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From The New International, Vol. XXIII No. 1, Winter 1957, pp. 30–46.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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The article by comrade Libertini is the first in a series of discussions by European writers dealing with recent socialist history and with current problems in the reconstruction of European socialism. Future articles will include discussions of England, Germany and France. |
It is not easy to summarize in a few pages the numerous problems and events which make up the background of the crisis of Italian socialism, a crisis begun in the early ’twenties, and in no way resolved as yet. Within the framework of this article, I had to confine myself to a description of the main facts and trends; I must apologize for leaving aside particular questions which, although interesting, were not fundamental.
For our purposes, the crisis of Italian socialism can be divided into three distinct phases: the formative period of the party after the collapse of the fascist regime; the period of splits during the cold war; the present period, in which the problem of socialist unity is playing an increasingly important role.
Twenty years of fascist dictatorship wiped the Socialist Party off the political map of Italy: all the more so as the fascist offensive rushed in through the gap opened by the ideological and political crisis of the socialist movement. The communist split in 1921 had deprived the Socialist Party of its whole youth organization and, in general, of its younger leadership: the most resourceful, militant and theoretically creative cadres. Their departure threw the party into a deep ideological crisis, reducing it to complete paralysis and producing a split between the maximalist and reformist currents. [1] After the victory of fascism, the traditional leaders of the movement went into exile, taking with them the recollection of a glorious past and a record of political bankruptcy. In spite of the efforts of a few devoted militants, they lost contact very early with the situation in Italy. No serious and systematic effort was made to maintain the illegal underground existence of the socialist movement.
In the meantime, the Communist Party eliminated its ultra-left sectarian faction (Bordigha) and began to elaborate an original ideology under the leadership of Antonio Gramsci. On the organizational level it remained strong and active, partly owing to the material and political help of the Comintern. The communists thus became the leading cadres of the anti-fascist resistance and remained the only workers’ party surviving in Italy. The conditions of illegal existence prevented the full impact of the Communist organization in Italy: in the underground struggle ideological questions, especially those concerning an unknown and far away situation, never became burning issues.
When, as a result of the Allied victory, the fascist regime came to a miserable end, the Communist Party reaped the benefits of its long and tenacious underground activity, and rapidly placed itself in controlling positions both in the anti-fascist political movement and in the partisan army.
The socialists, on the other hand, suffered the consequences of their prolonged inactivity and ideological crisis.
The party was re-established in the last days of the fascist regime by a merger of two age-groups: the representatives of the pre-fascist generation, grown old and inactive in exile, and young people who had emerged from the schools and institutions of fascism with a great enthusiasm for socialist ideas but who were almost completely lacking in political experience. The new leadership of the unified party (PSIUP) was formed by the exiles, among whom Nenni and Saragat. were the outstanding personalities; by the reformists who had stayed in Italy and had remained inactive during the dictatorship (Romita, Simonini, Vernocchi, Perrotti); by the representatives of the new generation (Zagari, Vecchietti, Vassalli, Bonfantini); finally, by a few individuals of an intermediary generation who had fought in the anti-fascist underground in Italy (Andreoni, Pertini, Basso, Viotto). This leading group was completely heterogenous: it not only lacked a common political basis but assembled men who had lived through dissimilar and contradictory experiences and who, in some cases, had lined up on opposite sides of several political and personal issues. The party organization was almost inexistent, even though masses of people had flocked to the socialist banner: there were millions of sympathizers, hundreds of thousands of party members, a handful of secondary cadres and no serious organizational structure.
This party, with a skeleton not of steel but of putty, was suddenly burdened with the weight of the two basic problems of the post-war period: relations with the communists and relations with the Western capitalist powers.
The Anglo-American High Command in Italy favored very early the formation of an anti-fascist government which could be opposed to Mussolini’s puppet government in the North. At the same time, it made every effort to limit the influence and the power of the Anti-Fascist Front and to impose an agreement with a completely discredited monarchy. Within the Anti-Fascist Front, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party as well as the small Action Party were strongly opposed to any compromise with the monarchy. This situation suddenly changed when Palmiro Togliatti, returning from a long exile in Moscow and from a brilliant career in the Comintern hierarchy, arrived in Italy to take command of the Italian Communist Party.
Togliatti had returned to initiate the policy of “national unity,” involving the alliance of all anti-fascist currents with the monarchy against fascism. The sudden turn in the PCI’s line left the Socialist Party isolated and compelled it to yield. A compromise was reached with the monarchy on the following terms: a provisional regency was to be established until a popular referendum and the Constituent Assemblies would decide on the institutions of the new regime; Umberto of Savoy, the son of Victor Emmanuel III, was to be the regent.
The polemic around this “Salerno turn” of the PCI (Salerno is the town where the Provisional Government was formed) is still a live issue in Italian politics. The PCI leaders attempt to justify their policy by two reasons: the need for unity against the nazi-fascist regime, and the need of avoiding a civil war, which would have given the Anglo-American army an opportunity for crushing the working-class organizations of all tendencies, on the Greek pattern. The socialists answered that there was no intention on their part of weakening the war effort against Hitler by civil war, but to prevent the social forces responsible for the fascist regime to make their reappearance behind the shield of the monarchy. The successful outcome of the referendum which abolished the monarchy was interpreted by the communists as a confirmation of their policy. The socialists, however, replied that even though the republican battle was formally won, the compromise with the monarchy cost the Italian working-class the reestablishment of the old reactionary State apparatus. Moreover, the socialists pointed out, Togliatti did not return to Italy to advocate a tactic determined by Italian circumstances but to apply, in collaboration with the Anglo-American High Command, the agreements of Yalta and Teheran dividing the world into spheres of influence. The man who arrived in Salerno was no longer a communist leader but an ambassador from Moscow on a diplomatic mission.
THE BATTLE FOR OR AGAINST “national unity” again raised the problem of relations between socialists and communists. Since 1934, these relations were governed by the “Unity of Action Pact,” a product of the “Popular Front” policy of the Comintern, which was signed in Paris between the exiled leaders of the Socialist and Communist Parties, and which was renewed in 1941, in 1943 and in 1944. The pact was justified by the influence which the PCI maintained over large sections of the Italian working class and by the need for class unity in the fight against fascism and for socialism. A document of the PSIUP leadership, written in 1944, is a good statement of the party’s position towards the communists and the USSR at the time. It expressed the
“conviction that, when the existence of Russia is threatened, the working-class must subordinate everything to its defense. But this criterion does not involve a permanent choice between the particular policies of the Soviet Union, which has reached the conservative stage in its revolution, and the specific policies of the working-class in the countries which have yet to make their revolution ... The socialists are aware at the same time of what the Soviet Union represents in Europe and in the world and of the need for an independent policy for the working-class movement. The unity of action, to which they remain unalterably attached, would have no meaning unless it implied the translation in common political terms of the experience and the aspirations of the Italian working-class. The gymnastics of the 'turns' is not healthy for the unity of action, and the socialists cannot accept the method which substitutes orders from above to experience from below.”
In this writer’s opinion, this position, although reflecting great political confusion and above all mistaken notions on the nature of the Soviet Union, was nonetheless adequate to the post-war situation in Italy, where a sharp break between the communist and the socialist masses would have led to a heavy defeat for the whole working-class movement. At the same time, the situation called (and still calls) for socialist independence and initiative – the contradiction here is only apparent.
However, this document of the PSIUP leadership did not reflect the orientation of the majority of the party at that time. It was rather a skilful Nenni-style compromise between various orientations and moods existing in the party. In fact, the “unity of action pact” became a dangerous instrument (which, it should be noted, not even the extreme reformist wing found the courage to oppose at the time) due to the presence in the party of a strong pro-Stalinist current, which passively accepted the political leadership of the PCI. A former communist leader, who left the party in 1951, writes from experience in one of his books [2]:
The PCI considered the Socialist Party as its most important front organization, an instrument by which to influence large masses of workers and of petty-bourgeoisie.
The organizational efficiency of the Stalinists ensured their control of many Socialist Party sections. Among the secondary leadership of the PSIUP, many were convinced that socialism would inevitably be established through a victory of the PCI; they became communists in good faith and hence agents of the PCI. Unnecessary to add, their ranks were strengthened by another kind of pro-Stalinists, whose convictions were determined by opportunism alone.
The existence within the PSIUP of a large pro-Stalinist current turned the “unity of action pact” into a one-way proposition. In the name of working-class solidarity, the PSIUP submitted to the demands of PCI and Russian policy, and the pact between the two organizations became a transmission belt with an engine controlled by the Stalinist leadership.
This was the setting in which the Stalinist leaders opened a massive offensive aiming to merge socialists and communists in a single party, a policy which led to the forced absorption and dissolution of the Socialist Parties in Eastern Europe. The Stalinist offensive met with great initial success. At the first National Council of the PSIUP, meeting in Rome in August 1945, a motion prevailed which declared that “a unified party of the working-class must be established as soon as possible on the basis of the two great workers’ parties.” The same motion demanded “that the coming Congress of the party settle this fundamental question.” The minority motion (21 per cent of the votes) supported the “unity of action pact” but also advocated “the autonomous existence and independence of the two proletarian parties.” Nenni signed neither of the two motions, Saragat signed the second.
At the Party Congress which met in Florence in April 1946 (the 24th), this “fusionist” offensive was defeated by the resistance of the “autonomists.” These latter went to battle divided into two factions: the reformists of “Critica Sociale” and the “Iniziativa Socialista” group, which could be described as “independent Left.” The Iniziativa Socialista tendency was composed mostly of young and very young people who, although devoid of means, of experience and of an organization, found considerable support in the rank-and-file. From a total of 736,441 party members, 83,781 votes went to the policy motion of Critica Sociale, while Iniziativa Socialista received 300,062 and the Stalinist current 338,346. Even the Stalinists were compelled to advocate the autonomy and independence of the party in their motion!
Since the perspective of the merger had been buried at the Congress, one alternative only remained: alliance with the communists but autonomy of the party. Two months later, at the first legislative elections after the collapse of fascism, this decision was approved by five million voters. The PCI, although organizationally much more powerful than the socialists, received fewer votes: this was the great and significant surprise of the elections.
It seemed as though the Florence Congress and the electoral victory would provide the impulsion for the socialist movement to expand, and to create an ideology, an organization and a homogenous leadership. However, one year later, the climate of the cold war began to spread over the world and the shadow of a split began to loom over the Socialist Party.
The first socialist split – both in time and in terms of importance – occurred in January 1947, when the leading groups of Critica Sociale and of Iniziativa Socialista left the party, followed by a part of their base and by 53 deputies in Parliament. Together, these forces formed the “Par- tito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani” (PSLI) while the rest of the party took the name “Partito Socialista Italiano” (PSI).
The second split, of a much lesser importance, followed in 1948: a small petty-bourgeois group left the party under the leadership of Ivan Matteo Lombardo, to which Ignazio Silone associated himself. The PSI went into the 1948 elections under a common ticket with the CP while the PSLI, together with this second small group, formed “Socialist Unity” tickets which received two million votes.
The third split, after the defeat suffered by the “Popular Front” and by the PSI at the polls, followed in 1949 and was led by Giuseppe Romita, who defended an independent position in the PSI but actually followed an opportunist policy of his own. This group left the PSI at a time when the left wing of the PSLI was about to break with Saragat’s party in protest against the latter’s support of Christian-Democracy. These two off-splits met to form a third socialist party, the “Partito Socialista Unitario” (PSU). The political basis of the new party was independence towards the Stalinists, a militant class line and a general Third Camp position on international affairs. It was followed by 19 parliamentarians. In 1951, however, Silone and Romita decided to scuttle the PSU and led their followers into Saragat’s party (PSLI). The result of this merger was the present “Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano” (PSDI), that is Italian Social-Democracy under its present form.
The PSU had come into existence in answer to a specific need, and its disappearance left a political void that could not remain permanent. Very soon a section of the new social- democratic party rebelled against Saragat and Romita, while a part of the PSI rebelled against Stalinist policy. At the same time two deputies and their followers resigned from the PCI (Cucchi and Magnani) over the issue of internal democracy and national independence. These three groups joined together to form the “Unione Socialista Indipendente” (USI).
At the end of this period of splits and mergers, Italian socialism was divided in its three principal components of today: the PSI, the PSDI and the USI.
This complex and tormented period of splits is difficult to understand if two essential elements are not kept in mind: the lack of an ideologically homogenous and independent leadership in the socialist movement, capable of keeping a large organization under control; secondly, the condition of colonial subjection into which Italy had fallen at the end of the Second World War.
Within the PSIUP, the “Iniziativa Socialista” tendency stood alone in advocating an independent policy for the party, and in attempting to elaborate an ideological basis for such a policy, that is, in refusing to accept the compulsory choice between the two blocs. But, as we have pointed out earlier, this tendency was composed of young people without experience and know-how, and disposed neither of financial means nor of an organization. The “Critica Sociale” tendency, on the other hand, under the political leadership of Saragat, had already decided in favor of the “Western” bloc and of American hegemony, while the so-called left tendency had accepted the leadership of the PCI and hence the theory and practice of the Russian “leader-State” differentiating itself from the Stalinists only on tactical issues.
Moreover, the battle did not take place in the realm of ideas and political orientation alone. Italy had just emerged from a disastrous war. It was covered with ruins and terribly impoverished. A country with millions of unemployed or underpaid workers, whose moral nerve had been first struck by fascism, then by the consequences of a lost war, was an ideal field for all forms of corruption. The American-led bloc was struggling to keep Italy in its own influence-sphere and under its control; the Russian bloc made every effort, after 1946, to split Italy from the “West” or, at least, to alter its political and social balance in the interests of its own policy. The Socialist Party was the keystone of Italian politics and, given the relationship of forces in Parliament and in the country, its orientation was decisive for the orientation of the whole country. It was obvious that an all-out effort would be made by both camps to capture the Socialist Party for their own interests, and the party was in no condition to resist this terrific two-fold pressure.
AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE “fusionist” theses at the Florence Congress, the Communist Party counter-attacked on the organizational level, trying to build an apparatus of its own agents within the PSI. In this move, the Stalinists disposed of several advantages: of the men they had injected earlier into the PSIUP; of the ties which had been established on the grassroots level between socialist and communist locals; of large and diverse financial resources (derived in part from their control of the trade-unions and coops). They were greatly helped by two men who, in this writer’s opinion, cannot be considered in any sense, at any time, as Stalinist agents, but who objectively favored the Communist Party’s enterprise: Pietro Nenni and Lelio Basso.
Nothing is further removed from Nenni’s mind or temper than Stalinism. His background is that of a republican; it has been pertinently observed that his republicanism is flavored by a considerable skepticism towards his own party and towards people in general. A characteristic and profound lack of theoretical training and interest, a readily-available human sensitivity, an acute and exceptional political sense; these are the main elements that make up Nenni’s personality as a political leader. As he moved to the “left” of his republican feelings, he could only accept the ideological guidance of the PCI, which helpfully came to fill the void left by his ignorance in theoretical matters. A strong dose of pragmatism and of skepticism led him to adopt a detached, “historical” view – actually a cynical view – of the Russian reality, but did not prevent him from keeping strong roots in the Italian working class. For various and legitimate reasons this man rejected the social- democratic alternative, but only to succumb to the Stalinist power; he was never able to develop an independent political position. His prestige and his human and political qualities exerted a determining influence on many socialists in favor of unity with the Stalinists.
The case of Lelio Basso is significant and instructive in a different way. Contrary to Nenni, he has a thorough theoretical training, but his ideology is schematic, at times of a theological cast. Basso constantly reasons from a class position, and therefore rejects all right-wing solutions of a bourgeois-democratic or reformist type; then he remains imprisoned in the logic of “staying with the working-class at all costs” and avoids expressing the slightest of the numerous criticisms of the Communist Party which he privately shares with many other socialists.
In the period preceding the first split, Basso attempted the daring operation of placing the Socialist Party in the lead of the “Popular Front,” but he was under the illusion that this could be done without stating the political problem in clear terms. Instead, he tried to compete with the Communist Party in the field of organizational maneuvering alone. On this level, he was beaten in advance: the Stalinists used him to consolidate their hold on the Socialist Party and then, being fully aware all along of his “unreliability,” arranged to have him removed from the Secretariat on the eve of the party elections.
The resistance of “Iniziativa Socialista” to the pro-Stalinist offensive of Nenni’s and Basso’s faction was wavering and uncertain. The independent left was beaten on the organizational level, and it lacked clarity in its ideas and perspectives: it failed to realize, above all, how urgently a solid organization and a clear program would be needed in the coming period. Consequently, it was ground to pieces by the two conflicting tendencies which represented, within the Socialist Party, the greatest military and political powers in the world.
As a result of the weakness of “Iniziativa Socialista,” the real leadership of the opposition against the Stalinist capture was assumed by Giuseppe Saragat, who gave battle on increasingly reformist and pro-American positions. It has by now become public knowledge that the split was precertain foreign and Italian circles; pared by Saragat in consultation with from the beginning, he had the full support of the bourgeois press, of certain American trade-unions, of the American authorities in Italy. The financing of the new party was undertaken by the same circles, and corruption based on patronage, a tradition of Italian government, did the rest. From its beginnings, the PSLI was a creature of the “Western” bloc, a certain verbal leftism notwithstanding.
As the following splits show, the split of 1947 did not end the crisis within either of the two sections of Italian socialism. In reality, there had remained between the PSI and the PSLI an uncommitted mass of socialists with an electoral strength of one million, perhaps one million and a half: this mass appears clearly in the differences between election results from 1947 to 1956. The fluctuations of this mass determined the strength and the relationship between the two socialist parties which remained in this way, in spite of everything, two communicating vessels. In addition, numerous “autonomists” had remained within the PSI in 1947, both of the reformist type and of the “Iniziativa Socialista” type. In the PSLI, a rank-and-file current faithful to the cause of socialist unity and independence was also able to maintain itself for a long time.
THE PSI, WHICH HAD BEEN led to the elections by Nenni and Basso on a common ticket with the Communist Party, soon entered a new and very serious crisis. The elections of 1948 registered the refusal of the Italian workers to accept a Russian perspective, and were a disaster for the “Popular Front.” Most of all, they were a disaster for the PSI within the “Popular Front.” All over the country Stalinist deputies were elected with socialist votes. In comparison with June 2, 1946, the CP increased its representation from 102 to 141 deputies; the socialists of the PSI declined from 109 seats to 42. A defeat of this magnitude could not remain without serious internal consequences. On the demand of discontented and rebellious party members, an extraordinary Congress was called (Genoa, June 1948) where the “autonomist” motion of a new centrist current received 227,609 votes, as against 161,556 for Nenni and Basso and 141,886 for the “autonomist” right-wing of Romita. A miracle had occurred which no one would have believed possible a few months earlier: the hold of the Stalinist apparatus over the PSI had been temporarily broken. Unfortunately, the centrist tendency, after taking over the leadership of the party, soon revealed itself incapable of maintaining its own positions. Ridden as it was with all the traditional weaknesses of the “autonomist” left – lack of ideological clarity, lack of a homogenous leadership, lack of financial resources, lack of organizational cohesion – it was afraid to openly fight the pro-Stalinist opposition on the political and organizational level. The latter, supported by powerful financial means, re-conquered the party within a year. At the Florence Congress of May 1949, Nenni received 220,600 votes (51 per cent) as against 160,525 for the “autonomists” and 41,133 for Romita’s faction. The Stalinist apparatus once again took control of the party and exercized its power more heavily than ever before, eliminating every organized opposition and transforming the party into a branch of the Cominform. The 29th Congress, held in Bologna in 1951, showed the end of political debate and its replacement by Stalinist litanies. Nenni’s report read: “As we increasingly identified ourselves with the proletariat, we increasingly identified ourselves with the communists.” This unbelievable statement reflected the stifling of every socialist initiative and the servile subjection to the Stalinist power.
At Nenni’s side, Morandi took control of the party organization and began to wield its power in a ruthless and bureaucratic manner. In fairness to Morandi, it must be recognized that he was the only one, among the top leadership, to raise the problem of the re-organization of the party and, more generally, of the modernization of the socialist movement. He made a serious and systematic attempt to build up an organization on the local level, to select and educate young cadres, to lift the party out of exclusively electoral and parliamentarian preoccupations and to turn it into an instrument of mass-struggles. But these organizational achievements were not at the service of a socialist policy; the party became more efficient as an organization but remained a specialized sector of the Stalinist mass-movement.
The course of the social-democratic movement was equally erratic from 1947 to 1953. We have described above how it absorbed, one after another, the various groups that left the PSI, then splitting, but only to recover the off-split together with the Romita group (at the time of the fusion of the PSLI and PSU). But throughout this period, and this is a major difference with the PSI, the leadership of Social-Democracy never once escaped Giuseppe Saragat.
Social-Democracy paid a high price for the consolidation of the right-wing leadership: a continuous loss of members and of votes. After the 1947 split, the PSLI received about two million votes. Ever since, its leadership has become more numerous while its base has narrowed. The passive participation in clerical “Center” governments naturally attracted the opportunist wing of the PSI and tired leaders who had no longer strength for a hard-fought class-struggle, but it repelled the organizers and local cadres who had led their sections out of the PSIUP in 1947 to defend socialist independence, but who were not prepared to provide a left cover for an opportunist leadership. Except in certain regions of Northern Italy, Social-Democracy gradually lost its characteristics as a mass party and became an aggregate of personal cliques and a vote-getting machine; its role in the trade-union split strengthened this trend.
The “center” coalition, which has expressed all these years the policy of the leading circles of the Italian bourgeoisie, was made up of the Christian-Democratic Party with its small Social-Democratic, Republican and Liberal satellites. In 1948, Christian-Democracy received the absolute majority of votes and of seats in Parliament, in part because of the identification of the workers’ parties with Russia, but continued to request the participation of the three minor allies in government. These latter became its hostages and the left cover for the clerical majority. This formula, which was supported by the United States for its own purposes, was rationalized in the PSDI by a sort of Center-coalition super-ideology labelled “democratic solidarity,” a negation of all socialist principles. A new electoral law, designed to ensure a perennial majority for Christian-Democracy – which was defeated by popular referendum on June 7, 1953 – was supported by the social-democrats in the name of “democratic solidarity.” On foreign policy, the common denominator of the “Center” coalition became the most supine and passive support to the Atlantic Pact and to American policy. In view of these facts, it is hardly surprising that Social-Democracy dropped from two million votes and 33 deputies in 1948 to 1.3 million votes and 19 deputies in 1953, losing at the same time all characteristics of a class party, also in its social composition.
At the time when international tension was at its peak and the Korean war had reached its greatest intensity, Italian socialism, a living reality in terms of organizations, popular support and electoral presence, was completely inexistent as an independent political force, and its two segments were mere appendices of the two opposing blocs.
This is the situation which explains the rise of the “Unione Socialista Indipendente” (USI). The formation of the independent socialist movement deserves closer attention not only because of its direct repercussions, but because of the influence of its ideas which extends far beyond the limited scope of the organization. The movement arose from a merger of small groups of ex-communists and of dissidents from the socialist parties, on the common basis of refusing to be blackmailed into a choice between the two blocs and of opposing the subordination of the socialist movement either to the clericals or to the Stalinists. Naturally this negative position was not in itself sufficient for an ideological and political platform, and in time the independent socialists elaborated a specific program and a strategy. No doubt, serious tactical mistakes were made in the beginning. For a long time, the independent socialists were undecided whether to set up a real party or a loosely organized propaganda group. This problem was solved by the organization of a propaganda league strong enough to intervene in electoral and political struggles whenever necessary. Then, the problem of socialist unity was approached in a way that was too agitational and not sufficiently political. A major problem in the first year was to avoid lapsing into the typical style of an ex-communist movement, based on negative positions rather than on a positive program on different basic issues.
These mistakes were corrected in time and the movement gradually grew in influence, in spite of a serious lack of means – contrasting with the huge war-chests at the disposal of the two major socialist organizations – and in spite of a hard life of isolation, not only on the political but also on the personal, individual level. The USI [3] elaborated a Third Camp position conceived not abstractly but as a tool against the cold war and for international relaxation; it raised the question of the nature of the Russian regime and of the theory and practice of the “leader-State”; it brought new elements into the discussion on the nature of a socialist and democratic community, concentrating on the problems of workers’ control; it explored the possibilities at each stage for an independent socialist alternative and of socialist action within the framework of class solidarity. The weekly of the USI, Risorgimento Socialista, became, also within the PCI, the PSI and the PSDI, the voice of specific aspirations for a renewal of Italian socialism.
After 1952, slowly and haltingly, the climate of the cold war gave way to a more relaxed temper in world politics. Increasingly, the effects of this relaxation made themselves felt in the Italian socialist movement. The leadership of the PSI, Nenni in particular, were quick to grasp the new elements in the situation, while Social-Democracy remained in the trenches of the cold war. The Milan Congress of the PSI (March 1953) took the beginning of a turn towards a new policy. The dominion of the apparatus remained powerful, and the Congress opened in an atmosphere of sharp hostility towards the USI and other “autonomist” groups. But, mostly on Nenni’s initiative, it also proclaimed a policy of “socialist alternative,” in part to undercut the pressure of the USI and of “autonomist” socialist opinion in general, including the millions of uncommitted socialist voters. The slogan was pregnant with significant developments. If it was to be taken seriously, it had to mean socialist action outside and, if necessary, against Stalinist influences; furthermore, in a country tired of the long clerical rule, it implied the beginning of a dialogue with the Catholic world, offering to the latter a perspective other than that of stagnation and “center-coalition” rule. Above all, “socialist alternative” meant the promise of a change to those voters who ardently desired a new start in political life through a new start of the socialist movement.
Due to this change in attitude, and in spite of its recent Stalinist past, the PSI was able to poll 3.5 million votes three months after the Congress. Counting the independent socialist votes, the total socialist vote now reached almost four million: a promising result, corresponding to the decline of Christian-Democratic electoral strength and to an electoral collapse of Social-Democracy.
Within the context of growing international relaxation, the electoral success of June 7, 1953, compelled the PSI to continue developing the themes of a “socialist alternative.” It also raised the problem of unification of all socialist groups. The politics of the PSI were gradually changing, and the basic feature of the change was that the party, in the course of a difficult and contradictory evolution, was emancipating itself from the compulsion to chose between the two blocs. Thanks in part to the international situation, the PSI was becoming serious about its neutralist position, which had been a propagandistic device in the past. At first, only the writings and the speeches of the leaders showed symptoms of change but, at the Turin Congress (April 1955) the outline of a new policy began to appear more explicitly. The PSI was moving out of the wilderness where it had been led by the passive acceptance of Stalinist guidance: it strongly re-stated the theme of “socialist alternative” in concrete terms, free of sectarian maximalism, and offered to the Catholics the possibilities of “dialogue” and of “opening to the left.” In short, the Turin Congress of the PSI proposed to the country the liquidation of the “center-coalition” and a new policy based on the common struggle of the socialist and Catholic masses.
It soon became clear that the country and the workers received this perspective favorably. In Sicily, where regional elections took place two months after the Turin Congress, the socialists won a spectacular victory.
Yet, the PSI still remained to a large extent under the spell of the Stalinist influence, not only in its relations with the Communist Party but, above all, in its attitude towards Russia. The great majority of Italian socialists, including the independent socialists and a part of the social-democrats, always considered that an independent policy did not necessarily involve a frontal clash with the communists and a break in class solidarity. It will be remembered that the “unity of action pact” as such was never an issue in the polemics that preceded the 1947 split; Saragat himself had signed the pact in November 1946. The controversy hinged on the various interpretations of the pact: whether or not the pact was being used to stifle freedom of discussion and criticism on the Russian issue. The lack of clarity of the PSI on this point, also after the Turin Congress, contributed to make its new policy ambiguous and to seriously limit its scope.
The solution to this problem appeared unexpectedly in the first months of 1956 as a by-product of the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Khrushchev’s attack on Stalinist policy and his public revelations – or rather confirmations – on the defunct dictator exerted a liberating influence on the PSI. For the first time after many years, Nenni began to express judgments which were not only highly critical of Stalinism but contradicted the official statements of Khrushchev and of the Russian CP. In the name of his party, Nenni refused to limit the “Stalin trial” to Stalin alone, and attacked the bureaucratic-dictatorial degenerations of the Russian system. Some time after Nenni, Togliatti also ventured to express a similar judgment but relapsed into silence as soon as Moscow expressed its disapproval. Nenni, on the other hand, maintained his stand.
Thus it became possible for the PSI to move from the policy of “socialist alternative” to the policy of socialist unity.
Already in the administrative elections in May 1956, the PSI took a step towards socialist unity by reconciling and allying itself with the USI, which had maintained its positions of independence and its opposition to the Stalinist ideas and methods throughout the preceding period. Its new attitude of independence and its alliance with the USI strengthened the PSI by about 600,000 votes. After the administrative elections, the stage was set for the second step towards socialist unity; drawing the PSDI closer to the PSI and the USI. Important changes, both within Social-Democracy and in the general political situation, contributed to make this step possible.
Within the PSDI, the center-right leadership continued to rule, but had to face a growing left opposition and, above all, a strong movement towards socialist unity in the party locals in the North. In Parliament, the crumbling of the “center-coalition” majority, which today rules by a margin of nine votes, forced the PSDI to revise its policy, and' the progress of international relaxation has reduced the power of the anti-unity pressure exerted by the Western powers in Saragat’s party.
We have thus reached current events, which we need not discuss here in detail.
The development of the cold war was a determining factor in the split of the Socialist Party; the process of relaxation, on the other hand, has again raised the issue of socialist unity and, what is more, has made socialist unity possible by diminishing the pressure of the opposing blocs and by blunting the sharp edges of past polemics. At the same time, however, it is obvious that the process of socialist unification has become, even within the context of relaxation, a battleground of the opposing power blocs, who are now playing their game according to different rules. Russian foreign policy has changed. The Stalinist principle “who is not with me is against me” has been replaced by “who is not with my enemies is my friend.” Such is the line that determines Russia’s new attitude towards the independent Asian nations, towards Yugoslavia, towards neutral Austria. With a lesser flexibility and ability, American foreign policy has adapted itself to the new attitudes of its adversary; the effects of this change are already making themselves felt in certain sectors of European social and political life.
Within this new context, socialist unity has become the stake in a complicated game of chess between the two blocs, each trying to influence and orient the process according to its own interests. The task of Italian socialists in this situation is of course to make the best use of the new possibilities in order to lift the problem of socialist unity from the level of diplomatic relationships between the two blocs to the level of a socialist ideology and politics. In this sense it can truly be said that the fight for socialist unity must necessarily coincide with the fight for a new policy involving the liquidation of the Stalinist and Russian handicap on the one hand, of the reformist and “Western” handicap on the other. Today, the socialist movement alone is in a position, by following a policy of militancy and independence, to open up a progressive perspective for the working-class and for the country in general.
This is the present position of the independent socialists, of wide circles in the PSI and of certain circles of the PSDI; but, until such a policy can be translated into action, a great deal of work remains to be done.
IN ITALY, A NEW SOCIALIST policy implies the solution of four fundamental problems: relationships with the Catholic world; relationship with the communist world (six million voters, two million members); foreign policy; trade-union policy.
Relationships between socialists and Catholics have always been determined in Italy by one of two opposed policies, both of which are based on dangerous mistakes. The old socialist tradition is one of anti-clericalism. In itself, anti-clericalism is a deformation rather than an integral part of a class policy, and transfers the struggle from the realm of social relations to the realm of metaphysical controversy. As a basis for socialist policy, it means destroying class unity and giving up any serious attempt to drive a wedge into Christian-Democracy. Even if the communists are included, a “left” majority on an anti-clerical platform is not possible in Italy. This means that if the working-class movement enters into sharp conflict with the Catholics on the religious question, it will condemn itself to a sterile maximalist opposition for another ten or twenty years. Moreover, and this is a more important point, the anti-clerical policy strengthens the domination of the ecclesiastical apparatus on the Catholic working masses and indirectly stifles the maturing of class-consciousness among these workers. It is not surprising that the Vatican does everything in its power to stimulate a new religious war which would smash class solidarity in the factories and in the rural regions among workers and peasants of different religious or philosophical allegiances. Karl Marx remarked that “the struggle against religious prejudice does not occur in heaven but on earth,” stressing that religious prejudices are rooted in a given system of relations of production. The recognition of this fact, which is of secondary importance to socialists of other countries, is fundamental for the Italian socialist movement.
The other attitude which has determined, more recently, the policy of large sections of the Italian labor movement is one of readiness to compromise at all costs. At times, the policy of the Communist Party has followed this pattern, in conformity with Russian policy: in 1946, for instance, the PCI voted to include the fascist Concordate between Church and State into the Constitution. More generally, and for different reasons, Saragat’s party has accepted a passive “co-existence” with the Catholics, conceding vital ground on the question of the lay state and failing to conduct necessary social struggles which could have had the support of the Catholic masses. Furthermore, by its readiness to compromise, it justified the ecclesiastical and Christian-Democratic hierarchy in the eyes of the Catholic masses and in this way helped the hierarchy to inhibit the growth of class-consciousness among Catholic workers.
A new approach is needed, which would reject both anti-clericalism and compromise at all costs, and would tend to establish practical co-operation with the Catholic masses on the basis of solidarity in common problems and struggles. This is an approach involving many difficulties and a number of risks, but it is the only approach capable of setting Italian politics in motion. It may involve, for the socialist movement, participation in government or opposition, depending on the circumstances and on the relationship of forces between classes.
Opening a dialogue with the Catholics implies avoiding a frontal clash with the communists and a break in class solidarity, also on this side. If such a break should occur, any dialogue with the Catholics would become a mere pretext for the absorption of the socialist movement by the clerical-conservative front. On the question of relationships with the communists, it must always be kept in mind that now the communists themselves are dependent on maintaining working relations with the socialists, even at the cost of submitting to the influence of an independent socialist movement which they would never have tolerated a few years ago. A break with the socialists would not only isolate the PCI, but would also be in contradiction with the “relaxed” policy Russia is following at the moment. The PCI is consequently compelled to accept the new socialist attitude as a “lesser evil.”
For the socialists, the problem is to maintain unity of action and class solidarity with the communist workers while resisting Stalinist directives and, above all, while using their full freedom of criticism and analysis in relation to the communist world. This too is a difficult policy, but all other alternatives would lead to the state of affairs which in France reduced Guy Mollet’s party to an instrument of the bourgeoisie.
AS FAR AS FOREIGN POLICY is concerned, socialist unity can only be achieved on the basis of a Third Camp position. The Italian socialists are no longer prepared to accept either the theory and practice of the Russian “leader-State” nor the worn-out formulas of the Atlantic alliance. On the other hand, large sections of the PSI and of the PSDI, as well as the whole of the USI, are interested in favoring the process of relaxation between the two blocs. Even though the threat of war has not disappeared permanently, the present international conditions allow for new relationships between States based on co-existence. In this writers’ opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of the Italian labor movement, the socialists should favor the practice of co-existence even though it does not represent a permanent solution nor involve the disappearance of imperialist pressures and of the class struggle. A climate of coexistence is one in which the socialist movement can grow much more easily than in a climate of open conflict between the two blocs, and the growth of an independent international labor movement represents the strongest guarantee of peace. Finally, only a policy of independence from both blocs can enable the socialist movement to offer the necessary solidarity and assistance to the cause of colonial peoples and of all oppressed peoples in general.
On the trade-union question, the PSI and the USI advocate a policy leading to the unification of all trade-union organizations. In Italy, the socialist split and the cold war have led to a split in the General Confederation of Labor (CGIL). Today, three significant trade-union organizations exist on the national level, as well as a great number of small independent unions: the trade-union movement is in a state of crisis and the economic defenses of the working-class are seriously weakened. The CGIL, which includes the workers of the PCI, of the PSI, of the USI and, locally, elements of the social-democratic Left, is the strongest federation (60–65 per cent of all organized workers). The CISL, with 25–30 per cent of organized labor, is the union of the Catholic workers and of the social-democratic Right. The UIL, which includes social-democratic, Republican and independent workers, is the weakest of the three organizations and mainly tries to exploit local discontent in certain sections of the CGIL and of the CISL; it is notorious for its ties with certain Italian monopolies, in particular FIAT and Montecatini. The point of view which the PSI and the USI hold in common, is that the socialists of the unified party should all be members of a single trade-union organization, the CGIL, but that unity of all trade-union federations should be a goal connected with socialist unity. The PSDI, on the other hand, advocates entry of all socialists in the UIL, and demands that a decision on this question should be reached at the first Congress of the unified party.
Against the new policy of socialist unity, a sharp opposition has arisen from two sides. As soon as socialist unity became a live issue, the European social-democratic Right moved on different levels to absorb the PSI into the conservative coalition or at least to bring about a split in its midst. With the help of Commin, Secretary of the French Socialist Party and a prominent member of the “Atlantic” and right-wing leadership, a much publicized meeting of Nenni and Saragat was arranged at Pralognon. The bourgeois press interpreted this event as a return of the PSI to the social-democratic fold, and has conducted a high-pressure campaign to browbeat the PSI into immediate and indiscriminate unity within the framework of “democratic solidarity.” This maneuver failed thanks to the firm attitude of the PSI and to the energetic intervention of the USI, which helped to distinguish the perspective of unity on the basis of independence from the communists from the perspective of unity on an anti-communist and clerical basis. It is probable, however, that other efforts of a similar kind will be made by the leading circles of the bourgeoisie and by the European social-democratic Right. The latter especially attempt to exploit for their own purposes the disarray of the PSI after the Stalinist crisis.
Nor is this the only danger. If the process of “de-Stalinization” within the PCI – and hence of transformation in a socialist direction – will slow down to a long halt, as seems probable at the moment, one can foresee a communist attempt to isolate the PSI from the other socialist forces and to stifle the policy of unity by means of the old and tried methods and slogans.
THE ROAD TO SOCIALIST UNITY is full of obstacles and difficulties. A firm political position is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to overcome these obstacles. What is indispensable, is a transformation of the structure of the socialist movement. It must cease to concentrate on sterile polemics among the top leadership and must become more and more a real mass organization, a political force in the daily lives of the people, engaged in all important struggles of the workers and peasants, representing within itself the image of the new society. Another pressing task is one of ideological reconstruction. Maximalism and reformism are both dried branches on the tree of the Italian labor movement, and they must be cut. The struggle for power in our country cannot be conducted with purely parliamentary methods nor can it be founded on the expectation of an apocalypse. The pressure of the masses, the development of the class-struggle supported by an effective intervention on the parliamentary level, can alone begin a thorough reform of Italian society. An increasing number of people are beginning to think along these lines, and the growing awareness of this perspective in the socialist movement must be consolidated.
There remains the problem of the goal. The Italian socialist movement must at last commit itself to a judgment on the experience of Russia and of the Eastern countries; it must define its position on the crisis of Western Social-Democracy and on the rise of socialist forces in Asia and Africa; it cannot postpone any longer an analysis of what the structure of a socialist society actually involves, of the significance of real workers’ democracy, of its relationship with workers’ control and management of industry. Only a growing awareness of these new and immense tasks will enable the Italian socialist movement to liquidate the heritages of Stalinism and of Social-Democracy, which have been such a determining factor in its crisis and which still weigh on it today.
October 1956
1. The split, which occurred in 1922, ended in 1930 with the merger, in Paris, of “unitary” socialists (Turati) and “maximalist” socialists (Nenni).
2. Paolo Emilianti: Dieci anni perduti, Nistri-Lisehi, Pisa 1953.
3. Until 1953 the group was called “Movimento Lavoratori Italiani” (MIL).
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