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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 174 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 174, April 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
As this issue of Socialist Review went to press it seemed likely that the right wing coalition would win most seats in the Italian general election. For the first time in Europe since the war there is a possibility that fascists will take part in government. It is certain that the fascists will emerge stronger than at any time in the last 50 years. At the same time the former Communist Party – the PDS – has emerged as the largest single political party at national level. In the run up to the election, the message from the PDS was: vote for the left and we will ensure stable government in alliance with the centre.
Whoever wins the election, the government which emerges will be extremely fragile. The right wing alliance in Italy has been cobbled together from three quite different and antagonistic forces.
The Northern League, centred on Milan and the surrounding area, was founded in the 1980s and is based on the prosperous middle class and lower middle class: the owners of small businesses, the professions, shopkeepers and artisans. The things that unite these groupings are hostility to Rome, opposition to taxation and state subsidies, and contempt for the poverty stricken South.
The MSI was the traditional party of fascism. In an attempt to disguise its direct link with Mussolini it has hurriedly renamed itself the National Alliance. All the old elements remain: the pictures of ‘The Leader’, the songs, symbols and salutes, the blackshirt thugs. The fascists are almost entirely based in Rome and the South. They call for a strong nation state, law and order and the expulsion of unregistered and unemployed immigrants of whom they claim there are 7 million. Their appeal is to the most backward elements in the towns and to the peasantry – because of their commitment to state subsidies and control of the market.
The new element is, like the League, an anti-party party. Forza Italia is the creature of media boss Silvio Berlusconi, a Thatcherite capitalist who has entered politics because of the ‘Communist threat’. Forza Italia’s appeal is to those who are ‘fed up with politicians’ and state bureaucracy. Berlusconi was a member of the shadowy Masonic grouping P2, the network of businessmen and politicians which has been behind most of the corruption and right wing terrorism of the last 25 years. Despite this he claims to stand for clean government.
The alliance is a marriage of convenience, brought together to exploit the deep disillusion with the political parties and the state that is tearing Italian society apart, and sustained only by fear and hatred of the former Communist Party. It is thus completely unstable, but it has created the pretext for Italian fascism to put on a respectable face.
The threat from the right is growing. But the forces on the left are far more organised and powerful. Over the past two years the anti-Mafia/pro-reform movement has gained overwhelming support in the South and in Sicily. The traditional areas of Communist support have held solid. Key cities have moved to the left. Above all workers’ organisation is tremendously resilient. Attempts by the League and the fascists to build trade union affiliates have had no impact, in spite of the history of breakaway unions in Italy. Union calls for strike action have received massive backing from workers.
Against this background the ambitions of the PDS have soared. Systematically excluded from office, the former Communist Party now projects itself as the party of moderation and stability. In its manifesto in February the PDS promised: parliamentary reform to guarantee pluralism; devolution of power to the regions; simplification of the tax system; flexible working arrangements to tackle unemployment; privatisation of the banks; limits to the abuse of market power through financial reforms; a ‘citizen’s pact’ to reinforce family values; limits on television advertising; better use of public sector resources; independence of the judiciary; reform of the South through the creation of small enterprises.
Any talk of improving workers’ conditions has been ruled out on the grounds of the need for international competitiveness. PDS secretary Achille Ochetto has committed himself publicly to continuing the policies of the previous government, preferably under the leadership of the Christian Democrat prime minister, Ciampi. It has already prepared the ground to ditch the left for an alliance with the centre when the opportunity presents itself.
The left has considerable support – shown in the votes won by Rifondazione Communista, the grouping made up of disillusioned Communists and revolutionaries. Rifondazione has clearly attracted the support of many young workers who are fed up with the class collaboration of the PDS and angered by the rise of racism and fascism. But the organisation remains a prisoner of its origins on the left of the Communist Party. There has been little mobilisation against the fascists or any sign that those involved see the need to build an organisation based on activity inside the working class rather than electioneering. Yet that is exactly what will be required in the weeks and months ahead.
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