The Italian Left
By JENNY NICHOLSON Ro HRISTIAN DEMOCRAT statisticians claim that llil They think that at the next election—which may happen anY time after May next year and in any case not later than May, 1958—the North will for the first time show a definite swing away from the Left. But they ,admit that this may be more than counter-balanced by the Communist-Nenni-Socialist gains in the South.
To its own surprise, the South is quickly becoming decisive in Italy's political future. Millions of bestially poor people— those for whom Christ stopped at Eboli—have become, politically, Europe's biggest proletariat. Senate, they will have to conquer In the lobbies and corridors, make their mark in the dusty palaces which house the Ministries. They have already lost in the fields. Many Socialists frankly long to be divorced from the rnastodontic Communist party. The marriage is increasingly humiliating. They are embarrassed by the rigid discipline of their partner, the magnificent organisation and the often unveiled contempt it demonstrates for its lesser-half. For the average westerner the Socialists are easier to talk to than the Communists. Discussion does not automatically degenerate into dialectics. But nevertheless they are bound to agree that to break loose from the Communists would mean the end of Socialism in Italy. They realise that the gulf between themselves and the present Christian Democrat party (1).y far the greatest political force in the country) is much Wider than it can ever be between Socialists and Communists.
In the last two years, Nenni, the Stalin Peace Prize winner, has offered to swallow the Atlantic Pact and even the European Defence Community in order to be allowed into the govern- ment. But he has refused to break his 1947 pact of united aeon with the Communists. Whether this document would have any practical value if Nenni were actually in the govern- ru!nt and the Communists out of it, is doubtful. But its existence is a sound excuse for the Christian Democrats to refuse to treat with him. For Nenni himself it is an essentipl bulwark against the Communists. He is probably right in believing that the time has not yet come for the Italian working Classes, like those in France or Belgium, to be able to afford two competing parties.
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