Q. What is your opinion of Gramsci's contribution?
A. I cannot answer such a broad question in just a few words. I would only point out that in the past Gramsci's works have been misused to create many kinds of mystification, and that this is still being done. Before de-Stalinization, it was in the PCIs interests not just to present the repellent face of Stalinist dogmatism and Zhdanovism: Gramsci was used to provide the PCI with a different image. Secondly, several of Gramsci's formulations were extrapolated and torn out of context in order to use them as a basis for the Italian road to socialism. I would like to point out here that Gramsci was not only the lucid theoretician of the Quaderni, but also the editor of Ordine Nuovo, where he defended the idea of workers councils and the theses adopted by the Congress of Lyons, which reaffirmed in no uncertain terms the socialist goals of the coming Italian revolution and the validity of the Leninist method (what is more, the Lyons Theses date, of course, from 1926, that is, several years after the Communist International adopted its theses on the united front, and at a time when a revolution in the West did not appear imminent).
If we come to the famous passage that talks about the different nature of Western society, we have to say first of all that its criticism of Trotsky for supposedly failing to understand the united-front turn advocated by Lenin, is not only unfoundedinasmuch as Trotsky, as is well known, was on Lenin's side in the fight for the united front-but puzzling as well, since Gramsci wrote this following Trotsky's great campaign for the united front, on the eve of Hitler's rise to power. Furthermore, in another passage dealing with the same subject, Gramsci recognizes Trotsky's "attempt to begin a shift in tactics" and his understanding of the fact that, in the West, making the revolution would be more difficult, but that constructing socialism after the conquest of power would be easier. At any rate, nowhere in Gramsci's writings is there a hint that he intended to revise the conception of the need for a revolutionary break with the system, the need to smash the bourgeois state apparatus.
Gramsci understood very well why this revolutionary break with the system could take place more rapidly in countries that were more backward as regards the structures of "civil society," and he wrote some excellent passages on the problem of bourgeois ideological hegemony. But there is more to the problem than just understanding how strong the bourgeoisie's defensive positions are in the Western countries and how manifold are its safety devices. What is most important is to realize that certain institutions, despite their inherently conservative function, can in certain circumstances make it possible for the working class to achieve or consolidate partial gains, and thus it becomes harder to expose these institutions for what they are. In other words, the oppressed classes will seek to utilize these institutions until they see a concrete alternative to them.
Q. Do you think that today the Italian working class still has parliamentary illusions?
A. The advanced political consciousness of the Italian working class is the result, among other things, of a special combination of twenty years' experience with a fascist dictatorship followed by thirty years of bourgeois democracy. I do not think that the majority of the workers are convinced that the transition to socialism can be achieved by parliamentary and constitutional means. They hold the established institutions in very low esteem. But they think that as long as there are going to be elections, it is necessary to take part in them and vote the right way, and that their parties should make the fullest possible use of the parliamentary arena. They would not hesitate to throw all the "constitutional" trappings overboard the instant they felt there was a concrete perspective for proletarian democracy.
But let's return to the problem I dealt with earlier. There are those who hold that advanced capitalist society is polarized between a small group of monopolists, who are the only ones who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, and everyone else, who should be for socialism. Contrary to this theory, however, there are quite extensive and substantial noncapitalist social layers, intermediate strata, who do have privileges to defend, even if these privileges may be very relative and insecure. Of course, many of those who make up these layers could be "recycled" in a transitional society, which would improve the quality of their lives, to use the phrase that is in vogue. But social layers as such will not give up the privileges they now have for the sake of some hypothetical future. In this sense as well, the notion of a gradual transition is quite utopian. The only viable perspective, as has been confirmed by many historical examples, both positive and negative, is one of a revolutionary break with the system, of a qualitative leap, of taking power by smashing the bourgeois state apparatus.
Q. You don't think that Gramsci's strategy for the struggle for power is similar to that of the PCI leadership ...
A. Far from taking Gramscism to its logical conclusion, Togliattism and Berlinguerism represent its negation. There is a rather curious document that I would like to mention in passing, namely, Berlinguer's conclusions at the last congress of the PCI. To justify the notion of the "historic compromise" within a broader context, Berlinguer recalled that, for over a century, the nation's history had been characterized by compromises between heterogeneous social forces. This is an indisputable fact. But while Gramsci had pointed out the harmful consequences of this even for the bourgeois democratic revolution, Berlinguer drew positive practical conclusions from it. What for Gramsci was a historical judgment of the events, became for Berlinguer a political strategy and, so to speak, a world view.
Fundamentally, the PCI's whole political line is based on two assumptions. The first is that, in this period, the strategic goal should not be the working class coming to power; the perspective should be that of a new stage of the "democratic and antifascist" revolution, involving collaboration with bourgeois forces, particularly the DC. In the most desirable variant, this would be a prelude to the transition to socialism. The second assumption is that major confrontations between the two fundamental classes must be avoided at all costs, because, in all probability, this would mean the end of democratic institutions (let us not forget that Berlinguer put forward the formula of the historic compromise soon after the defeat in Chile).
The implications of such ideas go much further than the PCI's public statements admit. The basic conclusion is that even such a deepgoing, widespread crisis of the system, combining with a powerful working-class upsurge and the radicalization of other social layers on a very broad basis, and coming against the background of the crisis of world imperialism, cannot create conditions for a struggle for power by the workers. The question of power is therefore put off indefinitely, for all practical purposes eliminated. This assessment is being projected further and further backward. The question arises, if what the PCI is saying nowadays is true, how could the conditions for taking power have existed in 1919-20? And yet the PCI was built at the time on the idea that the crisis of the system made it imperative to wage a revolutionary struggle for power and that the old SP was incapable of leading such a fight. Some PCI members, Amendola, for example, have not shrunk from the logical conclusions of this. They say that it was an error to think that a revolutionary situation existed in Italy in 1919-20. Others have revealed this opinion by their responses to problems of revolutionary strategy. Bruno Trentin, for example, whom some people mistakenly continue to think of as part of the left wing, was not only one of these who fought hardest to incorporate the delegate councils into the union structures; he also denied the validity of the experience of councils as an embryonic form of dual power in 1919-20. Once again, this represents the negation of Gramsci-even if, for the sake of the cause, they sometimes choose to hide behind vulgar distortions of his writings.
Q. A discussion is going on nowadays about the nature of the Communist parties. Have they turned into Social Democratic parties? The PCI, which began some turns before other CPs and carried them further, deserves special attention in this regard. It would be tempting to conclude that its "social-democratization" is already a fact.
A. I have already pointed to the striking similarity between the PCI's present positions and those of traditional Social Democracy. In the recent period this has become more pronounced. The PCI leadership not only defends bourgeois democracy, but accepts more and more ruling-class ideology, for example, in economic questions. The austerity plan was recently supported in terms that were nearly identical to those used by the government and the bosses, and some statements by PCI economists lead you to wonder if they are belated Keynesians or proponents of liberalism. The PCI, while not in the government, places itself on the same footing as regards these questions as the British Labour party. Of course, the PCI sometimes went even a bit further between 1944 and 1947. But even leaving aside the fact that the "theory" at that time still retained some more orthodox aspects, we must not forget that a deepgoing change occurred in the composition of the party's leadership and ranks. Between 1944 and 1947, most of its key cadres came out of the struggle against fascism, out of the partisan struggle, and were of proletarian or plebeian origin. Nowadays, cadres who have known nothing but bourgeois democracy, and who come from petty-bourgeois origins, play by far the predominate role. Last but not least, at the end of the war, international factors-the interests of the Soviet guide state and of the Communist movement-played by far the biggest role. No one could say the same thing nowadays. In the final analysis, the main point is this: The PCI's political line is determined by the needs of its own reformist "national" strategy, by the party's integration into bourgeois-democratic institutions (parliament, regional and local governments, etc.) and, particularly in certain regions, into the socio-economic fabric of the system. The Soviet bureaucracy has lost all chances of really influencing it. Don't forget that Berlinguer went so far as to say that if Communists participated in the government, not only would they not condemn NATO; they would even regard it as a safeguard.
Q. So the basic difference between the PCI and the Social Democratic parties has disappeared?
A. The dynamic now leads in that direction. But one difference remains: namely, the PCI still considers that the existence of the USSR and other "socialist" countries represents a historic gain and a factor that reinforces its own struggle. More concretely, in contrast to the big Social Democratic parties, the PCI has always been on the opposite side of the barricades from imperialism at times of crucial confrontations, such as the war in Vietnam.
The Crisis of the Far Left in the Aftermath of June 20
Q. At a time when the system is in a violent crisis and the mass movement is on the rise, the PCI's reformist line has been subjected to strong criticism by a number of fairly large far-left organizations. Yet, as June 20 demonstrated, these organizations do not appear as a credible alternative to the working class. Why?
A. The self-criticism that followed June 20, and that bordered on self-flagellation, should not obscure what the far left has accomplished. It has been an expression of the new social vanguard that has played an important role in working-class struggles, has dominated the student movement for years, has contributed to the radicalization of wide layers of the petty bourgeoisie, has sparked social movements (for example, around housing, prices, and so on), has initiated a series of actions in the soldiers movement, has helped get the women's liberation movement off the ground (although in this area it is now experiencing a very serious crisis), and has forced recognition of its existence in Parliament and a certain number of regional and municipal councils.
Still, at crucial moments, it has not been capable of taking advantage of the existing possibilities. I emphasize existing. I deny that the limited results actually obtained were predeter mined by objective factors, by a given relationship of forces in the working-class movement.
As I have already explained, a new working-class vanguard, with ties to the mass movement and with a capacity for influencing it and partly leading it, has appeared in Italy over the past ten years, to a greater extent than in any other country. The far left has established links with this vanguard, has influenced it, and has even, at certain times, been seen by it as an alternative in the course of certain limited struggles. But the far left has proved incapable of winning these layers to a strategic perspective and to a program for building the revolutionary party. This is why a large section of this vanguard remains in the PCI or under its influence. There has even been a tendency to return to the PCI on the part of some militants who at one time were under the influence of the far left. These elements, while not subscribing to the PCI's entire strategy, consider the party the only instrument that has the slightest viability. In addition, the far left has not even succeeded in organizing this vanguard to wage a common fight in the context of the workers' struggles. The struggles around renewal of national contracts in basic industry have political implications as a confrontation between the classes, being the rather special form in which such tests of strength take place in Italy. And they have shown several times that tremendous possibilities have been criminally wasted. In the preparatory rallies, in the various episodes of the struggle, and in final assemblies where reports on the results are presented, fairly sizable groups have appeared that oppose the outlook and methods of the union bureaucracy; in some of the big plants, these have even been in the majority. In the initial period—up until around 1972—the far left jeopardized its chances by its infantile spontanéist attitude, which made it reject or turn its back on the delegates and councils in the name of "working-class autonomy," and by its sectarian line on the unions. Il Manifesto even came up with a theory of a historical decline of the unions. Subsequently, these attitudes were gradually abandoned, but they were not replaced by clear and systematic orientations. As a result, the far left wavered between tail-ending the union bureaucrats-for example, by accepting the meaningless platforms put forward by the so-called left wing of the bureaucracy even in the preparatory stage, at most making some criticisms of limited methods—and new flare-ups of sectarian ultraleftism.
Q. Did the far left raise the question of forming a tendency in the unions? Have revolutionary Marxists done this?
A. It is precisely in this area that the weakness of the far left is most evident. In fact, many militants have done work that logically should lead to building an antibureaucratic, classstruggle tendency. But their organizations have always rejected such a perspective for different and even opposing reasons, but with the same net result. Some reject working as a tendency for fear of being "coopted," seeing the unions as a hunting groundyou have to be in them in order to promote splits through actions at specific points. Others do not want to challenge the union bureaucracy, which may be forced to tolerate criticism on the part of unorganized dissidents but which wouldn't accept tendencies being formed. This is the case, notably, of one whole wing of the PdUP [Partito d'Unità Proletaria-Party of Proletarian Unity], which does not want to risk losing the positions its members occupy in the apparatus, including at the top.
Q. Isn't your opinion of the PdUP a little sectarian?
A. I do not mean to lump all the unionists in the PdUP together. But I could cite examples of members of this party giving reports in plant assemblies, in the name of the bureaucratic leaderships, or supporting bureaucratic expulsions of revolutionists, including our own comrades. This happened in Taranto, for example, and these expulsions were later retracted under pressure from the rank and file. An even better example is the tragicomic incident that took place at the Alfa Romeo plant in Milan. Upon breaking into the director's office, the workers found Lettieri, a leader of the metalworkers and a member of the PdUP "left wing," in the men's room in the company of other bureaucrats. These unlucky individuals were hiding because they were in the process of negotiating behind the backs of the workers.
Q. Have there been any instances of union tendencies?
A. As a matter of fact, a kind of tendency was formed in the precongress discussion in the teachers and technical staff union in the CGIL [Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro- Italian General Confederation of Labor]. The far left rallied behind a motion put forward by a member of the outgoing steering committee, who was close to Avanguardia Operaia [AO- Workers Vanguard]. However, not wishing to acknowledge the
"bloc" instead of real situation, the far left used the term "tendency." What is even worse is that when the struggle began to heat up after an attack by the bureaucrats, the PdUP members crossed over to the other side of the barricades, and the AO members began to retreat. In the end they decided against presenting the motion to the provincial congress, even in their stronghold of Milan. Only our comrades, some of the Lotta Continua members, and some independents waged a consistent fight. And yet, in the union in question, about 20 percent of the membership is under the influence of the far left.
Q. Did our comrades also make the mistake of putting the emphasis on actions and groups outside the unions, with a perspective of bypassing the workers movement as it is now constituted?
A. It is possible that at times we have made errors of this sort, and haven't fully taken advantage of the possibilities for working to build a tendency in the unions. But for us, building such a tendency remains a central goal, and in the last analysis our whole activity in the struggle around the contracts was aimed in that direction. It should be made clear that the "Coordinamenti"
[Coordinating Committees], which arose on several occasions in several big plants and in some cities, and to which we made a real contribution, were and still are seen by us as tools for organizing the vanguard, as a first step toward organizing and mobilizing this vanguard in mass struggles, in the councils, and in the union organizations-and not as an alternative structure to the councils and unions. We have proceeded in this spirit since 1969, when there were only a few of us to do this work, and when we were totally isolated.
Having said this much, it would be wrong to take an overly "institutionalist" view of our intervention in the mass movement. Given the politics of the union leaderships, it is not only legitimate, but absolutely necessary to undertake actions outside the "organizational" framework of the unions, providing, of course, that we don't lose sight of the overall framework maintain the perspective of unity in a recomposition [restructuring] at a higher level as soon as possible. There are three examples of this. The first one should be familiar to everyone. From the spring of 1969 to the end of July, the goals of equal pay raises for all and a forty-hour week, the central demands of the great struggles of the previous fall, were fought for in opposition to the union bureaucrats on every level and of every stripe, and even outside the structure of the unions, by workers who as often as not were not in the union, and by rank-and-file committees of a heterogeneous and transitory character. As for us, we tried to carry this fight on within the union structures as well. I myself, as a delegate from a small union, participated in the provincial congress of Rome unions, and became the target of particularly vicious attacks from the bureaucrats when I raised the slogan of equal pay raises for all and pointed out it was inevitable that the movement would overflow the union channels in various forms. In any case, it was these "extrainstitutional" initiatives that gave impetus to a mass mobilization with very far-reaching goals, and finally forced the bureaucrats to make a turn, and try to ride the
The second example is much more recent. In the first half of October, in the face of the inertia on the part of the union apparatuses, some worker militants, shop stewards and so forth, took initiatives to fight the Andreotti government's austerity measures in several plants, such as Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Italsider. The movement did not succeed in sweeping the country, but it had a certain impact, forcing some of the union leaders to make readjustments, even if they did so hesitantly. In any case, without this response, the government would have been able to move ahead much more aggressively and with greater success. A major defeat for the working class would have taken place.
The third example concerns the vanguard militants fired on various pretexts by Alfa Romeo and by OM in Milan. At first, the union bureaucrats had given the go-ahead to the bosses on the grounds that these militants were "ultraleft adventurists." But initiatives were taken outside the official structures by "Coordinamenti" or by activists and political groups. The repercussions inside the plants were such that even some of the bureaucrats and "conservative" delegates retreated and were forced to defend the victims of the firings, who were finally reinstated.
Q. Let's return to the far left. How would you explain the attitude you criticized, the inability to project a credible alternative?
A. The far left has mainly suffered from social deformation, so to speak. Its character was largely determined by the fact that it grew out of, or gained mass influence in, the student movement and among petty-bourgeois layers. For an entire period the far left reflected the radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie much more than a process of politicization and radicalization in the working class. To the extent that the far left has carved out a base in the working class, it has tended to attract workers who are rebels, capable of playing a role in spontaneous or semispontaneous explosions, rather than revolutionary workers capable of organizing the class and carrying out work over a long term.
On the theoretical and political level, the far left has been influenced by Maoism, particularly on such questions as the transition to socialism, the character of the world political situation, and the conception of the relationship between political organizations and mass movements. It has ignored and continues to ignore the central problem of the notion of bureaucracy; on the basis of its own interpretation of Maoism in the Cultural
Revolution (similar to Bettelheim, at best), the far left has in fact watered down the basic criteria of the materialist method of Marxism and Leninism. To give Sofri his due, he described this tendency most clearly at the last congress of Lotta Continua [LC-The Struggle Continues], where he pointed out "Maoism's overwhelmingly subjective character, which is not only the antithesis of Stalinist economism, but is also far removed from the objective realism of the Leninist theory of crisis and revolution." To all the fundamental questions-the relationship between the vanguard and the masses, the role of the unions and soviets, etc.—the far left has given only vague, if not outright incorrect answers, at best permeated with empiricism and impressionism. In practice, the far left groups have alternated between immersing themselves in the "movement," which is seen as the highest expression of "working-class autonomy," manipulative methods, which have greatly facilitated the decline of the student movement, for example, as well as helping along the PCI's growth in this arena.
Q. What strategy is being worked out by Italian revolutionary Marxists at the present stage? What are their political projections, as they say in Italy?
A. At the risk of being called archaio-Leninists, we remain convinced that a revolutionary strategy, that is, a program of struggle with an anticapitalist dynamic that leads to posing the question of power, cannot be projected without employing categories like "revolutionary crisis," "dual power," "taking power through a revolutionary qualitative leap," which are basic to the Marxist and Leninist conception of revolution. The Fourth International's position on these questions was clearly spelled out in the Tenth World Congress resolution on Europe, which incorporated the collective thought and experience of our movement. The draft resolution for the next world congress complements this resolution in some respects. The main points of our position were reiterated in the interview with Ernest Mandel published in Critique Communiste; I won't go into it. I will only say that the Leninist and Trotskyist strategy, involving a struggle to build soviet-type organs of proletarian democracy that are based on democratic centralism and closely linked to the workers' movement, is far from being a schema, good only for the colonial and neocolonial countries. It is even more imperative in
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the more developed countries. In developed countries, it is necessary to operate more on the level of "civil society" as a whole-to recall Gramsci's phrase-that is, to mobilize substantial and heterogeneous social forces as a whole. It is necessary to insure that, right from the beginning, there are organs capable of fulfilling the functions that in capitalist society are carried out by a range of institutions and structures, which are the product of a long historical process. I would add in a country where the working class and other exploited or noncapitalist social forcessuch as poor peasants, the new middle classes, and so on— represent two-thirds or more of the active population, and where the working class has reached a high level of social cohesiveness and political maturity, and a cultural level incomparably higher than that of the Russian workers in 1917, the conditions are much more promising for putting into practice a "model" of transitional society that in Russia was attempted only during the crucial months of the revolutionary crisis and, to some extent, for a few years thereafter. In the case of Italy in particular, it is significant, for instance, that the periods of the most advanced struggles and the most advanced political consciousness have been marked by the emergence of workers councils, which could evolve toward soviets.
In conclusion, I would say that it is precisely because of its peculiar features that Italy is a typical example. This is because these peculiar features have the effect of making the social contradictions more explosive, the economic bottlenecks more constricting, and escalating to dramatic levels the tension between what has been ripening in "civil society" and the ossified political and ideological superstructures. These peculiar features made it possible for the working class to play its role in a more systematic way and with greater power, since because of them the Italian proletariat is more homogeneous and has a longer tradition of political radicalization through broader and more sustained mobilizations. Moreover, movements of other social forces were able to develop on a larger scale, with a dynamic tending to tear apart the system. This is precisely why the underlying contradictions of capitalism, the potentialities of the forces antagonistic to this system, and even some preliminary indications of the forms of transition from capitalism to socialism, have emerged here more than they have elsewhere, more distinctly than they have elsewhere.
[To be continued]
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