[This division, which represents a shift in tactics within the unions, and reflects a division in the "trade-union left," had a major impact on the national trade-union assembly in Rome, which concluded the voting on the document by the CGIL-CISL- UIL leadership. In spite of bureaucratic screening (in some provinces, a delegate assembly was not even held, and of the nearly 100 members of the Milan delegation, only three represented the opposition, which numbered 443 delegates in all), the national assembly recorded 12 votes against the document and 103 abstentions, all accompanied by statements criticizing it from the left.
[These new circumstances also had
These new circumstances also had an impact on the Democrazia Proletaria con-
*Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro- Italian General Confederation of Labor; Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Liberi-Italian Con federation of Free Trade Unions; Unione Italiana dei Lavoratori-Italian Union of Workers.
hould Be Brought Into the Trade Unions'
ference (DP had played a positive role at the Milan trade-union assembly). However, the report did not center on this important experience, which marked a turning-point relative to DP's usual lack of independent initiative with regard to the "trade-union left."
[The reason for this became clear during the debate, in which Elio Giovannini, the national secretary of the CGIL and one of the leading representatives of the "tradeunion left" (and in the Partito d'Unità Proletaria), urged that the differences not be allowed to harden, while in contrast to this, other remarks (mainly by activists from the south) smacked strongly of an ultraleftist rejection of work in the trade unions.
[In his warmly applauded remarks, Vittorio Foa, to his credit, correctly polemicized against both positions, on the basis of his long experience as national secretary of the CGIL in the 1960s. Members of the GCR (Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari- Revolutionary Communist Groups, the Italian section of the Fourth International) who were present at the conference, including an Alfa Romeo worker whose contribution was well received, asked Vittorio Foa a series of questions on behalf of Bandiera Rossa, their weekly paper. This interview, which we are publishing below, deals with the central themes of revolutionary work in the trade unions today.]
Question. In your speech at the DP conference, you talked about work in the trade unions based on your long experience in the CGIL leadership, saying that it was equally necessary to arrive at compromises, but to keep up heavy pressure while doing so. We would like to come back to this point, which seems to us to be one of the major weaknesses in the practice of the far-left groups over the last few years. We would also like you to tell us what you think in particular of the possibility of more stable forms of organization within the trade unions, not made up of revolutionists as such, but of a tendency formed on a class basis.
Answer. Based on my long experience in the trade unions, I am convinced that no practical possibility exists today of creating a viable mass organization as an alternative to the trade unions. If you want to have political mass actions, you have to go through the trade unions, knowing that they are heavily conditioned by their institutional integration into capitalist society. As the labor market has become a sellers'
market for labor power-that is, as the strength of the working class has increased—one of the capitalists' weapons for fighting back has been the institutionalization of the trade unions, by entrusting them with the role of controlling and curbing the working class.
I am convinced that by realistically starting from this assessment-that is, of the process of involution, of institutionalization of the role of the modern trade union—political struggle should be brought into the trade unions, with all the clarity of an internal opposition. This requires that the opposition maintain contact with the majority to avoid becoming isolated, by sometimes clearly demarcating and differentiating itself, and at other times, on the contrary, constantly seeking possibilities of unity, each time it is possible to help the collective consciousness take a step forward.
Nowadays we are seeking a widespread defiance, as well as a tendency to give up and turn away from trade-union activism. Membership is declining; activism and participation, still more. The most effective way we can fight back today is to develop a more distinct opposition, to show that it is possible to be active in the union while upholding a different line. I do not believe it is necessary to build a revolutionary organization inside the trade unions; I am thinking of a trade-union class opposition, nonideological, a "class-struggle" component that should become a tool for the trade-union opposition.
There are numerous examples of this in the industrialized countries, in England for instance (the Minority Movement), and I think it is important and possible to do it. Of course, this poses some problems, since the trade-union majorities will accuse us of being factionalists. What counts, in my opinion, is also reasserting the right to organize a discussion of lines opposed to that of the majority.
Q. What about the hypothesis of there being a third caucus in the CGIL, which has come up several times?
A. I do not think it is necessary to create a caucus, but neither should we be paralyzed by the fear of being considered a caucus so that we constantly exercise selfcensorship. If it is necessary to proceed to a rudimentary type of organization around alternative lines, it is better to do so. The history of caucuses is often one of leadership posts, a petty and unsavory history, really, of posts and internal wheeling and dealing. It is better to avoid this type of activity.
Q. You mentioned that it is impossible for DP to organize its forces on its own, which it seems to me raises the problem of doing mass work correctly so as to draw together the enormous receptivity that exists on certain questions, but also touches on another, relatively major problem-the existence of different revolu tionary left currents, and therefore the need to establish forms of unity in action.
A. Earlier, I went further into an analysis of what the proletariat is today, and of its contradictions, of the processes of unity at the social level. You spoke of the processes of unity among the political organizations. Obviously, I am convinced of the necessity and possibility of unity in action. I think that the process of unity should not be forced in organizational terms, because I was very shaken by the experience of the fusion of the PUP and Il Manifesto, where, in practice, we carried out a unification at the top, purely at the organizational level, you might say, without ascertaining our relationship to society, without making our own criticisms of our past, of our errors. In practice, we tried to glue together shards of broken pots. Today, it would be very bad if the attempt at regroupment began with the organizations, so to speak, instead of with social reality.
Therefore, I think: unity in action wher ever possible; extend common areas of work and debate the differences without the slightest hesitation; no attempts at exclusion. But I also think we have a long way to go in working together in this society before going on to organizational experiments, that may turn out to be a little premature and break down.
Q. But I was speaking entirely of unity in action, and referring in particular to the following problem: we consider the renewal of DP, its reorganization, as positive. But the problem of unity in action of all the radicalized layers to the left of the reformists cannot be reduced to that.
A. To be sure. I am convinced that we must deal with the question of unity in action, and anyway, in practice I do not think we have ever rejected it. I would even say that the conception we should have of ourselves, as a current that is being built openly, should be based on respect for the other formations that exist.
Q. What type of approach do you think it is possible to take toward the question of a correct tactic toward the big reformist parties, which you also, I believe, consider to be workers parties, in spite of their leadership?
A. I have the impression that it is not possible to think we will be able to get the Italian CP to set its sights on the right target merely by challenging its political positions. We are in a phase where we will probably need hard tests. To be blunt, we need defeats, or rather, we don't need defeats, but it is only through defeats that we can hope to get substantial changes in the policy of the Italian left, both the old and the new. It is quite clear today that if the CP is on the road to defeat in its policy of historic compromise and its relations with the Christian Democracy-as I think it is—we will not benefit from it. It will be a defeat for all. Our job, then, is to lessen the gravity of this defeat as much as possible.
How should we confront the CP? Generally, I do not think we should become involved in ideological confrontation, for example, only considering demands that are incompatible with the system and rejecting all those that are compatible with it. I think our starting point should be the needs and demands of the masses. If these demands turn out to be incompatible with keeping the system on an even keel, the tendency of the reformists will be to oppose the demands, to protect the system.
In this respect, we should support the opposing point of view, and, so to speak, confront the CP on this question, which is the fundamental question today where the capitalist system is concerned. We should do this not by using ideological terms, but by discussing it in practical terms. If we think that the workers should take the lead, that there should be actions around economic, social, moral, political, and civilrights questions, how can they be organized without disturbing the relations of production?
We should have no illusions about the possibility of the CP rapidly changing its position. Even if it absorbs partial defeats, the CP will not return to the opposition; or if it does, it will not be a class opposition. In order for the CP to resume talking in class terms, through ups and downs that I cannot foresee, there will certainly have to be very profound upheavals in society.
Q. During the campaign for the June 20, 1976, elections, which was badly organized and disunited, the DP raised a slogan that everyone interpreted in his own way, namely, for a "government of the left," which was partly connected to a tactical objective-forcing the CP and SP to opt for a different governmental solution than the one they had chosen, one that better cor responded to the interests of their ranks. What do you think of this now?
A. Speaking for myself, I was deeply convinced of the correctness of this slogan. I supported it wholeheartedly, even when it was raised in a way that had flaws, in an institutional, electoralist way.
Of course, I think that a government of the "left" is at any rate preferable to other governments, whether they be of the right, center-right, center-left, or historic com promise. Still, we can now see more clearly that even a government of the left would not introduce elements of a class policy. That is something we should recognize. Consequently, the question of a government of the left should not cover over this fact.
In my view, while accepting the idea that a government of the left is always preferable to other solutions on a tactical level, nevertheless, today it is necessary to concentrate on questions that can highlight our class positions and thus feed the contradiction that exists between the CP's policy and a class opposition, which now must be rebuilt and shifted to the political level, including the parliament.
Q. Then what is needed is to resume discussions of program and also of what strategy to propose to the workers movement.
A. As I see it, yes. That is what seems to me to be very important. In other words, we polemicize with the CP because it says "trust in politics" (which means trust in parliament, in the parliamentary parties); "forget these struggles, which can't solve anything." We responded mechanically, rejecting politics and confining ourselves to struggles. That is an error. We must manage to establish a close tie between social struggles and a political program.
But the point is this: we are very afraid of mediation and institutions, because all the mediation boards and institutions are capitalist. The problem is to establish mediation procedures and institutions that belong to the working class, to our class. That is the real problem, which is not impossible to solve. The history of the workers movement has recorded important moves in that direction. Even the birth of the Communist parties after the First World War was, at bottom, an attempt to win back, and to win back for the working class, its own tools of mediation, its own institutions. There you have, in my opinion the problem, in simply a new and different form today.
Kenyan Cops Arrest Demonstrators n deniance of the Kenvatta regime tudents at the University of Nairob staged an antigovernment protest March 3 and called a boycott of classes. Police, who had taken up positions around the university, arrested about twenty demonstrators.
The protest was held on the third anniversary of the murder of Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, an opposition member of Parliament who had been openly critical of the Kenyatta regime. Subsequent investigations suggested that police and government officials may have been involved in his killing.