Italian Communism's 'Alternative'
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
THE MEETING IN MILAN Italian Communism's Alternative' BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome Italy's political lingo has always been rich with picturesque expressions like "parallel convergen-cies,"...
...The theme of the Milan congress was the "alternative"—that is, replacing the Christian Democrats (DC), who have dominated the government since World War II, with a Communist-led Leftist coalition...
...All observers were quick to point out that Berlinguer said nothing about what the rallying points of the alternative were to be, or when and with whom it was to be effectuated...
...Perhaps to lessen their unhappiness and keep them in the fold, Berlinguer has been balancing his criticism of the Soviets with stepped-up attacks on American imperialism and the stationing of U.S...
...It has defended the right of non-Soviet Communist parties to give primary allegiance to their own countries, and has sharply condemned both Moscow's invasion of Afghanistan and the Polish regime's suppression of the independent workers' movement Solidarity...
...Nor was Berlinguer's opening address in Milan, introducing the alternative, likely to draw the PSI closer...
...THE MEETING IN MILAN Italian Communism's Alternative' BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome Italy's political lingo has always been rich with picturesque expressions like "parallel convergen-cies," "opening to the Left" and "historic compromise...
...Yet the invective does not seem to worry the shrewdly opportunistic PSI Secretary Bettino Craxi, who while paying lip service to unity of the Left, hardly sounds as if he is about to trade in his current highly influential policy shaping role for the dim prospect of a feeble partnership with the PCI...
...His challenge, though, turned out to be far less powerful than the PCI establishment had feared...
...Ever since Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 to stamp out Alexander Dubcek's "Communism with a human face," the PCI has steered an increasingly independent course...
...Then, in 1979, after the Communists lost 5 per cent of their vote in the national elections to the Radicals and other minor Left-wing formations, pursuit of the historic compromise was for all practical purposes given up...
...Still, the strappo concern cannot be safely filed away for two reasons...
...Relations between the PCI and the PSI, moreover, are strained...
...First, should Berlinguer's grip on the leaderSilvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italy...
...It was apparent that the normally taciturn and self-effacing "Uncle Peter," as some delegates dubbed him, was taking on King Enrico and his courtiers on behalf of the little fellow...
...One was delivered by Pietro Ingrao, the highly respected former President of the House of Deputies and leader of the PCI's non-pro-Soviet left...
...The new policy, though, is essentially a return to the goal of putting together a 51 per cent Leftist majority that was wisely rejected before...
...As DC Secretary Ciriaco De Mita noted, the alternative is not a program, it merely announces the usual competition, and simply insulting one's opponent and insisting he is the cause of impending catastrophe is useless unless you have something to offer that will enable you to outvote him...
...ship be loosened in the not-too-distant future, the ranks of the dissenters could easily swell...
...Within the PCI itself there is discontent with the flim-siness of Berlinguer's latest notion as well...
...These remarks outraged the pro-Soviet remnants within the PCI, who despite their embarrassment over Afghanistan and distaste for the path followed in Poland wish to keep the party faithful to the teachings of the Great October Revolution...
...In any other party the failure of its major policy would have brought down the leader...
...In addition, he maintained that the conflicts between the Communists and the Social Democrats could be resolved with a measure of good will and cooperation...
...The PCI, he said, should widen its appeal through "social alliances" with large sectors of the middle class, including big business interests, and "political alliances" with Center-Left parties...
...The latest one is to strappo—the tear, or laceration—referring to the widening rift between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer and the Soviet Union...
...Arguing that alliances and parliamentary jockeying can be attended to later, he urged that the PCI first concentrate on acquiring the image of a credible ruling party by shaping a concrete platform in close conjunction with the masses...
...His rhetoric is often drily amusing (at least to outsiders), as out of fealty to the Kremlin he blasts the PCI's lack of internal democracy...
...The solution of basic economic and social problems required a working alliance of the country's top two parties, regardless of their ideological differences...
...The other major critic was the leader of the PCI right, Giorgio Napolitano, who offered a different kind of tactical advice...
...But the DC, having reason of course to doubt the purity of the PCI's motives, remained adamant about refusing the PCI any role in the government...
...The remaining 5-6 per cent needed to muster a majority would have to be wrested at the polls from the DC, an eventuality that for the time being seems unlikely...
...Decisions, he insisted, must be made only by the comrades, in response to coherently presented options...
...Napolitano rebuked Berlinguer for his severe criticism of the Socialists, and declared that the Secretary has given insufficient attention to the efforts of the Left in other European countries to overcome the world economic crisis and face the coming transition toanew economic structure...
...Aside from being singularly unillum-inating about the initiative's substance, its one clear stance—possibly in deference to hardline pressures—was categorical opposition to the programs of all other parties, including the Socialists...
...Second, the party's prominent pro-Soviet figures could decide to form a splinter group...
...missiles in Western Europe...
...The Socialists are at this point the CD's key partner in the government, and the Communists have been charging them with sharing responsibility for Italy's dire economic straits, among other maladies...
...The Communists hold 30 per cent of the seats in Parliament, the Socialists (PSI) 11 per cent, and other potential Leftist allies about 5 percent...
...The unsuccessful attempt to achieve a modus vivendi between the DC and PCI at the governing level had a logic of its own: It recognized that as the head of a coalition with a meager majority, the PCI still could not enact the structural reforms it has been advocating for almost 40 years...
...Despite the attacks from the left and right of the PCI, though, Berlinguer left Milan still in command...
...The Senator's forces grew visibly weaker as each of the 108 local and provincial party branches selected its representatives to the national conclave, until in the final tally the pro-Soviet slates had won a mere 5 per cent of the seats...
...it has simply become a non-policy now that the alternative has been introduced...
...Further, it has been presented in a hopelessly vague fashion...
...Neither has the fiasco of the compromise been formally acknowledged...
...The term lo strappo, however, was coined only a few months ago, after Berlinguer went so far as to say that Soviet Communism had lost its sprinta propulsiva (constructive momentum), as well as to voice doubts about the forms of Socialism practiced elsewhere in Eastern Europe...
...It is conceivable that in the wake of the congress party procedures will be made more democratic in the provinces and municipalities...
...This was reflected in two strong criticisms heard at the congress...
...The leader of this faction—or, strictly speaking, band of dissidents, correnti being forbidden by the PCI's governing principle of democratic centralism—is Milan Senator Armando Cossutta, a very outspoken politician who is at the same time careful to respect party discipline...
...Using the strongest words of any speaker, Ingrao inveighed against mysterious oratory, coded language and highfalu-tin colloquy...
...This was an obvious, if indirect, disavowal of the historic compromise strategy proposed by Berlinguer a decade ago and actually already abandoned...
...But at the national level democratic centralism, which prevents any effective opposition to the leadership, is almost certain to prevail...
...The hall rewarded him with thunderous bravos while Berlinguer brooded...
...He controls the party Secretariat and Directorate, and the Central Committee, by rejecting the idea of secret ballot voting, has consigned itself to continuing as a rubber stamp...
...Cossutta threw down the gauntlet just when delegates were beginning to be selected for the 16th national PCI congress that took place in Milan during the first week of March...
...The PCI being what it is, Berlinguer continues at the helm and no one has ever thought of replacing him...
Vol. 66 • March 1983 • No. 6
