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From Survey, International Socialism (1st series), No.42, pp.3-6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Italian ‘hot’ autumn is over. Practically all the contracts which were due for renewal have been signed. Yet it has left behind a maize of unsolved problems, a trail of dead, and a massive repression against leftists and trade unionists. For us as socialists it is essential to analyse the history and events of the last few months to see how the perspectives outlined in the Survey piece in September have remained unchanged and to draw from this experience important lessons for the future.
It is difficult to express and convey fully the courage, determination and enthusiasm which Italian workers have displayed over these months. In spite of provocation from the police, the authorities and the bosses, they have managed almost without exception to remain undeterred and not to lose sight of their objectives.
It must be stressed that the impetus of the struggle was given by the rank and file. Yet the movement has been directed by the official trade union apparatus. This apparent contradiction is both real and unreal at the same time. One the one hand the pressure from below has resulted in the unprecedented unity of all trade unions (Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and Communist) an alliance which has been formed first at the rank and file level and then mirrored at the top. The apparatus has been able to regain control of the leadership of the struggle only to the extent that it has accepted and advanced the genuine demands of the base. However, once the union bureaucracy had regained control, they were able to use it to divert and dampen the struggle.
This does not mean that at the trade union level the contracts have resulted in a complete sellout. On the contrary, large (if not dramatic) increases in wages have been won. The working week will be reduced to 40 hours without loss of pay over three years. The right of the trade union to be represented in the factory through a shop and department delegate structure and general assemblies has been won. The differentials in benefits, holidays and assistance between blue-collar and white-collar workers have been decreased. All this goes most of the way towards meeting some of the demands of the rank and file. They are important concessions wrested from the bosses with great sacrifices. (For many months take-home pay has often been below half its normal level.) The trade union bureaucracy, however, in fighting for some of the trade union demands of the workers has managed to frustrate their wider aspirations. The struggle has effectively been politically defused.
The rift between large and small employers already apparent in September has increased over the last few months. While both sides complain bitterly about the hardship and difficulties which the concessions they had to make to workers are going to cause them, the truth of the matter is that they affect them very differently indeed. The more modern international employers (Fiat, Pirelli, Iri, etc.) can easily afford the increased costs by raising productivity, expanding production and generally taking over a larger share of the market. Internationally also they are better placed to take advantage of the revaluation of the mark. Many small or medium small producers may well, instead, be forced out of production or to merge with the larger giants.
This rift is well reflected in the turmoil within the Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria). The smaller producers are leaving it to the giants and flocking towards the Confederation of Small Industries. Even within the nationalised industries there is a rift between large and small.
The contracts which were agreed to separately industry by industry led to the fragmentation of the working-class offensive in the last stages of the struggle. The weaker sections were left to fend for themselves. The same process was mirrored within the industrialists. Yet it had a totally different meaning. The unity of the working class is its very strength. For the employers, instead, a strategy which is designed to drive the least efficient out of business or into the arms of their bigger brothers strengthens the class as a whole. The process may be superficially similar, but it is qualitatively different.
The differences between the two sections of the employing classes, today as in September, result in two different political perspectives. On the one hand the more dynamic and less economically threatened members of the ruling class opt for a reformist path, a strategy based on the integration of the CP into the government sphere in the hope of neutralising the wording class. On the other, the more backward business and industrial sectors are calling for law and order and a switch to the right.
The Social Democrats are the chief exponent of the right-wing solution. By splitting from Nenni’s Socialists on the issue of the CP’s possible contribution to the government, they had clearly indicated over the summer that they intended to use the inevitable disorders of autumn to appeal to the country as a party of order. To this effect a campaign was mounted to create tension and anxiety. The sharp contrast between the hysterical articles in the papers and the responsibility and cool determination of the workers threatened to puncture the fear of revolution that they were counting on until the death of a policeman and the explosion of a bomb in Milan. Yet the hysteria and the violence are not unconnected. Even The Observer wrote,
‘Nobody is crazy enough to blame President Saragat for the bombings. But the entire left is saying today that his “strategy of tension” indirectly encouraged the far right to go over to terrorism’. [1]
This strategy has, however, failed in spite of Nouvel Observateur’s report that immediately after the death of the policeman President Saragat sent a telegram of condolences accusing the leftists before any proof was presented or arrests made. [2] An attempt was made to capitalise on the bomb tragedy according to the Evening Standard:
‘At the moment of panic, after the bomb, the Italian President, prompted by powerful industrial forces, planned ... the dissolution of the two Chambers and a coup d’état à la de Gaulle’. [3]
But this failed.
It is impossible to say whether the reports in these papers are correct. The Italian press has remained silent on all this. Indeed, attempts were made through the various Italian embassies to silence the reporters. Yet what is clear is that a right-wing turn inspired by the more backward industrial concerns and some of the more reactionary political forces has not taken place or has been stopped. This is not accidental. The strength of the left and the margin for manoeuvre which Italian capital has for reformist policies still imply attempts to induce the CP to join, or at least support, the government in the near future.
Out of the struggle the CP has emerged as a responsible party of order. It is true that through its trade union it has largely led the trade union struggle. But what would be more accurate to say is that the party has abdicated all responsibility of leadership to the trade union. It has increased its membership – no doubt losing some of its most militant members but recruiting from previously unorganised and unpolitical workers.
The expulsion of a group of left-wing intellectuals who had started a magazine, Il Manifesto, which expressed mildly revolutionary aspirations and opposed the policy of entry into the government, has created some unrest in the Party. Although the magazine was only for consumption by intellectuals and these dissident comrades had in no way attempted to create a working-class following for themselves, or to set up a real oppositional tendency inside the Party, they have still gathered some support. It is a symptom of the troubled state of many CP ers that in Rome, Pisa, Bergamo, Naples and Cagliari there was deep unrest. Some branch committees had to be dissolved and some provincial Federations disciplined. Yet although this may help the left groups in some ways, it paradoxically also strengthens the Party. The CP’s strategy of bourgeois respectability and the attempt to enter bourgeois coalitions demanded the expulsion of these timid revolutionaries.
The loss of even a few hundred members up and down the country and the danger of the pull which these comrades could exercise outside the party is a small penalty to pay for the increased security which the party as a whole will be able to afford the bourgeoisie. In the next few months with the election of the regional governments the CP should make its first decisive step towards the government. Already they have held as an example before the eyes of all the relative quiet and calm of the Emilia region where most of the local councils are already partly in their hands.
At the present moment the two sections of the bourgeoisie are still unable to solve their conflict one way or another. At one and the same time approaches to the CP and random acts of repression are made. The liberal government of the liberal parliament, manned mostly by anti-fascists, is using fascist laws, in particular Article 272 which forbids propaganda for the dictatorship of one class over another, Article 305 which forbids subversive politics by association (any association), and Article 415 which forbids stirring up class hatred. Seven thousand leftists and trade unionists are now under indictment under these acts. Yet in the long run there can be no solution to the problems of the Italian ruling class with this kind of semi-repressive measure which can only heighten the class struggle.
The prospects for the Italian ruling class are still those of relative expansion in spite of a massive flight of capital abroad. So long as these perspectives hold so does a reformist solution. Already the more progressive elements are thinking of using the Constitutional Court to declare the inapplicability of these laws.
The magnitude of the struggle and the unity of the three main trade unions which diminishes their explicit political allegiance should have opened new perspectives and opportunities for the revolutionary left. The attempts by the trade union bureaucracy to divert the attention of the workers at the height of the struggle towards protests against high rents, the chaos of urban transport, the inadequacies of the welfare state and governmental corruption, could have given the left an important leverage. Most of the weapons in the hands of the bureaucracy are double-edged. When the struggle is specific, they attempt to widen it in the hope of diminishing its intensity. But this leads them to raise more political slogans and more political demands. Such is a contradiction of the impasse and ambiguity in which they find themselves. On the one hand they rely on control of their mass base for their bargaining power with the ruling class, on the other they constantly need to prove their militant opposition to employers to retain their base.
The more political perspectives which the bureaucracy has opened up could have been better used by the left. Instead of exploiting these contradictions they relied on blanket opposition to all actions of the bureaucracy to increase their political standing and to heighten consciousness. Inevitably they have tended to fail.
A precondition for an effective policy by the left today is the recognition of the importance of the official trade unions. Instead they simply raise the utopian call for a revolutionary trade union. Thus they left themselves open to accusations of splitting the working class just as it was enjoying its newfound unity. The problem today is not the setting up of new trade unions but drawing up and fighting for a set of demands which will effectively attract around the left groups the most conscious elements of the class in a programme of internal opposition to the existent union bureaucracy.
This, however, requires a clear perspective and theoretical understanding of the role of a vanguard party, the trade unions, etc. The history of Stalinism which still distorts, even if by rejection (which is not yet total or coherent) the Italian left, makes progress very difficult.
These inadequacies led to the relative isolation of the left groups from the struggle of the workers. More tragically, perhaps, the very same problems led to the relative ineffectiveness of the rank and file committees.
These are democratic institutions set up by militant workers inside factories often with the aid of outside politicos. During the last couple of years and throughout the summer they have been a very important element in the struggle. Yet during this autumn they, too, have proved unable to provide a political leadership. They, too, have been left largely watching from the sidelines as the official trade union apparatus regained control of the rank and file.
At the time of the guerilla struggles of the summer the rank and file committees were able to increase their prestige. They were able to inject politics into the factory, press for rank and file control and initiative, and win important concessions.
When the struggle expanded, however, the crisis of the rank and file committees became apparent. Having remained outside of the trade unions and in a sense counter-posing themselves to them, they could not lead the struggle on the factory floor. This would have required that they accept delegated authority from the rank and file to negotiate with the union apparatus and with the employers. Yet they rejected this role. This meant that they were able to provide new methods of struggle for the workers, such as the wildcat strike and more flexible opposition to the employers. But they were unable to substitute themselves fully for the trade unions, unable to provide a national organisation, unable by law to sign contracts with employers. They relegated themselves to the role of pressure groups outside of the mainstream of events. In a sense they had exiled themselves from the class to which they belonged.
Implicit in their actions is the confusion between the political vanguard and the democratic self-organisation of the class. By trying to fulfil both roles, they fulfilled neither.
The left has also proved to have an ultra-left position towards the police force. It is perhaps comprehensible. The brutality of the Italian police is well known. After the killing of a policeman in Milan, there was a full-scale police insurrection in the barracks and a desire expressed to ‘clean up the university’ and do away with the left – an insurrection which might well have had fatal consequences and had to be put down by other policemen using tear gas. Still it was essential that strikers and demonstrators differentiate between the role which policemen play and the policemen themselves. Acute social unrest is reflected in the police force as much as in the petit-bourgeoisie as a whole. Indeed there are ample signs that there is deep dissatisfaction among policemen in Italy. Letters have been sent to newspapers complaining about their conditions and expressing sympathy with the ideals and aims of the students. There have also been some sitdown strikes in barracks of policemen who refused to go on duty. These contradictions might have been usefully exploited with a sensitive attitude. The chance was lost.
The theoretical, political and practical problems which beset the Italian revolutionaries have no easy solution. I certainly do not want to imply that they do not raise important issues of principle. One of the most unhealthy aspects is, however, the failure of the different groups to openly debate and discuss their differences in order to see common positions and solutions. Instead there is a chronic sectarianism, a failure to tackle theoretical differences. Indeed there seems to be an extreme suspicion of any theoretical approach. This is an insurmountable barrier which faces Italian revolutionaries in the present period.
The explosion of the bomb in a Milan bank raises a whole number of questions. It is an unprecedented act of violence in a country where the price of human life has never been very high anyway. It is impossible today to say who is responsible for it. Certainly, however, it is completely outside the tradition of Italian anarchism which has traditionally tended to focus its attention upon the elimination of leading personalities, specifically rejecting the massacre of innocents. It is also quite clear that the act itself can only serve the interests of the extreme right.
Some liberal papers have attempted to explain these apparent contradictions by saying that in the last few years the difference between some of the more weird anarchist groupings and some of the fascist ones has been very tenuous. Indeed some have alleged the fascist provocateurs have entered some of the more ideologically confused of these groups and specifically the 22nd of March movement, members of which are now under police arrest accused of the bombings.
Once again it is impossible to say whether these allegations are true. What is certainly true, however, is that from the evidence provided so far by the police against members of the movement there is no ground at all for thinking that they are actually responsible. Indeed it looks like the frameup of the century.
This in itself might explain the choice of anarchists as the culprits. They are the most isolated, most easily attacked groups of the left, and in turn they justify the repression of the left in general.
In the next few weeks the police will have to reply to a few questions and provide some explanations. A railwayman, Giuseppe Pinelli, is alleged by them to have jumped from a fourth floor window of a police station after an interrogation had proved him deeply implicated. Indeed on the same night a chief of police in Milan explained that all his alibis had collapsed and that his act could be the equivalent of a confession. Since then at least five witnesses, amongst them one policeman, have substantiated Pinelli’s alibi. So why did he ‘jump’?
The chief accused is at the moment Pietro Valpreda. The police claim to have irrefutable proof of guilt based upon the testimony of a taximan who is supposed to have taken Valpreda to the bank where once again he is supposed to have placed a bag containing the bomb then returned to the taxi without it. These are some of the facts which have emerged since. Valpreda is supposed to have taken a taxi 150 yards from the bank and having been set down again 150 yards from the bank in a different spot due to the traffic. Is it logical that one should risk recognition to avoid walking 150 yards? The police had in fact already shown a picture of Valpreda to the taximan before the lineup in which he was picked out of five men, all of them utterly different from him. Valpreda had come to Milan in a small Fiat in order to meet his lawyer before attending a hearing about the explosions at the Milan Exhibition the previous April. Is it logical that he should,
At the moment one phase of the workers’ struggle is over. In the next few months other contracts are up for renewal in some of the more backward industrial areas such as textiles. The left once again will be faced with a challenge. In order to meet it, the rank and file committees will have to understand that their role is to be something like a militant shop stewards’ committee within the structure of the unions. They must not be the exclusive preserve of politicos but open to all genuine militants. They must accept delegated authority. They must fight for the recognition of their role within the trade union movement. The left groups must debate all the theoretical issues and strategies which confront them openly with a view towards unification. It is impossible to predict whether either the rank and file committees or the revolutionary groups will be equal to the task.
The Italian ruling class is deeply split on the strategy to follow and the political solutions to seek. Since the most powerful industrial groups support a reformist policy and the integration of the CP into the government, for the time being this can be the only possible solution. Much, however, depends on the international economic situation and on whether, therefore, a reformist road will remain open.
The left in Britain must concentrate on the existing repression and the obvious frameups. In this area invaluable aid could be given to the Italian comrades.
1. The Observer, December 14, 1969.
2. Reported in Unita, December 29, 1969.
3. Evening Standard, January 14, 1970.
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