Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist
Groups), explains the position of the Italian section of the Fourth International not only on the nature of the relations between the mass movement and the reformists, but also on the character and function of the "government of the left,"' as well as the attitude revolutionaries
The GCR is presenting candidates on the slate of Democrazia Proletaria. During the electoral campaign, members of the CR have participated in many meetings with Lotta Continua. The
GCR newspaper, Bandiera Rosa, is being published weekly during the campaign.
THE MASS MOVEMENT & THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LEFT must adopt toward such a goverment. Although the die is not yet cast and the ever more frenetic mobilization of all the conservative and reactionary forces may yet have an impact on vacillating layers of the electorate, mainly the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, it remains possible that the parties and formations of the workers movement - PCI, PSI, DP* - will win an absolute majority of the vote in the national parliamentary elections on June 20. This would be an electoral reflection of the relationship of forces that *PCI: Partito Comunista Italiano - Italian Communist party; PSI: Partito Socialista Italiano - Italian Socialist party; DP: Democrazia Proletaria - Proletarian Democracy. The DP is the common slate of the far left, the major participants in which are the Partito di Unita Proletaria (Party of Proletarian Unity), Avanguardia Operaia (Workers Vanguard), Lotta Continua (Struggle Continues), the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Communist Groups, Italian section of the Fourth International), and the Movimento del Lavoratori per il Socialismo (Movement of Workers for Socialism).
QUARTA INTERNAZIONALE PR IN CORENO RELIE VOTA DEMOCRAZIA PROLETARIA
PROLETAN has been established by the class struggle itself during the past several years. In light of this possibility - for the achievement of which a determined battle must continue to be waged - it is necessary to clarify a series of points and to define, even if only in its overall lines, the orientation of revolutionaries. First of all, it would be simplistic to establish an identity between the experience that may be inaugurated in Italy in several weeks or months from now and the experiences undergone in other countries, and even in Italy itself, in other periods. In fact, a relationship of forces could emerge that is clearly more favorable to the workers parties than was the case, for example, at the time of the successes of the Popular Fronts in Spain and France in 1936. Moreover - and this is an essential point that must not be lost sight of for a moment - this would go hand in hand with a deeper and more comprehensive crisis of capitalist society and would
19
ITALY be the product not of a sudden explosion or a series of struggles limited in time, but rather of a long-term upsurge, one which began nearly a decode ago, has experienced no genuine reversals of its trend, and has successively taken roof not only in the working class and the student movement but also among all the exploited and oppressed layers of capitalist society. In the course of this period, in Italy more than in any other European country, broad social vanguards have emerged which have at various times played leading roles, escaping the control of the reformist bureaucratic leoderships and seeking alternative solutions, even if only empirically and episodically. Finally, the international context appears particularly favorable, first because American imperialism has suffered a defeat of historic proportions in Vietnam and now Finds it impossible, at least for a certain period, to envisage any military intervention and even has difficulty adopting threatening political attitudes, and second because the revolutionary crisis now ripening in Italy is linked to potentially explosive situations in other countries of southern Europe (primarily Spain, but also France, and one cannot yet speak of restabilization in Portugal). The first conclusion that must be drawn from this array of analytical elements is that a majority for the workers parties would emerge in a context in which it would be difficult for the reformist leaderships to limit themselves to assuming tasks of managing the capitalist system, of simple rationalizations or moderate reformist actions. It would likewise be difficult for them to arrange everything in advance with the political forces of the bourgeoisie, or to rigorously curb or channel the movement of the masses. In a phase of such acute crisis of the system at all levels and of great dynamism of the movement of the masses, the reformist bureaucratic leaderships would find themseives compelled to make a choice between systematic class collaboration (with a renunciation of at least a part of their own program, moderate as it is) and the adoption of measures that could strike at a series of not at all marginal vested interests. Opting for the former choice would mean careening toward rapid defeat; the latter choice would contribute, even if against the plans and intentions of these leaderships, to sharpening and dramatizing social conflicts and political clashes. The paradox of the position of the reformist leaderships, in particular that of the PCI, lies in the fact that the very success of their political project could lead to exactly the situation they want to avoid: a further aggravation of political paralysis. It is significant that under the impact of the debate around the elections, both Lama (central PCI trade-union figure) and PC! secretary general Enrico Berlinguer have hod to indicate, albeit with the greatest caution, that it is possible that if the workers win a majority, they could be compelled to assume government responsibilities on their own if the Christian Democrats (DC) and the other bourgeois parfies continue to reject both the historic compromise and the "government of democratic coalition" that have been proposed by the PCI. 20
A government of the left Here lies the first difference between reformists and revolutionaries. While the reformists conceive of a government of the left as a solution to be adopted only in extremis, imposing such a government must be the primary objective for revolutionaries during the current phase. The knotty economic and political problems, which are becoming increasingly entangled in the context of the overall crisis of the system, can be unraveled only if the very structures of capitalist society as they have developed in Italy over the past thirty years are challenged. The reformists claim to want a change, but they commit themselves to guaranteeing profits and the "normal" functioning of market laws. They pledge to oct within the framework of the political structures of bourgeois democracy and to respect so-called international alliances, which means Italy's adherence to the imperialist military and political bloc. For revolutionaries the aim is just the reverse. The priority is to prevent the working class and other exploited layers from being the main victims of the crisis, and so much the worse for the economic mechanisms of the system if the satisfaction of this demand requires challenging or infringing upon these mechanisms. The broad masses must command the democratic-revolutionary instruments they need to express their will and to exercise their hegemony concretely, and so much the worse for the republican constitution if the achievement of this goal controdicts formal respect for the framework of that constitution. The country must be withdrawn from the tutelage of imperialism, thus permitting it to line up with the peoples in struggle for their emancipation, and so much the worse for NATO if this demand cannot be satisfied within the framework of that alliance. Such a project requires an unambiguous definition of the character of the government that must implement it in practice. On the basis of their own premises, the leaders of the PCI seek not only generic collaboration with the bourgeoisie or with sectors of it, but specifically with the parties that represent this class, whether in the form of a special alliance with the Christian Democracy or in the form of a coalition of all parties except the neofascist far right. Under certain conditions, the PCI leaders could be compelled to shift their target a bit, aiming at government collaboration with some minor party, such as the PRI (Partito Repubblicano Italiano - Italian Republican party), which today more than ever enjoys the direct support of some sectors of the ruling class. For revolutionaries, on the other hand, the objective must be a government from which all representatives, direct or indirect, of the ruling class are excluded, a government that defends the interests of the working class and the other exploited layers, a government in which only representatives of these-classes are present. This means a government composed of the PCI and the PSI (the parties that up to now enjoy the confidence of the great majority of the masses) and based on the trade unions and all the other mass organizations. It cannot be ruled out in advance that independents who are not members of either of these two parties or representatives of possible new formations might be
part of such a government, provided they were willing to accept its program and discipline. But no bourgeois group or party - even potential new groups created by splits from the tradifional formations - should be admitted. The experiences of Spain and Chile, in spite of their many differences, highlight the negative role that can be played by such Trojan Horses, regardless of their precise composition. What kind of program? It is not possible here to sketch out the full program of a government of the workers parties. This would risk becoming a mere literary exercise, for it is not yet possible to foresee all the problems that will be posed or the concrete manner in which it will be necessary to tackle them. The essential thing is to establish the criteria on the basis of which this program will have to be worked out. These are the criteria that were used, for example, by Lenin in listing the objectives for which the mosses had to struggle in his well-known article of September 1917, The Impending Catastrophe and How to Fight It. These same criteria were again taken up in some of the documents of the first congresses of the Communist International, at a time when capitalist Europe was being shaken by the postwar crisis, They were later confirmed and made more explicit by Trotsky in 1938, during yet another critical phase of the system on a world scale. These criteria are embodied in a transitional program that must begin from the problems posed by the objective situation and its trends, seek to correspond to the living demands of the masses and their will to satisfy them, and stimulate a dynamic of anticapitalist mobilization and struggle. On the basis of experience - and in a revolutionary situation this can occur with notable rapidity - the masses will come to realize that in order to achieve the objectives they consider vital, they must make inroods against the existing structures of society, build a new power, and erect a government whose social content differs qualitatively from all previous ones. Let us take some examples, as concrete as possible. If is an incontestable fact that the defense of employment and of the living standards of the masses against erosion
SIANO SOLDARD SARENO PARTICLAR SOLDATI by inflation are central problems, felt as life-and-death questions by the entire proletariat. The bourgeois thesis that the solution to these problems depends on an increase in productivity (to be achieved through new investment or through rationalization of the productive system) is a mystification that conceals the reality of bourgeois attempts to increase the reserve army of labor (which means a reduction in the effectively employed active population) and to intensify exploitution (with consequent reductions of real wages, for a whole period at least). The reformist thesis is not substantially different, for it also puts the emphasis on investment and "rationalization." It is not enough to respond to this simply by noting that a real "rationalization, " one that is beneficial instead of damaging to the masses, requires the initiation of socialist construction on the basis of a planned economy. It is also necessary to create conditions such that it is possible to actually struggle for this objective and for the qualitative revolutionary leap that it requires, mobilizing the masses for goals that they feel to be necessary, goals whose realization would entail a break with the logic of the system in the given context. The struggle for the reduction of the workweek with no reduction in pay and the struggle for an integral sliding scale of wages under the control of the workers at various levels are the objectives that best fall within this Togic. The thirty-five-hour week with no reduction in pay would not only guarantee employment levels, but even lead to increases. In this sense, the demand has a general Impact and permits a linkup with the movement of unemployed workers. (It is significant that the representative of the unemployed organizations who spoke at the national demonstration of metalworkers in Naples last December raised exactly this demand.) And it is clear that to struggle for this objective in the present context means to raise a demand incompatible with the system; in other words, to attack the profits and power of the employers. The impact of a sliding scale that would completely and immediately compensate for the erosion of buying power need not be demonstrated. All the workers understand it perfectly. It is sufficient to stress first the necessity of revising the package to include items that have now become articles of mass consumption (this would be a concrete way of struggling against the regression in the scale of consumption that has been imposed on the working class as a result of the enormous price increases) and second the Importance of also introducing, in connection with the sliding scale, the idea of workers control (at the point of cost determination, price-fixing, and so on). The program of the PCI for the electoral campaign has confirmed the reformists" renunciation of nationalizations, of the expropriation of capitalist property. For revolutionaries, this is not a matter confirming in general terms the necessity of striking at the great monopolistic groups, expropriating them without compensation, but of enumerating the specific terrain on which the problem can be posed in the short term, in relation both to the urgent problems now posed and to the level of assimilation of certain demands on the part of the broad masses. Al-
21
ITALY reody there is no lack of examples, nor will there be o lock in the near future. There are employer who claim that they cannot continue functioning, who are threatening bankruptey, and who want to use such blackmail and pressure to receive a blank check to lay off workers and appeal for state aid. So, if these gentlemen cannot go on any more, let them take their leave, Let their companies be nationalized, and let them be placed under workers control, in order to avoid the creation of new state posts, sources of corruption and mismanagement. Another example: The oil trusts and the large-scale distribution network for consumer goods are engaging in dizzying speculation, raking in fabulous profits while the workers have to tighten their belts, which contributes to inflation. A government of the workers parties, rather than simply whining about this or denouncing it, would have to counterattack vigorously through measures of nationalization, once again under workers control. Similar reasoning goes for real estate, where the most frenetic speculation is continuing, while housing costs are soaring and the great majority of the workers are unable to satisfy their most elementary household needs. Here ogain, nationalization without compensation of the property of the land speculators is the required measure (in combination, of course, with other measures more directly related to housing construction), without which any project of urban reform is only empty chatter. It is certain that in the event of a success for the workers parties and of their accession to the government, the flight of capital and exchange speculation that has gone on in recent months will acquire even greater dimensions, with disorganizing effects on the entire economy. It is illusory to think that this danger can be somehow exorcised by issuing guarantees left and right and by proclaiming the will of the workers parties to respect profits, the sacrosanct laws of the market, and the mechanisms of the Common Market. The response must be drastic measures against smugglers of capital and speculators. These gentlemen must be expropriated and prosecuted. But this can have only limited effectiveness if it is not accompanied by additional measures, such as control over banking activities with the direct participation of the workers (the experiences of the struggles of the Portuguese bank employees provide useful lessons in this regard) and forms of state monopoly of foreign trade (in order to prevent exchange speculation by big exporters and importers). The odvocates of the policy of the historic compromise or of national coalition will object that if all this is done the 51 percent majority for the workers parties would wind up provoking a situation marked by grave tension and conflict, which would entail the risk of tragic fissures in society. But is it perhaps possible to resolve such a profound crisis - whose roots, as the reformists themselves are forced to admit, lie directly in the structures of the system itself - without attacking many powerful vested interests, without facing opposifion from the holders of privilege, without great social conflict? In reality, as we pointed out earlier, the workers government will have to make a clear choice, 22 almost immediately: Either to limit itself to administering the crisis within the framework of the status quo (in other words, to take on the function of stabilization and normalization, inevitably at the expense of the broad masses who made it possible to form the government in the first place) or else to seek to defend the basic interests of the masses and thus to begin to strike against at least a part of the existing vested interests, which would of course inevitably create situations of conflict, but with the knowledge that this is the only way not only to maintain but also to enlarge the support of the actively mobilized masses, Revolutionaries must do everything possible to create favorable conditions for the second option being chosen. Attitude of revolutionaries This point raises the general question of the attitude of revolutionaries toward a government of workers parties with reformist leaderships. This attitude must be defined while taking account of two essential elements. The first is that revolutionaries, on the basis of all historic experience, reject the hypothesis of the traditional workers parties that the transition to socialism (after the phose of the "second stage of the democratic antifascist revolution") will be able to take place gradually through a succession of reforms and through internal transformation of the political structures of bourgeois democracy. Revolutionaries do not confuse the formation of a government of the workers parties with the seizure of power by the proletariat. The seizure of power can in no way be identified with a PCI-PSI government after June 20, nor can the role of revolutionaries be reduced to one
P.C.J P.C.J VOTA COMUNISTA COMUNSTA P.C.I P.C.IVOTA VOTA COMUNISTA COMUNISTA Ca NOTA ISTA COMUNISTA COMU
of applying pressure (from without or within, that is, through the presence of several ministers or under-secretaries). It will be the task of revolutionaries always to put forward the point of view of the interests of the workIng class, of the necessity for the building and strengthening of the mass movement and its democratic and revolutionary organization. This does not at all rule out support, even formal support, to all those political decisions of a government of workers parties that effectively strike against the interests of the ruling classes, whether the local capitalists or the foreign imperialists, and that represent real gains for the working class and its allies, It does not rule out defense of the government that enjoys the confidence of the majority of the masses against any reactionary, fascist, or parafascist operation. But this must be done without creating the slightest confusion as to strategy and without the slightest renunciation of political independence. A possible victory for the left on June 20 would undoubtedly be accompanied by great mass enthusiasm, by increased confidence of the masses in their own strength, by a will to take od vantage of the new relationship of forces sealed on the institutional level. This could create favorable conditions for mass mobilizations with a comprehensive political scope and for the emergence of new organs of mobilization and organization. All the problems relating to organs of revolutionary democracy of the soviet type will then have to be placed on the agenda. Their translation into concrete terms will have to be a cardinal element of revolutionary strategy. What will have to be posed through these organs - and through other mass organs such os the trade unions -will be, among other things, the crucial problem of workers self-defense against the attacks of the repressive forces and of fascist or parafascist gangs. The systematic organization of self-defense will have to be combined with a qualitative leap in political intervention within the armed forces, for elementary democratic rights for the soldiers inside and outside the barracks, for the independent rank-and-file organization of the soldier. Only in this way and not by spreading illusions about the "democratic spirit" of the armed forces (including the officers and generals) nor by simply including some veterans on the election slates, will it be possible to tie the hands of those who dream of repeating in Italy the criminal enterprise of the dictator Pinochet.
We have insisted on the necessity of a government of the workers parties rejecting collaboration with the military bodies of imperialism and of making withdrawal from the Atlantic Pact an immediate objective. More generally, the whole international outlook of the reformist leaders will have to be turned around.
No one denies that a workers government may sometimes have to maneuver, choose the most opportune moment to act, and even accept certain limitations. (The fact
* that the Cuban revolutionaries renounced driving the United States out of Guantanamo naval base for a long period did not prevent them from courageously pressing ahead with revolutionary action). But what must be rejected is the logic of so-called incompatibility. It is true that American imperialism, and more directly certain European capitalist powers, will exert great weight on the Italian situation and may not be extremely discriminating in their choice of measures. But it is no less true that the formation of a workers government and the possible outbreak of a revolutionary crisis in Italy will have enormous repercussions in a number of European countries. In the long run, the solution that is posed must inevitably be the outbreak of revolutionary situations in other countries of the continent, with the establishment of other workers governments and a potential dynamic of conquest of power by the proletariat. In the shorter run, the international policy of a workers government in Italy will have to seek to combine some inevitable tactical compromises with economic and political accords with countries in which capitalism has been abolished as well as with appeals for mobilizations of solidarity with Italy by the workers parties of other countries. (The proposal, for instance, of a congress of all the working-class political and trade-union organizations of Europe to combat possible economic sabotage against Italy could get an extraordinary response even in countries in which the objective situation remains relatively more backward.) The advent of a left government and a further evolution of the relationship of class forces may create more favorable conditions for the building of a revolutionary party capable of fighting to overturn the hegemony of the reformist bureaucracies. Because of the differentiations and divergences, some of them quite serious, that now exist among the major and minor formations of the far left, this will not be an easy or linear process. But the new situation may compel reconsideration and reexamination of strategic suppositions, general conceptions, and methods in the light of needs that are felt concretely by the masses. The discussions that went on during April and the first weeks of May, which were not limited to the problem of electoral options, can and must continue, take on greater breadth, and become more rigorous, going beyond the scholastic remnants of the past, making inroads against sectarian crystallization, and sweeping away ridiculous organizational patriotism. If this condition is fulfilled, within the context of a rising dynamic of the movement, new situations may arise and lay the basis for a great new reshuffling of the deck, with new polarizations within the far left and new drives toward unity.
May 28, 1976
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portuguese elections
The presidential election campaign in