The virtual crisis besetting Berlusconi´s Government reflects, in its unquestionable national specificity, the general crisis prevailing in dominant politics in Europe, against the background of economic stagnation, of class struggle upsurge, of anti- war demonstrations.
Capitalist crisis and the crisisin "Berlusconiism"
Berlusconi's government, put together in 2001 in the wake of the disaster of the long experience with the center-left, has been founded on the basis of a contradictory and heterogeneous social bloc: on the one hand the small and medium sized businesses, both industrial and commercial, from the north of Italy, the real material grassroots of Forza Italia, the party of the prime minister; on the other hand, a broad sector of southern petty-bourgeoisie, made up of poor retired people, state and para-state public employees, particularly concentrated in south Italy, and widely represented in the AN and UDC.
Berlusconi's project was to consolidate a privileged axis with the Liga [League] (decisive in the northern electoral colleges) thanks to the broad satisfaction of liberal, antiunion, and "federalist" demands of the northern small and medium sized companies; and at the same time, to preserve hegemony over abroad spectrum of social strata in the south and over the retirees thanks to the granting of populist concessions (small increases in pensions, etc.).
But the Italian and European capitalist crisis has reduced the government's room for maneuver in a vertical sense as far as the distribution of resources is concerned. Berlusconi had forecast in public an annual rise in the GDP of from 3 to 4 percent for five consecutive years. The European stagnation, in contrast, has reserved for Italy a growth-rate exceeding zero by only a slight amount. In this picture, internal mediation in such a contradictory social block has become, day after day, increasingly difficult. The political contrasts between the League, on the one hand, and the AN and UDC, on the other, have progressively deepened. Berlusconi's attempt to side step the coalition's paralysis by heaping on populist and "bonapartist" poses in direct relation with the "voter population" was faced with the incapability of living up to the promises made. And therefore contributed to the wear and tear of Berlusconi's image.
The ascent of struggle
But, above all, the government had to face increasing difficulties on the plane of the class struggle.
From the second half of 2001 onwards, Italy has been criss-crossed with a solid renewal of mass mobilizations.A mobilization of varying composition marked by diverse protagonists, but also having a dynamic of reciprocal influence, feedback and growth: An anti-globalization movement unique in breadth inside Europe, from the great demonstration of Genoa in 2001 on; a working class movement strongly characterized by workers appearing in the midst of a young generation and capable of carrying out huge street demonstrations (February, 2002) amongst the greatest ever of the post-war; a movement against the war in Iraq of great proportions that in actual practice involved broad sectors of the working class, of the youth, and that to a certain extent found a positive echo in public opinion.These different movements were progressively characterized by a common feeling: repulsion against Berlusconi's government, the demand for its fall. The trade union bureaucracy and the whole Italian center-left, both subordinated to the liberal center of the Olivo (Prodi-D'Alema), has deprived this wave of demonstrations of a unified platformof demands and of a radical outcome, carefully avoiding a true test of strength with the government itself in the moment of it's increasing unpopularity.
But, certainly, these demonstrations have come to strengthen the aggressive social atmosphere against government. In this picture and under the weight of the economic crisis, the so-called "Pact for Italy" signed by Berlusconi with most moderate sectors of the tradeunion bureaucracy (CSIL and UIL) with the purpose of isolating and marginalizing the CGIL, entered rapidly into crisis. The break for all intents and purposes between Berlusconi and CSIL and the failure of the anti-CGIL line unleashed may converge in their way to open upspace for the initiative of significant sectors of the class, favoring radicalization:the worker's victory at the Melfi Fiat plant after twenty days of indefinite strike, has been, in this sense, a prime example.
The dominant class takes aim at Olivo
This development in social mobilization progressively affected the growing distance between the dominant classes and Berlusconi's government. The big Italian companies and banks no longer identified themselves with the Johnny come lately Berlusconi and his private business deals. But, initially, the promise of long term political stability had oriented them towards a compromise with Berlusconi within the logic of control and supervision over his actions: the insertion of minister Ruggero, a Fiat man, in the Foreign Ministry responded to this aim exactly. His role was to represent big capital within a coalition that was largely distant from it, and at the same time, to guarantee the Europeist credibility of the government
before finance capital and EU institutions. This compromise, however, has a short life. The central axis between the Liga and Berlusconi in the governing coalition, together with the resulting anti-europeist pressures, marginalized Fiat's man, forcing him to resign. In turn, the rupture of the compromise between Berlusconi and Fiat was the starting point of a vaster process of political reaccomodation of strong powers that today has been concluded. The big corporation, under the guidance of Fiat, has reconquered hegemony in Confindustria, taking it out of the hands of the former administration, the clan of phylo-Berlusconiist small industrialists (D'Amato) and putting its own direct representative in place (Luca Di Montezemolo). Bankitalia and all the big banks of northern and central Italy (Banca Intesa, Unicrédito,San Paolo, Monte dei Paschi...) have intensified their own anti-Berlusconiist positions and repaired its alliance with big industrial corporations, driven, on the one hand, by their direct implication in the corporate crisis of Fiat and, on the other, by a common rejection of Berlusconi's populist pose in favor of the savings account holders on the occasion of the bankruptcy of Parmalat and Cirio. The Confcommercio, initiallya great supporter of the government, criticizes Berlusconi for the failure of the promised cuts in the budget and, as a consequence, for "the consumption crisis". Today, the entire set of these forces are moving on Olivo and its stay in government, from which they demand: a) a policy dictated by the general interests of Italian imperialism, starting with a strong re-launching of economical support for big corporations financed by "new budgetary rigor"; b) a foreign policy marked by European integration as a priority and, within this, a logic of competition and co-administration with US imperialism; c) the recomposition of agreement with the CGIL on the trade union plane to put out the flame of the struggles and favor a return to social peace.
The election of Romano Prodi as leader of a future Olivo government is the election of the principal guarantor of big industry and the banks before Italian and European capital.
The contradictions of the Olivist stay in power
This design by big capital for the forming of governments encloses strong contradictions. The commitment of the big bourgeoisie as a class on the perspective of a Prodi government is motivated by questions exactly opposed to the deep seated reasons that have marked for three years the popular mobilization against Berlusconi.
On the economic-social plane Italian imperialism maintains the central demand of retaking lost ground on the question of a decline in competitiveness on the world market in decisive sectors. This is the dominant and obsessive demand in the big bourgeois press in Italy today. And this is the reason for the criticism of the big boureoisie against Berlusconi for his demagogicel ection campaign for tax cuts in the name of the alternative demand for expansion in public investment in technology investigation, sustain exports and develop productivity. But this program of the big bourgeoisie clashes on an exceptional level, unvaryingly in actual practice, with public indebtedness and with a state budgetary crisis worsened during these years of Berlusconi policies.This means that its being carried out demands a prior social cost, significant for the workers and the popular masses already hurt by decades of sacrifice; and, in addition, in the phase of awakening in its struggles and mobilizations. Of the workers who mobilized against Berlusconi's pension reform or in defense of public health, must be demanded not only the defense of that "reform" but also, probably, greater sacrifices in pensions and public health. Of the workers and youth who mobilized against the so-called "30 law", a source of savage casual labor, must be demanded not only the preservation of the substance of that law, in the name of the prime demand for competitiveness, but also having to suffer the deterioration of the national labor contract, in favor of contract flexibilization. It is no coincidence that already today leading figures of the center of Olivo make these future options public. And already today these announcements provoke scandals among the people on the left and open rejection among the militant rank-and-file of their parties and of the CGIL. To demand of the workers that they become guinea pigs for an experiment of the bosses that goes strongly against them will not be an easy task either for the liberals or for the bureaucratic leaders of the workers movement.
The same thing goes with foreign policy. Italian imperialism, over the last decade, has reinforced its economic and military exposure both in the Balkans as well as in the Middle East. Even more so, when in the framework of their crisis of competitiveness on the world market it demands the consolidation of this foreign presence as a valuable factor of counterweight, capable of reinforcing its negotiating role in the European Union itself and, through the EU, before US imperialism. For this reason Italian big capital defends a multilateral administration of international policies and of the Iraqi crisis, as the best protective shield oft heir own investments and interests (Ente Nazioonali de Idrocarburi, ENI). In parallel it aims at the strategic reinforcement of its own presence in the aerospace industry and in its process of international concentration (strong point of the imperialist pole of the EU) together with a net increase in military spending, linked, on the other hand, to the established professionalizing of the army. It is not for nothing that Roman Prodi's program explicity provides for an increase in the Italian military budget, as part of the demands for "European power".
But the putting into practice of this program implies not only the parallel reduction to follow in social spending as a source of self-financing, but also an open challengea gainst the common sense of vast sectors of workers and youth who have mobilized in the last few years against Italian militarism and against the neocolonial election of Berlusconi. It will not be easy to demand from a movement marked by a pacifist sentiment, even on an elementary level, to support an Olivo government, to maintain and finance military forces of occupation in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the Balkans, even in connection with a victory for Kerry in the US.
Class independence anda socialist alternative
For this reason, the slogan of class independence of the working class, of the movements of struggle of these times, relative to the liberal center of Olivo, is more timely than ever.
The break with the center of Olivo is necessary not only to unleash the widest and most radical mobilization against Berlusconi and bring about its fall. It is necessary in order to defend the autonomy of the working class in relation to Italian imperialism and each and every one of its governments, in function of analternative anti-capitalist and class struggle perspective.
This perspective has, more than ever, a European validness. The objective of a "social Europe in peace" in the capitalist arena -so dear to the "Partido de la Izquierda Europea" [Party of the European Left]- is denied day after day by experience and by the facts. Everywhere the bourgeois governments of the center-right or of the center-left administer the policy of attack against working class and popular conditions, articulated as part of the vice of the continental capitalist crisis.
Everywhere, under governments of all colors, military spending rises, the armies are professionalized, new imperialist ambitions mature.
Everywhere the crisis of consensus deepens for the European dominant class, unleashing the renewal of struggles and mobilizations, of unequal and contradictory dynamics, but marked by new potential.
Only an anti-capitalist and socialist perspective for workers power for the brothers and sisters can give a coherent answer to this new potential.
For this reason, Progetto Comunista is carrying out the campaign for an autonomous pole not only within the PRC but also in all the movements of struggle and within their mass organizations, as a flag for the regroupment of a working class and youth vanguard that does not accept being subordinated to the Olivaist industrialists and bankers and to their colonial interests.