livio Maitan, a leader of the Italian Trotskyist movement, entitled The Workers Movement at_a Critical Juncture. It is part of their series "Political Culture." As yet the book is available only in Ttalian. *
The~ introduction explains that the book constitutes "an-analysis of the posi- = tions taken by the workers parties and unions on major problems that. have been posed :during recent years and which have not yet been solved: The first chapter deals in particular with discussions on the subject of economic programming (Pieraccini Plan). The second chapter examines problems related to the center-left. The third poses the crucial question of transitional objectives and the conditions for the conquest of
*Write to Samond e Savelli, via Chinotto 1, Rome, Italy. US$#3.
power by the working class. The fourth examines concepts of the workers party such as were outlined in the polemics of 1965-66. The fifth is devoted to certain very current problems of the world situation.
"The analysis," continues the introduction, "is developed from a critical left point of. view and to a certain degree represents a rounding out of other essays and articles by the same author... For an entite period, not only in the eyes of the public in general but also within the ranks of the workers movement, the Communist party has appeared as the extreme left beyond which there was room for only absolutely insignificant marginal groups. Today, besides the traditional criticisms of the other political parties, it is under more and more numerous and sweeping attacks from’ the left, with considerable repercussions in its own ranks.
“"The book seeks to offer ‘a contribution to this critical current, particularly in the field of today's political problems but also including references to less contingent generalizations, attempting in any case to draw from the episodic phenomena the main thread of the strategy of the whole as determined in the final analysis by the nature and position of leading groups and bureaucratic layers crystallized in the . workers movement."
The book will be presented at a series of’ conferences in a number of cities in Italy, the first one having taken place already at Naples on December 15 at a cultural circle of the left. It was a notable success not only in the record number of those who attended but in the way in which the remarks of the speaker were greeted.