The Italian dilemma

Peter Nichols

Rome I feel a personal attachment towards the new Italian Government : it is the twentyfirst that I have seen formed since I came to Italy. In most ways it is also the worst, and no one knows what will follow it.

And so stock-taking comes naturally. A little too naturally perhaps because it blurs one essential point about Italy: that a close look at the country has been and remains worthwhile at any point in a history punctuated by thirty-eight governments since the fall of Fascism. It will go on being more than worthwhile because Italy has not suddenly become the most instructive Country in Europe simply because the West has decided (and the East as well) that a Communist presence in government looks inevitable. Interest in Italy over the years resembles the behaviour of a bad audience at a good play: gusts of easy laughter and easy emotion break out at the more theatrical moments while in between there are long periods of indifference towards What is happening on the stage.

. This attitude is partly excusable because the outlines of the main plot are obscure. Only the subplots are clear: the occasional fears of a right-wing coup rival the Communist advance to excite a tired audience. Few people have bothered to notice the quite extraordinary resilience of Italian Public opinion when faced with bombs and Other acts of terrorism which are now officially admitted to have been part of a right-wing strategy aimed at inciting a revulsion against democratic procedures and a demand for more autocratic methods. Equally few have felt inclined to place the Communist advances in their proper context: the Communist vote has increased With an almost complete consistency since 1948. The substantial gains in the regional elections of spring last year which caused the current revival of questioning about Italy's future were simply an acceleration of a constant process. And so, why all the drama?

Italy is economically in a difficult situation: in monetary terms, in a fragile state and, politically, in a more complicated condition than is customary even if the possible advent of Communism is nothing new. Communism was made the crucial issue in the 1948 elections, and, if one genuinely Wishes to look at the meaning and extent of the Communist problem, it is probably as well to forget for the time being the Communists as such. Italy's plight is more comPlicated than Communism or anti-Communism can by themselves explain.

The complications of Italy's political state are more than endemic: they increase like the crustacean deposit on a lobster shell because the Italian political mentality is never one for seeking simplicity but of accommodating an accumulation of ideas, some of which fade away from immediate relevance but never die. By western standards, the country has too many ideologies and too many political parties. There are seven in the present parliament. The Constitution directly cultivates a multiplicity of parties by imposing proportional representation while sanctioning, by omission, the quick rise and fall of governments because there is no obligation on the party which brings about the fall of a government to offer a ready alternative.

Other European countries have paid a certain price to permit greater continuity. The Germans have a constitutional requirement by which a new government must be ready in the wings before the incumbent can be removed. The French have turned to presidential rule thus obviating, or reducing to an irrelevance, the actual fall of a government, while the British do not bring down governments at all. Instead, governments `go to the country', and so the general election becomes the immediate method by which a new government is chosen. The Italians have no such ready touchstone. Governments too are extremely fragile. The average life of an administration is less than a year. They are almost always brought down by an ally and not by the opposition. A large number of parties means that coalitions are practically inevitable and their longevity is further threatened by the number of factions within each party. It is by no means rare that the leader of a party will place considerations of the internal condition of his party above the need to maintain a government in office.

Most of these problems were aired once again in the period between January 7 and late on the night of February II, the period in which Signor Aldo Moro resigned as head of a two-party coalition and then managed to put together a minority Christian Democratic administration which has just been accorded its vote of confidence by the chamber of deputies. He fell because the Socialists withdrew their support. There was talk at the time that he was not so disconcerted as he might have been because he had in mind a general election in what, theoretically, were unusually favourable circumstances. His own Christian Democratic party looked uncharacteristically united. The Socialists could be made to take the blame for having caused all the trouble. Their principal complaint was that they were too little consulted by the Christian Democrats and their views had

been ignored in the formulation of the government's policy for dealing with the economic crisis. They also called for a different type of government which would be more broadly based, having some form of official Communist participation.

The Socialists should have known (as almost certainly Signor Moro knew) that the Communists themselves would not be in the slightest interested in anything less than full participation if they were officially to enter the area of government at a national level.

That left the issues of the economic measures and of more effective government, with the Socialists easily cast to be the scapegoats on both. The Italian electorate could have been expected to take an interest in a campaign turning on questions of immediate importance in a period of serious recession, instead of a broad ideological clash. If this in fact was his calculation, it quickly went astray. President Leone was reluctant to dissolve parliament. He had only done so once before and on that occasion had become the first president to have called an election before parliament had gone its full term. He was not at all anxious to do so again. The Communists strongly opposed elections on the grounds that the country could not afford the confusion of an electoral campaign in the midst of a serious national crisis. And other Christian Democrats were only too willing to oust Signor Moro as prime minister-designate and try their own hands at putting a new administration together without an election.

The result was that Signor Moro had no alternative, if he wished to remain at the head of a government, but to do the best he could with totally inadequate support. That is how Italy, after a run on the lira, the closing of the foreign exchange markets, a deepening recession and a swiftly advancing Communist challenge, produced the minimum in terms of government: .a. minority government depending for its survival on abstentions, a government, as one critic pointed out, appropriate only for the mood of Lenten self-denial.

It is clear enough that the country deserved better than this. 'The country itself', in the recent words of an elder statesman, 'does not wish to die', the implication being that its governing party is itself set on such a course. Both friends and opponents have grasped the fact that the sickness of Christian Democracy is the country's most immediate problem especially as the Christian Democrats appear unaware of the extent of the anxiety felt about them: a `malade imaginaire' is much easier to deal with than a 'Nen portant imaginaire'.

An indication was provided by the attitude towards the new government of Signor Enrico Berlinguer, the Communist leader. His tone in the confidence debate was noticeably sharper than usual towards the Christian Democrats. His • fundamental policy is one of seeking some form of alliance with the Christian Democrats. He

prefers this approach to the more traditional idea of an alternative in the shape of a popular front with the Socialists. He learnt from Allende's fate: he wants to avoid an ideological split : he is a believer in the theory of consensus, or the choral approach to government as opposed to the duet of government and opposition. He also sees an easier international situation if he comes into government with the Catholics rather than solely with fellow Marxists. And so he needs Christian Democracy to be reasonably strong and at least a respectable ally. Instead, the Christian Democrats have shown practically no regard for the feelings of public opinion towards them.

That was why Berlinguer sharpened his tone. He told the Christian Democrats that they must make up their minds whether they wanted to share power with the Communists or whether they intended staying out while the Communists took in other allies. He spoke as if he very shortly expected to be arbiter unchallenged of the situation.

For both sides, the encounter must have been painful. The Christian Democrats are suffering from all the vices of holding power too long without an acceptable alternative to their rule. Since their failure in May 1974 to repeal divorce legislation, they have suffered a series of defeats, the worst of which was the big Communist gains in the regional elections of last June. The Communists have themselves to blame to some extent for the sad condition of their main opponent because they have failed to provide the regular, consistent process of calling the government to account for alleged or real misdoings. They have fulfilled some aspects of opposition but not the daily grind of criticism and challenge.

Yet: there is a curious side to Italian behaviour which keeps suggesting, very lightly, that they may be making the right mistakes. The rules they break may not be so much worth preserving as was thought.

It is somewhat pointless to expect the Italians to follow the blue-print of a twoparty system when in fact they do not believe in it. They take a broader, and less closely defined, view both of government and opposition. Essentially they feel that power gives rights, and recognition of this power involves allowing a voice in affairs even if the party or group concerned has quite different views from the official government. The unions are one example. For about eight years now the three main trade union federations, of which the Communist-led group is by far the largest, has been accorded a semi-political role. They laid claim to it at the height of the strikes in the autumn of 1969 and maintain that they must go beyond the normal limits of union affairs into politics because of the failure of successive governments to legislate for social justice. Given this failure, the unions felt justified in striking for better housing, better transport, a better health service, because higher pay is of little use without fundamental institutional amenities. They now regularly demand the right to meet the prime minister and other members of the government to make their views known on a variety of problems.

If that much participation is accepted for a group outside parliament, it is clear that a powerful political party, even in opposition, is heard with the respect due in the Italian mind to power. Italians are skilful at seeking consensus and have had a long and generally successful experience. That is how they conducted, and still do conduct, the affairs of the Catholic church. The essence of representative behaviour within the ecclesiastical structure—and this was seen at its best in the Vatican Council—is a free and full and often acrimonious debate followed by a nearly unanimous vote. Some fifteen years ago, Italian politicians were experimenting with what they called the opening to the left, by which they meant bringing the Socialists into government for the first time. One of the arguments used to make this alliance with Marxists appear more acceptable, particularly outside Italy, was that it would isolate the Communists. Indeed, it could have done, because the new coalition had an ample parliamentary majority. But it simply did not happen, and it is doubtful whether many Italians ever believed that it would.

This approach also suggests why the idea of Communist participation in government

is taken much more calmly in Italy than elsewhere. And why such attacks as that delivered by President Ford on Saturday against the idea of Communists in the Italian Government are so strongly resented here. Christian Democrats as well as °immunises protested, even if the left could afford to be rather more outspoken.

There are other reasons. One of Berlinguer's achievements for his party is that he has won respectability for it. After the big Communist advances in June, there has been ample evidence of this. Most Italian newspapers treat the Communist Party, and in particular its leader, with full honours, even, if they frequently criticise the workings of Communism elsewhere, especially in the Soviet Union. Some figures show the extent of the Communist Party's success in its primary task (a task felt to be much more important than providing an effective opposition) of defeating anti-Communism: in 1970, according to an opinion survey, some 44.8 per cent saw the Communists as a serious danger to freedom: by 1974 the figure was 26.2 per cent. In 1970 about 21 per cent thought Communist participation in government would be useful or necessary for good-administration : in 1974 that figure was nearly 36 per cent and would almost certainly have risen substantially since.

The Communists have effective power throughout the whole system of local administration. It has been conservatively estimated that about one half of the population lives under regional or local governments with a Communist presence. Hence, following the constitutional theory of the choir rather than the duet, their voice in the making of policy, if not executing it, would be widely taken for granted. The dilemma of course is that the attitude of the Italian electorate, and the Italian system, towards them is not shared elsewhere and their name still provokes an autdmatic response of anti-Communism. In practical terms, this means that the weak Italian economy could expect no help from the traditional sources of loans—the Americans and the Germans —if Communists looked about to enter a coalition. Almost equally certainly, the Communists share the feeling of their political opponents here that more time is needed before conclusions can be drawn about the effects of a formal Communist Place at the national level. In the meantime they have grown accustomed to a wide measure of informal co-:operation with government, particularly Signor Moro's outgoing coalition.

Berlinguer's stated policy is of independence for his party from the' Soviet Union and its entry at home into government. Both aspirations arouse doubts: probably most people in Italy believe, on the first Point, that he himself believes what he says. The doubt is whether he in fact could survive in full autonomy. On the second point, the unknown factors are the reactions on the part of Italy's allies and the changes Which might occur in terms of security Combined with what remains of suspicions that Italian Communists are really just like Communists everywhere and, once in power, would behave as such.

The two aspirations are linked. In the foreign field, the Italians feel that they are successfully promoting a more sophisticated form of Communism which is more democratic and more suitable to European culture. Italian Communism is strongly European in outlook. In one sense it is connected with the consensus theory which Italians have been practising for centuries because they lead the element in international communism which holds that the views of individual parties can no longer be overridden, and they put forward as a leading example the preparations now in hand for the conference of European Communist parties due to meet in Berlin in June. They explain that the draft document will be something recognisably new, free of traditional jargon such as familiar attacks on American imperialism and advocacy of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

They are close on these matters to the Yugoslays and the Spaniards, and closer than they used to be to the French. But as yet this grouping of European Communists outside the countries dominated by the Russians is a sketch rather than a finished picture. The presence of the strong Soviet squadron in the Mediterranean brought the remark from the Republican leader, Signor Ugo la Malfa, that a dual process was in motion: as Berlinguer sought to widen the distance between his party and the Soviet Union, the Russians were getting closer to Italy. This is one of the reasons why Berlinguer insists that, if the Communists enter government, Italy must remain in NATO.

The real dual process however is the connection between international Communist affairs and Italy's internal affairs. Communists themselves confess that the domestic situation is simply developing too fast. That is why the heart of the country's problem is the fate of Christian Democracy and why the Christian Democratic national congress next month will be watched with the greatest interest and anxiety to see whether the party's renewal is more than a pious possibility. Apart from the lack of precedents, it is inconceivable that a Communist Party can admit to feeling embarrassed by the prospect of being hurried into power in a democratic country.

In presenting his new government, Signor Moro expressed awareness of its inadequacies but added that its sense of responsibility would not be lacking. No one would doubt his sincerity in this instance but, when a final word has to be said about Italy, it is not politics which take first place. Parties, parliaments, _policies of all kinds, are less important in Italy's postwar odyssey than people, social change and upheaval. The huge strain of industrialisation and urbanisation still remains to be calculated (and it is symbolic that two such ugly words now have to be applied to the Italian scene). The energies of reconstruction after the war spilled over into the economic expansion which in a few short years changed the basis of the economy from agriculture to industry. Some ten million people swelled internal migration in the two decades after the war and in the first quarter of a century the number of Italians living in towns trebled.

The late Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet and film director, shocked readers of the Corriere della Sera with a series of articles denouncing the effects of the consumer society on Italy as worse than Fascism because they went so much deeper. Fascism had not been able to destroy the traditional roots of Italian life and individuality. He called for a public trial of the country's political leaders to face charges of ruining the society which had been placed in their charge. His violent life and violent death at the hands of a male prostitute provided additional, and comforting, weight to the conviction that he was unbalanced and lacking in judgment, a view shared by the left as well as most other sections of opinion. But his writings served to show just how radically Italy has changed in so brief a time.

This in a sense explains the resentment among many Italians at simply being judged on whether or not they intend voting in the Communists. Their post-war experience of massive change has taken place without the help of institutions that function, without the help of firm political leadership, all of which has meant that the individual in the first instance, and the swollen cities in the second, have borne the burden of change without administrative protection.

That has been the cost of the repeated failures by practically every post-war government to do more than promise social reforms. And as government has grown, on the whole, progressively weaker, the country at large has moved from swift expansion to recession, from elation and enthusiasm for the industrialised society to a realistic sense of disappointment at its consequences, from what the Economist called the 'capitalist's dream' to the current position of heavy popular involvement with Communism. Giovanni Agnelli summed up the political implications in his remark that people were being asked to have faith either in the power of the Catholic party to reform themselves or in the Communist party's ability to evolve. Both would certainly be welcome developments but even such genuinely radical advances would only provide the answers to a few of the issues facing the country.