LEADER ATTACKS CUBAN POSITIONS
By Livio Maitan
{The following article has been translated from the June 1 issue of Bandiera Rossa the newspaper of the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari, the Italian section of the Fourth International. ]
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The mid-May meeting of the Central Committee of the PCI [Partito Comunista d'Italia ~- Communist party of Italy] has shed rather more light than previous sessions on the current preoccupations, orientation, and contradictions of the party's leading group.
For at least two reasons it was inevitable that the Vietnam war would become the focal point of discussion: first of all, because objectively, it is the key question with which all others are bound up; and, secondly, because the party's policy as regards questions closer to home like trade-union struggles or the attitude to be taken toward programming* is presently too vague to be likely to stir much activity or even any new discussion (except a discussion arising from a radical criticism of this policy).
Even on the question of the fight for Vietnam, the PCI's position presents some difficulties. On the one hand, the leading group is trying to bring pressure to bear on the government through the socialists, or a part of them, and through some Christian Democratic groups} and thus tends to adapt its organizational methods and even its slogans to this end. On the other hand, however, it is forced to undertake more thoroughgoing actions, particularly as the escalation mounts and creates a more and more tense situation, and also to avoid getting into difficulties with the masses which might be set in motion in this phase.
With Amendola's speech, the final motion, and a series of comments voiced at this session, the Central Committee has indicated quite clearly along what lines the party's activity will develop in the immediate future.
First of all, the PCI, reaffirming its total rejection of the Chinese, is beginning to polemicize against some of the basic ideas of Fidel Castro and the Cuban CP. This polemic had already been underway for sometime in the form of a
*Programmazione -- The bourgeois substitute for socialist planning. [Translator.] conspiracy of silence or a rigorous censorship -- it is sufficient to recall how little space the party publications devoted to Fidel's speech of March 13 and the summary reports of Che Guevara's message, to which 1'Unita gave not a tenth the space it gave a message shortly preceding it -- Pope Paul VI's Populorum progressio.
With Amendola's speech, this polemic became overt, despite the fact that it was launched formally against "some groups" (but can anyone be unaware of the fact that the strategy of three or four Vietnams was not invented by "our armchair strategists," but by the leader of the Cuban Revolution?)
Still more serious is the fact that in a report and in a discussion on the international situation, there was no mention whatever of the development of guerrilla warfare in Latin America! Such an omission needs no comment and says more than the entire report of the session published in 1'Unita. Nor is there any validity to the speaker's vulgar rejoinder ("for these strategists it is always others who must act"). It is a matter, in fact, not of ignoring the tasks confronting us today in Italy, but of realizing that right now it is possible to deal more direct and effective blows against imperialism in other sectors of the world and that in Latin America guerrilla warfare is one of the essential means to that end.
The second feature to be noted is that the group in control of the PCI will attempt to increase its activities on all levels in the campaign for Vietnam in the immediate coming period. (This, moreover, occurred during and after the CC session, following the imperialist intervention in the demilitarized zone). This came about not only for obvious objective reasons but also to avoid the danger that the actions of others would fill the vacuun. (Some speakers at the Central Committee session did not fail to note that the "extremists" had also gained ground due to gaps in the party's activity).
_ Finally, perhaps an even more revealing note struck by this Central Committee, and certainly a new one, was the sharp attack delivered against so-called alien groups -- our movement among them -and the fact that in some remarks this designation was extended to the PSIUP {Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity] or a part of it.
The reporter himself gave the signal and numerous speakers took up the theme, some in a more political form, others in the language of bureaucratic bigotry. The epithets "provocateurs, "
"defeatists," “venomous enemies of the Party," etc., were felicitously intertwined, demonstrating the methods with which people of basically Stalinist schooling -- a schooling unaffected by the surface veneer of "renovation" -~ propose to conduct a political polemic in the workers movement.
Pietro Ingrao [the leader of the official left wing] also added his voice to the chorus. He is quick to play the role of “hard cop" against the "extremists"; but he takes a much broader view when it comes to the Social Democrats or various figures -- including professional anti-Communists -- whom he seeks to engage in dialogue in the most diverse places.
We have noted elsewhere that for at least some of those at the session, "firmness" in dealing with "extremists" means hoodlum attacks.
The fact remains, however, that such sharp attacks, voiced by so many, is an indication of deep concern -- some "extremist" criticisms are finding a more and more responsive echo (some of the speakers said as much) and constitute a still greater danger to the opportunist bureaucrats since criticisms advanced by important sections of the international Communist movement can bolster then.
All the Central Committee's efforts to clarify the party's leadership will not, however, eliminate these difficulties nor the real, inherent contradictions, to which we referred at the outset.
In the first place, the principal slogans chosen will certainly not help to lend concreteness to the short-term perspectives and still less generate the spirit and enthusiasm necessary for the longer range prospects. The familiar theme of new relationships between the majority and the opposition, which has always seemed vague to the party membership, is not much clarified nor made any more concrete by virtue of the fact that it is now incorporated in a demand for a government defined only as a peace gov-— ernment (made up of whom? with what program?). The precedent claimed is a formula put forward more than fifteen years ago, which moreover was not followed up.
As for what ought to be the central objective today, that is, the inmediate withdrawal of NATO from Italy under conditions and circumstances such as to plunge that organization into a crisis, despite veiled statements by some of the speakers which revealed pressures operating in this direction, they preferred to hold on to the tired formula of nonrenewal in 1969, thus depriving the -647-
issue of any immediacy. We will not discuss the reaffirmation of a strategy which still seeks an alliance with bourgeois groupings against American imperialism, which was voiced in some speeches in particular, including a speech by Ingrao.
These proposals, which, we repeat, are in essence by no means new, threaten to prove even more sterile than in the past, since the international situation can be expected to remain critical and may even worsen. This may produce an impetus to radicalization despite the perspectives and plans of the leading group in the PCI.
Moreover, as we already pointed out, an intensification of the mobilizations has undoubtedly come about through official party decision, and for the first time even the trade unions have moved in a serious way. If this movement continues and new reports from Vietnam provoke new waves of indignation against the imperialist aggressors, it will be difficult to organize demonstrations under moderate slogans, and they will probably tend to become more militant and vociferous.
The hard attitude which they decided to take in dealing with "extremist" groups cannot easily be put into practice. First of all, the influence of these groups is considerable among the students, and no effective mobilization for Vietnam is possible without their participation and without them making their influence felt.
Even in demonstrations of a broader character, up until now vanguard groups and elements have had an incontestable weight and it will not be easy for any bureaucratic leadership to radically alter this situation, even with the most heavyhanded intervention.
There can be no question then of overcoming the phenomenon which is at the root of the lamentations and denunciations of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist party, that is, the growing alienation of ever broader sectors of the youth from the party's policy and methods. The resumption of a bigoted attitude toward the left, in conjunction with generous concessions to the Social Democrats, will inevitably increase this alienation, and still more so if the goon squads continue their activities.
The line which prevailed on international questions, then, points to a collision sooner or later with the Cubans. Many ultras probably even wish for it. But if it occurs, the difficulties they are trying to overcome by means of the guidelines they have indicated will increase considerably. The influence of a Fidel
Castro or a Guevara is not eliminated by refusal to publish their writings or by
calling the youth who look up to them
provocateurs.
BRITISH YCL