Italian communism
Barkan, Joanne
The Berlin Wall falls down, and the electoral fortunes of the Italian Communist party (PCI) come tumbling after. The party plummeted by 6.2 percent in regional elections in May. The drop was...
...What is a workable mix of markets, regulation, and plan...
...in the "red fortress" of Emilia Romagna, the party slid by 10.4 percent...
...Or why do The Thing at all...
...Their leaders spoke of the "liberating prospects of a good communism" or a "refounding of communism...
...Apparently much of the disaffected PCI electorate didn't vote...
...The vote for Craxi's Socialists rose by only 2 percent, the Proletarian Democracy party lost votes, and the share of the splintered "greens" stayed about the same...
...The debate at the congress changed no one's mind...
...It's difficult to understand Occhetto's sense of timing...
...As we're not an academic journal, we prefer that they, wherever possible, be dropped altogether or worked into the text...
...Then the regimes in Eastern Europe imploded, with their Communist parties scrambling to change their names...
...Second, the culture of liberalism is foreign to the PCI's tradition...
...they're the author's responsibility...
...Some delegates opposed to founding a new organization with a new name had supported Occhetto's original agenda...
...First, Occhetto is trying to transform his party into a social democratic force at a moment when social democracy has its troubles...
...And 34 percent rebel...
...This organization was to be different from the PCI—broader, looser, and open to a variety of political and social forces...
...6) Please bear with us—we have accumulated quite a backlog of material, and you may have to wait for a few issues before you see your article in print...
...THE EDITORS 298 • DISSENT...
...Why try to get The Thing implemented so quickly...
...And please remember that we can't return articles unless they're accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...No dot matrix submissions, please...
...SUMMER • 1990 297 Comments and Opinions These delegates dismissed the claim that the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe made it necessary to reevaluate their own political culture...
...In June 1989 the PCI increased its share of the vote in elections for the European parliament...
...the party could split...
...Occhetto's group didn't alter the 1988 agenda but wanted to make formal organizational changes quickly...
...Days after the Berlin Wall fell, Occhetto proposed that the PCI refound itself as a new political organization with a new name...
...The sweep of events in the East galvanized (or panicked) the PCI leadership...
...and joining the Socialist International...
...Its membership has always heard the language of Marxism, Gramsci, class struggle, and definitive breaks with capitalism...
...1:1 To Our Contributors: A few suggestions: (1) Be sure to keep a copy of your ms—the mails aren't always reliable...
...those who opposed a discussion of refounding won the expected 34 percent of the votes...
...Others are perhaps disaffected by the leadership's choice of tactics as the party changes...
...They didn't, however, offer a concrete project...
...When the current leadership talks liberalism and the French Revolution, members are bound to feel disoriented...
...reaching out to feminists, environmentalists, and young people...
...Or take a chance and send us your article...
...Then he described how two Socialist prime ministers, Michel Rocard of France and Felipe Gonzales of Spain, had warned him that the collapse of communism would create difficulties for the European left—at least in the short run...
...Check all your figures, dates, names, etc...
...The label didn't enhance Occhetto's credibility...
...pursuing a dialogue with the Italian Socialist party as the only hope for creating a majoritarian alliance of the left...
...The drop was massive, from a regional average of 30.2 percent in 1985 to 24 percent...
...Why schedule a traumatic congress just two months before an election...
...Italian communism, they argued, had an autonomous and proud history in the development of Italy's democracy...
...The postcommunist era in Europe requires nothing less than a restructured marriage of socialism and liberalism, and this poses two great problems for the Italian Communists...
...Perhaps Occhetto felt the party's name had to be changed as soon as possible...
...But these explanations need refinement...
...Upon election as party secretary in June 1988, Achille Occhetto began transforming the PCI into a left social democratic force...
...Facing television cameras after the elections, an exhausted Occhetto said he planned no changes in policy...
...In retrospect, the PCI might have been better off keeping its name a little longer or changing only its name—and enduring the inevitable flak...
...3) Type your ms double-spaced, with wide margins...
...too much emphasis on alliance with the Socialists would subordinate the PCI to Craxi's party...
...Occhetto's agenda included defining a reformist program in tune with the successful social democratic parties of northern Europe...
...pushing for electoral reform...
...Italians aren't casting out a Communist party that maintained a despised authoritarian regime...
...The debacle of the May elections has strengthened Occhetto's opponents in debate over The Thing...
...Perhaps he reasoned that if the leadership tried to change the name without simultaneously creating a new party, they would be accused of the shabby tricks pulled by the East European parties...
...Because delegates were elected according to their views, everyone knew that Occhetto's proposal to proceed with the discussion would win 66 percent of the vote...
...Later this year, a second party congress will decide what becomes of the PCI...
...But a party attempting to become something different and larger couldn't afford to lose the support of a third of its members...
...If there's a delay, it's because a few editors are reading your article...
...Occhetto's task was difficult enough given the state of European social democracy...
...4) Notes and footnotes should also be typed double-spaced, on a separate sheet...
...Now they joined with delegates who had rejected "social democratization" all along...
...2) Please don't write to ask whether we're interested in such and such an article—it makes for useless correspondence...
...Occhetto asserted that these comrades hadn't come to grips with political reality, but at the same time his proposal for a new organization came under fire for being too vague...
...For eighteen months Occhetto's efforts met with approval in both popular opinion and the political establishment...
...Bruised by the intraparty debate and weighed down by The Thing, the PCI plunged into the May election campaign—and sank...
...Early in 1989 party members endorsed the new course at local conventions, and Occhetto scored a coup by meeting with Willy Brandt, president of the Socialist International...
...Various party figures argued that Occhetto was trying to create a "light weight" catch-all party devoid of ideological identity...
...In March 1990 a special party congress was held to decide whether to begin a period of discussion on whether to found a new organization and, if so, what kind, (Italian Socialist leader Bettino Craxi dubbed the meeting "a congress to decide to decide...
...More than 2.3 million voters deserted the PCI, yet didn't reward other left parties...
...Sad but true...
...the PCI's task was to end capitalism and not to become a social democratic manager of the system...
...Look at our last few issues to see if your idea fits in...
...5) We're usually quick in giving editorial decisions...
...Instead, some voters who once supported the PCI seem to be punishing it for abandoning its idiosyncratic communist identity...
...The push for a new organization may prove to be a blunder...
...The arguments will be bitter...
...The media referred to the undefined, unnamed political formation as La Cosa—The Thing...
...Of private and socialized ownership...
...rebuilding a grass-roots base among workers...
...The more astute leaders of the European left acknowledge that their project must be redefined, as the collapse of authoritarian communism in Europe raises fundamental questions: How does the left propose to reconcile socialist values and economic efficiency...
...In the northern industrial zones of Lombardy and Piedmont, the Communists lost one-third of their 1985 electorate...
Vol. 37 • July 1990 • No. 3
