Socialist Action /September 2001
International editor Gerry Foley reports
from Rome:
Italy poised for renewed political struggle
in aftermath of Genoa
By GERRY FOLEY
ROME-Throughout the month of August, Italian politics
remained polarized by the mass demonstration in Genoa against the summit
of the G8, the club of the industrialized countries, and the issue of police
attacks on the actions.
On Aug. 20, a march through Genoa commemorated
the death of Carlo Giuliani, a young demonstrator shot down at point-blank
range by a cop. The police attacks provoked mass protest demonstrations
in most Italian cities.
Since the dramatic events of July, political debate
has also focused on whether or not the government would go ahead to host
international conferences in major Italian cities, the Food and Agriculture
Organization summit, originally scheduled for Rome, and the NATO summit,
scheduled for Naples.
By the end of August, it appeared that the Italian
government would go ahead with the meetings in Italy but try to get them
removed to some remote location rather than a major city.
The fact that many of the demonstrators mishandled
by the police came from other European countries and the United States put
an international spotlight on the outrages of the police. Italy's new right-wing
government, headed by pirate capitalist Silvio Berlusconi, was forced to
remove three of the top police officials involved. But the bourgeois parties
and press, as well as the police associations, have continued a campaign
to try to put the blame for the violence on the demonstrators.
In central Rome in late August tables were in evidence
where representatives of police associations were collecting signatures
"to defend the forces of order."
The card the police and the government are using
for their campaign is the presence among the demonstrators of a small group,
500 to a thousand out of hundreds of thousands, of ultraleft anarchists,
the Tute Nere (Black Overalls), or "Black Bloc" (usually cited
in English). In fact, some observers have offered evidence of direct manipulation
of the Tute Nere by the police.
A far larger group, but also a relatively small
minority of the demonstrators, were the Tute Bianche (White Overalls), who
were nonviolent but advocates of civil disobedience.
Social Democrats continue rightward spin
The government and the right are trying to use
the issue of violence by the demonstrators to force the rightward-moving
majority of the old Communist Party, now called the Social Democrats (DS),
still further to the right.
The DS claims to support the protests against globalization
but to oppose violence. Actually, the DS had control of the government up
until the Italian general elections of a few months ago and bears direct
responsibility for Italy's collaboration with the imperialist financial
institutions and the worldwide capitalist offensive. The government obviously
hopes to use the opportunism of the DS to turn it in practice against the
protest movement.
The DS leaders have shown a notably accommodating
attitude to the general capitalist offensive announced at the end of August
by the Berlusconi government of wage cuts, easier layoffs, and "flexibilization"
of working hours. They stress that they do not have a "knee-jerk"
opposition to measures that hurt workers, and that they "understand"
the needs of the capitalists.
The DS is facing a national congress in which there
are divisions within the party but no real left wing. The differences seem
to be mainly tactical, concerning how to evaluate the record of the former
DS government.
For his part, the former premier, Massimo d'Alema,
is stressing that he is one of those who thinks that when it was in power
the party was not too reformist but rather not reformist enough.
Thus, the left opposition to the government is
focusing around the antiglobalization protests and the only political party
associated with them, Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation), which
grew out of the wing of the old Communist Party opposed to Eurocommunism.
Most of the die-hard Stalinist wing of Communist
Refoundation recently left the party, along with the party's former main
leader, Cossuta. Those who walked out wanted to support the DS majority
in parliament "from the outside." This de facto coalition policy
was successfully opposed by the left wing, in which Italian supporters of
the Fourth International played an important role.
The Cossuta group is waning and appears to be moving
toward reintegration into the main post-Stalinist grouping, the DS.
But there is still a significant layer of neo-Stalinists
in the Rifondazione, apparently reflected in the line on the Balkan conflict
expressed in the party's daily newspaper, Liberazione., which generally
supports the nationalism of the Slavic oppressor nationality in Macedonia.
Thus, the party has not yet been stabilized as
a left alternative and will face important debates in its fall congress.
Rifondazione got more than 5 percent in the last
Italian general elections and maintained its presence in both houses of
parliament. Its newspaper sells about 20,000 copies, in comparison with
about 30,000 for the new version of l'Unità, the DS paper.
The conditions for building a left political alternative
in Italy seem to be relatively good, especially because of the mass antiglobalization
protests. The success of the movement in the streets has staved off the
demoralization that might have followed the victory of the right in the
general election and put the focus on militant direct action rather than
parliamentary games.
In the present circumstances, Rifondazione is in
a unique position to gain from that and to become the political expression
of the militant opposition. But for that reason also there will be considerable
political pressures on the party, and its ability to lead the opposition
effectively will depend on the outcome of the upcoming debates.
If the party is unable to adopt a consistent revolutionary
line, it may be torn apart by political contradictions.
Along with France, Italy has now become the political
cockpit of Europe, where struggles are in the offing that can be decisive
for the European working class.
Instability in Berlusconi's government
The new right-wing government is a mixture of unstable
elements that brought down Berlusconi's last attempt to administer the country
a few years ago. It includes the League of the North, which favors separation
of the prosperous northern part of the country from the backward south,
going from autonomy to actual independence. It also includes forces that
have come from the neofascist right.
The right-wing elements are concentrating on a
campaign in defense of police repression. Within the present political climate
also, there are indications of new terrorist bombing campaigns by fascists.
Berlusconi himself is trying to develop a sort
of populist capitalism, trying to compensate for the attacks on wages, conditions,
and social spending by offering an ambitious program of public works that
promises more jobs and more development of the poorer regions. That is in
the tradition of Italian capitalism, where state corporations were the locomotive
of capitalist development but eventually became quicksands of corruption
and waste.
In August, one of the political issues in Italy
was statements by a government minister admitting that an intertwining between
capital and the Mafia was inevitable.
The pace of Italian politics is accelerating with
the end of the vacation season that followed the Genoa demonstrations. The
next few months may be a decisive test of the new situation.
Socialist Action /September 2001 |