Italy Near the Breaking Point

...No wonder that during his November 5 visit to Rome, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reportedly said he does not understand Italian politics...

...But regardless of the fact that Italy has not had a stable government since the 1968 elections, only a series of temporary expediencies, the Center-Left myth dies hard...

...The weaknesses of the system are all too glaring and so is the inability of a class of tired, mediocre politicians to cope with a situation nearing the breaking point...

...The last Cabinet fell, for example, because the Social Democrats firmly rejected continued collaboration with the Socialists, yet the leaders of the democratic parties (including the PSDI) apparently devoted the entire month of October and the first week of November to an unsuccessful effort to revive the coalition...

...Consequently, it has refrained from making the basic choice between Socialists and Social Democrats-between major reforms and a soft-pedaling of the Communist issue, or ideological consistency and a moderate domestic program...

...For three consecutive nights during the same week, bands of young Left-extremists hurled firebombs into the offices of American firms in Rome, including that of the English-language Rome Daily American...

...The Socialists, who are squarely on labor's side, demand an easing of the credit squeeze, massive pension raises and a retroactive adjustment of the wage escalating system...

...Socialist and Social Democratic coexistence turned out to be impossible, prompting the PSDI to regroup once again as an independent formation...

...Yet despite some initial progress, highlighted by the 1966 merger of the PSI and the traditionally anti-Communist PSDI of former President Giuseppe Saragat, from 1968 on everything went wrong...

...Though the Socialists (PSI) and Social Democrats (PSDI) have been left out of the new Cabinet, both have pledged their parliamentary support...

...After steering an ambiguous course for years as an anti-government-government party, the PSI moved further to the Left...

...Notwithstanding the favorable reaction of the DCs anti-Communist Left and the pleasing prospect that Communist participation in the government would trim the sails of the all-powerful trade unions, thus eliminating labor unrest, the bulk of the Christian Democratic party is understandably reluctant to accept a major shift in the balance of power and a partnership entailing a neutralist foreign policy as well as a significant reappraisal of the nation's basic economic and social policies...

...Not only is the economy going berserk, but there is a truly frightening wave of violence headed by a neo-Fascist campaign of terrorism on the Right and senseless assaults by the anarchists of the far Left...

...Over a year ago-before the Yom Kippur War and subsequent worldwide energy crisis-Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer made the startling proposal of a "historic compromise," namely a DC-PCI agreement of a sort granting his party a share of the national power...

...There is a growing resentment against the antics of Parliament and the revolving-door governments...

...The recent collapse of the banking empire of the Sicilian-born international financier Michele Sindona, who was involved with the failure of the substantial Franklin National Bank in the U.S., came as an additional shock to public opinion here...

...Through the years, the results of Italy's national elections have been remarkably consistent...

...In short, it will take a minor miracle to avoid a traumatic showdown...

...As for the Christian Democrats-the largest party with 38 per cent of the vote in the last national elections-this vast composite ranging from pro-Communist trade unionists to reactionary farmers has simply not been able to provide adequate leadership...

...What makes Italian politics so difficult is the presence of a major Communist party that-along with a hopelessly reactionary Right-cuts down the margin of maneuver to 60 per cent of the electorate...

...Torn by constant intrafactional power struggles and held together strictly by the cement of political opportunism, the party feels the need to preserve an uneasy balance...

...An Italian judge has issued an arrest warrant for Sindona, who allegedly provided DC personalities with massive financial assistance, and whose huge debts have had to be covered by state banks...

...Thus the Communist issue has once again emerged as a bone of contention between the Socialists and their parliamentary allies...

...The PSI, unhappy and frustrated over its inability to get things done or extend its power, became increasingly critical of DC do-nothingness and greed...

...This, however, is a singularly disquieting time...

...That is not expected to make much of a difference, however, for the Center-Left formula, adopted in 1962, has been largely a failure...

...And the different prescriptions put forward to deal with these problems all contain elements that would make a reconstruction of the old coalition even more difficult than it is now...

...The Socialists' strength amounts to approximately 10 per cent of the vote...

...Intolerance and violence poison the air...

...This was confirmed again in 1972 and is a valid argument against the Social Democrats' proposal for a second dissolution of Parliament in three years...

...On the eve of Kissinger's arrival in Rome, General Vito Miceli, former chief of Italy's intelligence service, was arrested on charges of plotting to promote a Right-extremist revolt to be followed by the intervention of the Armed Forces...

...On the other side, the chief DC economic expert, Minister of the Treasury Emilio Colombo, is mostly worried about the balance of payments and presses for an increase in exports, reduction of imports, general restriction of demand, and labor's acceptance of urgently required austerity measures...

...Silvio F. Senigallia represents Farrar, Straus and Giroux in Rome...

...But the view expressed by some foreign observers, including the New York Times, that a failure to revive the Center-Left coalition would inevitably entail Communist participation in the government is an oversimplification of a complex issue...

...Ordinarily, the average Italian, a disenchanted individualist, might pay little attention to the nth episode of endemic political instability and take the attitude that tutto s'aggiusta (everything will be all right...

...But there is considerable doubt here about whether Moro's alliance with the tiny, moderate-Leftist Republican party-the nation's 37th government since the fall of Fascism-will prove any more capable of leading or longer lasting than its 89-day predecessor...

...Now we are told the Christian Democrat-Republican venture is merely a preparation for a return to the magic formula that all experts consider as dead as the dodo...

...It sought, as well, to sever completely relations between the Socialists and the Communist party (PCI), thereby isolating the latter...

...THE POLITICS OF LITTLE HOPE Italy Near the Breaking Point BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome The formation of a new government in Italy last month by Christian Democrat (DC) Aldo Moro-three times a premier in the past-has at least temporarily ended the crisis that started October 3 with the resignation of the Center-Left coalition Cabinet headed by the DCs Mariano Rumor...

...Originally, it was seen as a way of bringing a no-longer frontist PSI into the government, and of attempting a wide array of reforms (schools, hospitals, housing, taxation) that would make Italy a more just and modern society...

...Any comparison of the Sindona case with the notorious affaire Stavisky in prewar France is probably unfair, but a parallel between conditions in Italy today and the last years of the Third Republic is not...

...Moreover, a massive anti-Communist (and inevitably anti-Socialist) crusade aimed at the silent majority that is fed up with the whole bloody mess is (1) unpalatable to a sizable portion of the DC, and (2) generally viewed as anachronistic and counterproductive in the present phase of detente...

...Moro's Cabinet inherits a lamentable situation marked by a galloping 24 per cent inflation rate, a high balance-of-payments deficit, organized labor's militant opposition to the mild austerity program passed by Parliament last July, industrial stagnation, and serious unemployment caused by the credit squeeze that the central Bank of Italy has imposed...