks in the Historic Compromise, they can only continue to lose prestige...
...they feel powerless...
...A girl on the phone speaks patronizingly, even viciously, of members of her family...
...At this point the Conspiracy Theory takes off in two different directions...
...It prefers a quiet, reasonable carnality...
...Citizens of all parties love and respect their city too much ever to cause it physical harm...
...Things were not always like this...
...Now she feels that she cannot...
...Their highly efficient, computerized organization permits them to compete favorably with less advanced firms from the private sector...
...It undercuts rival, private enterprises by settling for a smaller profit, which it distributes a little more equitably than they like to...
...Important journalists are shot in the legs in broad daylight in Rome, Milan and Genoa: "We'll shoot higher next time," anonymous phone calls threaten, "Long live Communism...
...Those Americans who are still troubled by such things should consider the possibility, however faint, that what happened here last March, and is still occurring throughout the peninsula, is being done in their name by the government they elected last November...
...Bologna, to begin with, has always been a unique city...
...And Bologna: wide-hipped, round, comfortable, feminine, easy, generous, clever enough to avoid obvious beauties...
...The city's profound distrust of any political initiative made the task still easier...
...The elementary principles of Marxism gave them a tool for understanding the structures of society, and the various kinds of exploitation, subtle and not so subtle, which the middle class practiced on them...
...There is no reason to stay on...
...There have been massive cuts in the city's budget...
...But the Construction Cooperatives have their problems...
...When he phones his superiors he finds them even more depressed than he is...
...They tend to scorn Romans and Neapolitans whom they accuse of taking malicious, selfdestructive delight in obstruction as an end in itself...
...They take pride in solving problems without waiting for help from Rome...
...He is now smiling beautifully...
...The office of Communist mayor Renato Zangheri arranges their visits, carefully shepherding them from one high point to another...
...Nobody here claims to know, but everybody has his own suspicion...
...A falsely jovial, unhappy, deliberatedy stupid man is anCommonweal: 521 noying the cashier, who feigns amusement...
...Many people here believe that the riots were staged to produce just such an impression...
...One can no longer rely on the buoyant and healthy Communist consensus to carry things along...
...This situation did not displease the Bolognesi who enjoy thinking of themselves as a race apart...
...Some of the customers murmur their disapproval of the man...
...It is the party of those who do not want the Communists, and nothing more...
...The faint suspicion has just come to them that maybe, just maybe, their old liberator and ally, the United States, is supporting this charade...
...After thirty years of poor government, their stock is so low that any belated attempts to restore their image would almost certainly be greeted by gales of cynical laughter...
...Bologna, he says, will accept any system that will guarantee her well-being...
...Up until recently crowds of relaxed well-dressed Bolognesi, laughing and joking in their infections manner, strolled through the center of the city every day with the sense of being at the heart of the universe...
...No American can write this off as improbable, given our recent past (three major political assassinations, the attempted overthrow of Castro, the successful coup against Allende, the various CIA and FBI scandals...
...After campaigning for so long on the Red Menace, the Christian Democrats can not easily explain why they have entered a coalition with their enemies...
...At present no other party has any moral authority or prestige...
...Prisoners escape from jail...
...With a certain satisfaction the supporters of this theory watch the Communists' awkward attempts to explain why they called in and supported the police who apparently killed one of the student demonstrators...
...The stage seemed set for a public reconciliation of the West with its well-behaved Communist minority...
...The older generation has watched salaries, work schedules and working conditions improve steadily over the past thirty years...
...The Bolognesi put their considerable energy into modest, practical, human projects...
...For it would be a comfort to think that this disorder has been planned by somebody, or is being used for the advantage of someone, no matter how wicked...
...The other customers exchange nervous glances...
...In the construction industry similar cooperatives are pushing small and medium-sized contractors out of business...
...The impression was created that they can no longer maintain order in their traditional stronghold...
...Their reputation for personal integrity and political responsibility remains intact, although a little soiled...
...One example: twenty miles of porticos cover the city's roomy sidewalks, shielding the pedestrian from rain and sun...
...Italy is governed by their sufferance and good will...
...Under normal conditions, she would have dispatched him after the first word...
...And, in fact, a number of "outsiders," or non-students were reported seen among the students, orchestrating the whole affair, fanning the flames of discontent, shrewdly pushing the protest towards the commercial area...
...And they, like most Italians, are exasperated by the incompetence of the Christian Democrats on whom they must rely...
...Free summer vacations for the elderly, free day-care centers for the children of working mothers, free bus service during the rush hour: it all seemed too good to be true...
...Supporters of this version claim that the very groups on the far left that played an active role in the events of last March were not only funded by the CIA, but also infiltrated by its agents...
...When, by some fluke, they end up in Bologna, they find that they can see all there is to see in one day...
...It seemed as if years of astute publicity and good government in Bologna were paying off for the Communists...
...It bears even less reAt present no other party [except the Communist] has any moral authority or prestige...
...The phrase, with its exaltation of the earthly city and its implicit denial of a heavenly one, is clearly of Communist provenance...
...The workers, like the engineers, feel lucky to belong to the cooperatives...
...Everyone is encouraged to express his opinion freely...
...In point of fact, fear of Communism is still enough, but just barely enough, to keep the Christian Democrats in power...
...During the riots the students moved their protest from the University to the heart of the city where they wreaked havoc on many Stores and shops...
...After the ambiguous, frightening charade of last Spring's "Student Uprising," when many families were trapped in their apartments for several days while troops and tanks occupied the street below, the Bol0gnesi have fallen into the habit of avoiding the heart of their city...
...Promising a Marxist revolution to the workers, keeping a considerable part of the middle class happy, and governing in tandem with its enemies is probably too much for any party to hope to carry off...
...I I lation to the tenets of Christianity as found in the Gospels than the Communist Party does to the teachings of Lenin and Marx...
...They like things to work...
...The strength of the unions sits even better...
...The managers, all Communists, are reluctant to call the absent ones to order, lest they damage the party's image of defender of the workers...
...Whereas in Florence a simple walk on its narrow, crowded, exposed sidewalks easily turns into a nightmare...
...One of them, it appears, shot a student belonging to Lotta Continua, a group on the far left that is at odds with the Communists, but which nevertheless is commonly considered part of the great coalition of the left and the middle class that is the basis of Communist power in Italy today...
...American observer8 here tend to reject out of hand, and a little naively, any form of Conspiracy Theory, as plainly paranoid...
...In many ways this inevitable unofficial alliance is dangerous for both parties...
...This has not yet happened...
...But the events of last March changed all that...
...There are too many sloppy, frumpy young people lolling on the steps of the cathedral...
...And all of this in a country whose corrupt, pro-American, professedly Christian ruling party had made Italy synonymous with chaos and disorder...
...The workers, however dissatisfied, show no sign of wanting to leave Communist-style exploitation for the old-fashioned kind...
...According to the Whirlwind Theory, it is only poetic justice that student protest on the far left, but outside the aegis of the party, should catch the party unawares, in Bologna of all places...
...Unlike neighboring Florence, it has never been given to intellectual or spiritual enthusiasms...
...During the day they plot revolution in the city, at night they return to sleep in the suburban villas of their parents, who are often the enlightened Communists against whom they are revolting...
...They think that this story, like the story of the Prima Linea guerrillas who are currently shooting journalists, professors and politicians in the legs in the name of "the Communist Revolution," does not quite hang together...
...In recent years, a number of favorable articles about the city have appeared in important American magazines...
...In addition they are made to feel that they are an integral part of the cooperative, and not a mute, exploited group of beasts of burden...
...They prefer a simple story of headstrong youth rioting in the Spring, disgruntled, not surprisingly, by a double-dealing Communist administration...
...Many people here also believe that the destruction of the city's self-confidence was no accident, but part of a larger strategy to bring the country to so desperate a state that it will cry out for a strong, Mussolini-like "man of destiny" to bring it order...
...It is held together by the idea that the welfare of its citizens is the st~preme value...
...Historically, Bologna has been a city of the Flesh, rather than a city of the Spirit...
...Given their history of involvement in similar enterprises, and the great relish with wh;ch they commented on the situation in Bologna, it is not improbable that groups on the right had a hand in it all...
...JOHl, t AHERN, a professor oJ Italian at St~n[ord University in Cali]ornia, has been a regular visitor to Bologna lor the past several years...
...One national magazine here reported that CIA agents had enrolled as regular students at the Johns Hopkins Center for International Studies which is located near the university...
...He marshals paradoxical proofs of her greatness...
...This is a city for those who want to live life, rather than observe it, or examine its remnants...
...Its vocabulary peppers the conversation of high school students, workers, disc jockeys, bishops and comfortable suburban ladies...
...Such groups must remove the Communist Party from its role of historic leader of the Left...
...In any case, the Bolognesi Communists, by winning over the middle class, managed to transform the city into a showcase...
...The worst imaginable danger was that fascists from outside might plant bombs in strategic points throughout the city...
...These students rightly see Communism as a bourgeois ideology...
...What led to the events of last March...
...In any ease, the Historic Compromise, the joint of Christian Democrats and Communists, has not been stopped...
...Very few people here actually imagine that an intervention by the U.S., or the Church, or Russia, or some spontaneous Marxist revolution can resolve this situation of near-anarchy...
...But even though Bolognese Communists are being openly criticized by workers and middle class alike, their position remains secure...
...The influence of both the Church and the American government is very low...
...He shudders...
...One might hope for greater political realism now that the twin myths, the magical talismans of America and Russia, are faded and dying in the popular imagination...
...Some workers resent the flagrant absences of their co-workers, since this imposes a heavier work-load on them...
...Where are all those myriad shades of beige and caffelatte...
...They have agreed to abstain from formal opposition...
...They have agreed to abstain trom formal opposition...
...Even though the party has backed many just causes, its support of such groups has undermined respect for institutions, such as the hospital, the police and the schools...
...They know that they have nothing to do with the Red Brigades, who are their enemies...
...His new ambassador had some positive, reasonable, soothing things to say about Italian Communists...
...It contains certain elements of undeniable truth...
...In the meantime, fear and mistrust eat away at the fabric of Italian society...
...People feel helpless...
...in practice if not in theory, for several months now...
...The lives of the judges, jury and lawyers are threatened...
...There is something about it that stinks, however faintly...
...Theory and Practice It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the Bolognesi Communists have subtly implemented a classical Marxist revolution...
...The more elaborate Conspiracy Theory concedes the existence of middle-class students playing at guerrilla warfare, but sees them as exploited by forces on the right that want to destroy popular confidence in institutions, sow fear of violent leftist groups, and prepare the ground for a dictatorship that will permit the many multinational companies in Italy to safeguard their investments and increase profits...
...Even now numbers of slightly incredulous Americans, mostly from universities and government agenceis, flock to visit the model city...
...Unlike neighboring Florence, it has never been given to intellectual or spiritual enthusiasms...
...Christian Democratic prestige continues to dwindle...
...With a sense of being exempt from the confusion and malaise that beset other Italian cities...
...It is impossible to foresee where this trend will lead to, if it continues...
...They tend to be doctors, lawyers, business men, prosperous farmers, minor industrialists...
...Bologna's Communist consensus was a small miracle that probably could not have occurred anywhere else in the world...
...No opposition was offered by the middle-class minority that chose not to participate...
...These days a massive food service organization called CAMST serves most of the meals in the city's factories, schools, prisons and other public institutions, CAMST also mainstains several restaurants and' cafeterias throughout the city and, indeed, the entire region...
...Workers learned to set reasonable goals, and achieve them through negotiation and determined strikes...
...Such a dictatorship would suit certain forces in the U.S...
...He is proud to show them around, and has no ideological prejudice against these awkward, smiling, rather ingenuous visitors...
...It is true that the Bolognesi Communists underestimated popular dissatisfaction with them, and were caught offguard by the very kind of protest that they have been able, up to now, to turn to their own advantage...
...The promise of a dictatorship of the proletariat sits well with them...
...No one feels that they really know what is going on, but everybody has the sense of being manipulated by forces they can not define...
...They proved what many had suspected, that in their heart of hearts they reason in the same repressive, "fascist" manner as their enemies, the country's discredited ruling party, the Christian Democrats, with whom they have recently entered in to an uneasy partnership...
...She is speaking at the top of her voice...
...Italy would not become another Chile, he said, because the Chilean situation was much simpler and dearer...
...Millions of Americans were astonished to discover that Italian Communists, of all people, were running a municipal government that few American cities could match in efficiency and honesty, and in the high quality of social and health services, and transportation...
...Not even the most dedicated Bolognese Catholics are likely to scoff at the "earthly faith...
...In his darkest moments he is afraid that his city will become like Naples or Palermo: confused, listless, demoralized, full of bandits and politicians in bad faith...
...He cannot get his work done...
...The leader of the Red Brigades, a group dedicated to violent revolution, is about to be tried in Milan...
...The Whirlwind Theory is a particular favorite among the city's Christian Democrat minority...
...But failing this, one can easily imagine other solutions in which order is imposed at the cost of great violence...
...Tourists who want to bask in the glow of fading splendors do well to avoid it, in favor of Rome, Florence and Venice...
...When he finally leaves, the smile vanishes from her lips which become taut and nervous once again...
...Everyone is terrified of doing anything that might bring more bad publicity...
...Something fundamental seems to have been broken, perhaps deliberately, and no one here is sure who did it or why...
...In one of the courtyards of the City Hall there is a monument to those who died during World War II fighting the Nazis and Fascists...
...Thus the Communists, the theory runs, have taught those under thirty bad habits which undermine the nation, and which the Communists themselves despise, but coldbloodedly exploit until the day they come to power and ruthlessly suppress all forms of protest as in Russia...
...People see them as just another party, perhaps the best of the lot, but no longer with any special magic...
...The academic programs of universities, high schools and junior highs have been wrecked for several years by endless student strikes, assemblies that last two or three days, student occupation of the premises, and autogestione (weeklong periods when students run classes and do not permit teachers in the classrooms...
...The party had, in ,practice though not yet in theory, entered the national government...
...It looked as if the Italian Communists might soon come to power without upsetting NATO, and with the tacit consent of the American government...
...The Bolognesi feel that another sacred bond has been broken...
...Bolognesi on all points of the political spectrum feel that they are being had by forces that want to sttppress democracy in the name Of "anti-Communism...
...However, when pressed, they admit that they can prove nothing...
...In any case, the Bolognesi are lying low fight now...
...I then asked what he thought had happened here four months ago...
...However, it is not quite clear to what extent, if any, right-wing elements helped create, and then exploited the events of last March...
...They gained a new identity and a sense of power, however limited, over their lives...
...When I asked a professor at the University here whether he thought that the U.S, government had had a hand in last Spring's riots, he replied that he did not think so...
...They prefer to explain the riots in terms of chance rather than malevolent design...
...Its leaders are confused and uncertain...
...The second theory, the Conspiracy Theory, finds the justice of the Whirlwind Theory too poetic, the whole scenario a little too apt...
...Here, in a Communist stronghold, it is the Christian Democrats who have been accorded more power and inltuenee...
...In recent years Bologna's civic pride has been so strong that the city thought itself immune from internal attack...
...There are many variants, but in its main outline the Conspiracy Theory runs like this...
...At a party an atheist university professor explains to me that sins of the flesh, such as lust and gluttony, are pleasant, human sins, causing little harm to society...
...It has even adopted causes which it felt little initial sympathy for, such as divorce and abortion...
...Likewise, the Communists who have always thought of the Christian Democrats as the reactionary, bourgeois enemies of the Marxist Revolution now find it difficult not only to justify the alliance, II I1 I The Historic Compromise has not been s t o p p e d . . . Communists occupy positions of power in Giulio /lndreotti's minority Christian Democrat government...
...The workers are the first and most important component in the Communist Consensus...
...American companies stood to lose too much, so their government stepped in...
...The result of the events is too beautifully advantageous to the Christian Democrats to be wholly fortuitous...
...A loud minority has become proficient in transforming legitimate political concerns into pretexts for self-indulgent idleness...
...Italian Communists are intensely moralistic, and family-oriented, not unlike certain types of Italian Catholics...
...government by eliminating the possibility of a democratically elected Communist government in Italy...
...A very small minority says that the Communists are nothing but a newer, cleverer version of the traditional paternalistic middle class...
...It has created a generation that is quick to make a Marxist analysis of any social problem, and even quicker to demand its rights, but lacking any sense of responsibility or meaCommonweal: 525 sure...
...cordial, industrious Bolognese does not go down town much these days...
...Southerners, slighter in build and more exuberant in dress, greet each other in the far-away accents of Sicily and Calabria...
...The few Bolognesi who hurry by are unsettled when they do not hear their own witty, rude, comfortable dialect...
...It is not dear who is running the city...
...He .is, perhaps, a little tipsy...
...They say they don't want to end up in one of the numerous incidents, allegedly caused by mysterious forces on the left, that fill the newspapers and television news daily...
...It is perhaps permissible to think such things, even say them in private, but never to shout them in front of strangers...
...It prefers a quiet, reasonable carnality...
...Ironically, at the moment, the myth of the Good Communists of Bologna is stronger in America than it is here...
...The gap between upper and lower levels is great in salary, power and prestige...
...Or perhaps there are rival conspiracies vying for power in Italy...
...Others call it "socialism" and accept it happily, since it works so well...
...They feel that anything can happen now...
...Pure Marxist theory, at least in Bologna, had little to do with Communist practice...
...But it is also profoundly Bolognese in feeling...
...Many Italians are beginning to think of the Communist party as a political party like any other, mainly interested in gaining and keeping power, in actual practice as anti-revolutionary as the Christian Democrats...
...She has never produced an important saint...
...The Bolognesi like to eat very well, and are rather finicky...
...The second element in the Communist Consensus is that same middle class...
...The proponents of this theory point to Portugal as an example of a country where the CIA gave heavy support to a party on the far left in order to undermine the Communists...
...And here the originality, audacity and common sense (some say, rather, lack of principle and intellectual consistency) of the Italian CamCommonweal: 525 munists becomes evident...
...He said that he still was not sure, but that he had been Commonweal: 527...
...For years the Christian Democrats dominated political life on a local level throughout Italy, and the Red Region of Emilia-Romagna stood alone...
...No one here knows for sure whether this information is true...
...Not even the murder by the police of a student in Lotta iContinua could unleash that kind of a protest...
...They retain the loyalty of upperlevel employees b y permitting more freedom and responsibility than is usual in private firms...
...Perhaps no 9ne is orchestrating the various fascist and leftist groups that are busily sowing terror...
...Just last year, far-sighted Enrico Berlinguer, the party's leader, had reassured his critics that his unique brand of Marxism, or Eurocommunism as he calls it, would be impossible to carry out without the continued presence of NATO troops in Italy and Europe...
...Furthermore, there were no serious alternatives to the Communists...
...On a local level this often means that in previously Christian Democratic cities the Communists share some of the spoils of power...
...The long inscription speaks of them as martyrs for the "earthly faith...
...Their carefully constructed coalition, threatened in all its parts, is in danger of collapsing...
...Before the events of March the tensions within the Communist Consensus were not felt to be very serious...
...It has been quietly taking ,place...
...The myth of their political invulnerability in Bologna is gone...
...Perhaps it just happened, perhaps hidden forces (the radical right, the radical left, the CIA) staged the whole thing...
...The various Bolognese "Cooperatives" provide the best example of how the Communist Consensus actually works...
...Where are the studied casualness, the classical styles, the snug, elegant blue jeans, the proud women snappily bouncing along in this year's fashions...
...There was a hope that other Italian cities might adopt the successful Bolognese model of Communism...
...The Communists received a further boost by the sanctimonius dishonesty of the Christian Democrats who ex.ploit Church support and fear of Communism, particularly in rural areas and the South, as an exception from accountability to their constituents...
...For the moment no new initiatives are permitted...
...Union leaders tirelessly preached the virtues of organization, class unity, open discussion of problems...
...They think the whole thing was a great spectacle, a bit of mediatheater calculated to undermine Communist prestige in Bologna, Italy and Europe...
...This summer on the city's streets one notices a new tone: edgy, nervous, slightly out of control...
...Perhaps this universal Feeling that there is a conspiracy afoot is but a simple defense-mechanism to shield the nation from an unacceptable truth, i.e., that it is caught up in incomprehensible and uncontrollable chaos...
...On the contrary, most intellectuals employ its principles regularly as a tool of social analysis...
...Take the latter as an example...
...For many years the Communist Party has been calculatingly gathering every kind of-protest movement under its wing, casting itself in the role of historic leader of the left, the party of workers and intellectuals...
...The Bolognese earthly faith has, in fact, permitted Communism to flourish here...
...According to some of the engineers, a look of rapt concentration covers the faces of the managers whenever the manual laborers speak...
...Even strongly anti-Communist Bolognesi speak with pride of the city's downtown area, whose extensive Medieval and Renaissance structures are maintained in excellent condition on the outside, while judicious modernization is permitted behind the facades...
...He triumphantly points out the lack of important Bolognesi writers, artists, reformers and generals...
...Several centuries of corrupt, incompetent Papal government have led the Bolognesi to conclude that the Church should never be allowed to govern, directly or indirectly...
...The riots deprived Bologna of its status as a showcase...
...In actual practice, however, the Communist Party has instituted an advanced, enlightened form of capitalism...
...The influence of both the Church and the American governments is very low...
...Not that Marxist is unknown...
...It employs thousands of satisfied, loyal workers, most of whom are members of the party, and can be counted upon to vote for its candidates at election time...
...The ordinary citizen, the well-organized...
...But there are too many of them now, and they arrive on short notice...
...He speaks of Florence, a city of the Spirit, handsome, lithe, graceful, masculine, tense, stubborn, at times even mean, yet always extremely beautiful...
...He speaks with horror of the sins of the mind and ~pirit, that easily lead to wars and crusades in the name of principles and theories...
...Many of his pet projects need his personal attention now more than ever...
...The Communist city administration allowed the police to enter the city and quell the riots...
...This theory can be heard everywhere in the city from Bolognesi of every political persuasion...
...They have little patience for fecklessness and irresponsibility, no matter how good-natured and charming...
...They see the riots as benefiting those who want to maintain the status quo in NATO, and wreck the "historic compromise" between Communists and Christian Democrats...
...It is just possible that all lhis disorder is the result of ~ocial decay aggravated by rapid social change and aackward political and social structures...
...Sixty Minutes ran a remarkably positive, even enthusiastic segment about the city...
...For until last March Bologna was the showcase of Italian Communism, the model for other Italian cities, the city that would teach the West how to live with Communism and like it, the city which blended solid prosperity, American-style efficiency and a shrewd original brand of Marxism...
...Rational cooperation between the major parties might permit people here to tap the reserves of energy that can be blocked by fear and panic...
...And, in their way, they were right...
...The Party has supported various oppressed minorities, such as workers, students and women, in their vociferous demands for redress of ancient injustices...
...along with elements in the American government are conniving with, or exploiting various extremist groups...
...From a middle-class ,point of view the Communists did a good job: law and order were maintained, the workers were under control, the city was clean, orderly and proud, everybody felt prosperous...
...Banks are robbed...
...But, for the present, no one really knows what happened or why...
...Saint Petronius, her patron, an obscure bishop from the early centuries of the Church, distinguished himself in public works and civic virtue...
...Sheer happenstance or sinister design...
...Italy is governed by their sufferance and good will...
...In a few hours the Communists lost the whole-hearted sttpport of both the far left and the city's business men...
...It maintains these contracts by providing the best service for the money, and by paying close attention to the tastes of its clientele...
...Interestingly enough, no one thinks that the Communists are behind this...
...No Bolognese of my acquaintance thinks chance had much to do with it...
...It seemed likely that it would play an increasing and stabilizing role in national life...
...Their Ill I Historically, Bologna has been a city at the Flesh, rather than a city oi the Spirit...
...Communists occupy positions of power in Giulio Andreotti's minority Christian Democrat government...
...It goes like this...
...Each of these theories explains some of the facts, but each is insufficient, by itself, to explain what really happened...
...And the thought has entered his mind that perhaps the government of these polite Americans believes that it stands to gain from the destruction of the 19 August 1977:522 very things that these visitors have come to admire and learn from...
...In our land of urban blight such intense civic pride and satisfaction seemed miraculous...
...There were, in fact, certain elements of guerrilla theater from students who really do want to 19 August 1977:526 destroy the State...
...In the meantime, on the piazza maggiore, the city's spacious, animated heart, there are groups of nonBolognese students, unemployed workers and raucous, middle-dass kids in outlandish garb...
...but also to maintain their image of moral and ideological purity...
...Not surprisingly, such a development terrorizes the conservative older generation much more than it does the leftward leaning post-World War II generation...
...Some workers also complain, quite rightly, that their work is harder and more important than that of the elegant, middle-class, Communist bureaucrats who manage the cooperatives, They have begun to notice that despite the great deference accorded them, they have little real influence in some of the areas that most concern them...
...They consist mainly of well-heeled middle-class kids, violent and self-righteous, romanticaUy living out the myths of t h e Guevara and the tupamaros, before settling clown to a comfortable bourgeois existence...
...They employ the best possible engineers and architects, including, shrewdly, a certain number of non-Communists...
...I earthly faith, he concludes, is more than a clever Marxist phrase, it is fair description of an ancient way of life...
...A generation has grown u,p with no respect for authority...
...For the moment, the older generation has put its traditional antiCommunism aside...
...Given the predisposition of the Bolognese character toward any reasonable, clearly advantageous enterprise, this was not a particularly difficult task...
...It is unthinkable that kids from the city and the region would rush to the heart of the city during the course of a university scuffle, break into gun shops and begin wrecking and looting stores, leaving everything a shambles...
...Even the Communists are looking for a scapegoat...
...And growing numbers of their constituents now think of them as powerless...
...And they, like most Italians, are exasperated by the incompetence oJ the Christian Democrats on whom they must rely...
...In the fashionable bars at the edge of the piazza it is no different...
...They are alarmed at the thought that unknown forces, possibly on the far right, are orchestrating the scenario not only in Bologna, but throughout Italy...
...The morale of the nation's teachers has been broken...
...They are too obviously the losers for this to be true...
...Jimmy Carter had promised not to interfere in Italian politics...
...the city where the Church had long ago come to terms with godless materialism in a Don CamiUo-like modus vivendi...
...No stage was better suited for their activities than Bologna...
...Some are afraid that it is a temporary ex~pedient that eventually will lead to a grim, Soviet-style Communism...
...They believe that these cities base their government on personality, whim and chance, rather than the greater good of the greater number...
...The Communists, in fact, are in bad shape...
...If the Communist Party in Bologna should lose its grip on the city as a result of internal contradictions exacerbated by events like those of last March, one can not help but wonder where the work.ers and middle class will turn...
...They are not a noisy or disorderly people...
...They prefer to do things right the first time...
...It too contains many elements of truth...
...There were rumors that a secret CIA report recommended that the United States government back the Italian Communist Party as the sole group capable of saving the country from self-destruction...
...People still thought that the cooperatives might evolve 19 August 1977:524 -into something still more satisfactory and equitable...
...From time to time all employees attend general meetings where current problems are discussed by all, after being laid out by the Communist managers...
...This terrifies the Communists...
...It is also said that the police recognized many of the outsiders as hard-bitten criminal types who happen to be out of jail right now...
...They are also disturbed by the urban funk, Italian-style: baggy jeans, Hawaian shirts, long skirts of a thin, permanently wrinkled material, bulky layers of blouses that hide the human form...
...it has learned little in school...
...In one of the neighborhood city halls an official complains about the steady stream of foreign visitors...
...As one Bolognese business man puts it, "We now have to pay off two parties...
...Perhaps elements in some of the political parties, the government offices, industry, etc...
...In point of fact no one is sure who and what these groups on the far left really represent...
...It has provided a firm, natural foundation on which the Communists began building up their new consensus at the end of World War II...
...From the newspaper reports it appears that the Red Brigades think of themselves as Communists...
...However, their protest was cunningly directed by truly revolutionary groups whose goal is the destruction of the Italian State...
...It achieved its hegemony over the food service industry by regularly submitting the lowest bids on public contracts...
...Their manual laborers receive salaries as good as or better than in other firms...
...Some people here even suspect that there is a link between what happened last March and the reluctance o f the American government to see Communists in the Italian government...
...In Bologna, after years of patient, clever courtship, the Communist Party has won the sttpport of the middle class, a large percentage of which belongs to the party...
Vol. 104 • August 1977 • No. 17
