ABSTRACT: Malagodi (1) has tried in vain to "provide for the coming out of the left" by making the Liberal Party Congress approve three laws " typical of the kind opposed by the economic right wing". The parliamentary group immediately gave the lie to the new PLI [Italian Liberal Party] secretary by not voting for the laws he proposed, thanks to the "thaw". The formation of a "constitutional right wing" is more difficult than was foreseen. It is to be hoped, however, that many will realise that the "road to conservation" is the "liberal reform of society". Otherwise we will have a "fatal encounter" between the "fundamentalist" DC and the "nationalising and state-planning" PSI.

As to the "consolidation of the state", this is a difficult operation. Certainly the Social Democrats, Republicans and Liberals have somehow pulled off "a historical job of keeping the right within bounds", but meanwhile the state did not manage to get off the ground again. The problems that must be solved are "technical modernisation" and "seriously bringing salaries up to par", especially in three sectors: schools, the Treasury, and the judiciary. With regard to economic and foreign policy, it will be necessary to aim for "a general increase in national income", the "reorganisation of the industries under state control", the growth of medium-sized industry, etc. In foreign policy, having gained membership in the U.N.O. will allow us to take into consideration other situations too which are "only prospectively marginal", upon which we may be able to have some influence.

»IL MERCURIO , December 24, 1955)

("In the last issue of »Il Mercurio , Umberto Segre already wrote about the split in the Italian Liberal Party and of the prospects that present themselves to the new political formation which has been founded by the men who until yesterday belonged to the left wing of the PLI. But a more passionate evaluation of the Radicals' genesis and orientation is the one we publish here by Mario Paggi who was among the promoters and founders of the new party.")

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If the split in the Liberal Party and the constitution of the Radical Party are ephemeral and superficial facts of Italian political life, or if they are destined to leave deep and long traces upon it is a question which only professional or seers or dilettantes would want to consider.

Nevertheless it would seem risky to us to deny that both acts have exposed just how inconsistent and arbitrary the attempt of the Liberal Party is to be both the champion of right-wing economics and the supporter of a tripartite government necessarily tending to leftist economic solutions.

A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT WING

Malagodi's attempt to provide for the coming-out of the left wing by forcing the congress to approve three laws typical of the kind opposed by the economic right wing - the equalisation of taxes, the hydrocarbons, the agrarian pacts - has so far produced two clear consequences: the first was the revolution of the party's authentic right wing which has tried to present legitimately to the congress the effects of the policy pursued for more than a year and a half, a revolution dominated only with great effort by the most sagacious maneuvre of that ministerial centre which has remained faithful to the old guard; the second consequence was the vote of the parliamentary group on the law for the equalisation of taxes. All of the deputies were absent except Marzotto who voted against it. The true will of the congress, badly suffocated by the formal unanimity on the centrist motion, thus disclosed its true intentions. The parliamentary group continued and perfected for its own part the nocturnal revolution of t

he right.

And this is nothing yet, because of three projects animated by this spirit, that of the equalisation of taxes is the least important for the interests of the Italian economic right wing. We will see what happens when the other two projects come up for parliamentary debate and approval. And the best part is certainly that - after the ministerial deputies deserted who were supposed to support the bills approved by their leadership and only a few hours after the end of their congress - some of the Italian press deeply lamented the substitution of the majority!

Thus the split among the Liberals was a sign that the process of forming the constitutional right wing (which seemed to be and was, in fact, the only political justification of the action of the last Liberal Secretary) was more difficult than it appeared to be to those who perceived the party's liberal left as the only obstacle to the operation. It is possible that the road to Lauro passes through the electoral colleges of the Mezzogiorno, but it is entirely impossible that the road to the economic right of the North should pass by way of the Cortese bill on hydrocarbons and the Segni compromise on the agrarian pacts. Therefore it is possible that the constitutional right wing, the one which is aware of how fatuous and totally useless are the subversive positions of the Monarchists or the MSI [neo-Fascist party, ed.], will have lost one of its last great opportunities with the results of the recent Liberal Party congress. This could prove to be a not entirely positive factor in the next Italian politica

l battles if it were not to be hoped that many will learn from this experience that the only way to preserve anything (and not the way of "conservatism") is by the liberal reform of society and of the liberal handling of the moral and economic instruments of the state.

Otherwise Italy's destiny is clearly signed by the fatal encounter of the fundamentalist Christian Democrats and the nationalising and state-planning Socialist Party. At the end of this road there is the certain, definitive victory of Catholic fundamentalism, richer in cadres, in international alliances, in financial means and credit, and which adds to the common faith in the state's instruments for planning another higher, more homogeneous, more unifying faith.

To block such an involution which is already in the nature of things and which is facilitated by a public spirit which is by now sceptical, depressed, and discouraged by the feeling of imminent defeat, the Radical Party has been constituted.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE STATE

It would seem almost impossible to reach this goal with the above-mentioned tendency being by now so strong. But the heavens for centuries have been chanting the glory of God alone, whereas that of mankind is still to be written each day on earth. And at the same time it is not easy to deny that something new has appeared in that centre-left camp where the impulse of the new group has mostly been felt. A new clarity and a new will seem to circulate in those circles, even if Saragat (1) - like the right wing and for the same illusory reasons - has once again missed out on a great opportunity. Instead of feeling strengthened and acting accordingly, he - absurdly - has felt weakened (the usual errors of politics reduced to the mere counting of votes) and has behaved accordingly.

But the times seem to be past when the Social Democrats could aspire to leading the country's centre-left sector. From the start their activity seemed weighed down by a certain Marxist nostalgia, by now entirely incapable of making a breach in the intellectual middle classes. Subsequently the lack of stock-taking of the country's social and psychological realities, so varied, many-souled, and irreducible to facile schematics, increased the already serious difficulty of a ministerial vocation that yet was necessary. While the cold war was raging and the right wing groups seemed to be emboldened by the momentary exclusion of the proletarians from the government, the Social Democrats and, alternatingly, the Republicans and the Liberals, did a historical job within the government of keeping the right within bounds. But while all of Italian society with laborious good luck lifted itself out of the ruins of the war, the Italian state in its functions of administrator and guide did not manage to get off the gr

ound. Now the time has come when the state gains strength or else society too is threatened with decline. And the present agitation of all state employees is a necessary demonstration of this fact.

There is one point of unanimous agreement on this problem: and it is that it will not be possible to give back efficiency and prestige to the state until the process of technical modernisation is begun and seriously bringing salaries up to par so that the state will be able - if not to compete successfully with private organisations in the acquisition of the best-trained personnel - at least to offer what were once called its servants not merely a decorous life, but above all the possibility of technical improvement. The problem appears to be particularly delicate in two sectors for different reasons: schools and taxes, not to mention the judiciary which, while temporarily content in economic claims, still sees the goal of its efficient functioning a long way off. But here, having reached the point of finding the necessary funds, is where the agreement ends. It seems evident that only a rational and firm attitude of "national austerity" proclaimed, upheld and exemplified by a ruling class worthy of t

his name, would be able to move us past this dead point of our national life.

On the social plane it will be necessary to examine the problems of the family, and until it becomes possible to bring its institutions into line with all the Western nations, at least one must put a stop to the continuing facilitation of an indiscriminate demographic increase, as was also recently done with the law for equalisation of taxes.

ECONOMIC AND FOREIGN POLICY

The economic line will have to be established in harmony with the absolute necessity of a general increase in the national income and with the absorbtion of the largest possible number of the unemployed as well as the rapid reorganisation of the state-owned industries and the decisive defence and unfailing reinforcement of the small and medium industries which are the healthiest backbone of Italian economic life. The large industrial and commercial complexes, which are an inevitable product of modern techniques, will have to be controlled to ensure that their economic power does not turn into political power.

The admission of Italy to membership in the U.N.O. lead in the end to a total re-thinking of our foreign policy, not certainly with regard to fundamental questions of political alignments and international balances - which are to be considered set and no longer open to discussion - but with regard to those problems only prospectively marginal and upon which our absence from the U.N. has not allowed us to speak out on up to now. I allude particularly to the relations between Israel and the Arab states as well as the situation of France in North Africa - problems which may well be presented to the U.N. Assembly again in the near future.

And while it appears to be a fundamental task of civilisation, progress and equilibrium in the Mediterranean to block any and all threats to Israel, the support for a French policy free of colonialist overtones, of local oligarchical cliques, and directed at guiding the local populations to forms of self-government could be the first step towards a permanent Italo-French understanding which by now appears to represent the first, realistic and indispensable step towards a wider European Community. The road is long and difficult. We had better start out.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Malagodi, Giovanni - (London 1904 - Rome 1991) Secretary of the Italian Liberal Party (PLI) from 1954 to 1972. A moderate.