VICIOUS CIRCLE To the question of whether the Italian bourgeoisie can set in motion a solution to its crisis of leadership and lay the basis for a restabilization, the June 15 elections gave a more resoundingly negative answer than anyone had anticipated. The Christian Democracy, far from recovering from the blow it was dealt by the referendum on divorce last year (see INPRECOR, No. 0, May 9, 1974, and No. 1, June 6, 1974), suffered an even sharper blow. It only barely maintained its position as the largest party and was surpassed by the PCI in almost all the important cities and in all the most dynamic sections of the country. The percentage decline missed taking on squarely catastrophic proportions only because the DC was partially successful in picking up some votes on its right. In any case, the results were such that any further maneuvering in this direction is precluded. The Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI - Italian Liberal party was reduced to minimal size, and the MSI-destra nazionale (Movimento Sociale Italiano-national right, the largest fascist party) also suffered losses. Overall, the right represents less than 10 percent of the electorate. Political maturation June 15 marked the most radical shift in the relationship of forces to occur since the founding of the republic. It demonstrated that the great processes that have taken place in the country during the past seven years, far from having receded, have achieved a higher level of maturity and are now reflected unequivocally even in the deformed mirror of electoral politics. It confirmed that the working class has preserved its combative spirit and remains determined to take advantage of its increosed social specific weight, that the radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie has spread further, and that 6 portant step in the process of demystifying reformism in the eyes of the masses. This demystification, the imposition of a platform and line that correspond to the requirements of the working class and are adequate to the maturity of the situation in the overall political sense, will be important not only for the battle within the working class for a revolutionary leadership, but also and more directly for the development and positive outcome of the new wave of struggles. In large measure, this outcome will depend on whether June 15 leads to an even more advanced phase of the crisis of the system in which the question of power is posed in more concrete terms or whether things will simply mark time, with all the dangers that marking time implies in a situation of extreme tension such as exists in Italy today. significant movement is going on even among the traditionally more backward peasant layers. The fact that 18-21 year olds were allowed to vote for the first time probably accentuated the dimensions of these phenomena, but this was not the major cause of the shift. After the great struggles of 1972-73 had wrecked Andreotti's restorationist attempts, the persistent combativity exhibited by the workers in recent months and the political maturation of the working class and of other exploited layers of the laboring population created the preconditions for June 15, which marked the resounding failure of the project that was initiated two years ago with the return of Amintore Fanfani to the DC leadership and with the umpteenth edition of the centerleft government. Fanfani fooled himself and perhaps also fooled some groups in the ruling class about the possibilities of strengthening his own position through an aggressive electoral campaign and of thus putting himself in position to develop with greater organic unity and authority the policy that had been sketched out during the past year, which had incontestably produced some results for the bourgeoisie (the imposition of a successful economic policy for the Bank of Italy, the launching of the Reale laws, the relative success of the educational reform). But these successes were only partial, completely insufficient to restabilize the situation or assure the crystallization of a new leadership. June 15 blew away all these illusions like a hurricane, and the bourgeoisie and its most representative political groups now find themselves in an enormously more difficult situation characterized by a further shift in the relationship of forces to the advantage of the working class. There is
scarcely any need to stress the importance of the fact that all the parties and groups engaged in the vote contributed to this shift, although to various degrees. While the PCI was far and away the major beneficiary of the massive electoral shift, the PSI (Partito Socialista Italiano - Italian Socialist party) also made significant gains, and the results of the far left - Democrazia Proletaria and other allied lists — were not at all insignificant, especially if one considers their score in important political centers (Milan, for example). A crisis of the regime As immediately became apparent in the comments of the most representative organs of the bourgeois press (even before the various political leaders took positions), the bourgeoisie finds itself facing difficulties that are considerably more serious than those of any other time during the past thirty years, controdictions that seem insuperable under the present state of affairs. The major contradiction lies in the fact that the most influential groups of the ruling class are convinced that the Christian Democracy is an increasingly worn out instrument, that its effectiveness is in inverse ratio. to Its costs, that it is increasingly less able to conserve or reconquer hegemony over the broad popular layers that it had succeeded in influencing just after the end of the second world war. But of the same time, these groups are compelled to acknowledge that they command no other instrument of even minimum credibility, nor is there any prospect for a radical change in the situation in the near future. Further, the editorialists of the big bourgeois dailies - from Il Messaggero to Corriere della Sera - are hurrying to speak of the necessity for "change" and "renovation, " But when the time comes to move from good intentions to concrete statements and precise recommendations, the most absolute vacuum emerges -or else the brilliant conclusion that the center-left government should remain in power. A situation in which the leading party of the ruling class is in such deep crisis and in which no real alternative presents itself is potentially one in which the parliament can be dissolved and new elections called. But the relationship of forces and the tendencies currently at work deprive the bourgeoisie of even this outlet during the present phase. Naturally, now more thon ever there will be far-right tendencies, putschist candidates, terrorist conspiracies, and the organization of goon squads against workers and students. But it is excluded that substantial sectors of the ruling class would now opt for the dangerous road of putschist and dictatorial attempts, which would be extremely likely to end in miserable failures and further disintegration of the apparatus of the system, or, if they took on greater importance, could precipitate a civil war whose repercussions throughout capitalist Europe would be enormous. It is thus probable that after all the lamenting about short-lived maneuvers, big and small, and after the denunciations of the sterility of the policy followed up to now and of the ruinous character of the methods that have been used, the same old spectacle will occur for the umpteenth time and the status quo will be prolonged by force of inertia, with the danger of the situation becoming completely rotten. Moreover, it does not seem probable that the bourgeoisie will translate the proposal for a serious change into the only concrete choice that is theoretically still open: acceptance of the reformist offer of the historic compromise. The historic compromise compromised From a general objective standpoint, June 15 should have improved the conditions for the realization of the historic compromise, given the aggravation of the political crisis, the absence of a credible alternative, and the increased weight of the PCI. But judging by the statements made during the days immediately following the elections, no important sector of the bourgeoisie is inclined to cross the Rubicon. The weakened Christian Democracy will be perhaps even more sensitive to its right-wing electoral base, to the exigencies of defending the vested interests that have always been the most concrete basis of its strength. The Christian Democracy and the leading bourgeois groups fear above all that in the context of politicizafion and radicalization out of which June 15 emerged (and which June 15 will contribute to intersifying) not only would the historic compromise be unable to slow down and channel mass movements, but on the contrary could open even wider breaches in the political structures of the system and aggravate the social equilibrium, making it explosive. Thus, more than at any time since the beginning of the great crisis in 1968, the bourgeoisie finds itself caught in a vicious circle. It understands that major initiatives and radical turns are necessary. But it is unable to take these initiatives or carry out these turns, not for lack of clarity but because of the risks that would be involved, risks that are not at all imaginary. The contradictory character of its present situation is not a result of subjective deficiencies but is intrinsic and objective. The workers movement, which has emerged strengthened from the electoral test, must not allow its adversary to obtain the fruce it needs to reorganize its forces. Time is of the essence. The workers movement must operate not in the framework of a reformist logic, in the final analysis illusory, but with the perspective of mobilizations with an anticapitalist dynamic. The workers movement must struggle not only to bury the center-left. If must also reject any solution involving new forms of collaboration with the ruling class, such as the historic compromise, It must be the bearer of an overall anticapitalist alternative. The basic perspective must be that of a workers government capable of imposing the workers solutions to the crisis generated by the growing contradictions of capitalist society.
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