[The following article by a member of the Political Bureau of the Italian section of the Fourth International appeared in the June 4 issue of the French Trotskyist daily Rouge. It was the sixth article in a series on the "Italian far left and the elections," and gives the position of the Italian Trotskyists. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Slogans for a government of the workers parties, the nationalization of Fiat and other big industrial combines under workers control, and for breaking Italy's ties imperialism. It would rest on the tradeunion organizations and all organs that have been or may be created by the mass movement.
The revolutionists reject the gradualist strategy of the reformist organizations. They do not confuse a government of the workers parties that could be formed within the framework of the existing institutions with the seizure of power by the proletariat. But in the present Italian context, in the framework of the crisis that is throwing the country into turmoil at all levels, a government of the workers parties, even resulting from an electoral victory, could set in motion a dynamic leading to the conquest of power.
The PCI and the PSI never tire of repeating that they represent the majority of the working class and the toiling masses. This is more or less of an argument directed against the far left. All right, if the June 20 elections confirm this claim, if the PCI and the PSI do enjoy the confidence of the broad masses, the far left will not ignore this. It will call on Berlinguer and De Martino [the PSI head] to assume their responsibilities. Instead of tail-ending the Christian Democrats, the PRI, and the Liberals [PLI], instead of getting entangled in more or less "historic" compromises, they should assume the political leadership of the country, form a new government.
Revolutionists will not participate in such a government. They cannot take the responsibility for a gradualist strategy, which they believe is not suited to the revolutionary aims of the working class. But without any sectarianism or sterile dogmatism, they will support all the anticapitalist measures carried out by a government of the traditional workers parties, as well as all its actions that are in the interests of the masses.
That is the meaning of our slogans:
Oust the Christian Democrat regime!
For a PCI-PSI government!
Vote Proletarian Democracy!
with NATO are the central axes of the program the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari are presenting in the campaign leading up to the June 20 elections. From the beginning, the CR declared their support for a common slate of the nonreformist left forces. They therefore responded favorably to the agreement among the various forces around the Democrazia Proletaria [DP- Proletarian Democracy] ticket. At the same time, they have not glossed over the limitations of this agreement. The first drawback is the absence of a common programmatic basis for the campaign. Secondarily, there have been problems
Chances for the Revolutionary Left Chances for the Revolutionary Left about the criteria for assigning candidates on the various lists.
However, despite these limitations, which have given rise to an additional drawback (the DP campaign is actually a convergence of several campaigns: the one conducted jointly by Avanguardia Operaia and the PUP, the one conducted by Lotta Continua, the campaign of the Workers Movement for Socialism [ml], and so on), the main result is that there is a common slate, despite all efforts and pressures brought to bear by the reformists (headed by the CP) to prevent it.
The fact that following June 20, there will be a group of nonreformist deputies in parliament will present the forces to the left of the CP with the problem of how to use this forum, what the relationship should be between parliamentary activity and work in the mass movement, what kind of relations they should have with the reformist parties, and so on. There are a whole series of problems that cannot be solved overnight.
The question of program will then be the central one in a vast debate that will encompass the entire revolutionary left and may extend to broader sectors of the workers movement. The problem of the fragmentation of the nonreformist left will also be posed more acutely. This involves three large centrist groupings, a few middle-sized organizations, and a myriad of local groups (called "autonomous formations"). The strong rank-and-file movement that forced the PUP to accept a common agreement has already made known its feelings on this point, demanding adoption of a perspective of unifying all these forces into a revolutionary party. This debate will start again after June 20.
In expectation of this, the PUP is speeding up the process of its organization-
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al unification with Avanguardia Operaia. But a more far-reaching initiative has been taken by a representative of the leadership of Lotta Continua, Lisa Foa. She called for a "constituent assembly for a revolutionary party." This proposal can have a great impact and block the maneuvers of the right wing of PdUP, whose fundamental aim is to form a party to put pressure on the CP, not very different from the PSIUP* in the 1960s.
Lisa Foa's proposal offers a perspective of unity that corresponds to the demands and expectations of tens of thousands of activists. It is obviously an interesting one. An overall discussion of the program of a revolutionary party would have to take up the question of what strategy to follow in Italy in the coming years, what tactics to use against the reformists, the problem of internal democracy in the revolutionary party, the conception of the relationship between the vanguard and the masses, the question of the transition to socialism, and the international ties of the organization to come out of this discussion.
Such a discussion not only would involve the members of these organizations but would be carried out on a mass level, in various committees (in the schools and the factories, in the neighborhoods and the barracks). This could have an impact greater than anything that could be done before. So, the GCR has to define now what the fundamental issues are in this debate. These include the question of the
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Name workers government, of nationalizations (the need for this is more understandable now, since it is related to the problem of unemployment and hence to workers control and reduction of the workweek with no cut in pay, and of the abrogation of all political and military pacts linking the country with world imperialism. Around these central points we can tie together immediate demands and the defense of democratic freedoms.
The point most debated will probably be the one of the transition to socialism, that is, the relationship between the revolutionists and the CP-SP government and between the bourgeois institutions and the working class's organs of selforganization. This question has more to do with the aftermath of the elections, but clarification of these points is necessary right away, since it is on these issues that the most confusion exists in the nonreformist left. The illusion that some kind of people's power can arise and develop despite the survival of the bourgeois state is expressed most clearly by the PaUP. which proposes this as a mode of transition to socialism. But this notion is also present in a different guise in the formulations of Lotta Continua and Avanguardia Operaia.
The debate on program will thus assume a central role in the postelectoral phase. As of now, this debate has not gotten very far, and this lag could result in a modest vote for Proletarian Democracy on June 20. But this debate must be kept from being sidetracked onto issues that while important are secondary or sectoral problems. This is why the GCR think that the questions of the workers government, nationalizations, and withdrawal from NATO should be at the center of the discussion.
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Notes
* Partito Socialista Italiano d'Unità Proletaria (Italian Socialist party of Proletarian Unity), a split-off from the SP that developed when it broke its traditional alliance with the CP in 1964 and entered the center-left governmental coalition with the Christian Democrats. Most of this group were eventually absorbed into the CP.—IP