Christian Democracy in Italy
By E W. ASHCROFT
COMMUNISM in Italy is by no means finished. The Italian Communist Party is still the largest party in Europe and the most brilliantly led. But it has had a severe blow from the complete failure of its campaign to get the dockers to refuse to unload American arms-ships and the railwaymen to refuse to handle arms traffic. A cartoon published in Candid°, a satirical weekly, showed two dockers in the port of Naples staggering under huge cases of American arms. One says to the other, " When we have finished unloading these, we must go to the meeting to protest against the unloading of American arms." Everywhere in Italy Communist sympathisers have been holding meetings and signing peace pledges. The cartoon in question, however, referred to Neapolitan dockers, and the cynicism and easy-goingness of the Neapolitans are not typical of the Italian working-class as a whole If they were, Communism would be much less of a danger than it is.
In reality, the question of unloading the American ships was only the culminating point of an attempt to throw Italy into con- . fusion and to force a change of Government. Since last October there has been a long series of strikes and demonstrations organised by the party. Peasants have occupied land in Southern Italy. They would have done so in any case, but the Communist Party made these occupations as provocative as possible. Whilst " the limited- duration " strikes called as protests against police action have passed off quietly in the large cities, there have been serious troubles in isolated regions such as at San Severo, near Foggia, where the Communists held the town against the police for the whole day. The Communists have tried out new tactics such as the sciopero a rovescia, or the " strike in reverse," where un- employed are collected together by the party and set to work on tasks useful to the community. Public opinion, glad to see roads being repaired or bridges mended, has in many cases helped the strikers to obtain payment from individual landlords and in some cases from public authorities.
No one in his senses—which, of course, doesn't mean every- body—supposed that a successful Communist-Nenni-Socialist coup d'etat would have been possible in Italy either last year or this year. But the Government might have proved too weak to with- stand Communist pressure and the considerable amount of neo- Fascist fireworks. In face of disorder and the existing economic situation, Christian Democracy, together with Count Sforza, Randolfo Pacciardi, La Malfa and its few half-hearted Socialist allies, might have had to share the task of governing Italy with the Right. This is what the Communist Party wanted. The economic situation has, on the surface at least, grown worse since .1948. There are two million registered unemployed, a million industrial workers on short time, and certainly more than a million and a half agricultural labourers, without land of their own, who do not work more than 150 days in a year. It is doubtful whether immigration takes care of more than half the yearly additional population of four hundred thousand.
How is it that, at the end of this period of trouble, the De Gasperi Government appears more strongly in the saddle than ever before ? It would be a great error to think that the Govern- ment has the Right and the Monarchist Parties behind it in its social difficulties. To the Communists Christian Democracy repre- sents a form of clerical Fascism, supported by American 'money. The Right have a not altogether dissimilar picture of .it. The idea of a strong Italy (strong through the arrival to power of a patriotic Government) allied with Spain, Germany and France, and able to ensure Italian neutrality as betWeen the Russians and the Anglo-American bloc, is increasingly popular in Right-wing circles. The Right are increasingly anti-British and anti-American.
The Liberals and Liberal Monarchists, who are the most im- portant of the anti-Government elements on its Right, have always bitterly opposed (and have with them the traditions of the Italian Risorgimento) the Church's playing an important part in govern- ment. Modern Italy was made against its Catholic Church, not with its help. To the majority of the Right, and with them the unattached elements of the middle classes, Christian Democracy represents Government interference with private industry and with private property. Landowners, particularly in the south, hate and fear land-reform. Private industrialists dislike not being allowed to lay off men from their factories as they wish. All the unpopu- larity of any Government which seeks to direct private enterprise without complete totalitarian power attaches to the present Government.
In what resides the strength of the regime ? First of all it has a most efficient police-force which is superbly directed by the Minister of the Interior, Scelba, a young Sicilian and once a disciple of Dom Sturzo. He has played in Italy, only with more éclat, the role that Jules Moch has played in France. His police- force has deprived the neo-Fascists and the Right of the slightest pretext for saying that public order is in danger. Of course, some- times the Celere and the local police have made mistakes by acting too quickly ; but they have known on many occasions when not to act. Now a strong police-force is not necessarily a sign of a strong Government. But a weak democratic Government merely possesses a strong police-force, and never knows how to use it.
A more fundamental reason for the present strength of Christian Democracy in Italy is that it really has a mass backing, and that this backing has grown stronger during the period of disturbance. The huge Christian Democratic majority in the Chamber, an abso- lute majority over all the other parties, is not as important a factor as it might seem. In fact, this majority was not really elected on the Christian Democratic programme. ' The last elections were, in fact, a plebiscite for or against Communism, and the Right parties were divided and discredited, and the Socialists were divided, as they are still. At least 50 per cent. of the Christian Democrat Deputies are reactionary, quite out of sympathy with De Gasperi and his programme of social reform, particularly of land-reform. In a parliamentary sense, however, this is unimportant, since the leaders of the Christian Democrat Party are socially progressive. No, the strength of the regime is not based on a huge parliamentary majority, but on the fact that a large part of the masses are aware that Christian Democracy is attempting to better their lot. Unlike British and French Socialists, who believe they can read and interpret the Italian situation, and in fact have a tendency to repeat Communist propaganda, millions of Italian working men can see the difference in quality and in intention between men such as Dosseti, Fanfanni, Count Sforza and Randolfo Pacciardi, who fought against Franco in Spain, on the one hand, and the typical reactionary southern landlord and the Victorian-minded northern industrialist on the other. In London or Paris people think that any political party which is close to the Catholic Church must be reactionary, and that wanting to make women wear long bathing dresses, or refusing to sponsor birth-control, means essentially that such a party must long to increase hours of work and decrease pay. This view is not shared by an increasing number of workers who have left the Communist trade unions for the Catholic unions organised by Signor Pastore. Land-reform is the burning issue in Italian domestic politics• The Segni Law for settling landless labourers is the boldest protect on paper that has seen the light of the Italian Chamber. It envisages the compulsory purchase by the State of parts of all estates above a certain value, parts which start at 20 per cent and go up to 50 per cent., for the purpose of giving land to landless
labourers. Whether the Segni Law can be applied in a large way and to many parts of Italy as a means of relieving the lot of Italian labourers may be doubtful. But in any case no good can come of dividing up land unless much preparatory work, draining and cleaning, building houses and roads and providing water is carried out first. In this matter the Government's record is a good one. It has carried out more land-reclamation schemes in Southern Italy and in Sardinia in three years than were carried out between 1922 and 1939. This work has, of course, been made possible by the use of E.R.P. funds, and much of it has been done with the aid of American experts, particularly the compulsory land-improve- ment schemes in Southern Italy.
One of the most urgent problems facing the present Government is that of Southern Italy ; what to do with the economically decay- ing, over-populated region south of Naples, the home of a peasant civilisation never reconciled with the modern State. The Socialist solution of State expenditure and agricultural collectives pre- supposes that the moral decay and hopelessness of the population are factors which can be ignored. The Right favour large loans to southern landowners to permit them to develop their estates and provide employment. The Government sees a long-term solution in regional autonomy for the south, believing that the fundamental step towards bettering conditions must be to abolish the idea that every form of government is hostile to the population. Regional autonomy in Sicily has been a success, and the demand for separatism is heard no more. The problem is more difficult in Calabria and Lucania. There are intense local jealousies. There is no middle class competent to forma nucleus of local adininistra- lions. Has the Government sufficient energy—which means sufficient power—to energise its supporters to carry out its solution of this problem in its own way ? The anhswer to this question will show whether there is anything in Christan Democracy. It is not a facade for Italian reaction. But has it the vigour, with its Republican and Socialist allies, to renew Italy ?
Previous page
