Italy in Search of Stability
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
WATCHING THE FRENCH RETURNS Italy in Search of Stability BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome Sitting in his small, modestly decorated office on the third floor of the old palace that serves as the...
...and (2) the DC Left, once evanescent, had become a predominant force within the Catholic party...
...For the first time in 35 years, French Communists and Socialists are campaigning on a common platform and pledging to govern together should they win a parliamentary majority...
...The old alliance had indeed become tired, stale and quarrelsome: The Socialists wanted action and were not getting it...
...In each case the Communists, condemned to an opposition role for a quarter of a century, form the second largest party and are eager to assume power...
...Like their Italian counterparts, the French Communists are carefully presenting an image of respectability, responsibility, autonomy from the Soviet Union, and awareness of their nation's political realities...
...We are governing three important regions tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria And we should provide an invaluable contribution to the shaping of national policies...
...Though the Communists do want to change the nation's entire economic and social structure, he explains, only their policies are revolutionary, not the means they would employ to implement them...
...Moreover, he says, the ousting of the Liberals, who were included in Andreotti's centrist coalition to reassure the conservative sectors of public opinion, would indicate that: (1) the majority party had finally made a definite choice, even at the risk of weakening its Right flank...
...But they are less concerned about Communism than they are about their country's inability to set up a fully functioning, efficient central administration...
...Since memories of Fascism have not faded and anti-Fascist forces remain strong, the likelihood of an opening to the Left outweighs that of a Christian Democratic alliance with the neo-Fascist Right...
...And according to a nationwide sampling published in December by the conservative Paris daily Le Figaro, the Leftists have a 45-38 per cent lead over the Gaullists, who have not faced a major challenge since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in 1958...
...All this, exacerbated by the series of stopgap administrations which have only perpetuated the instability of democracy here, has given rise to the fear, mixed with resignation, that the single way out is a strong government, and the long-range alternatives are seen as either an Italian version of the Greek colonels or a Popular Front inevitably dominated by the Communists...
...The Communists, however, are not demanding direct participation in a new, thoroughly progressive government...
...The prospect of a Communist role in the government, unthinkable a few years ago, is far less so today...
...Thus one does not have to share Pajetta's views to recognize that the present stopgap arrangement is no solution to Italy's perennial problem of political instability...
...Nothing positive or constructive can be achieved without our collaboration...
...A third PCI leader, Giorgio Amendola, realizing that the resurgence of the Center-Left is a complex and possibly lengthy operation, speaks of an "intermediate phase" and quotes the late party chief Palmiro Togliatti's 1962 slogan, "constructive opposition...
...But such a development is not yet around the corner...
...conservative Christian Democrats wanted to concentrate on law and order...
...Pajetta's leitmotifs are responsibility, observance of the republican Constitution and legality...
...Consequently, the Communists are merely pressing for the replacement of the Andreotti coalition with one that would include the Silvio F. Senigallia, a veteran contributor, is the Rome representative of Farrar, Straus and Giroux...
...Outright victory by the United Left, whether accepted or rejected by Pompidou, would represent a precedent of the first magnitude...
...It would also be awkward for the Socialists, who were dropped from the ruling coalition last year for the first time in a decade and whose chances of reentering the government are contingent upon a real or imagined autonomy from the PCI and its policies...
...In the light of all this, it is not surprising that Italy's politicians are looking with great interest at the legislative elections to be held in France next month...
...Some observers interpreted Pompidou's remarks as an indication that he would refuse to appoint a Leftist Prime Minister and, in accordance with Article 16 of the French Constitution, dissolve the Assembly and call for new elections...
...The second largest party in Italy and the largest Communist organization in Western Europe, the PCI collected 9 million votes in the May 7, 1972 elections, giving it 179 seats in the 630-member Chamber and 94 seats in the 322-member Senate...
...There is a fundamental difference, he notes, between an irresolute Center-Left and Andreotti's counterretormist government...
...labor resents rising prices...
...In his January semiannual press conference he attacked the Leftists' program, said he did not expect to work with a Leftist-dominated Assembly and suggested that the Left, if voted in, would try to remove him from the Presidency...
...When reminded of their 10-year-long opposition to the Center-Left coalition, Communist leaders deny any discrepancy between their attitudes yesterday and today...
...Should conditions worsen, much would still depend on the non-Communist Left, given the more or less constant parliamentary arithmetic...
...Socialists and initiate major economic and social reforms...
...In other words, the Communists, and with them the Socialists and the Christian Democratic Left, want to reactivate the Center-Left formula that governed Italy in the '60s and was shelved a year ago by the DC because it feared the upsurge of neo-Fascist feelings in the country...
...If the Socialists and Left-wing Christian Democrats were willing to join in a Center-Left coalition totally independent from the PCI, a tolerable level of governmental stability might be regained...
...A United Left majority at the French polls, even if it did not produce a majority in the National Assembly, would boost the chances of an Italian Popular Front...
...Pajetta believes that the Socialists' return to power and the conservative Liberals' simultaneous exclusion would mark a major redirection of the government's policies and priorities rather than a futile rehashing of a failed formula...
...The business community resents strikes and union agitation...
...The last United Action Pact between Italian Communists and Socialists ended 15 years ago...
...public opinion was thoroughly disoriented...
...PCI Secretary Enrico Berlinguer maintains that Communist opposition to the Center-Left in the '60s and early '70s was not motivated by any preconceived mistrust of the formula but rather by its inability to enact its program...
...To begin with, an improvement in the economic situation would allay some of the present concerns and help reduce political unrest...
...To do so would be counterproductive, embarrassing the faction of the DC that advocates a shift to the Left and accepts a dialogue with the PCI but, for tactical reasons, cannot go beyond a certain point...
...The campaign of violence waged by extremists on both the Left and the Right shows no sign of abating...
...If, on the other hand, the ideological attraction exerted by the Communists proved too powerful and the need for their support were too keenly felt, the advent of a Popular Front, however gradual, could well be just a matter of time...
...The Socialists' Francois Mitterrand rejects the applicability of Article 16 to the outcome of parliamentary elections, while the Communists' Georges Marchais continues to tell the voters, in a soft, reassuring voice, that his is not the party of the clenched fist but of the extended hand...
...Because the lack of proportional representation and the geography of the voting districts is likely to prevent the French Left from translating a majority at the polls into a majority in the National Assembly, a Popular Front victory is considered possible yet not probable...
...WATCHING THE FRENCH RETURNS Italy in Search of Stability BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome Sitting in his small, modestly decorated office on the third floor of the old palace that serves as the national headquarters of the Italian Communist party, the PCI's highly articulate and pugnacious floor leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Giancarlo Pajetta, declares: "We have the strength, competence and sense of responsibility to be a government party...
...When accused of following a "the worse, the better" policy, the Communists point out that they are determined to topple Andreotti's coalition even though it is the kind of do-nothing, conservative-minded government that makes any Left-wing opposition look good...
...As a result, the composite, basically cautious DC decided to play it safe, and after last year's elections the Center-Left was replaced by Andreotti's centrist government...
...And, repeatedly, he returns to the argument that it is simply inadmissible for any government to refuse a priori to collaborate with a party representing 30 per cent of the electorate and 50 per cent of organized labor...
...This does not mean that large segments of the middle and lower-middle classes are less opposed to Communism or more inclined to regard the Italian brand as different from the kind that makes life in Eastern Europe look gray and depressing to most Italian travelers...
...Nonetheless, the threat exists and President Georges Pompidou is unhappily aware of it...
...Premier Giulio Andreotti's coalition of the large Christian Democratic party (DC) and three small middle-of-the-road groupings from Left to Right, Republicans, Social Democrats, and Liberals can barely muster a 51 per cent majority in Parliament...
...Italy is currently in the throes of a very serious "stagflation" (falling production plus inflation) that is generating deep discontent at every level of society...
...Indeed, knowledgeable Italians believe that the political future of their own country will be seriously affected by the outcome of the French elections...
...he does not speak of moderation, for that is equivalent to reactionism in the parlance of Italian politics today...
...The similarity between the Italian and French situations is striking: Both countries have been run for many years by huge middle-of-the-road majority parties that have neither an ideology nor a clear program, but merely adapt to events as they occur...
Vol. 56 • February 1973 • No. 4
