[The following article appeared in the May 17 issue of Rouge, the Trotskyist daily published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.]
ROME-A decline in the CP vote was expected, but the results were a disaster. You have to go back thirty years, to 1948, to see the Christian Democrat vote go over 40%. Likewise, you have to go back to 1956, a terrible year for the Communist parties, to see such a drop in the CP vote in any one election.
After the events of recent weeks [the kidnapping and murder of Moro], it was assumed that the Christian Democrats would gain. But it would be wrong to see this advance simply as the result of an emotional reaction.
In these scattered local elections, the Christian Democrats consolidated their position more than ever before as the party of social conservatism in the country. This is indicated by the sharp drop in the vote of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI- Italian Social Movement, the neofascists) and the very poor showing of the Liberal Party, the furthest right of the constitutionalist parties.
However, the main development and the one that requires explaining is the drop in the vote of the workers parties, in particular that of the CP, which was the most marked. Obviously we should not give an excessive importance to the results of elections held only in some local areas. But we have to try to understand the tendencies whose existence they confirm and those whose emergence they indicate. This is all the more important since the cam paigns were dominated by national issues and all the parties considered the elections to be politically significant.
The CP vote showed a nationwide downward trend, that went from a decline of about 5% in the working-class municipalities in the north to virtual collapse—a drop of between 10% and 20%-in the south. Here are some examples by way of illustration.
In Campania, the compartimento in which Naples is located, the CP got 24% of the vote as opposed to 42% in the 1976 legislative elections. In Appulia, the CP got 17.5% as against 26.1% in June 1976. In Sicily, the CP average was 15.01% as against 32.4% in the legislative elections. In the north, in Pavia, the CP vote went from 41.1% in 1976 to 36.9%, and in Novara from 35.6% (1976) to 30.6% in May 1978.
There was no exception to this trend, which reflects the loss of the support of petty-bourgeois layers that backed the CP in the June 1975 regional elections and voted for it in still larger numbers in the June 1976 legislative elections. But for the first time we can also see the CP losing votes in the working-class cities.
Another element that should be noted is the redistribution of the working-class vote within the left. The Socialist Party was the main loser in the 1976 elections, getting only 9% of the vote. This time it recovered its former share of the vote, 13.5%. Moreover, everywhere that it ran candidates the far left got much better results than in June 1976, despite the fact that this time there were two separate slates.
In the municipalities where the DP [Democrazia Proletaria-Proletarian Democracy] and the PUP [Partito d'Unitá Proletaria-Party of Proletarian Unity] were on the ballot, they got an average of 3%. In Novara, the PdUP got 2.3% and the DP 1.7%. In Viterbo, the PdUP got 1.6% and the DP the same percentage. In Roanalysis of the most important world events.
vereto, a working-class center, the DP slate got 5%, and in Cinisi, a Sicilian area where the DP candidate was murdered last Tuesday, this formation got 5% of the votes.
A look at such results should lead the CP leadership to draw a few balance sheets. But this is not what appears in the first comments coming from CP national headquarters on the Via delle Botteghe Oscure.
According to the Communist Party, the Christian Democrats clearly gained from a wave of solidarity inspired by the martyrdom of its chairman. The CP had taken this for granted and considered it positive:
For a section of the voters, casting their ballot for the Christian Democrats was a way of showing their profound aversion for terrorism and their human solidarity with Aldo Moro. What is more, it is clear that such a vote constituted approval of the firm attitude of the Christian Democrat leadership and thus an encouragement to them to continue on the road of democratic solidarity.
The Christian Democrats also gained as a result of an exceptional situation of solidarity among the democratic forces. This was completely correct from the standpoint of the higher interests of the republic, which could not and should not be affected by electoral considerations....
Naturally, it may legitimately be asked if this vote did not also reflect something less connected with the events of recent weeks and more negative in character-that is, a certain advance for the moderates.
(The following statement was issued on May 9, the day on which the body of Aldo Moro was found, by the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist Groups, Italian section of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.]
The Red Brigades have concluded the Moro kidnapping affair in accordance with the same methods and principles they followed when they began it with the massacre on the Via Fani. Such methods and principles are totally contrary to the practices and conceptions of the workers movement.
This murder has nothing to do with the objectives of the workers, the exploited layers of the population, or those sections of society condemned to a precarious existence. To the contrary, it creates more favorable conditions for a new bourgeois offensive against the workers and poor masses.
The outlines of the bourgeois operation are already clear. They emerged during the almost two months that the Christian Democratic Party chairman was held pris-
The CP answered the question it raised in the negative. It claimed that the strengthening of the Christian Democrats at the expense of the MSI and the Liberal Party represented a reinforcement of democracy and of confidence in its institutions.
But it is doubtful that the CP members and activists will be satisfied with such an explanation or be happy about suffering such a defeat, even for the sake of "the higher interests of the republic."
The reasons for the CP setback must be sought elsewhere. By singing the praises of "order," it consolidated the conservative aspirations of the middle layers, which in part identify the present situation in Italy with the advance of the CP. These strata are turning back toward the Christian Democrats, who seem to them to be better guarantors of order. This tendency is reinforced by the fact that the CP's entry into political leadership of the country has not been marked by any perceptible change for the better, especially in the economic situation and in fact the changes seem to be for the worse.
Parallel to this, the CP's campaign on behalf of "order" and its commitment to the goal of giving a new boost to profits and to the capitalist economy has caused it to lose the most radicalized sections of the workers, who have turned toward the far left and also, to some extent, toward the SP.
oner. What is intended is to reinforce the atmosphere of "national unity at any cost." This is to prepare the way for restoring bourgeois "order" based on the compliance of the reformist leaderships of the Communist and Socialist parties and the unions.
They want to put a martyr's halo around the Christian Democracy, when this party has been and continues to be the main organizer of attacks on the working class in this country, a party buttressed by crooks and grafters. They want to launch an attack on the rights of the trade unions. This may be done in the form of imposing limitations on the right to strike, or through a witch-hunt in the unions against so-called fellow travelers of the terrorists. They want to cut back democratic rights, by openly trying to move toward what would amount to a full-scale berufsuerbot in Italy (that is, the elimination from public employment of anyone with opposition views).
Today the far left is coming under attack, and this is already being extended to trade-union activists, even though those involved have resolutely condemned the private war waged by the Red Brigades and pointed out its harmful results for the workers. These attacks are intended to test the ground for an onslaught against the workers if they fight back against the wage freeze and growing unemployment, against the youth who are fighting for a future and steady employment, against the women demanding the right of abortion, and against all those who do not want to pay the price of austerity in order to get capitalist profits going up again.
It is quite clear today what are the most urgent tasks of the proletariat. The only way to give an effective political answer to the lunatic line of terrorism is to demonstrate the power of the workers movement. Those who falsely claim to act on behalf of the workers and their struggles cannot be defeated unless we advance the demands of the exploited and oppressed, unless we take the side of the hundreds of thousands of youth driven to desperation by the lack of perspectives, unless we defend all those who have been forced to accept the humiliation and extortion of substandard jobs, unless we advance the rights of women.
A key phase in this political struggle today is preparing for the upcoming newcontract negotiations. There must be full and free discussion on goals and on a program. The objectives set must correspond to the demands and needs of millions of working people and unemployed.
Such methods and such actions are the essential weapons by which the working masses can defeat the terrorists' schemes and prevent them from gaining a follow. and prevent them from gaining a following or extending their influence.
The working people must not allow the "destabilization" campaign of the Red Brigades to be used by the original and the real "destabilizers," the bourgeoisie, which was responsible for the 1922 fascist takeover in Italy, the 1973 coup in Chile, the massacre in the Piazza Fontana, and the whole strategy of tension that has been applied in recent years.
Any general strike or whatever other strikes are necessary at this stage must serve the interests of the workers movement and its allies. They must not have a demobilizing effect, but must reinforce the capacity of the workers movement for independent and united action.
At a time when a violent attack has been unleashed against democratic rights, there is a still stronger need for unity on the part of the workers and their political and trade-union organizations.
Against "National Unity," unity of all working people and their parties and organizations!
Against the class-collaborationist line, a line of class independence to fight the policy of the Christian Democratic government!
Fight for a CP-SP government based on mass mobilization to meet the needs of the workers, the exploited, and the oppressed!
Down with terrorism! Unity of the workers, the exploited, and the oppressed!
GCR Statement on the Killing of Aldo Moro GCR Statement on the Killing of Aldo Moro