Italian Communist Party on the spot

ITALY'S acute political crisis has produced great strains within the Communist Party and brought to a head disputes within the leadership apparent since the early 1960s.

The latest episode is the suspension from the Party of Lucio Magri, Aldo Natoli, Luigi Pintor and Rossana Rossanda, animators of the highly-successful journal "I Manifesto', which has criticized the reformist line of the Party leadership.

The bomb outrages in Milan, probably the work of right-wing provocateurs, if not of the secret services, underlines the seriousness of the situation.

The possibility of a rightwing coup based on the army has been brought nearer. Neofascist groups have stepped up their propaganda in the past few days, taking advantage of public anxiety prompted by the bomb incidents.

This autumn • millions of workers have been brought into strike struggles, not only about the renewal of labour contracts, but also over general social and political questions. but the thinking behind the A real alternative policy potential which were expressed

Never since the pre-fascist years has Italy experienced such a deep social and political crisis, posing the question of the regime itself.

At the same time, despite the mass actions of the working class and the enormous solidarity displayed in the strikes, the Italian Communist Party and the trade unions have given no effective leadership.

This crisis of leadership has TV 11.05 He And She. 11.30 Sain a London: Nor Viewpoint:

What Was He created unprecedented discussion and debate inside the Party itself.

The appearance of "Il Manifesto' is but one symptom.

The weaknesses of the Party's perspectives over the past decade have been exposed a period which they threaten to bring disaster to the working class.

Even since Togliatti appeared at the Bari Congress ir 1944 and imposed the Moscow for the government st that line which involved time led by Mussolini's old Marshal, Bagdolio, the Party has acted as loyal opposition, playing the parliamentary game.

It has evidently been hoping, when the time was ripe, to enter into a left coalition Conprising elements of the Christian Democracy -the ruling party supported by the Vatican and big business-as well the Socialist Parties.

The eruption of the masses on to the ponucal scene, well as the obvious danger of a right-wing coup, has blown sky-high this perspective of peaceful development along the parliamentary road.

Party leaders have themselves been forced into open debate which has centred on the question of the conditions under which they would enter a government n other words, the debate proceeds in a form which is noW 1S andy out-distancedby events and therefore has an abstract quality divorcing it from the needs of the working class.

In August two articles in 'L'Unita' by Party leader Amendola under the title 'Party or Government' put the right-wing point of view Using the authority of Togliatti as his starting point he argued 'it is necessary to confront the problem of the entry of the Communists on to the government plane' as a matter of urgency.

Evidently Amendola meant that the time had come actually to enter the much-discussed left-centre coalition In other words he was urging the Party to enter into a governmental coalition with section of the our risie in the so-called 'left' the Christian-Democratic Party.

Caught as it is between the demands of the masses and the desire to preserve its old relationship with the state through parliamentary activities, the Party leadership is in an uncomfortable situation.

The position established by Amendola was corrected by Enrico Berlinguer, another Party leader, in the Chamber of Deputies on the lines that the question had been posed prematurely.

As they are still divided and risk finding themselves cut off from their worker base, the Party leaders hesitate to make a decision.

resumably they hope tha 1 some way the crisis will b overcome.

To that end they seek to speed up the conclusion new labour contracts in industry and generally to defuse the explosive situation existing in the big plants like Fiat.

In the meantime, 'Il Manifesto' expresses the view of a section of the middle leaderwhich is dissatisfied with but which does not yet dare to go further back to seek the roots of the Party's present impotence In the September ho number, under the headin With and For What?'-the reference is to the possibility of the Communist Party entering coalition government-Aldo Natoli seeks to resolve the roblem of entry on different ines to Amendola or Berlinguer.

He argues that the situation 1944-1947 all th same as in the CP in the government under the Catholic politician De Gasperi, contains different elements.

What is the character of the social crisis?' he asks. 'Not just that the government is inefficient, the urgency of satisfying the immediate and elementary needs and aspirations of the masses, but above all the fact that the masses are in movement, organized and with claims which are very advanced, and which at this moment are shaking up the whole political picture. Distant horizons, gradual changes, partial conquests are each day being made irrelevant by a clash of classes which seizes the whole of society and even the state power.' It is therefore necessary to discover whether there are in the Christian Democracy or the Socialist Party forces which really seek social changes.

Therefore, he argues:

'In order for a left alternative to gain consistency, it must single out its own political links, define its own programmatic content.' It must begin with the movement in the country, not with the possible party combinations, radicalize it and draw the different opposition forces together and build a new global strategy.

In this perspective the parliamentary arena is of secondary importance compared with the kind of regime Italy should have, which class should rule.

It must be said that Natoli is at best still groping towards a correct Marxist line.

He remains imprisoned in conceptions inherited from Togliatti, whose role he does not criticize.

He expresses the disquiet of many Italian communists as is shown by the rapid exhaustion of the large printings of the austere magazine 'Il Manifesto' soon after it is put on sale.

Still the alternative remains vague and is then only put forward after events had precipitated the working class into national struggles on an unprecedented scale.

The Italian Communist Party was clearly taken unawares by this movement.

But, as Natoli and other left critics of the leadership fail to see, it not only did not prepare for such a situation, it did its best to prevent it ever occurring.

The interview which the four suspended supporters of 'Il Manifesto' gave to the Rome weekly 'L'Expresso' for December 7, shows that they are not yet able to take up the struggle on these lines.

For example, Natoli explicitly acknowledged that they had not gone beyond the positions suggested by Togliatti and repeated in his famous Yalta testament.

Pintor, another of the same group, was clearer.

"There is no room', he said, 'for a reformist opposition to rely on this or that combination of ministers. It is a problem of power, not of governments. If one is convinced of this, one must then look in a new way at the movements of struggle and the ferments which disrupt the traditional political forces. Anyone who followed the extraordinary procession of workers which passed through the streets of Rome last Friday could not but be struck by the readiness of therapy; that the BBC 'should accept as a necessary and helpful development the ABS policy of having more branch-level participation union decisions'.

Then a final bleat urges that because of the court's observathere and the contrast with the narrow horizons of immediate material gains within which this potential had been confined for so long' Very interesting, showing, as it does, how much this intellectual opposition has been stirred by mass actions by the working class.

But it also indicates again its limitations: for who confined the workers' struggles to narrow channels if not the Communist Party and the trade unions under its control?

The half-way opposition of 'Il Manifesto' remains more of a symptom of the crisis in the Italian Communist Party than a method resolving it through the creation of a genuine revolutionary party.

Its members still speak in general terms about 'a restructuring and reunification of the left' and of the need for 'a positive strategy which will start from a realistic analysis of current society'; 'organizational formulas are not enough, and the process cannot be rushed', it says.

In some of its phraseology, in other words, it resembles 'new left' tendencies which have appeared in other countries.

It is clear that 'Il Manifesto' group does not propose to undertake the responsibility of providing an alternative leadership.

It reflects various currents in the Party branches and trade unions which are dissatisfied with the existing policy, but do not see clearly any alternative, much less one based on the formation of a The crisis of leadership in Italy therefore continues to manifest itself in an extreme form. tions and because of BBC workers' co-operation in improved efficiency, both sides should reconsider the submitted pay claims.