| The following editorial summing up the experiences of the Italian radicalization last year was published in the first issue in 1971 of Bandiera Rossa, the newspaper of the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist Groups -the Italian section of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.
As 1970 began, the ruling class was engaged in an attempt to exploit the tragic events of December 12.1 Its rs of thate objectives were to isolate the most advanced sectors of the movement, put an end to the wave of strikes, regain the initiative and authority for the center-left formula, and restore "normality." Twelve months later, how can the results of this attempt be summed up?
We can say without fear of contradiction that this bourgeois counterattack has not achieved its objectives. Despite partial successes for the ruling coalition in the June elections, the persistent conflicts in the bloc have prevented the government, first of all, from decisively regaining the initiative and advancing its declared reformist plan with the least consistency or effectiveness. The two governmental crises and the paralysis of parliament for two months in the fall have been the most obvious signs of a situation produced in the last analysis by sharpening structural conflicts, heightening tensions, and a shift in the relationship of forces among the fundamental social classes. Another manifestation of the regime's profound instability is represented, moreover, by the spread of centrifugal tendencies to the periphery (from the continual crises of the Sicilian regional government to the explosion in Reggio Calabria). 2
1. On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the Banca dell'Agricoltura in causing terrible loss of life and Milan, casualties.
demonstrations under the in-
2. Violent fluence of the extreme right have developed 68
In this context, the effect of establishing regional authorities is destined inevitably to increase such tendencies, much more than provide the opportunity for new experiments (as the Communist party hopes). 3
A central objective for the class enemy is to reestablish "order" and "authority" in the factories. At this level also, his failure has been almost complete. The bosses have not had the slightest success in forcing a return to the methods prevailing before the great upsurge of recent years. The workers have been able to successfully defend the new relationship of forces - with the consequences for the system which are daily deplored by the bourgeois press and which were recently summed up by the chief of Confindustria. 4 So, as regards more large-scale political re pression, we need not go back over the failure of the bourgeois operation following the sizughter in Milan (a failure decently hidden behind the veil of a "generously" accorded amnesty). After the
Milan bombing there were numerous arrests of left and trade-union activists. - IP It is true that the police and the courts periodically attempt new counterattacks, striking at revolutionary-left activists, vanguard workers, and even tradeunion officials. But the episodes following the death of the student Saltarelli offer sufficient demonstration of how difficult it is for the government and the reactionary forces to implement such plans, no matter how ardently they might wish to. 5
At the root of all this is the decisive fact that the working-class movement has shown no sign of faltering; to the contrary, it has continued to expand in a highly combative and inon several occasions in Reggio Calabria starting in July 1970.
4. The Italian manufacturers' association.
cisive way. In 1970 there was not, and there could not have been, a mobilization as extensive and concentrated in time as in the fall of 1969. But the struggles have never ceased — not only because new categories of workers have moved but also because, after a few brief weeks' pause, the protagonists of the previous battles have resumed the attack, striving to win nondiscriminatory contracts at the factory and industry level. It is worth noting once again the most significant elements in these struggles. On the one hand, the workers' tendency to abandon the more traditional methods of struggle (above all, passive strikes that were no more than taking time off the job) has been fully confirmed. They have tended to adopt much more trenchant and decisive forms as the norm, forms with an inherent capability to bring out the political significance of the conflict (militant marches drawing the attention of an entire city, militant pickets, blocking streets, marches in the factories themselves, and so forth). On the other hand, demands for equal benefits for all workers have tended in turn to challenge the present organization of capitalist factories, running counter especially to piecework rates and various pay incentives. Hence the broad importance of battles conducted only at the plant and industry level.
The last months of the year, finally, witnessed a revival of the student movement as a mass political movement, with an extensive mobilization of the high-school students. We never doubted that such a resurgence would occur -for the simple reason that the structural contradictions at the root of the great explosions starting in 1968 have not been in the least resolved and are even tending to sharpen. (It is precisely in this area that the insubstantiality of the government's reformism —which is proclaimed louder and louder and which is, at least in theory, partially realizable-becomes most striking.) The important thing is that this movement has assumed still greater dimensions than in the second half of 1968, and, by a combination of factors, has acquired a more directly political thrust, with the emergence of hundreds, if not thousands of new very young cadres. The reactionary and demagogic ma- /neuvers which have accompanied the spread of demonstrations in some cities have been able to do nothing to alter the general significance of the movement.
All these estimations of the relationship of forces have been confirmed or reinforced in the light of the mobilizations in commemoration of De dember 12, which were particularly imposing in Milan and reached very high peaks in other cities as well. 6 These most recent developments have, moreover, another more immediate significance. They point to a clear shift in the relationship of forces in the mass movement in favor of the revolutionary-left organizations and groups. The importance of the fact that in cities like Milan, Rome, and Naples, thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of people, came into the streets without any propulsion from the traditional organizations (or in direct opposition to their instructions) needs no comment. The consternation of the most astute bourgeois papers is in itself an eloquent indicator of this. Of course, this shitt has not yet occurred in the working class. But even at that level there is no lack of symptoms. (It is sufficient to note, for example, that several thousand workers took part in the demonstration on the afternoon of December 15 in Milan.!
In such a situation, the ruling class does not have any effective short-term solutions. The authoritarian solution of the right— which might seem a possible way out — is not practicable, given the present relationship of forces. It is true that in Reggio Calabria, for the first time since the end of the war, fascist, or semifascist, reactionaries have found a mass base. It is true also that certain of their maneuvers have found openings in the student movement. But these tendencies are still marginal. At most they can be exploited as a complementary ele ment. Nor is the time ripe for the large-scale reformist operation which some want, others fear, and which is too often considered from the standpoint of abstract criteria, even though based on an analysis of concrete relationships and conflicts. In the first place, this is true, because, we repeat again, there is no margin for consistent reformism (which alone would have some chance of temporarily canalizing or blocking the mass movement). In the second place, the majority of the bourgeoisie is still opposed to such an operation. In the third place, the PCI Partito Comunista Italiano- Italian Communist party] cannot help worrying about its relations with the masses that constitute its power base. And these would be put in question if the party entered the government or even the sphere of government. (If one was needed, the high price the PCI and the unions have had to pay since December 12 for their shameful passivity has demonstrated the acuteness of this problem.)
For all these reasons, the short-term perspective remains one of continuation of a conjuncture fraught with conflict and persistence of a situation of profound instability in which the system tends increasingly to break down. For its part, rather than complete integration into a reformist operation, the PCI is threatened with perpetuation of its essential paralysis. Incapable, because of its opportunist degeneration, of exploiting a situation bursting with revolutionary tensions, the PCI also finds itself unable to carry its policy to its logical conclusions and to get real results in the field that it finds congenial. This is its contradiction; this is the source of the crises that will not fail to rack it in the future.
If no positive outcome for the working class seems possible in the near future, in the last analysis this is owing to one reason alone- the lack of a revolutionary party capable of taking advantage of an objectively favorable situation by mobilizing the masses with the perspective of seizing power. The urgent task, therefore, is more than ever to build the party. But we can only accomplish this task insofar as we are able to intervene correctly, with an adequate methodology and objectives corresponding to the needs of the masses, by projecting goals able to stimulate mass mobilization and to raise mass consciousness in the continuing battles of this great upsurge, which after three years is still far from waning.
Notes
3. Regional authorities are provided for in the constitution but elections to these bodies took place for the first time only in June 1970. The PCI is trying to make alliances with the Socialists and Christian Democrats in the regional assemblies.
5. Saltarelli was killed by the police in Milan on December 12, 1970.
6. In the same period there were combined demonstrations of high-school students — demonstrations against Franco Spain were combined with protests over the killing of the student Saltarelli.