(The following article is scheduled to appear in the May 20 issue of Bandiera Rossa, the organ of the Italian section of the Fourth International. The translation by is Intercontinental Press.]
From the standpoint of the workers' movement, the May 7 elections had two decisively negative results. First, the Christian Democrats, who have made a clear shift to the right, essentially maintained their positions and are thus more susceptible than ever to right-wing pressures. Secondly, the MSI [Movimento Sociale Italiano - Italian Social Movement, the neofascists] had a notable success in consolidating its base and will be better able to serve as an instrument of pressure in the parliamentary and governmental spheres, as well as to promote acts of intimidation in the classic fascist style. If we underestimated these developments, our analysis would be distorted, with all the political and tactical errors this would involve.
In parliamentary terms, the class enemy can take comfort in the fact that although its credibility has been deeply eroded and it is bankrupt in practice, the center-left has retained a majority. At the same time, the possibility still exists for a center government, although with less room to maneuver. The climate for a center coalition, of course, is more favorable now in several respects than it was in the previous legislature. As has already been disclosed, this result was facilitated by an electoral law which placed serious restrictions on proportional representation and in practice deprived more than a million left-wing voters of a voice in parliament.
In making a general assessment of the election results, however, we cannot overlook the factors that have different if not directly opposite implications. In the first place, we must not forget for an instant that while electoral laws can give a distorted impression of political relationships, they cannot eliminate forces existing in reality from the political struggle. This goes for the million "second-class citizens" already mentioned. But it goes even more for the youth between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one who did not vote but who will continue to exercise a weight in social struggles just as they have often decisively done in the last four years. Nor should the fact be underestimated that certain strata of workers who continue to support the bourgeois parties in the electoral field support antimanagement positions in factory and union conflicts, fighting alongside the politically more mature workers.
But even if we just look at the election results themselves, the workingclass bloc as a whole remained essentially intact. Moreover, the PCI [Partito Comunista Italiano- Italian Communist partyl, which in the eyes of the broad masses still seemed the strongest weapon for defending their interests, even scored a modest gain. This, in fact, shows the basic limitation of the success achieved by the conservative forces. The elections definitively confirmed the failure of the decade-old operation of the center-left, one of whose main objectives was to erode the base of the Communist party.
It seems, moreover, that the most responsible leading groups of the bourgeoisie, whose favorite political vehicle is the Christian Democratic party, were aiming to push the PCI back, block the advance of the MSI, and strengthen the center. It seems clear that they have few reasons for rejoicing, especially since it was the potential allies of the Christian Democrats, the Liberal party, that suffered the greatest losses, while the PSI [Partito Socialista
Italiano - Italian
Socialist party] stood the test better. The fact is that the political equilibrium remains uncertain and precarious just as it was before the elections and restabilization is not in sight. (It was not unimportant that the two biggest organs of the industrial bourgeoisie, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa, entitled their editorials on May 10 "Time is Running Out" and "The Last Adjournment".) For the time being the bourgeosie's crisis of leadership has in no way been resolved.
This means that the period ahead of us will remain one of acute social and political conflicts. The bargaining that takes place when the contracts of the major categories of workers come up for renewal can and must be the occasion of important struggles.
The poor results achieved by the Manifesto list are undoubtedly the most negative aspect of the elections from the standpoint of the revolutionary left. It is logical that this has had the most serious impact on those who harbored illusions, expecting results that could never have been achieved or exaggerating the facts about the mobilizations carried out during the electoral campaign.
One of the reasons for the modest results achieved by Manifesto must certainly be seen in the atmosphere created by the propaganda campaigns orchestrated around the notable epi- May 29, 1972
sodes of recent months.* In the last analysis, this provoked a reaction among sectors of the working class and the radicalized petty bourgeoisie which were open to the arguments and the initiatives of the far left. They reacted in a defensive way, rallying around the workers' party which seemed to offer the best guarantees of holding the line. This factor was to weigh all the more heavily in the balance insofar as Manifesto lacked the time to carry out all the preparatory work that such an ambitious project would require.
But over and above these objective conditions, genuine political errors played a role. Most of all, Manifesto is paying the price for the way it went about launching its project, without making any serious attempt to find common ground with at least some of the most substantial forces of the revolutionary left. Instead, it chose to center attention on its own specific organization (and what is worse, this is an organization that is still in the process of formation and that lacks any clearly defined theoretical or political basis.)
During the campaign there was no lack of sectarian manifestations, especially at the local level, and these contradicted Manifesto's attempt to project itself as an alternative for the whole anticapitalist and antireformist spectrum. All sorts of petty obstacles were put in the way of collaborating with other forces. Even the Vietnam demonstrations were accompanied by incipient attempts to try to exclude some forces. Finally, the inexperience of Manifesto's speakers made dialogue with broader strata difficult if not impossible. The excessive use of the "in" language of the far left alone would have prevented reaching out to broader layers.
It would be wrong, however, to draw the conclusion that the attempt failed completely and that it would have been better not to try it. The results themselves, as modest as they were, show that not insignificant forces look to the far left for leadership, even in the electoral field and at a particularly difficult time. Nothing of the sort has been seen before in Italy or in other West European countries, except for the Krivine candidacy in as well as repressive moves by the regime. - IP
France in 1969. And there better results were achieved because the Ligue Communiste has a stronger organization than Manifesto and because the project had a greater political coherence. The fact remains, and it is not an unimportant one, that an electoral campaign was conducted, and achieved some unquestionable successes in mobilizing people, on the basis of a platform that broke with reformist practices and reestablished a link with communist traditions of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by bourgeois democracy without encouraging electoralist or parliamentary illusions.
It would also be wrong to interpret the vote for the Communist party as meaning that this organization has maintained or reconfirmed the support of broad sectors of the masses because they place their full trust in the party or really support the options and methods of the leading groups. Without indulging in any fantasies such as Lotta Continua's interpretations of Belinguer's meetings, I think it is safe to say that just because they voted for the PCI does not mean that these people did not feel perplexity, uncertainty, or critical reservations. Moreover, rallying around the party out of a defensive reaction does not automatically imply that you have any faith in it. The objective contradiction between the strength the PCI holds and the basic sterility of its political line, the contradiction between the interests of the party bureaucracy and the interests and the aspirations of the masses was not eliminated by the PCI's winning 9,000,000 votes. In a context of persistent social and political tensions, these contradictions will inevitably tend to be reflected in frictions, conflicts, and open clashes at the most diverse levels. This process will be facilitated, however, only insofar as the revolutionary left succeeds in avoiding sterile schematism in its analyses and blind sectarianism in practice, as well as firmly rejecting all adventurist temptations.
Over and above all this, the May 7 elections showed that we still face a long, hard job in building the revolutionary party, and people who hope to find any easy shortcuts are seriously deluding themselves. Progress in this work depends on a number of factors. We must have constant theoretical and political debate. No position can be arbitrarily excluded from discussion and real views must be discussed and not caricatures. In particular, there must be a repudiation of the method of resorting to slanderous misrepresentations and falsification -not infrequently mixed with petty gossip-which is the price no few groups are paying for their inability to break from Stalinism. Success in this work, it need hardly be added, depends on how effectively the revolutionary left, within the limits of its forces, can exercise a real influence in the struggles and political campaigns of the phase that is now opening. So, we repeat the proposal that we made immediately after the elections in a communiqué from our national secretariat, which was also published in Manifesto.
"The Fourth International thinks that the entire revolutionary left should devote a period of time to reflecting critically on the meaning of the May 7 elections. As soon as possible and setting aside all sectarian barriers, we must discuss the possibilities for common actions on the following themes: The fight for new contracts in industry, the campaign against the Fascist threat, the campaign for the release of Valpreda and all the political prisoners, mobilization against the crimes of imperialism in Vietnam."
attempt to suspend or expel Tudawe from the party. Instead, a motion merely to "censure" him at an "inner party level" was passed. This motion was introduced by Keuneman, who is the party's secretary-general as well as its sole full minister in the government.
The Keuneman faction appears to be ruling the party roost, at least until Wickremasinghe returns. Itis opposing demands of "hardliners" that the CP formally withdraw from the governing coalition.
Notes
* There have been a number of fascist provocations recently in Italy,