ABSTRACT: The motions signed by Marco Pannella and Giuliano Rendi proposed at the Radical Party's National Council of 19/20 November 1960.

These motions, proposed as "draft statements", and therefore as a basis for an internal debate in the party, can quite rightly be considered as the constitutional act of the "radical Left", that is, the act of foundation of the lay, libertarian, socialist and internationalist alternative policy that characterized the Radical Party in the '60s and '70s.

The only document that precedes the motions chronologically is an article by Marco Pannella on "Paese Sera" (2), whose editor at the time was Mario Melloni, in June 1959. In that article, Pannella pointed to the necessity of a new unity in the Left area, not as a future hypothesis, but as an urgent priority: a new unity between the communist Left and the lay and socialist Left, no longer characterized by the existence of fronts, by the request of a subordination to the communist strategy, as the unity of the post-war "popular fronts" had been, but based on an ideal and political confrontation, on the capacity to tackle the crucial problems of forty years of history of the Left and of the workers' movement, which had created division and trenches. The article had had a lacerating effect within the Radical Party: it was the first time the "radical Left" distanced itself from the party, the first demonstration of strategic dissent toward the leading class of "Il Mondo" (3). That article also caused a debate in

the Left, which was then abruptly cut short by a statement by Palmiro Togliatti (4): not only that which was called the "democratic Left", with Saragat (5) and La Malfa (6), with "Il Mondo" directed by Pannunzio (7), but even the Communist Party with Togliatti was not willing to question itself, to face the risks of an open debate and a hypothesis of a "new unity" and of a renewal.

The following year was the year of Tambroni (8), of the popular revolt against that government, with the risings of Genoa and Rome, the killings in Reggio Emilia and in other cities, with the establishment of unitary committees for Resistance, in which the radicals were a central reference point, along with the socialists, the communists, the republicans. The turning point created the premises for the Centre-Left of the following years. At the administrative elections of October, the radical Party had presented its candidates in the Socialist lists, obtaining a major success: four radical candidates, including Vittorini (9), were elected in Milan; three were elected in Rome (Piccardi, Antonio Cederna, Arnoldo Foà; a total of about eighty communal Councillors, most of whom elected in capitals of province.

The plan of part of the leadership of that period (especially Piccardi and Scalfari) to dissolve the radical party into the socialist party was starting to become clear.

The draft statements signed by Pannella-Giuliano Rendi were proposed at the first National Council, held after these events. For the first time, these positions were brought into the party's official life, with a deliberation project. The effect was a fracture among the second-generation radicals: on the one side the "radical Left" (in addition to the signers, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Sergio Stanzani, Franco Roccella, Mauro Mellini, Angiolo Bandinelli, Massimo Teodori, only few of whom in the National Council), on the other side Giovanni Ferrara , who later joined the Republican Party, and other radicals who followed different paths in the following years, at times even converging with the new radical party (Gerardo Mombelli, Claudio Simonelli, Stefano Rodotà, Lino Jannuzzi, Piero Craveri, etc.). The Radical Party's former leading class remained apparently united in rejecting the motions. In fact, this unity foreshadowed the tragical dissolution of the following months, whereas the "radical Left" was already cr

eating a relationship, an ideal, political closeness with Ernesto Rossi (10).

The four motions deal with the relations with the Catholic world and with article n. 7 of the Italian Constitution (11), with the relations with the Socialist Party, with the Hungarian rising of '65, and lastly, with conventional and atomic disarmament.

To the National Councillors

proposed by National Councillors

Marco Pannella and Giuliano Rendi

19/20 November 1960 - Rome

Draft statement on the relations with the Catholic world and for the abrogation of art. 7.

The Radical Party's National Council, having considered the popular demonstrations of last summer and the results of the recent elections, analyzing the causes for these events and in reply to the increasingly urgent and clear demands of the working masses to the Left-wing parties and to the antifascist movements, urging them to avoid the danger of establishing a barrier and a halt to the innovative aspirations of the citizens instead of organizing them and potentiating them; coherently with the battle that was typical of it since its creation, it states that the forces of progress and of freedom must courageously acknowledge the fact that the Church, and the structures and political demonstrations issuing from it, historically represents, in Italy, the catalytic and promoting element of all reactionary, authoritative, fascist, clerical, anti-constitutional policies in progress or in project, as it is for the past ones. It considers that any attempt, any false hopes to give a different interpretation contrib

utes to giving credibility to the myth according to which in Italy is is absolutely necessary for the Catholic forces to govern any process of radical change of the situation, both in a fascist direction and in a democratic direction, and authorizes the clerical thesis according to which today, unlike what has been possible with the Risorgimento, it is no longer possible to build a new Italian and European society without the participation, the consent and the patronage of the Church. The roots of this lie in a dangerous tendency toward remission, a pessimism disguised as political realism, and that is fundamentally defeatist toward the popular and revolutionary forces.

The radical party acknowledges that the political polemic has at times brought to oversimplified analyses of the political vote expressed by the communists at the Constituent Assembly on the relations between the State and the Church. The communist vote on article 7 was of course not only the result of a tactic calculation, but also of a vain hope in the Catholic Party's innovative character.

If it was possible to envisage an agreement, or even a tactic encounter of some relevance between the popular, socialist, lay and communist forces and the catholic ones in 1946, and to control the behaviour of a popular group in an extraordinary way on the basis of this hypothesis, today, in 1960, the thesis of a convergence between the catholic masses and the progressivist and modern masses cannot be considered sufficient, adequate and corresponding to the objective interests of our country, nor coherent with the experience and the events of these last years. The political battle and the Italian masses would greatly benefit from an increased clarity of perspectives, and from more courageous diagnoses. To repeat to them that the citizens, the intellectuals, the factory workers or the farmers linked to the clerical policy represent another force with which it is necessary to collaborate, is harmful and useless; furthermore, it is false, and reveals an unacceptable tendency to belittle the inflexible character

of several ideal options.

On the other hand, the other position, that tends to link itself to the milieu of the Leftist forces of our country, is the one that, on the basis of the Turin congress and of several statements by Morandi, is the one that is most supported by Nenni. The thesis according to which from the Catholic milieu in power there can emerge a leading class capable of accomplishing a serious and sufficient bend to the left, albeit under the pressure of the popular forces, is unjustified and optimistic; it ignores the context of the Catholic world, its inalienable interests in the current Italian historical moment of the Church and of the capitalist and reactionary class with which it shares its interests.

The very moment we give credit to the groups headed by Fanfani (12) and the oil-lobby groups of the basic left in the opinion of the country, there will be a constant swing of hopes and deceptions, invitations and refusals, tranformism and reaction. If there really exists the near and serious possibility that the Christian Democrat Party will take a substantial bend to the left, a bend that is not just a parliamentary manoeuvre, but involving the structures of the country, then it is not clear why such a vast part and maybe even a greater part of the Italian electorate is not right in continuing to vote for the Christian Democrat Party.

Equally wrong is the behaviour held by Saragat and the Republicans, who hope to change the course of Italian politics together with those have all possible interests in not changing it.

The Radical Party believes that the popular masses, with the spontaneous and tough demonstrations of last summer, with their vote of 6th November, are above all asking them for an ideal option. Because, in the absence of this option, citizens will continue to nurture a political battle that is poor and void of true motivations.

The Radical Party insists that the citizens of our country must be asked the near possibility of freeing the State of the most infamous bondage afflicting it: the legalization, with article 7 of the Constitution, of the clerical and discriminating abuse; and the shameful insertion of it in a Constitution issued from the Resistance of an unfair pact with those who have once more proven to be, as always, against modern civilization and the aspirations of peace and freedom of the democrats in Italy and in Europe. The Radical Party's National Council charges the National Direction to make the necessary contacts with all the parties that fight against the clerical and monopolist tampering of the State, in order to explain the positions of the Party on the relations between State and Church, and to study the possibility of overcoming the existing differences, often caused by remote or tactic reasons, that still hamper a unitary action. It requests the National Direction to work on the achievement of a national Com

mittee for the defence of the State, and for the abolition of article 7 of the Constitution.

The National Council equally charges the National Committee with the task of studying and elaborating a draft bill proposing the seizure of ecclesiastic goods and norms apt to potentiate the possibility of stopping the vexations and the crimes against the Constitution committed by the the Italian clergy. The National Council considers that the huge financial power of the Vatican, the stifling network of interests and the shameful speculations that are the consequence of it are not compatible with the democratic and liberal development of our institutions.

Draft statement on the meaning of the alliance between the Radical Party and the Socialist Party and of the intention to pursue a democratic left-oriented policy.

The radical Party's National Council, acknowledging the importance of the reactions caused by the electoral alliance between the Socialist Party and the radicals, confirms the elevated democratic value and the value of example for the entire Left of an achieved unitary initiative, of a method of mutual respect and active fraternity, which have once again been contrasted, unfortunately, also by other popular forces.

Faced with such arbitrary or superficial interpretations, that have been given even by friendly milieus, and especially the one according to which the radical-socialist agreement would sanction the convergence between the intellectual and bourgeois classes with the popular and democratic forces, the National Council strongly maintains that the Radical Party is an integrated part of the latter; it shares its destiny, its intentions, its problems; it interprets its ideals, and autonomously elaborates its political goals in terms of religion of freedom, respect of dialogue, democratic aspiration, revolutionary intent.

The Radical Party proclaims it does not want to approve and cannot back those social classes of which it would be shameful to assert any concrete intent of progress, any faith and practice of freedom, choice of justice, conscience of the major problems afflicting humanity and contemporary civilizations. Only with stupidly evolutionist notions can we state that the classes that deprived the absolute monarchies and the Church of their power, with the French Revolution and the national revolutions, have developed the liberal aspirations that they once proclaimed to support in a democratic direction.

The convergence with the popular and democratic forces of the bourgeois and intellectual classes it an ancient and upheld theory, and maintains all its value of major political goal in Italy and in Europe. But this is precisely what is is: a goal; advertising preoccupations, even if conducted with the best of intentions, will not turn it into an achieved "fact".

This convergence is advocated by the Radical Party as by the totality of the popular forces; the task of the Radical Party's coming Congress is to examine in detail the meaning and the historical concreteness of this wish.

But the Radical Party's National Council states as from now that this convergence will never be achieved through political agreements between parties. No partisan organization can claim to achieve a corporative representation of the intellectuals or of the so-called "liberal bourgeoisie". The day in which universities, scientific institutions, school teachers and the school themselves, the technicians who are in charge of the productive processes of the industrial society and of their organizations, will realize they are living in the history of their time and that they have concrete responsibilities in the history of their time, the day in which these institutions or these classes will choose, as such, the company and the alliance with the popular and revolutionary forces of democracy, of socialism, of freedom, only then will it be truthful to state that a great event is being written in the pages of our history.

The success that crowned the radical commitment in the socialist lists proves that the electors who are more intensely aware of the popular alliance understand the need for a unitary policy of the forces of the Left, and recognize that the Radical Party is a particularly qualified force to represent it.

The citizens of Milan and Rome, Turin and Genoa, Aquila and Udine, and of many other Italian cities, expressing their confidence in radical candidates, did not intend to "reward" some intellectuals who had finally become courageous, but elected popular representatives whom they considered particularly qualified to fight against the discriminating tampering of the State, the policy of monopolies and the reactionary and clerical policy of the Vatican with inflexibility and effectiveness.

The National Council thus interprets the favourable verdict of the electorate and underlines the fact that it is the only qualified organ to do so in behalf of the Radical Party.

The National Council definitely rejects any conceited and wrong interpretation, tending to represent the radicals as the actors of an impossible paternalist and bourgeois operation toward the revolutionary and socialist necessities of the political battle of our country.

Draft statement on the Hungarian rising of October-November 1965.

The Radical Party's National Council, which met in Rome on 18-19 November 1960, in the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the tragical rising of the Hungarian population, expresses the deeply felt recollection of all the radicals for that glorious and terrible act of freedom.

But apart from any celebrative intent, this episode must be recalled, because it unquestionably belongs to the conscience and the history of the democrats of the whole world. The deep incapacity of the heroic actors of those days to find a goal and a valid hypothesis of victory, so that their courage was truly "desperate", recalls the similar, dramatic impotence we all share, with no exceptions, even if in different conditions, liberals, radicals, democrats, socialists and communists, before those facts and those people.

In order for so much intellectual courage, so much popular passion for freedom, so much heroism, never again to face the combined and inseparable perspective of a necessary failure and of the fatal prevalence of a brutal reaction, the democrats of all countries and of all doctrines have the duty to research and to impose solutions to the problems of out time capable of translating the aspirations and the acts of freedom of individuals and populations into concrete liberal and revolutionary achievements.

The Radical Party hopes that all democrats will understand that it is on the basis of the existing state regulations, be they those of countries of ancient liberal civilization or those established by modern revolutions, in spite of the deterioration of the former and against the sluggishness and the deviations of the latter, that the goals of research, invention and achievement of freedom must be established.

Because in the tragedy of which the Hungarian population was the protagonist it is not so much the reaffirmation of the right to national independence, but the claim of a development of society and freedom of revolution to represent the highest value and an example given to the whole world, in Budapest as in other Hungarian cities, in November 1956, on the part of those workers, those farmers, those intellectuals, that population at arms to which the Italian radicals still pay homage.

Draft statement on foreign policy, atomic and conventional disarmament, on policy for peace.

Faced with the problems of peace represented by the legitimation of "foreign" policy in the world, the Radical Party's National Council states that its goals and the interests of the popular masses call for the pursuit of a policy based on: the inflexible defence of the United Nations and its progressive potentiation; the establishment of a European federation to be achieved immediately through direct elections; atomic and conventional disarmament of the entire European continental area, with the consequent abolition of the armies in the countries of this area; separate and combined peace with the two Germanies, the consequent denunciation of the NATO military Pact (the non-postponement at the institutional expiry in 1961) and of the UEO; the proclamation of the right to insubordination and to civil disobedience for all citizens who do not accept the policy of rearmament, of war, of division and of competition of national States that belong to their class enemies and that pursue goals that are necessarily

in contrast with the international unity of the working and democratic classes; the federation or in any case the common organization of all the socialist, popular and revolutionary movements that fight for the establishment of a regime of democracy and freedom in Western Europe.

The Radical Party believes that the takeover on the part of popular and democratic forces, the achievement of a free and modern society are jeopardized today by a general situation of crisis, which does not spare the traditional workers' parties. In one part of the Western world movements and leading classes, ideas and parties that have a deep vocation for authoritative and belligerent solutions are starting to take root; those who represented, for decades, the liberal intent and idea seem to be struck by a desperately remissive attitude; the Western world, in a mislead concern about effectiveness in competition confronting it to the Oriental and Afro-Asian world, increasingly tries to defend itself though a policy of power, that expresses itself with the culpable support to fascist, clerical and reactionary regimes and leading classes. We do not intend to assume the co-responsibility for this process; on the contrary we want to give back the courage of ideas and of its noblest aspirations to the civilizatio

n which we are an integrated part of: on the basis of this, the citizens of Western Europe are called to build their future and to take part in the creation of a better peace in the world.

The communist parties, which represent a historically relevant element of popular forces, seem to be stuck in a conception of international life that dates back to the Stalinist period or to the period of the cold war, which often implies a truly culpable guilty defeatism toward the European working classes. While being resolute on this statement, we proclaim that on our part there is much more respect and confidence toward the communists, by whom we are divided above all by this mistake, which we hope will be overcome, than toward those that disguise the absolute inconsistency of their positions with the violence of the accusations against the communists for their current positions.

The Radical Party was born and operates in the Italian political life with precise premises and equally precise precedents. A long historical battle places it in the life of our country. In their differences, they are the radicals of Lombardy of the last decades of the 19th Century, they are the Roman radicals that expressed themselves through the achievements of Ernesto Nathan (13), the thought and the action of Gaetano Salvemini (14), the Croce (15) advocating the religion of freedom and of the polemic against Luigi Einaudi (16) and the "antifascist" critic, Omodeo (17), Gobetti (18), the Rosselli brothers (19), Giustizia e Libertà, the Partito d'Azione (21) and the liberal Left of Mario Ferrara and of many other friends in our party; these and many other reference marks represent the element of legitimacy of the presence of our party, of its action, which must be increasingly coherent in the Italian political battle, as the expression of popular and democratic forces, of the working masses and of the inte

llectuals. Not only any other position would be useless and void of perspectives, but also arbitrary and unnatural.

It is therefore on the basis of these cultural, historical and social assumptions, in the continuity with the pacifist and democratic traditions of the European popular and socialist forces, that the Radical Party founds its choice of international politics.

Translator's notes:

(1) Giuliano Rendi: Radical exponent.

(2) Paese Sera: daily newspaper founded in Rome in 1950.

(3) Il Mondo: political, economic and cultural weekly magazine founded in Rome in 1949 by Mario Pannunzio.

(4) Palmiro Togliatti (1893-1964): Politician. Secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.

(5) Giuseppe Saragat (1898-1988): Politician. Socialist, exiled during fascism, was minister in the first Bonomi government (1944) and President of the Constituent Assembly. In 1947 he lead the fracture of the Socialist Party's right wing, founding the Social-Democrat Party. Vice Prime Minister (1947-50; 1954-57) foreign minister (1963-64). President of the Republic (1964-71) and president of the Social Democrat Party.

(6) Ugo La Malfa (1903-1979): Politician; among the founders of the Partito d'Azione (1942), he then joined the Republican Party (1948), of which he was Secretary ('65-75) and President. Minister of transport ('45), foreign trade ('46,' 51-53) Balance ('62-63) Treasury ('73-74) and Vice Prime Minister ('74-76).

(7) Mario Pannunzio (1910-1968): editor of "Risorgimento liberale" (1943-47) and of "Il Mondo" (1949-66).

(8) Fernando Tambroni (1901-1963): Christian Democrat Politician. Minister of Interior ('55-59) and Balance ('59-60), Prime Minister ('60). He was forced to resign following the popular protest caused by his being supported by the neo-fascist party.

(9) Elio Vittorini (1908-1966): Writer and exponent of the Radical Party.

(10) Ernesto Rossi (1897-1967): Politician. Leader of "Giustizia e Libertà" (Justice and Freedom) (1929), was arrested in 1930. Promoter of the European Federalist movement and one of the founders of the Radical Party.

(11) Article 7 of the Consitution: acknowledges the Concordat signed between the fascist State and the Church.

(12) Amintore Fanfani (1908): Politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party ('54-59; '73-75), Prime Minister ('58-59; '60-62; '62-63; '82-83), foreign minister 8'64-65; 65-68), President of the Senate ('68-73 and '76-82).

(13) Ernesto Nathan (1845-1921): Politician. A close collaborator of Giuseppe Mazzini, he was mayor of Rome from 1907 to 1913.

(14) Gaetano Salvemini (1873-1957): Historian and politician. In 1925 he founded the clandestine journal "Non Mollare" (Don't give up),and was forced to go abroad, where he joined Giustizia e Libertà and conducted a journalistic battle against fascism.

(15) Benedetto Croce (1866-1952): Philosopher, historian and critic, advocate of the liberal idea.

(16) Luigi Einaudi (1874-1961): Economist and politician. President of the Republic from 1948 to 1955.

(17) Adolfo Omodeo (1889-1946): Historian and politician, member of the Partito d'Azione.

(18) Piero Gobetti 1901-1926): Ideologist of liberal-socialism, he founded "The liberal Revolution" and "Il Baretti"; persecuted by the fascists, he migrated to France in 1926.

(19) Carlo and Nello Rosselli. Antifascists, founders of the Giustizia e Libertà movement, were murdered upon order of the Italian secret service.

(21) Partito d'Azione: Political party (1853-70) established upon initiative of Giuseppe Mazzini, having a republican and insurrectional program. In 1942 a homonymous party was established from the union of the Giustizia e Libertà movement and the liberal-socialist movement. Active during the resistance, it was dissolved after the electoral defeat of 1946.