Rome
All who have attempted to analyze the causes and significance of the French May have had to come to one definite conclusion. Above and beyond the specific factors which influenced its timing and the forms it took, the crisis of the system in France dramatically revealed profound tendencies at work in other European countries as well.
What has happened in Italy in recent weeks entirely confirms this evaluation. In fact, it could be said that the conflicts and tensions involving the working class and the economic structures which have arisen are greater than those which characterized the months before May in France. It would of course be a simplistic and abstract judgment to conclude automatically from this that we are mowing toward an outbreak of the French type. But this objective fact of this situation should be understood in good time and in its full portent.
I do not intend to go back to the economic analysis taken up, for example, at our last national conference lof the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari, the Italian section of the Fourth International].* Furthermore, certain facts and tendencies, as such, are not challenged by anyone. The problem is to understand their full significance and, above all, to define their inevitable social and political implications.
And no one denies that the political equilibrium of the regime -- an equilibrium, if only relative, obtained in the past five years through the centerleft formula - has been broken, that any broad there are no other solutions of significance, and that not even a repetition of the center-left with a new political mixture and new men could offer any guarantee of stabilization.
But basically 1968 was the year when the social equilibrium was broken. This is the fundamentally new factor which makes all comparisons with the past irrelevant and which is provoking such dismay (admitted more and more) among the political and journalistic spokesmen of the ruling class.
This fact was expressed during the early part of the jear in the impetuous student mobilization and in some clearly portentous workers' struggles. In recent weeks, despite the serious decline it has suffered in a series of university centers, the student movement has continued to make its weight felt. And, at the same time, the multiplication of strikes in plants and industries, of general strikes, Of factory occupations, and of demonstrations and conflicts of various types, has definitely revealed a tense situation in very broad strata of the working class, which is having its repercussions on the working class as a whole.
I will not go back over the specific elements of this great malaise and the contape tians are per of arising from the so-called miracle (full employment, constant, perceptible improvement in the standard of living, etc.). I stress onlj that these are very deep-seated phenomena which are not fated to exhaust themselves even under the worst variant.
And what must be stressed again with special force is that more than at any other time in the last fifteen years the workers' protest - whatever its original character or superficial expressions -- is imbued with political opposition to the system.
And no less significant is the fact that at least in its most advanced manifestations, in the most acute conflicts, the movement is tending to escape the control of the trade-union bureaucracy (there is no point in talking about the political bureaucracy which is nonexistent at the factory level). In many cases, the workers themselves have directly initiated strugles. Sometimes, groups of vanguard workers have had a decisive role; other time: (as was the case of the strikes at Pirelli Bicocca in Milan), the union leaders have had no choice but to accept an accomplished fact, abandoning their original plan.
Another sympton which points the same way is that the participation by groups of students in organizing strikes and workers' demonstrations is not only no longer viewed with hostility or suspicion but is actually solicited. And, in general, initiatives by groups of revolutionary militants active around the factories are received with interest and sympathy.
The Catholic revolt, finally, can no longer be considered a marginal or eccentric movement. There is no doubt that it tends at least to erode the dominance of the Christian Democratic party, which for twenty-five Jears has held the status
:. :
of the only party for Catholics. And, as is becoming more evident every day; this revolt is also tending to undermine the prestige of the traditional ecclesiastical hierarchy itself.
From the social standpoint, this represents a break with the system by some plebeian sectors, above all pettybourgeois ones. And precisely because these strata were tied to the system most immediately by the ideological and organizational network of the Catholic church, they have entered the conflict on religious issues, nurturing the seeds of "heresies" (especially the classical appeal to original spirit of the Gospel), which in the national and above all the international context are capable of producing explosions.
From a host of signs, it is clear that the shrewdest spokesmen of the ruling class and the leaders of the bureaucracies of the traditional workers' parties recognize the situation that has been developing in these last months -- if only because of the French experience. The representatives of the capitalist class for the moment have a quite limited margin for maneuver. They find themselves unable to get any stable political formula off the ground; and it would be difficult for them as well to resort to a harsh massive repression.
In the case of the bureaucratic leaderships certain distinctions must be made. The Socialists have their hands tied since they are a government party (only temporarily out of the cabinet). The Communists, however, can maneuver with much greater freedom, resorting in the famous tradition of Togliatti to the most shameless accommodations.
The draft document to be submitted to the next national congress of the party is a very clear expression of such attempts. Basically maintaining - or even deepening in certain aspects -- the now traditional refornist-gradualist concepts and line of operation, it makes an openin particular toward ing toward the leit, the student movement. Thus it consummates the turn outlined early in the spring. It would be all too easy to expose the real nature of these maneuvers which cannot represent a political operation of any scope. The fact remains, however, that these maneuvers magnify one of the fundamental dangers present in today's situation.
The situation which I have described has the potential to turn rapidly toward ever more acute and generalized conflicts. It is enough - to limit ourselves just to what is apparent on the surface of things -- to visualize the repercussions that could be produced by coordinating several provincial general strikes into a nationwide general strike accompanied by militant street demonstrations. We need only visualize, to go a little farther, what a linkup could mean between such a movement and a determined mobilization to get Italy out of NATO combined with a thoroughgoing exposure of all the crimes of imperialism. But for such objectively possible developments to an organized political initiative occur, centralized on a national scale is needed. In the present state of affairs, only the apparatuses of the traditional bureaucracies would be "technically" capable of taking such an initiative. But it is clear that they have no intention of doing so. The most that they can do, under pressure from to organize symbolic the rank and file, is demonstrations and strikes, or partial mobilizations for essentially diversionary or evasive purposes. Here then is the first basic danger. The traditional bureaucracies are no longer capable of dynamic action tne they no longer have any vital link with masses. But they can still bring weight to bear as a static element, as a factor of inertia which can paralyze or abort even a great mobilization.
The second danger, which is symmetrical to the first, is that the revolutionary vanguard groups which as a whole have gained much greater weight in recent years and in the latest months and have a much greater capacity to exert their influence, even on broad social forces, will fail in their mission. The danger is that they will not be able to overcome their fragmentation and disunity, that they will not be able to surmount all their spontaneity-worshipping and sectarian tendencies and will fail to take advantage in time of objective conditions which are favorable in several respects.
The following vital tasks lie before the vanguard groups in the coming months: Ihey must offer a dynamic perspective of fundamental opposition to the system and of breaking the fetters of the traditional trade-union and political bureaucracies, and promote all the ferment and developments in this direction. Ihey must help to achieve national coordination of the struggles and thus, in the last analysis, to construct a new revolutionary political vanguard. At the same time, they must help get the student movement out of its temporary rut, enabling it to extend its dynamic of revolt on the national scale unrestricted by the arid confines of academic group interests. And finally they must not only coordinate individual struggles but mobilize the broad political and social forces in order to throw the system off balance and continually deepen its contradictions.
Whether or not Italy moves toward a prerevolutionary situation will depend in large measure -- although of course not exclusively -- on the timely accomplishment of these tasks.
THE LONDON TIMES APPLIES THE WHITEWASH IO ITS OCTOBER 27 WITCH-HUNT
On september 5 the London Limes, which Iike its New ork counterpart publishes "Al] the News That's Fit to Print," gave the signal for a witch-hunt campaign against the October 27 Iondon antiwar march. The editors placed a fabricated story on the front page, averring that "a small army of militant extremists plans to seize control of certain highly sensitive installations and buildings in central London" and that "extremists...are understood to be manufacturing 'Molotov cocktail' bombs and amassing a small arsenal of weapons."
Most of the British dailies at once fell into line, setting up a howl that rose to a crescendo the day before the demonstration. The discipline displayed by the 100,000 demonstrators gave the lie to the press concoctions of terrorist plots.
Those who believe that the Times genuinely seeks to report the truth no matter what the circumstances, felt that the editors would display embarrassment. Mervyn Jones in the October 4 New Statesman predicted the Times would live to regret the "plot" story as "the greatest boob in its history since it published the forged Parnell letters."
The Time? "a burst of letters criti-
The Times admitted October 30 that it had received cal of the press in general and The Times in particular for the way the preparations for last Sunday's demonstration in London were reported.
But those who were waiting for at least a bit of red on the faces of the editors were disappointed. These gentlemen know all the tricks of their ancient trade. They coolly granted a point to their critics:
"Certainly, in the light of what actually took place on that day, the previous expectation of serious violence and anarchist exploits, which newspapers helped to create, proved greatly exaggerated."
At the same time, the editors jusrified their sensation-mongering stories, alleging the existence of "two types" of evidence:
....some officials responsible for watching the situation believed in the reality of this threat; and what we learnt from anarchist groups independentlearnt from anarchist groups independent-
' The Times aply corroborated the story.
plies a bit of whitewash on the officials who participated in the witch-hunting: "At that time official spokesmen and most other newspapers were inclined to discount the plot."
Finally, like the traditional squid, the Times retreated in a cloud of ink, explaining away its indulgence in the worst type of gutter journalism:
"Whether the plots were real but frustrated by the precautions, whether they were contemplated but soon abandoned, or whether they were the hot air of anarchist bombast will be disputed. But it is not the case that there was no sound evidence for their existence or that journalists were alone in taking them seriously."
Ine liberal press took a lew potshots at the limes (and at the BBC). Kenneth Tynan, who participated in the march, wrote in the November 3 Observer:
"The Times declares that the 'revo- Lution' has been a failure, when nobodj but the Times had suggested that there would be a revolution. Shopkeepers (the same newspaper complains) were inconvenienced by having to board up their windows, and the general public by the closure of art galleries. In fact, the shops shuttered their windows and the galleries closed their doors for no other reason than that the Times told them to."
The weekly Tribune said: "Nor was it the so-called popular papers which behaved in the most irresponsible fashion. The Times was by far the worst offender, and The Guardian also included its share of false alarms.
Iony smythe, general secretary oi the National Council for Civil Liberties. reported in the November 1 Tribune on the experiences of 200 NCCL observers who watched the demonstration. He particularly criticized the television coverage:
"Iondon Weekend Television held an 'Olympic Grandstand' for one hour on Sunday afternoon without managing to record the main march, apart from a few stragglers in Whitehall. Instead they concentrated on a futile and comparatively minor confrontation in South Audley Street and Grosvenor Square."
The much touted "restraint" of the police, Smythe reported, did not extend to the treatment of representatives of the civil-liberties organization:
"Amid the general satisfaction a thought should be spared for some of our observers who were manhandled by the police as soon as they identified themselves. Mr Saunders of Enfield reports: 'At approximately 7.40 p.m. I positioned myself... next to the hedge which surrounds Grosvenor Square Gardens....I had been standing there about 10 minutes when I found myself being dragged across the hedge by two police constables. Iwo more constables snatched my notebook from my hand and I was then released....Ihe book was handed by one of the police constables to an officer in plain clothes, who with a colleague, tore out the pages on which the notes had been made...." The NCCI general secretary reported similar incidents, including the severe beating of one observer.
Smythe also described an incident showing the lengths to which the mass media would go to get pictures that could be used to discredit the antiwar demonstrators:
"One cameraman using American equipment did his best to provoke a scene by throwing missiles at demonstrators and then filming their reaction."
Another question at issue was the size of the demonstration. The organizers counted 80,000 people marching into Hyde Park. Inasmuch as thousands more joined the rally there, they have given the figure of 100,000 as the number of participants. Most of the daily papers, with the exception of the Sun, have put the figure at between 20,000 and 30,000. Kenneth Tynan disputed the low figures in the November 3 Observer:
"I took part last Sunday in a dramatic event -- a street-wide march from the Embankment to Hyde Park, where about 75,000 people gently assembled to protest against the American war in Vietnam. (Arriving half an hour behind the head of the procession, I counted the marchers as they entered the park: after 50,000 I gave up, and I cannot believe that the preceding 30 minutes yielded less than 25,000.)....
Notes
* The documentation on this was published in the April 1 and May 15 issues of Bandiera Rossa.