A modern political system for Italy?:

...Craxi has also developed a working agreement with the Social Democrats and has improved relations with the Liberals and the Republicans...

...Such a course, however, would be strongly opposed by those many Communists, from the rank and file to the top layers of the party, who are still deeply committed to the Marxist-Leninist ideology and to solidarity with Moscow...

...At the same time, Craxi has emphasized the "competitive" nature of the Socialist collaboration with the Christian Democrats, strongly criticizing the handling of national affairs during the long years of their supremacy and asserting his party's right to replace them at the government's helm...

...These charges are amplified by quite a few Italian papers which claim to be politically independent but are basically anti-American and want the Communists in the government and the Christian Democrats out of the picture...

...Naturally enough, Craxi looks forward to a general election to translate his party's political momentum into additional seats in Parliament...

...The Christian Democrats barely held their own in Sicily and suffered heavy losses in Rome, Genoa, and other cities of Central and Southern Italy...

...All in all, the new Socialist course and the warm welcome it is receiving from the voters do point to the best opportunity in many years to develop in Italy a democratic system attuned to the requirements of the late twentieth century...

...They know that every electoral gain for them and every loss suffered by their own party bring closer the day when Craxi will be in a position to make good his claim to the Premiership...

...In the meantime, the Socialists will work with the Christian Democrats in running national affairs but on terms likely to help them to emerge as the leading partner in the ruling coalition...

...Some statements by Craxi shed light on the strategy he intends to follow under the circumstances still prevailing in Italy...

...The fight for control of the Socialist party lasted some years, but by 1979 Craxi was ready to seize the opportunity offered by the collapse of the "historic compromise," the understanding between Christian Democrats and Communists which would have put the Socialists in a nutcracker...

...Meanwhile an economic boom, unattended by adequate modernization of the economic, social and administrative structures, had backfired leaving the country exposed to the twin dangers of inflation and recession...

...The big winner was the third-ranking Socialist party (PSI...

...Yet, the Communist leaders are reluctant to precipitate an open break with the Socialists which would highlight their party's political isolation and jeopardize their hold in key regional and municipal administrations...

...The Communist leaders charge that Craxi's approach weakens and may further split the left, props up "the corrupt and inefficient Christian Democratic regime" and underwrites "the aggressive policies pursued by the Reagan administration against the Soviet Union and against Europe's owrt autonomy and welfare...

...This suited perfectly many Christian Democrats: in the 1968 elections, their party managed to win back most of the voters who had switched to the right-of-center parties as a protest against the "opening" to the Socialists...

...Most important, Socialist leader Craxi has managed to project the image of the "new" PSI as a "can do" party, equipped and committed to delivering the much needed reforms and modernizations that the Christian Democrats have not been able or willing to carry out and that the Communists cannot be trusted to pursue with methods and aims acceptable to a democratic, Western-oriented society...

...He has stressed and deepened his party's differences and divergencies from the Communists, downplaying its traditional Marxism and even changing its symbol from the hammer and sickle to the red carnation...

...Veteran Socialist chieftain Pietro Nenni set about to correct the mistakes for which he bore much responsibility...

...ALL OF THIS PROVIDES a good base on which to build...

...The Communists also sought to use their control over major sectors of organized labor to harass the governments which include the Socialists and exclude the Communists...

...If Craxi and his lieutenants continue to play their cards skillfully over the next few, crucial years, a Socialist "third force" might well grow to represent twenty-five percent of the electorate...

...By mid-1975 the leadership of a floundering Socialist party vented its disappointment over the results of the collaboration with the Christian Democrats by pledging that the party would support only governments including the Communists...

...Both Christian Democrats and Communists could then be cut down to size under circumstances making for a consolidation of democratic institutions and an easing of social and economic strains...

...The new secretary general, forty-two year-old Bettino Craxi, was a pupil of Nenni and intended to fulfill the old man's dream of putting an end to the Christian Democratic hegemony over the government and to the Communist hegemony over the Italian left...

...Craxi, however, owed his rise to the party secretaryship to an alliance with the Socialist leftwingers who still favored close ties with the Communists...

...The Christian Democrats look with concern and misgivings upon their all-too-brilliant Socialist partner...

...it has notably come out early and strongly for the modernization of NATO's theater nuclear weapons as a necessary counter to the new Soviet missiles...

...21-22 and involved almost twenty-five percent of the Italian voters...

...The Socialist party and the Social Democratic party, which had merged in 1966, polled far fewer votes than they had received when running separately, and soon afterwards the two parties split again...

...The electoral triumph scored by Mitterrand's Socialists in France further encourages Craxi's ambitions and may help his party to still further gains at the polls...

...In the wake of the 1976 electoral defeat, a young, dynamic but rather composite socialist leadership came to power...

...The sizable gains made by the Social Democrats (PSDI) and the good performance* of Liberals and Republicans underscored the overall shift away from the polarization around the two major parties...

...But the Communists made sizable gains, mostly by appealing to frustrated Socialists...

...In the end, only a minority of the Communists would be likely to split away and join the democratic left as junior partners of the Socialists...

...On the other hand, Socialist fortunes would also suffer if hesitation and delay should frustrate the high expectations aroused by the party's recent performance...

...The Christian Democrats and Communists, who had polled almost seventy-three percent of the votes in 1976, got less than sixty-four percent this time...

...He says that there is no alternative to a governmental coalition with the Christian Democrats until and unless the voters bring about a radical change in the traditional balance of political power...

...To the right of the Socialists there would still be room for an updated moderate-to-conservative party strong enough to provide a counterweight and possibly to alternate with them at the helm...

...It scored major gains everywhere, projecting a rise of its share of the national vote from ten to almost fifteen percent and placing on much firmer ground its claim to bat in the same league with the long-ruling Christian Democrats and with the powerful Communist party (PCI...

...As so often in politics, the Socialists' main problem is timing...

...Slowly but surely he loosened the ties with the Communists and in the early 1960s the Socialists joined the Christian Democrats in a center-left governmental coalition pledged to active participation in the Atlantic alliance and to the implementation of long overdue domestic reforms...

...The recent electoral returns show that such a Socialist party can appeal to sizable sectors of the middle classes which by now make up the large majority of the country...

...Like the Communists, however, the Christian Democrats seem unable to develop an effective answer to the Socialist challenge...

...For the Communists, the dilemmas would be painful and the outlook bleak...

...Despite recent setbacks, however, the Communists retain the allegiance of over thirty percent of the voters, twice as many as their French counterpart...

...Thanks to this realignment, the Socialist party has again become the kingpin of Italian politics and Craxi has made the most of it...

...Accordingly, Craxi'5 Socialists enjoy the benefits and perquisites of sharing national power with the Christian Democrats and much local power with the Communists...

...The Socialists gained ground at the expense not only of the Christian Democrats but of the Communists as well...

...The eminently expectable result was to push more Socialist voters into backing the Communist ticket...

...In plain words, the Socialist leader rules out a governmental alliance with the Communists until his party becomes much stronger and the Communists much weaker...

...The Christian Democrats may or may not have started down Sunset Boulevard, but very few observers expect them to fade away so quickly as the Catholic MRP did in France twenty years ago...

...But the bright prospects of the Socialists would be endangered if Craxi were to precipitate the downfall of the incumbent government in order to force an early resort to the polls or to press all-too-eagerly his claim to the Premiership...

...Craxi further says that "an alternative of the left" cannot materialize "under Communist leadership...

...The center-left governments concentrated on coping with these dangers while the reform program was shelved or watered down...

...Meanwhile, the Socialists continue to work with the Communists in the many regions and cities where it has long held control or has recently ousted the Christian Democrats as the Number One party...

...The majority lined up alongside the Communists, while one-third of the Socialist leadership and electorate supported the newly formed and pro-western Social Democratic party...

...Their leaders could hardly hope to stem defections to the booming Socialists without giving new and decisive impetus to their party's Westernization...

...Under Craxi, the has moved closer to being the most pro-American among West European Socialists...

...The Communists yielded more ground in Sicily and elsewhere in the South while faring fairly well in Rome and Genoa...

...In the early postwar years, the Socialists had nosed out the Communists to take second place behind the Christian Democrats...

...But the PSI split badly at the outset of the cold war...

...All this does not mean that, from now on, Craxi and his party will have clear sailing...

...Only a few weeks ago the Christian Democrats had to agree, as a lesser evil, to let the top government post, for thirty-five years their monopoly, go to the Republican Giovanni Spadolini, head of one of the smallest Italian parties (less than four percent of the popular vote...

...A significant step in that direction may well be represented by the outcome of the regional and municipal elections which took place on June...

...The Socialists supported a revived center-left coalition led by the Christian Democrats, while the Communists went back into the opposition...

...Thereupon, the pro-Communist wing of the PSI bolted, cutting down the party's following to ten percent of the electorate...