[The following article appeared in the June 30 issue of Bandiera Rossa, the fortnightly newspaper of the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist Groups, the Italian section of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The question whether the Italian bourgeoisie could hope to find a solution to its crisis of leadership and lay the bases for a restabilization was answered by the June 15 elections with a more resounding "no" than anyone expected. Far from recovering from the blow it received in the divorce referendum, the Christian Democracy has suffered a still harder one. It retains only a thin plurality and has now been passed by the Communist party in almost all the larger cities, in all the more dynamic sections of the country.
If the drop in its percentage of the vote did not reach absolutely catastrophic proportions, this was because the Christian Democrats managed to partially make up for their losses by winning votes from the right. But now there is no further room for maneuver in this direction. The Partido Liberale [Liberal party, the classical right] has been pruned back to its roots, and the MSI [Movimento Sociale Italiano-Italian Social Movement] and nationalist right bloc has been cut down to size. Altogether, the right accounts for less than 10 percent of the vote.
June 15 marked the most radical shift in the relationship of forces since the establishment of the republic. It has shown that, far from ebbing, the great processes that have taken place in the country during the last seven years have reached a higher level of ripeness and are now reflected clearly even in the distorting mirror of bourgeois elections.
This vote has confirmed that the working class retains its combative spirit and remains determined to exert its increased specific social weight, that the radicalization among the petty bourgeoisie is continuing to spread, and that significant movements are taking form even among the traditionally most backward peasant strata. The appearance at the polls for the first time of the generation that has come of age in the crisis probably accentuated these results, but this was not the principal cause of the shift in the relationship of forces.
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CP LEADER BERLINGUER: Still waiting for partner for "historic compromise."
strong bourgeois government, the persistent combativity in these last months and the political ripening of the working class and other exploited strata of the working people created the preconditions for June 15. This election marked the stunning collapse of the attempt initiated two years ago when Fanfani returned to the leadership of the Christian Democrats and undertook the latest in the innumerable versions of the Center-Left.
Fanfani deluded himself and may have deluded some groups in the ruling class about the possibility of reinforcing his position through an aggressive electoral campaign. A success would have enabled him to advance with greater consistency and authority the policy that he outlined in the past year. From the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, it was a policy that produced indisputable results (imposition of the economic policy pushed by the Bank of Italy, the launching of the Reale bill, the relative success of the delegated decrees). But these were partial successes, completely insufficient to restabilize the situation and consolidate a new leadership.
June 15 swept away any such illusions, and now the bourgeoisie and those political groups that most represent it find themselves in a vastly more difficult situation, marked by a further shift in the relationship of forces in favor of the working class.
There is scarcely any need to point out the importance of the fact that all the left parties and groups taking part in the elections contributed to this result. While the PCI [Partito Comunista Italiano-Italian Communist party] was by far the greatest beneficiary of the massive shift to the left, the PSI [Partito Socialista Italiano-Italian Socialist party] also showed a notable advance, and the scores of the far left-Democrazio Proletaria and similar slates-were by no means insignificant, especially in the important political centers (the case of Milan needs no explanation).
As quickly became clear from the comment in the most representative newspapers and magazines, even before the various leaders had taken positions, the bourgeoisie found itself facing difficulties considerably graver than at any time in the last thirty years. In the present state of things, no one can see how these contradictions can be overcome.
The principal contradiction lies in the fact that the most influential groups in the ruling class are convinced that the Christian Democracy is a worn-out instrument. They see the disadvantages increasing as the results decline. The Christian Democracy appears less and less able to maintain or regain the hegemony over broad strata of the masses that it achieved following the war. But at the same time, they cannot fail to see that no other instrument exists that has the slightest credibility and that there is no perspective for the situation changing radically in the short term.
On the other hand, the editorial writers for the big papers-from il Messaggero to Corriere della Sera-have been quick to talk about the need for "change" and "renewal." But when they have to go beyond bromides and take concrete positions, give specific indications, then they become totally vacuous, or reach the brilliant conclusion that there is no other alternative than the Center-Left.
A situation in which the dominant party of the ruling class is in such a profound crisis and no real alternatives are shaping up can lead to a crisis of the system. However, the relationship of forces and tendencies in play in this phase prevent the bourgeoisie from making a fundamental change in its methods of rule.
Of course, there will be more right-wing extremist tendencies than ever, more putschists, terrorist conspirators, and more organizers of goon squads against the workers and students. But the possibility that substantial sectors of the ruling class may choose the perilous road of putsches and attempts to establish dictatorships can be excluded. Such moves would be all too likely to end in pitiful failures and in a further disintegration of the apparatuses of the system. Or if they were more serious they could unleash a civil war with enormous repercussions for all of capitalist Europe.
So, it is likely that after all the moaning and groaning about short-lived maneuvers and minimaneuvers, after all the denunciations of the policy pursued hitherto and how disastrous these methods were, the same old shows will be staged for the nth time. The status quo will be prolonged by the force of inertia, with a danger that the situation may sour completely. On the other hand, it does not seem likely that the bourgeoisie will translate all these calls for change into action by taking the only concrete option it has left, that is, accepting the reformist proposal of a historic compromise.
From a general objective standpoint,
June 15 could bring about a ripening of the conditions for the historic compromise, given the sharpening political crisis, the absence of credible alternatives, and the increased weight of the PCI. But to judge from the indications that have appeared in the first days after the elections, no section of the bourgeoisie is ready to cross the Rubicon.
The diminished Christian Democracy will be still more restricted by its right-wing electoral base and by the need to defend the vested interests from which it draws its strength fundamentally. Moreover, in the context of the radicalization and politicization that led to the June 15 results and were accelerated by them, the great fear of the Christian Democrats and the bourgeoisie is that even the historic compromise will prove unable to hold back and canalize the mass movements. To the contrary, this turn could open still wider breaches in the system's political structures. It could aggravate the social imbalances and make them explosive.
Thus, more than in any other period since the start of the great crisis in 1968, the bourgeoisie finds itself in a vicious circle. It realizes that grand initiatives and radical turns are called for. But it is incapable of making such moves, not because of any lack of understanding of the need, but because of the risks involved, which are by no means imaginary. Their dilemma does not spring from subjective failings; it is an intrinsic, objective one.
Having emerged strengthened from the electoral test, the workers movement must not let its enemy get the truce required to reorganize. The workers movement must keep on the heels of the class enemy with its struggles. It must not operate within the framework of reformist reasoning, which in the last analysis is illusory, but adopt the perspective of mobilizations with an anticapitalist dynamic. It must struggle not only to bury the Center-Left. It must reject all solutions that involve new forms of collaboration with the ruling class, such as the historic compromise. It must offer a general, anticapitalist alternative. Its fundamental perspective must be for a workers government capable of imposing a working-class solution to the crisis that has originated in the growing contradictions of capitalist society.