Italian Socialist Unity Postponed

...When he spoke about "the notorious Signor Saragat," his voice trembled with suppressed rage, and many feared that the Red Count would fall to the floor with a stroke, a propitiatory offering to Socialist unity...

...On the other hand, two secretaries of the Communist-led General Confederation of Labor (CGIL), Santi and Foa, spoke boldly about the necessity of a united labor movement free of any political party—quite a departure in Italian labor history...

...This was a grim task indeed, and to perform it he found it necessary to charge the Social Democrats with all sorts of imaginary faults in the past...

...The speech itself was a clever blend of obvious truth, twisted sophistry and concealed falsehood...

...Count Tonetti of Venice, known as "the Red Count," introduced a note of color...

...Of course, the Red Army had...

...By Sigfrido Ciccotti Italian Socialist Unity Postponed Social Democrats leery after convention shows that pro-Communists still control Nenni's party Venice There were 180 journalists at the National Convention of the Italian Socialist party (PSI), 50 more than were covering the scandal-filled Montesi trial in a nearby courtroom...

...Aneurin Bevan, an observer, remarked that "I fervently hope that Socialist unity is achieved soon, so that all the Italian Socialists will be in one party and you will be spared so many speeches from fraternal delegates in the future...

...For the first time, the PSI heard in its own midst long-tabooed facts which have been common knowledge among democrats...

...The Central Committee then had to choose 21 of its members for the Directing Board and the Secretariat...

...Even in a society where the state owns the means of production, the lack of democracy and freedom will produce oppression and exploitation under new forms...

...So what...

...Matteo Matteotti, secretary of the Social Democratic party, made a short and unassuming speech with two main points: (1) that the new unified party must represent a democratic alternative—that is, it will ask the voters to choose between it and the Christian Democrats, and (2) that the Social Democrats would leave the coalition government immediately once its conditions for unity are fulfilled...

...Unfortunately, this tactic must lead to ideological confusion and endless future controversies, and for the present has quite antagonized Giuseppe Saragat and the leading Social Democrats...

...Most of the first day of the convention was occupied with fraternal greetings from the representatives of various other socialist groups...

...Nenni's emphasis on the democratic essence of socialism was quite clear, and he demonstrated the absurdity of attributing the events in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere to the defects of a single Stalin...

...It was an orderly convention, lacking the tumult and hot temper of Social Democratic meetings of the last decade: Only two of more than a hundred speakers departed from prepared speeches...

...Nenni's talk of the CP as "a party of the working class" and his ironical references to the Social Democrats' "visceral anti-Communism" did not act to rush the democrats into unity...

...The length and conceit of the fraternal speeches was generally in inverse proportion to the consistency and importance of the group which produced them: • Valdo Magnani, who left the Communists six years ago to found a Union of Independent Socialists, urged the PSI to avoid "prejudiced anti-Communism" and to retain "class solidarity...

...The audience at first was aghast but finally was carried by Nenni's eloquence, rewarding him with several rounds of applause and a final thunderous ovation...

...He was the only speaker to attack Nenni openly, charging him with inconsistency...

...But Nenni was ambiguous about the relations of the future united Socialist party with the Communists, and his position failed, to satisfy the Social Democrats...

...He is confident of his own superior political skill, convinced in any case that "abstainers are always wrong.'' Time will tell whether he is right...

...The latter, who for ten years withstood insults, threats and even physical violence to point out the Communist threat to freedom and the real interests of the workers, have certainly made mistakes, but events have borne them out on the main issues...

...The debate concluded with the unanimous adoption of a resolution on the lines of Nenni's speech: forthright about freedom and democracy, reticent about relations with the CP and about foreign policy...

...Apparently he felt he was exercising leadership on the essential point, and did not want to antagonize the delegates on all its ramifications...

...The high spots were the first and last days, at which Pietro Nenni respectively triumphed with a speech and then lost in the voting...

...Obviously, said Nenni amid waves of applause, the system was at fault...

...Giancarlo Pajetta of the Communists was applauded by about a third of the delegates when he arrived on the rostrum, and was congratulated by Nenni, Sandro Pertini and other PSI leaders when he had finished a half-hour later...

...For three days, there were excited caucuses in the hotels and restaurants of Venice...

...He said that "everybody, including Nenni, knew perfectly well what was going on in Poland and Hungary all those years...

...Certainly unity will await the results of the Parliamentary election which must be held before June 1958...

...to quell the Budapest counter-revolution...

...The debate which followed showed that the majority of delegates were in agreement with Nenni's general theses, although they tended to be a bit more friendly toward "our comrades, the Communists...

...For four full days, the debate engrossed delegates, newspapermen and spectators who jammed the San Marco Theater to the rafters...

...He refused for a few days, then accepted...

...This became even more clear in the voting for the Central Committee, in which Nenni's opponents won a majority...

...He is again secretary, with a Directing Board stacked 11-10 against him...

...Summing up the Venice convention, we can say that Nenni's speech made Socialist unity inevitable, but that his defeat will postpone it at least a year...

...He can say what he likes, we will do what we want," was their attitude...

...A Central Committee of 81 was elected from a list of 130 names, with each delegate able to vote for no more than 60 candidates...

...And he concluded: "Without democracy and freedom, everything will degenerate under a socialist regime, too...

...applause was freely given, boos were scanty...

...Nenni wished to put over two main ideas, the dtemocratic path to socialism and the need for Socialist unity, and to do this he felt it necessary to make concessions to various PSI prejudices of the past...

...Nevertheless, as long as they remain in control, the democratic spirit and democratic methods will be kept out of the PSI—no matter what Nenni says in speeches...

...This unanimous vote for a single resolution left each group free to interpret the convention's decisions according to its own lights...

...It is not our criticism of these facts that has divided...

...Neither the shock of defeat nor the humiliation inflicted on him by the unknown small fry of the apparatus could prevent him from accepting a solution which he thought would be expedient...

...He thus experienced for himself the smooth functioning of a party machine which had been well oiled during a decade of disciplined subservience to the Communist line and totalitarian methods...

...Nenni is a thoroughly political animal, incapable of personal resentment or shame...

...The cool-headed young men of the apparatus wished Nenni to give the PSI a coat of democratic varnish, but were determined to keep control in their own hands...

...After the completion of these messages, Nenni spoke for three tense hours...

...This system evidently facilitated the work of the party machine, organized years ago by the late pro-Communist Senator Rodolfo Morandi and now managed by a group of ambitious, enterprising younger men...

...In addition, Pajetta nerv-ily advised the PSI to set aside "the imitation of foreign models...

...Nenni himself came out second in the voting, and the most outspoken friends of his autonomous line (Faralli, San-sone, Matteucci) were left out of the Central Committee altogether...

...A former MP named Codignola, speaking for the Popular Union headed by Ferruccio Parri, took the same tack, though stressing anti-clericalism a bit more...

...In this case the greetings were more than polite expressions of good will...

...Pajetta made a sentimental appeal to memories of the old common struggle against Fascism, and suggested that the "ancient rift" (the Communist secession from the Socialist convention at Liorna in 1921) could now be healed if the "Socialist comrades" remained faithful to "working-class solidarity...

...That they may have overestimated their own cleverness, and the credulity of the Social Democrats, was clear from the comments after the convention...

...Though he was once called a "louse" by CP boss Palmiro Togliatti, Magnani insisted that "we cannot fight against our Communist comrades" and reserved his sharpest barbs for the Social Democrats...

...Nenni's followers on the new Central Committee numbered only 27, as against 30 out-and-out machine men, 15 representatives of the Basso "Titoist" faction, and 9 supporters of Per-tini, more cordial to the Communists...

...they were lengthy, hot-tempered harangues advising the party on what it should do...

...The young men of the apparatus wanted Nenni to continue as party secretary, as a front man for their own majority...

...the Italian working class, but the facts themselves...

...His main effort was directed to establishing a continuity between the old policy of a common front with the Communists and the future policy of unification with the Social Democrats...

...As a show, the convention was a hit...