The national congress of the Communist Refoundation Party (Partido della Rifondazione Comunista - PRC), which was celebrated in Venice March 3 through 6, has fully confirmed the pro-government stance of Fausto Bertinotti.
This stance entails two main aspects. First of all, a political project which makes the alliance with the liberals and a capacity for “conditioning” [the majority] in the framework of their primary elections its central political axis. All in the name of “down-to-earth and realistic grounds” condimented with a series of unequivocal symbolic references among which stand out, on the one hand, the revalorization of the socialist left and the experience of the center-left governments of the early 60’s, as well as the reformulation of the “structural reforms” as an instrument of the “transformation of capitalism”; and on the other, rejection of the “assault on the Winter Palace” in name of “non-violence” and, indeed, a re-edition of the “democratic revolution” and of the “party of struggle and government” invented by the Italian Communist Party.
Secondly, a restriction of internal democracy which redounds in the benefit of the governing of a party in which, although from different angles and strategic alternatives, the four documents for the minority gathered 41% of the consensus, in a picture vitiated, moreover, by a campaign which in just a few months has recruited close to 20,000 members (out of 100,000) in support of Bertinotti. 26% correspond to Ernesto, of Togliatti origins, who after pressing to the end so as to be able to ammend Bertinotti’s document, was obliged to present an alternative text in which he criticizes the agreement with Prodi because the program for government is not sufficiently incisive. 6.51% (3,317 votes in the sectional congresses) (1) belong to Progetto Comunista, which calls for a rupture with Prodi and the launching of a call to all the social and political forces of the left to build a class struggle and anti-capitalist autonomous pole, as well as opposing all liberal policies. Another 6.5% go to Erre, Italian section of the United Secretariat, which holds an intermediate position: a politico-electoral agreement with the center-left linked to the annulment of the Berlusconi’s counterreforms and the immediate withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq (which Prodi has already rejected repeatedly), or external support (or constructive opposition) for an eventual center-left government, a position which we would define as one of “party neither of struggle nor government”. Finally, 1.6% goes to Falce e Martello (Hammer and Sickle), a small organization forming part of the Marxist current of Ted Grant y Alan Woods and which, in contrast to the other two sectors, do not come from the old majority of the 5th Congress, but rather arises from the former minority following a rupture with Progetto Comunista. Falce e Martello has stated it is against the agreement with Prodi, but in favor of an alliance with forces even of the liberal left, in order to breath life into “governments of the left” according to the Spanish model of Zapatero.
Progetto Comunista has denounced the strategically non-alternative character of the other three minorities in regard to Bertinotti’s proposal, and has also launched in Venice itself the challenge of forming a united front of the minorities, in order to value that 41% which a large part of the base of the party sees, although naively, as an instrument of opposition to the “aimlessness” of the PRC; and in order to unmask those leaders of the minority not actively trying to build an alternative leadership, but instead to “condition” the majority.
The challenge has achieved concrete form, on the one hand, in a proposal for alternative candidacy of the minorities for national secretary and for a common battle against the anti-democratic modification of the PRC statutes; and on the other hand, in a series of slogans, particularly one on the immediate withdrawal of the troops from Iraq and another on the need to construct a document of the trade union left for the next congress of the CGIL (the largest Italian trade union confederation, with close to five million members). The answer from the other three currents fluctuated. No to an alternative candidacy of the minorities for national secretary, but yes to a common vote against the reconfirmation of Bertinotti. Yes to the battle against the modification of the Statutes, in the name of the full possibility for democratic action among all the internal currents, and a motion on Iraq; not to the document on the trade union.
These are the contradictions and the lack of prospects for those sectors whose only perspective is that of influencing a Bertinotti who has not the slightest intention of allowing himself to be influenced, breaking with the secretariat without breaking with his project. In this sense, the profile of Progetto Comunista as the only true opposition to the PRC was registered quite faithfully with the media. Once finalized the national congress, the real battle to win over the thousands of brothers and sisters disoriented by these contradictions with class struggle positions begins right now.
This is taking place within a party which, after boasting (in a fully declamatory fashion) the shift of focus from the institutions to the social movements, in its 5th congress, has chosen to sink heart and soul into the marsh of a governing alliance with the liberals- an alliance which can only take it farther away from those social movements. Significantly, Haidi Giuliani, the mother of Carlo, murdered by Berlusconi’s thugs in Genoa in July of 2001, has announced to the Genoa Provincial Congress of the PRC that, after the agreement with the center-left in the regional elections, “[she] will no longer remain at our side. “A party which symbolically crowns its re-encountered confidence in the Italian and international bourgeoisie celebrating like a hero Nicola Calipari, the official of the military secret services killed in Iraq during the liberation of the journalist Giuliana Sgrena, and “re-evaluating those State apparatus for which we harbored an instinctive lack of confidence.”
The coupling of non-violence and the secret services is one of the many pearls of the Bertinottian “new communism”: after having rehabilitated the apparatus of repression that at the Genoa G8 had attempted to repress one of the most imposing anti-government mobilizations of the last few years, which paves the way for a new cycle of struggles (whose culmination would be the demonstration of close to 3 million workers convened by the CGIL in March of 2002); Bertinotti is ready to co-responsabilize the Communists in a government that will not stop at confronting the workers and the mass movements in struggle, consciously, to a greater or a lesser extent, against the effects of the international capitalist reorganization. All this in the vain illusion of being able to build “an alternative society” (as the title of the majority’s congressional document is titled) without building a -real- alternative of government, that is, a government of the workers and the opressed classes, not a government of industrialists and bankers.
(1) The Progetto Comunista results may be seen in the light of different aspects. From the percentual point of view it is obviously unsatisfactory. But this statistic stands in direct reference to the aforementioned on “Bertinotti the recruiter” of inactive members at the last moment and, to a lesser extent, to the capacity of the neo-Togliattian wing to react by taking inactive members (especially those from the old Italian Communist Party, dissolved in 1991) to vote in the name of the defense of the “Communist tradition” against the revisionism of the majority. Indeed, much more positive is the statistic that gives us, on top of some growth, the vote we received in the last congress (once separated the centrist currents which supported us then, not only “Falce e Martello”, but also other that have positioned themselves, with critical amendments, in the neo-Togliattian sector, or in that led by the Pabloists of the ERRE). On the other hand, the qualitative figure is very positive. Many of our votes are new. These have substituted inactive comrades who had given us verbal support and who today have become totally passive, in many cases returning to their old party membership (the PRC has, in general, a very high turnover among inactive members). Meanwhile, the brothers and sisters we have won over are in general more active and, to a large extent, workers or youth. In this picture belong two important successes at the Congress, with a majority vote by a large margin in the circles of the PRC of two big factories, central to the recent class struggle in Italy. Namely, that of Fiat of Melfi, in the south of Italy, which last year broke down the bosses of the biggest industrial plant in Italy with an energetic strike; and that of the Fincantieri shipyard of Genoa, under state ownership, which, last year, was able to make the government back down after an arduous struggle, forcing it to reach an agreement with the union. In essence, it may be said that -in our judgement– Progetto Comunista has come out of this congress not with a defeat but rather having made progress, even of a modest nature, which moreover is implicitly recognized by the majority leaders and others, who know that with our battle in the near future they will have to continue counting the numbers.
COMMUNIST REFOUNDATION 6th NATIONAL CONGRESS
FROM COMMUNIST REFOUNDATION TO SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC REFOUNDATION
By Marco Veruggio
(1) The Progetto Comunista results may be seen in the light of different aspects. From the percentual point of view it is obviously unsatisfactory. But this statistic stands in direct reference to the aforementioned on “Bertinotti the recruiter” of inactive members at the last moment and, to a lesser extent, with the capacity of the neo-Togliattian wing to react by taking inactive members (especially those from the old Italian Communist Party, dissolved in 1991) to vote in the name of the defense of the “Communist tradiction” against the revisionism of the majority. Indeed, much more positive is the statistic that gives us, on top of some growth, the vote we received in the last congress (once separated the centrist currents which supported us then, not only “Falce e Martello”, but also other that have positioned themselves, with critical amendments, in the neo-Togliattian sector, or in that led by the Pabloists of the ERRE). On the other hand, the qualitative figure is very positive. Many of our votes are new. These have substituted inactive comrades who had given us verbal support and who today have become totally passive, in many cases returning to their old party membership (the PRC has, in general, a very high turnover among inactive members). Meanwhile, the brothers and sisters we have won over are in general more active and, to a large extent, workers or youth. In this picture belong two important successes at the Congress, with a majority vote by a large margin in the circles of the PRC of two big factories, central in the recent class struggle in Italy. Namely, that of Fiat of Melfi, in the south of Italy, which last year broke down the bosses of the biggest industrial plant in Italy with an energetic strike; and that of the Fincantieri shipyard of Genoa, with state ownership, which, last year, was able to make the government back down after an arduous struggle, forcing it to reach an agreement with the union. In essence, it may be said that —in our judgement-- Progetto Comunista has come out of this congress not with a defeat but rather having made progress, even of a modest nature, which moreover is implicitly recognized by the majority leaders and others, who know that with our battle in the near future they will have to continue counting the numbers.