Italy Thinks the Unthinkable

...The continuation of these and other trends within both the Church and the Italian Catholic party could eventually make a deal with the pci feasible, albeit distasteful...

...True, despite a 55 per cent parliamentary majority, which in different circumstances would be perfectly adequate, the present government coalition of Socialists (psi) and Christian Democrats formed at the end of 1968 by dc Premier Mariano Rumor is weak and shaky...

...The potential danger of a Communist-Catholic coalition has not been lost on a number of political observers here...

...The extent of the resulting confusion and ambiguity can be gleaned from the fact that the leader of the antigovernment forces within the Socialist party is Deputy Premier Francesco De Martino...

...In 1963, it was almost unanimously believed that Center-Left governments would run Italy throughout the entire five-year span of the legislature...

...In the years of his pontificate, the Vatican's hostile reaction to the very mention of a dialogue with the Communists would have been so immediate and strong as to discourage any possible advocate...

...This shift is both cause and effect of the alliance with the Socialists, a development that 10 years ago also was unthinkable for the large majority of Christian Democrats...

...Italy Thinks the Unthinkable By Silvio F. Senigallia Rome For the first time since 1947, when the late Premier Alcide De Gasperi ousted the Communists from Italy's initial postwar coalition government, some kind of collaboration between the Christian Democrats (dc) and the Italian Communist party (pci) is no longer unthinkable...

...The sacrifice might, for instance, require a reappraisal of Italy's role in the Atlantic alliance...

...Another fact, although not readily admitted, is that many far-from-radical Christian Democrats would accept a "minor" ideological sacrifice to the pci if it would consolidate their party's hold on power for several years...

...A dc opening to the Right would have to include not only the conservative Liberal party but Monarchists and neo-Fascists as well, and consequently has been ruled out...

...But the predominant, middle-of-the-road approach is to accept occasional joint policies and local alliances wherever they are required by special circumstances...

...In 1962, the increased electoral strength of the pci and the weakness of the Right-wing parties pushed the reluctant Christian Democrats into a government coalition with the Socialists...

...The Democrazia Cristiana covers a large political territory—from the reactionary Right to a shrill, quasi-Communist Left—yet its membership and most of the electorate is basically of moderate, conservative leanings...

...As for the pci, given its current "policy of respectability," aimed at getting a share of power through direct cooperation with the non-Communist Left, it would eagerly accept...

...There is one other very important element in the situation: Vatican policies have changed since Pius XII died...

...Many conservative Christian Democrats score the Socialists' ambivalent attitude toward the pci, while the dc Left derides their vacillation and timidity...

...And the whole party resents sharing power with them...

...Although they reject Leninism and pay only lip service to Marx, many Italian Socialists still cringe before the old shibboleths of "class warfare" and "the unity of the working class...

...For the same reason, association with the "intraclassist" Christian Democrats gives the Socialists guilt feelings...

...But complacency, wishful thinking, procrastination, and the pursuit of selfish interests by the democratic forces will only play into the hands of an opponent who would never give them a second chance...

...The last solution, a wider opening to the Left involving a dc overture to the Communists, has until recently been unthinkable...

...A small minority, however, favors open collaboration while, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the former Social Democrats forcefully reject it...

...In contrast, the orientation of the majority party is simpler...

...in early 1969, there is a widespread feeling that the coalition may be brought to a premature end despite current attempts to revamp it...

...This is not to suggest that a de facto alliance or under-the-counter deal with the extreme Left is just around the corner...

...Furthermore, its once heavy interference in Italian political affairs has been superseded by a virtual hands-off attitude...

...To be sure, Hannibal is not yet at the gate and may never get there...

...Today, the increasingly powerful and vocal dc Left, including large sectors of cisl, the party's labor federation, favors a wider opening to the Left...

...Last March 15, 18 and 20, Rome's influential pro-Center-Left daily, Il Messaggero, denounced "political and parliamentary collusion between Catholics and Communists" and warned "against "an operation that would subject Italian democracy to incalculable risks," pointing to specific evidence of imminent or forthcoming collaboration between the dc and the Communists at the city government level...

...And the chances are that the dc-psi coalition will keep stumbling along...

...Meanwhile, in 1964, a large number of Socialist maximalists split off to found the psiup...

...Yet the struggle between reformists and maximalists, a century-old Socialist phenomenon, continues with a vengeance...

...They broke with the Communists several years ago, but continue to be intimidated by the fear of not being sufficiently far to the Left...

...The Socialists also lack a unified policy toward the pci...

...But if in the future—say after new elections —the coalition collapses and the dc needs extra votes to remain in power, the temptation of a modus vivendi with the pci may well prove difficult to resist...

...The principal source of its enfeeble-ment is the almost hopeless fragmentation of the psi into six constantly brawling factions or sub-factions...

...President Saragat himself is reported to be seriously concerned...

...Thus the 1968 electoral defeat was used by anticoalition elements within the psi as evidence that alliance with dc is the kiss of death for any Leftist formation...

...These can only be allayed by the enactment of a legislative program so radical in nature that the basically moderate Democrazia Cristiana would have to reject or dilute it...

...Vatican anti-Communism is now less militant and more flexible...

...A return to the days of the "united action pact" with the Communists is out of the question...

...The coalition withstood these complaints as long as it was able to guarantee a sufficient majority margin...

...But the fact is that the Cold War mentality has been replaced here by a new pragmatic trend toward national coexistence with the pci...

...Their coexistence has not been a happy one...

...The first postelection national congress was a free-for-all ending in utter confusion, and the party is now run by a procoalition majority of 52 per cent that is itself sharply divided...

...The Center-Left formula neither guarantees a solid parliamentary majority nor isolates the Communists...

...Indeed, the coalition's chief strength is the absence of appealing alternatives...

...The sharp setback suffered by the psi in the 1968 general elections probably was the single most important factor in the exacerbation of its latest inner conflicts...

...The 1968 psi electoral defeat, its present absurd fragmentation, and the consequent weakness of the present government are now giving the Christian Democrats serious second thoughts...

...Less obvious are the signs pointing to the opposite direction...

...The main obstacle to any understanding with the Communist party, no matter how cautious, covert or indefinite, is the probable negative reaction of the conservative dc electorate to a complete reversal of the party's major domestic policy: opposition to Communism...

...An all-dc government would be a stopgap, temporary measure at best, since the Christian Democrats themselves do not want to expose the party to attacks from all quarters without protecting its left flank...

...Moreover, the lack of ideological cohesiveness prevents the achievement of the dc's much-heralded program of economic and social reforms...

...In the past few years, the Christian Democratic political center of gravity has gradually shifted to the Left...

...On March 17, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, denied the allegation and recalled the outstanding contribution of the Christian Democratic party under De Gasperi in the critical postwar period...

...Nor is it merely the size of the extreme Left—the Communists and Proletarian Socialists (psiup) won approximately one-third of the popular vote—that accounts for the demise of militant anti-Communism and the emergence of voices urging constructive relations with the Communist opposition...

...The majority of the psi has been committed since 1962 to direct or indirect participation in reformist coalitions with the Christian Democrats...

...The remaining maximalists wish to compete with the Communists on a revolutionary basis...

...Silvio F. Senigallia, a previous contributor, is Rome representative of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux...

...De Gasperi used to define the DC as "a centrist party moving toward the Left...

...This group was strengthened by the reunification in 1966 with Guiseppe Saragat's Social Democratic party, which had broken away from the parent body in 1948 in protest against the late Pietro Nenni's alliance with the Communists...

...Un-persuaded, Il Messaggero has issued new warnings on the danger of a "clerical-Communist majority at the national level," noting that while in 1960 L'Osservatore Romano published a trenchant article against the "opening" to the Socialists, today it "is not equally firm before the danger of a connubial match with the Communists...

...Any sudden Christian Democratic about-face would still shock large sectors of its middle-of-the-road electorate...