[Livio Maitan, a leader of the Fourth International, presented a contribution on the recently published intermediate-range program of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) to a seminar in Turin, held September 3-5. Major excerpts from his presentation were published in the October 1 issue of Bandiera Rossa, twice-monthly newspaper of the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist Groups), the Italian section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
An intermediate-range economic program undoubtedly fills a need in this period. It is clear to everyone that the Italian economy cannot get out of the profound crisis it is in today simply by means of short-term measures, or through emergency steps such as international loans or credit.
Moreover, the real effect even of the short-term measures can only be seen in broader perspective. The leadership of the PCI perceives this problem all the more acutely because in the past year they have found themselves supporting, directly or indirectly-or at least not opposing—a series of measures of the Andreotti government that produced certain results, but which did not exactly correspond to the promises that the PCI made during the 1976 election campaign and which still play a central role in its propaganda and agitation.
The rate of inflation has been reduced. The deficit in the balance of payments has been kept down. Obligations to foreign creditors have been met. Productivity is up, as are hours of work. Some important industrial sectors have begun to come out of this slump. Wage increases have slowed down. And, overall, the income of working people has decreased in terms of actual buying power. Even this brief summation of the results shows how the bourgeoisie has managed, thanks to the skill of the bosses and the slick maneuvers of the Andreotti government, to shift much more of the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of working people than they were able to do in the preceding years.
What does not appear in this list of accomplishments is the projected recovery in industrial production. It had been expected that even if there was not a revival in all sectors that there would be a widespread enough upturn to make a difference. Moreover, investment remains sluggish.
The continued lack of any perspective for a thoroughgoing industrialization of the South is symbolized by the Gioia Tauro affair, in which a huge steel complex was condemned to death before it ever saw the light of day. And the crisis of the public sector, which has hit a range of big projects going from Italsider's steel-making "colossus" to Unidal's food-processing "colossus, has certainly done nothing to inspire confidence in the projections that call for this sector playing a leading role in a revival and restructuring of the economy.
The most dramatic aspects of a situation of impasse and paralysis are persistently rising unemployment and the threats that face important industries in the coming months, if not in fact in the coming weeks.
It is clear that the PCI cannot just continue to offer its members and supporters nothing more than the uninspiring prospect of backing the Andreotti government and its emergency measures. The pact signed in July among the six parties of the so-called constitutional arc does not offer a very exciting vista either.
The PCI has to show—or at least give the impression-that its activities and its current goals fit into a broader plan, which when accomplished will produce much more impressive results than the measures that have actually been carried out over the past year or are projected for the near future. It has to come up with some prospect for real economic or political gains for working people and the oppressed strata. The proposals in the intermediate range plan that was worked out by a special commission of the Central Committee and completed in June are an attempt to fill this need.
Starting from the premises enumerated above, the PCI could only come up with goals that remain within the framework of the system. It could do nothing more than raise again for the umpteenth time general objectives that are so obviously desirable as to seem a tiresome litany of pious hopes-development of the South, jobs for all. We will see further on how realizable these goals are, either in the present context or in the one the PCI leadership anticipates for the short and intermediate terms.
Consistent with their analysis, the PCI's proposals do not call for breaking with, and doing away with, the structure of capitalist economy but rather for eliminating the most immediate causes of the crisis. They are aimed at overcoming the distortions, malfunctions and deformations caused by certain patterns of income distribution, or, to use a more general term, parasitism, on which the leading group in the PCI has focused its criticism and protests. It is worth noting what the PCI says in the part of the plan that deals not with the intermediate term of three to five years but with the long-term social transformation:
The fundamental goal of expanding and restructuring the productive base involves profound changes in social relationships. This means really stemming the tremendous waste caused by parasitism and nonproductive labor. It means doing away with positions of privilege, rigidity, and maladjustments, which are obstacles to achieving a healthier type of economic and social development, that is, a greater concentration of material and human resources in productive activity, in the sectors whose growth is essential, if the nation is to develop in a modern and progressive way.
However, such an endeavor can be accomplished only on a basis of consensus. Therefore new ideals and goals will be central in carrying it through. And it must proceed simultaneously as an economic reform and an intellectual and moral reform of society. [Proposal for an Intermediate Range Plan, (Rome: Editori Riuniti) p. 25.]
The vagueness and the almost banal abstractness of these goals is not compensated for by the immediately following proclamation of the need to fight for "values that are advanced in a human and social sense and for taking a determined course to eliminate" all sorts of bad things. On the contrary, the attempt to put a cloak of ideological orthodoxy on their ultramoderate gradualism leads to murky formulations: "productive and creative work" with "a new scale of values" based on "an upgrading of socially useful productive labor" (p. 26).
It is significant that in some of the comments on the plan published in the party's weekly, Rinascita, the whole concept of a long-term social transformation has been criticized. One example is an article by Claudio Napoleoni, an economist elected to parliament on the PCI slate who has not hesitated to use explicitly revisionist concepts and formulas to support Berlinguer's basic strategy, and continues to do so even today. Napoleoni writes:
The combination of these two characteristics (productive and creative) seems to me a constant theme of the text, which tends to consider them as interchangeable. The difficulty which arises from this is the following: if you attribute to the term "productive" the meaning that it has in capitalist society, then the two terms not only are not interchangeable but in fact are mutually exclusive. Productive means in fact "producing surplus value" and therefore refers to abstract, or alienated labor, which is the opposite of creative work. [Rinascita, no. 31, August 5, 1977.]
Further on, in reference to particular problems, the PCI plan slides into empty rhetoric. For example it says that "dignity and seriousness must be restored" to Italian schools. It says that it is necessary "to expand everyone's personal capabilities and strengthen bonds of solidarity among human beings" (p. 30). It speaks of sports as a "means of physical and moral enrichment for individuals and of achieving an important dimension of collective relationships" (p. 31). Even the question of equality is presented in purely idealistic and abstractly democratic terms. And the paragraph on "social relations" could have been written by any liberal or well-meaning philanthropist:
Steps should be taken to substantially improve the standard of living of the broad masses of the population, and particularly the most neglected and needy sectors. This should be done through a redistribution of income systematically reducing privileges that result in intolerable waste of the national wealth. [p. 32.]
The plan does take up the themes raised by the women's movement. However, it presents the solutions to these problems as achievable within the framework of the family. There is not even the most discreet reference to the need for going beyond this institution (pp. 30, 34). This is just another expression of an approach which is not just gradualist but represents a very moderate form of gradualism.
It is significant that at the very beginning of the first part of the plan, the theme of austerity is introduced in a special section.
Austerity is an unavoidable necessity if we are to deal with the present economic difficulties. There is no alternative to it. But we do not conceive of austerity as a temporary expedient, a short period of severe sacrifices, just so that we can go back to the old ways. We do not see it as a short-term cutback in some fixed quantity of consumer goods. We see austerity as a means for transforming the way of functioning and the social goals of the economic system according to a precise program. We see it as a means for reorienting investment, production, and public expenditures, and even changing the quality of consumption, and thus of changing the life styles bound up with consumption. We see it as transforming patterns of culture and behavior of entire sectors of Italian society. [p. 21.]
To put it somewhat plainly, the distinguished drafters of the plan are playing a con game here. They are not unaware of the reaction that their calls for austerity have provoked among substantial layers of workers who vote Communist, and even among members of the party. They have been forced to sugar-coat the pill by mixing up different concepts and by unduly broadening the definition of austerity. The term "obfuscation" is particularly appropriate to describe this operation. They invoke vague vistas of future transformations and raise rhetorical smokescreens to conceal what they are actually up to here and now. What the PCI has been doing and in all probability will continue to do in the coming period, is not pursue some notion of an austerity related to a remote future. It is supporting the concrete, down-to-earth austerity the Andreotti government has already begun to impose on Italian workers-not without a certain success from its point of
The plan does not go on to pose any new questions or goals. In substance, it reiterates the concept of a new phase of the "democratic and antifascist revolution," helped along by "the antifascist content and progressive thrust of the constitutional pact." Thus the text keeps coming back to the need for "democratic manage ment of the economy," for "decentralization and reorganization of the structure of the state," for the "development of a democratic pluralism in society and in politics," for the "renewal and democratization of the European economic community" (pp. 36-
The plan also takes up, of course, the need for "elements of socialism" which could be introduced gradually "into the func tioning of the economy and society." But, if such a thing were possible, such elements appear in even more watered down and insubstantial form than in previous formulations. To put it in the exact words of the plan, the elements of socialism "consist above all in choosing a conscious direction for the development of society and setting serious economic goals based on the needs for justice, solidarity, liberty, and improving the human condition" (p. 19).
It is obvious that at least theoretically there could be very broad convergence around such "needs." The plan foresees multi-class agreement even for the "transformation and renewal of Italian society"-and not only for the intermediate term. In other words, the plan assumes that "forces with different political orientations, corresponding to the general political conceptions of each component of the democratic and people's movement," can help in the campaign to satisfy the needs it outlines.
In reality there is no difference between the CP's more general plan for transforming society and their intermediate-term plan. The more immediate program is the product of the party's gradualist approach, which seeks to avert any qualitative leap in the power and consciousness of the working class. This approach seeks to channel the conflicts between opposing classes into the present institutional framework, and to confine such clashes to "arguments" between the distinguished representatives of various currents in an almost idyllic political and social pluralism.
The workers movement-both the workers parties and the trade unions-do need an intermediate-range plan in this period. Although the old and new revisionists and all the more or less fanciful "inventors" of the truth about how the transition from capitalism to socialism is to take place have created much confusion about this, the Leninist conception has always rejected any sterile dichotomy between a minimum program of immediate gains and a maximum program of goals bound up with taking power. Leninists have always recognized the need for the bridge, the link between the two, that is provided by a transitional program.
But the scope of such a program—which takes on immediacy in periods of great social and political crisis, that is in revolutionary and prerevolutionary situations—has never been confined to simply correcting or eliminating the "distortions" of the system, or helping to "democratize" it.
The purpose of a transitional program is to raise demands for the mass movements that seem reasonable to the masses and that would lead to an attack on the very framework of the system. A transitional program based on Leninist principles, far from worrying about respecting certain "compatibilities" (to use the current term) tries to increase the "incompatibilities" in the interests of a struggle for power.
In his contribution on the plan that I already mentioned, Claudio Napoleoni writes:
We are in a situation in which the working class has achieved results that are not compatible with maintaining the private-enterprise mechanism for developing the economy, but in which the production of material wealth depends more and more on that mechanism.
Leaving aside the exaggerated character of his opening statement, Napoleoni's observation is roughly accurate. It follows directly from this that such a situation cannot continue indefinitely and that it would be a mistake to consider it irreversible (as Napoleoni is inclined to do).
Antagonistic social forces, unlike chess players, cannot let the contest end in a stalemate. The question is in which way the present relative equilibrium of contending classes will tilt, which class is going to get the upper hand and impose its solution. The bourgeoisie has to try to drive the workers rather far back from the positions they have won. This course is not the result of reactionary stupidity or political insensitivity, but of the vital need to accumulate capital, to assure what the system needs to function. If the capitalist class is not able to do this, it is going to have to face an explosive situation in its own country. And in the international market it is going to be torn to pieces by the sharks, who, contrary to what the authors of the plan seem to be dreaming, are not inclined to play by any polite rules.
The working class should not have any illusions that it can remain on the defensive without suffering a serious defeat. In the abstract, it can choose between moving toward a rapid confrontation or preparing for a test of strength in the not too distant future. For a whole number of reasons, it is undoubtedly preferable to aim for a confrontation a little further off. The most important reason for this is the present balance of political forces in the working class, that is, the overwhelming predominance of the reformist organizations. In order to prepare for a confrontation in somewhat longer perspective, the working class needs an intermediate-range economic plan, drawn up in accordance with the method of the Transitional Program. That is, it needs a program not of reformist gradualism but of revolutionary change.
To give only a few examples of what is required: In the fight against unemployment, the workers' interests have to be put first, and it has to be fully understood that defending these interests causes severe contradictions in the functioning of the capitalist system that cannot be resolved without establishing a new political power and a new social system. The struggle must center around the demand for dividing up the existing work and this requires reducing the working hours without a cut in pay.
At the same time the demand must be advanced for nationalization of the big trusts that are responsible for the crisis and profit from it, as well as of the big trading companies (starting with the importers of essential foodstuffs). In order to avoid a repetition of what happened in the case of the nationalization of the electric utilities, the takeover of the big trusts must be carried out without paying compensation and under workers control.
To fight inflation what is required is an intransigent defense of the sliding scale of wages, which offers the only existing guarantee of workers' buying power, although it is only partially effective. Defense of the sliding scale requires the workers keeping a check on prices from production costs to the prices paid by
The reformists of the PCI will object that such proposals raise a perspective of class war on an international scale. But how can such a war be avoided? How can anyone who is not naïve fail to understand the gravity of the situation? The problem is to get into a winning position. Despite the tremendous difficulties and risks of such a struggle, there is a basis for modest optimism. Fighting capitalism is in the interests of more than three quarters of the economically active population of the country. Moreover, in the coming years major battles will be waged in decisive countries such as France and Spain, where the workers movement is now on the rise.