Italy Watches an Empire Stumble
SENIGALLIA, SILVRO F.
WITH A DOSE OF PRAGMATISM Italy Watches an Empire Stumble By Silvio F. Senigallia Rome In the early '70s, with Richard M. Nixon in the White House and Leonid I. Brezhnev in the...
...Treasury Minister Guido Carli, adistinguished apolitical economist, similarly supports prompt assistance to Poland and Hungary but has advised against a Marshall Plan-type program...
...The accepted media wisdom here ignores certain pertinent questions...
...All these factors, L'Unità concluded, havecreateda state of near-anarchy, a vacuum of power that plays into the hands of an increasingly strong Army-backed minority of conservatives...
...An old friend of mine, ashrewd Italian journalist who had lived in the United States for many years, looked upon the prospects of détente with skepticism...
...He did not live to witness the present reforms of the Soviet political system, to hear the terms perestroïka and glasnost become household words in the West, or to watch Mikhail S. Gorbachev, leader of what less than a decade ago was the "evil empire," win the hearts of TV audiences everywhere...
...Iflastingpeacebrokeout, Washington and Moscow wouldn't know what to do," heusedtosay...
...Italians are glad the Soviet liberalization and the denunciation of Stalin mean the days of the gulag are over, but more important to them is the disappearance of the 40year-old specter of Europe becoming a nuclear battleground, perhaps for good...
...Back in London, she thundered, "It is in the interest of the West that this colossal, historic experiment in the Soviet Union—that is rolling back the frontiers of Socialism—continues and succeeds...
...Thatcher was equally forceful in extolling " Poland's shift away from Communism" and the success of the reformers in the Hungarian Communist Party...
...In general, Italians are rather cool when it comes to international issues...
...Italian correspondents in the United States seem to echo anti-Administration sources almost exclusively...
...The obviously deliberate omission was glaring because in a detailed report on international affairs to the PCI Central Committee on October 3 Giorgio Napolitano, foreign minister of the Communist shadow cabinet, had nonchalantly characterized the fate of the two Germanys as merely one of the questions that would need to be taken up in the framework of a united Europe and the "reconversion" of the NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances...
...In the event of war, however unlikely that may be at present, wouldn't the other NATO countries still expect the United States to bear the brunt of the defense of Western Europe...
...Neither the Brezhnev regime nor the American political-military establishment, he was convinced, possessed the vision or the valor to end the Cold War...
...The predominant feeling is relief, not ideological vindication: In this country, bombarded for years by Communist propaganda singing the praises of the Soviet Union, there is a pronounced absence of "we told you so" gloating...
...He fears that a truly united European Community—the third strongest power in the world—might serve to widen the rift between the "rich" West and the "poor" East...
...Yet it was surely impossible for most Italians not to root for the young electrician from Gdansk while he was fighting against seemingly overwhelming odds...
...Rome has pressed the United States to both increase its participation in the massive financial assistance to Poland and Hungary recommended by the European Community (EC) and back Poland's request for $ 1 billion from the International Monetary Fund to protect the exchange rate of the zloty...
...It has elicited the Italians' warm sympathy, but it has not budged them on the eternal German question...
...The labor unrest that manifested itself in the September miners' strike is threatening to spread to other sectors of the economy...
...This stance, I think, is motivated less by the correspondents' politics than by the gut anti-Americanism traditional among European intellectuals...
...Reaction to the extraordinary exodus of tens of thousands of young East Germans seeking freedom has been measured, too...
...WITH A DOSE OF PRAGMATISM Italy Watches an Empire Stumble By Silvio F. Senigallia Rome In the early '70s, with Richard M. Nixon in the White House and Leonid I. Brezhnev in the Kremlin, there were moments when the normalization of U.S.-Soviet relations appeared feasible...
...The editorial was slightly less pessimistic in regard to Hungary, and it was cautiously optimistic about Poland...
...My friend was a liberal...
...The attitude toward glasnost and perestroïka, on the other hand, although influenced to some extent by Gorbachev's seductive personality, has largely been guided by self-interest...
...The older sectors of the population cannot forget what the Germans did to them during World War II, and their fear of reunification predominates even though there is no trace of Germanophobia among those born after the War, who are by far the majority...
...They may get emotional about the high drama of the changes taking place in the Communist world, but they are not given to sentimentality...
...In any case, isn't the demise of Soviet totalitarianism bound to be a slowly evolving and probably more risky process than the reforms so far under glasnost...
...Moreover, where problems affect them directly, they are less interested in ethical principles than maintaining a pragmatic posture...
...Interestingly, L'Unità, organ of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), is the only newspaper I have seen that has carried an editorial on the possible reversal of the "quasi-revolutionary changes" in the Soviet Union...
...The aid, he says, must be contingent on structural changes in those countries designed to facilitate a market economy...
...How, heasks, will the impending unification of the European market affect the rapprochement of reformist East European governments with the capitalist West...
...Nor could the inauguration of the first non-Communist Polish government in 40 years fail to capture virtually everyone's imagination...
...Last but by no means least, Gorbachev is being challenged by the independence movements in the Baltic Republics, plus the ethnic restlessness in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia...
...But I suspect that if my friend were alive, he would caution against sudden somersaults in American foreign policy...
...Even conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher trotted to the Kremlin to give Gorbachev the accolade of Her Majesty's government...
...A week later, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti pledged $400 million worth of direct emergency funds to the new Warsaw regime...
...Today in Western Europe voices of circumspection are few and far between...
...Another economist, Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, has sounded a related note of caution...
...His majority within the Presidium is tottering, and at the last meeting of the Supreme Soviet he was criticized by four out of five Party members...
...And Pope John Paul II, obviously pleased about events in his native Poland and the new treatment of Catholics in the Soviet Union, did not miss the opportunity to send Gorbachev his blessings while flying over Moscow in early October en route to Korea...
...On October 11, during his official visit to the U.S., Italian President Francesco Cossiga raised the issues in Washington...
...In Italy, as in the other countries of Western Europe, much of the media has been lavishing praise on the authors of the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, while roundly criticizing the Bush Administration for its hesitant reactions...
...Despite Gorbachev's demonstrated ability and courage in dealing with the crisis of the Communist world, it argued, the situation in the USSR is fraught with danger...
...Indeed, only three days after Napolitano delivered his speech Gorbachev declared in East Berlin that " any attempt to modify the map of Europe would be a dangerous undertaking...
...The Italian government is keeping close watch on the situation in Eastern Europe...
...Solidarity's decade-long struggle had all the ingredients of a TV miniseries: the noble hero (Lech Walesa), the villain who in the end comes to see the light (General Wojciech Jaruzelski), the warm-hearted priest (Pope John Paul II), and the Nobel Peace Prize...
...It is difficult to gauge the impact that constant front-page and prime-time news coverage here of the events in Eastern Europe has had on the "man in the street...
...Conspicuously absent, though, was any mention of German reunification...
...Thus they have claimed that deep down President George Bush and the State Department harbor a feeling of nostalgia for the Cold War...
...Might not an explosive breakdown of the Soviet social order—triggered, perhaps, by a severe worsening of Soviet economic conditions—lead the Presidium to topple Gorbachev, institute martial law and stimulate the revival of nationalism...
...Amid the general euphoria, the pros and cons of an abrupt shift in the West's policy toward Moscow have received little careful appraisal...
...That's why they would rather prolong the status quo...
...Silvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italian affairs...
...Since the end of World War II, of course, the Communists have vigorously opposed the notion of a united Germany, warning against its potentially rich and powerful presence...
Vol. 72 • October 1989 • No. 16
