Italy's Communists Hit a Snag
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
THE PORTUGUESE CONNECTION Italy's Communists Hit a Snag BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome The carefully organized 14th national congress of the Italian Communist party (PCI)-replete with a...
...Vice Premier La Malfa has similarly expressed fears about "the alarming situation existing in a strategic zone," meaning of course Portugal...
...Thus, less than 24 hours after Rome's DC Mayor Clelio Darida was being applauded while describing a new "reciprocal respect" between the Christian Democrats and the Communists in his welcoming speech to the assemblage, prospects for such relations seemed to have been seriously (if not hopelessly) set back by an outside event of unquestionable gravity...
...But this and other displays of indignation have been greeted with skepticism...
...Former President Saragat rules out a DC-PCI working arrangement at the present time and sees it taking place "only when history will allow it...
...According to influential Italians who cannot be accused of "visceral anti-communism," such as Social Democrat Giuseppe Saragat and Republican Ugo La Malfa, the PCI has only a limited degree of autonomy...
...In his closing speech to the congress, Berlinguer admitted the seriousness of the Portuguese situation, criticized the military regime, and acknowledged the equal rights of all democratic forces...
...Berlinguer may have felt uncomfortable, but Abrantes was given a rousing ovation, climaxed by Soviet delegate Andrei Kirilenko's customary bear hug and kisses...
...It can criticize the military High Council, but its ties with the Communist world prevent it from condemning Portuguese Communist leader Alvaro Cunhal...
...It may have some success...
...These range from the sharp rifts among parties participating in the Center-Left coalition governments that have ruled Italy since 1962, to the intraparty factionalism that has virtually paralyzed the dominant Christian Democrats...
...Before the day was done Italian Christian Democratic leader Amintore Fanfani withdrew his delegation from the congress with considerable fanfare...
...He proceeded to fully endorse the recent activities in Lisbon, to attack the Portuguese Christian Democrats, and to hail the "fraternal ties'' between the two Communist Parties as "indestructable...
...By the time the final gavel sounded, political observers here unanimously agreed that any chance of PCI-DC cooperation had been pushed far into the distance...
...At the same time, it would be a serious mistake to lose sight of the factors that continue to make a compromise an intriguing, as well as disturbing prospect...
...For the week-long meeting happened to get under way on the very day last month (March 18) that Portugal's military rulers banned their country's Christian Democratic party from participation in the electoral process, a move designed to strengthen the hand of the Communists by eliminating an opposition thought capable of garnering about 30 per cent of the popular vote...
...Fanfani and the middle-of-the-road DC establishment decided to take advantage of the unexpected foreign development to scuttle once and for all the "historic compromise" that was supposed to result in the Communists entering the government coalition...
...The contradictions are unavoidable when a party is essentially engaged in an all-out struggle against the very group it must ally itself with to become a viable force for changing the structure of society...
...Many responsible democrats, aware that today's Italy is not post-Salazar Portugal and that the PCI was not responsible for the antidemocratic measures, are nevertheless worried about Portugal's fate...
...Indeed during the entire debate at the PCI meeting, not one mention was made of Comrade Cunhal's Stalinist background or his approval of the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968...
...The Italian Communists reluctantly accept nato as a fact of life, yet continually extol the Party's traditional relationships with the Warsaw Pact countries...
...In fact, the only thing that still keeps power beyond the reach of the PCI is its inability to adopt an independent course in foreign affairs...
...One episode in particular at the congress underscored his point about PCI ambivalence in the area of foreign affairs...
...THE PORTUGUESE CONNECTION Italy's Communists Hit a Snag BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome The carefully organized 14th national congress of the Italian Communist party (PCI)-replete with a contingent of ruling Christian Democratic party (DC) observers-ran into trouble almost as soon as Secretary-General Enrico Berlinguer delivered his opening address to the 1,124 delegates representing 1.6 million members...
...If PCI leaders could take a clear stand (as did Mao and Tito) toward Moscow's hegemonic policies, says La Malfa, their credibility would greatly increase...
...The Socialist daily Avanti reached this conclusion after criticizing Berlinguer's tortured analysis of the Portuguese crisis for ignoring the conceivable repercussions in Italy...
...Silvio F. Senigallia represents Farrar, Straus and Giroux in Rome...
...The PCI may possibly be trusted on domestic matters, he believes, but given the current international situation, its link to the Soviet bloc is an understandable cause for alarm to those who do not want Italy to become a second Czechoslovakia...
...A number of other DC officers, hardly waiting for the PCI's initial reaction to the news from Lisbon, attacked the Italian Communist organization as "an enemy of freedom and truth" whose "verbal allegiance to democracy cannot be trusted" and whose genuine nature "had been unmasked by the Portuguese drama...
...Yet it should be noted that even before the Portuguese bombshell, most Communist leaders perceived the difficulties of pursuing any compromise strategy...
...Judging from the difference in tone and content of Berlinguer's opening and closing speeches, the Secretary-General is also conscious of the improbability of forming what he calls "a great popular alliance" in the near future...
...Although officially, DC spokesmen attributed their actions to the PCI's "unwillingness or inability" to condemn the Portuguese High Council's undemocratic methods, there was much more to their actions than met the eye...
...Turin's liberal Stampa summed up its view this way: "Today and for a long time to come, the Center-Left alliance looks like the only possible government coalition...
...Under ordinary cricumstances, the magnitude of the social and economic problems left untended, the inefficiency and corruption, coupled with the constant electoral gains of the extreme Left, would make a government role for the Communists not only inevitable but welcome...
...After a three-day postponement, embarrassed Party leaders finally allowed the head of the Portuguese delegation, Domingos Abrantes, to mount the rostrum...
...Should it ever find the determination and capacity to overcome this critical liability, Italy's domestic conditions would surely hasten the arrival of the historic compromise...
...In addition, as the PCI has correctly observed, by making Portugal's problems an Italian domestic issue the DC hoped to benefit on a general political level...
...The Milan daily Corriere delta Sera has noted that the reaction of Italian public opinion to the DC approach went beyond feelings of political bias...
...They worry, too, about influence the Left-wing takeover may have on the future of the Atlantic alliance, since Portugal is a full-fledged nato member...
Vol. 58 • April 1975 • No. 9
