VIETNAM CENTER OF CURRENT POLITICAD TOPICS IN TTALTAN TERT
By. Sirio. Di Giuliomaria
Rome
After the summer pause, the political situation in Italy is. again stirring. The.big topics under discussion in the workers © parties are, Vietnam and the unification, of the Social- Democrats.
Vietnam is becoming. an “increasingly hot. subject and the ~ Communist leaders find it’ more and more difficult to convince the rank and file that the Soviet policy of playing dead is correct. ~ In any local of the PCI {Italian Communist party] where the issue comes up on the. agenda,. left-wingers | and right-wingers clash, with the left. wing showing. steady progress.. The editorial that appe ared in Sartre's magazine Les Temps Modernes Lsee World Outlook. September 9], calling on the Soviet leaders to initiate a "counterescalation" to deter Washington in Vietnam, has aroused great. interest. among militants in spite of the attempts of L' Unita, the PCI organ, to criticize it: under the Signature of its. associate editor. aan
Closely connected with Vietnam are the events in the People: S Republic of China.. Sq. far, the PCI has. been unable to come up with a satisfactory analysis of what is going on. Many Communist militants wonder... about the significance of the events and- criticize press. The. pro- ~Mao tendency in the ‘PCL, vat. least the ‘one not tied to pro—Mao groups. outside the party,’ ‘is growing’ more and more critical of the Mao government, particularly in regard to. their rejecting an anti-imperialist front to aid Vietnam.
During August,. a minor incident affected Mondo Nuovo, the _ official weekly of the PSIUP (the leftist. socialist party that — split from Nenni's party]. While General Secretary Vecchietti' was” "vacationing" in the USSR, a member of the editorial staff published a rather pro-Chinese article on the front page. The paper likewise published some Chinese documents ignored by the Communist press and other. interesting documents ignored by L! Unita ‘such as the editorial. Ain... Les. Temps. Modernes.
As soon as Vecchietti got. back he hastened to issue an extremely pro-Moscow statement, to assure the Soviet leaders that the pro- Chinese. article. was but an‘ incident. However, he was “unable to move. against the author of the ‘article, since he had to take into account. the unusually ‘favorable response which that particular issue of Mondo Nuovo. had evoked. among its, readers.
. But the -warmest, topic, is the Social-Democratic unification. In the PSI [Nenni's party] ‘and | the PSDI {the party founded by Saragat, the incumbent. president of Italy, out of a split from Nenni's party], ‘the > delivery is taking place with no birth pains.
A relatively small group of PSI left wingers have refused to go along. But the top left-wing leaders, including Lombardi and Scanti, have stated that they will join the new party, while reserving the right to issue public statements against the leadership when the situation warrants such action.
- It is reported that Lombardi got in touch with the PCI to find out. whether they would let: him publish his own magazine as a tendency organ if.he should join. Naturally the Communist leaders, despite all their talk about a united party of the Italian workers, would not agree to endanger their bureaucratic grip by granting such tendency rights. In the: present. situation in. the party it would set off a chain reaction of, similar. demands.
Thus Lombardi and his followers were left with the alternative of joining the united Social Democratic party where. they can at least maintain their label while disappearing from view in the quicksand.
The document sealing the unification -- once it is approved | by a very formal. congress set up by the two parties - is one of the thinnest to appear in Italy in many years. The capitalation of the PSI is complete. The document tells.us, for instance, that the workers are undertaking "a long march towards the leadership of the state," while the state is "being transformed more and. more from an instrument of oppression in the service of capitalism into a potential instrument for the freedom of the workers, to the . extent that the workers participate in the management of public power." Thus socialism becomes. "a collective and conscious effort, a laborious and gradual. one, of a. civilization to be built step by step within democracy. and freedom. " ; .
But if the unification is causing no great embarassment to the PSI and PSDI, among the Communists it is likely to become a bone of contention. The PCI leadership. is formally criticizing the operation; at the same time it is preparing to open a dialogue with the new united party instead of fighting it politically.
In an. editorial in the September 6 L'Unita,. Luigi Longo, national secretary of the PCI, concluded his criticism of the unfication by stating: "Actually we do not know what reforms the Socialists propose or the order and tempo acceptable to them in implementing them. Let them make these points clear. If they ‘are for implementing real reforms and not engaging in empty talk as a cover for giving up and doing nothing, we are always ready to consider. any proposal. We are even ready to modify our own viewpoint, if necessary, and coordinate our actions with those of others, including, of course, the Socialists."
This soft attitude has its own history. For instance, in the CGIL ithe General. Confederation of Italian Labor], the Communist. tendency leaders have always bid for compromises with the Socialist leaders, often at the expense of the PSIUP tendency. , The same pattern holds for the municipal councils where the Communists
have often yielded to blackmail from the PSI to exclude PSIUP representatives as a condition for collaboration. The collaboration usually has not lasted long, in many cases succeeding orders from the top have given the signal for the Socialist members of municipal councils to divorce the Communists and begin honeymooning with the Christian Democratic party, the largest bourgeois party.
Another item involved in this is the PCI position toward the government plan known as the Pieraccini Plan, in honor of a Socialist minister. According to a statement issued by the Third Commission of the Central Committee, the PCI is interested in a "serious struggle to modify the line and contents of the draft plan." The parliamentary debate on the plan is seen as "an important occasion...for a real convergence of democratic and socialist forces around a perspective of economic and political change.
The commission further stated: "The criticism the Communists are making on the character and contents of the Pieraccini Plan does not start from non-acknowledgment of the validity of some of its. aims and instruments, but tends to single out the central points of a policy of planning around which the political determination of leftist forces -- socialist, day and Catholic forces -could be centered strongly." .
Such a political stand on the pat lar the PCI leadership is
intolerable to the PSIUP rank and file who have been opposed to the Social Democracy from the. beginning. And not only them. The Ingraoists hold similar views. (The Ingraoists are the left wingers who emerged at the eleventh congress of.the PCI. +) Up to now, Ingrao himself has not, made any move. On the. Contrary, “he is said to have discouraged somé of his followers who | wanted to open an attack.
But the situation inside the PCI and the working ‘class as a whole is-such that.if the recognized .left-wing leaders don't do something, ;others. will come to the forefront. The most advanced. sectors of the PCI are looking forward to two important events the next session of the Central Committee, called for October 10, and the,.first:igsue of a new magazine named La Sinistra [the Lefti, which is scheduled to appear October 15. The publishers are Samona and Savelli, a Communist publishing house. The editor of La_Sinistra will he Lucio Colletti, a Rome university professor who belonged to the PCI until recently.
4 . At the same time it is reported that a fight is going on in. the top circles of the PCI among the most influential leaders. luigi Longo, Togliatti's successor, has proved very inept in handling this. A colorless figure, ‘he is losing more and more prestige. Longo has been trying to overcome..his natural handicaps by creating a fresh image of himself as.a "leader. "In many situations he is now showing up personally. The” “results, however, have not proved particularly dazzling.
As an example of. this, he granted an interview to the German weekly Der Spiegel at the .end of August. He tried to create
the impression of being a sincere fellow and did not catch on that his interviewers were slyly pulling his leg.
"You don't use the clenched fist salute?" he was asked.
' "Our party has never asked its militants to use any specific form of salute," Longo answered. “Every Communist has always been free to salute as he likes.
"There are ‘Communists who go to church regularly?" the ‘Der . Spiegel. men asked. —
The Communist leader hastened to respond. "Our party aes not require any militant to follow religious practices and does not prevent him from doing so.
"But don't you consider religion to be the opium of the people, as Marx. once put it?" .
Longo recalled his remarks at the eleventh congress where one he had said that “during the Vatican II Council and. in particular~ as a consequence of the new way the Church deals with the essential problems of the modern world, we see an overcoming of the conservative positions, just of those positions which made, religious ideology ‘the opium of the people.'". .
Turning to other, political problenis , the. interviewers . referred to Longo's ‘statement that "The conception we have of the ~ process of socialist’ transformation. of Italy's society centers on the limitation and progressive elimination of the power of the big monopolies." They asked, "Only of the monopolies and furthermore only the big ones?"
The. answer “they received was very vague. They followed up with another one: "You therefore want to nationalize only the big industries?" . .
Longo. said that ‘the PCL is’ ‘not out to nationalize the barber: Shops ..
“Wand what about FIAT?" (FIAT recently signed a big contract — with the Soviet ‘government. ) .
“Within. a plan of socialist transformations FIAT cannot fail. to come under the measures concerning the big monopolies," said . ~ Longo. Thén, probably thinking that this would make the PCI flag look embarrassingly red, he qualified his statement. "Today we.do ~ not pose the problem of its immediate realization. We ask for _ measures that might allow a direct participation of the workers in the organization and policies of production in relation to the general interests of the country.' .
After some more probing questions and enlightening answers, the dynamic general secretary of the Italian Communist party offered
_21-
his German audience some educational statements on the essence of Marxism and brought the interview to an end.
‘