ABSTRACT: Pannella confirms his "No to the centre-left" [government coalition ed.], which is to say that politics that has not ceased to take the impossible road of dialogue between Church and State, between freedom and non-freedom. It is the same mistake that Europe made on the morrow of the liberation: it was thought that one should not make politics but unite for reconstruction, and what they reconstructed was the old pre-Fascist world and national states. This is a dangerous operation whose success is counting on the inability of Europe's left wing groups to pin down the constants of the development of industrial society. Its myths are the politics of development and the creation of material well-being to which freedom and democracy can be sacrificed. But the politics of development and the creation of material well-being are objectives to which right and left, Fascism and anti-Fascism, neo-capitalism and Socialism all equally tend. Western Europe will then first, without regard to its different kinds o

f regimes, make gigantic steps towards wealth and an ever-increasing rate of development. Everywhere in the world the Church is in a position to opt for systems of greater economic democracy if this is the price it has to pay in its fight against liberalism and Socialism. The clerical forces too are capable of promoting "new deals" and material well-being on the condition that hands are kept off art. 7 of the Constitution. (1) Next, technical objectives and obligatory solutions for burying those politicians are made the centre of political life. To support the centre-left it was necessary to set up Malagodi (2) as an adversary and a symbol, thus testifying to the pitiful importance of what was at stake. But our country will become "modern" only when it takes on the responsibility of not postponing and evading once again the choice between the ideas and force of freedom and the structures and faiths that oppose it. All the rest is lies. All the rest is Realpolitik. (See the file on the "Radical Left", a.b.,

in text no.3669

(SINISTRA RADICALE [Radical Left, ed.], monthly bulletin of political information, YEAR I, No.1, October 1061)

No to the centre-left. A definitive no, calm but clear.

This First Italian Republic, from art. 7 voted for by the Communists to the De Gasperi (3) supporters of we who were "Liberals" or Republicans, to Saragat's (4) and the democratic left's centre-left, has not ceased to take the impossible road of dialogue between Church and State, between freedom and non-freedom, between anti-Fascism and Fascism, between democratic and Socialist citizens and clerical subjects and "qualunquisti" (5). To have obliged the anti-Fascist unity won by our people to this fatal dialogue; to have made it part of Italian society when it represented the only possible state; to present to us as a conquest the task of offering the Church our complicity and the support of large masses of the country - all of this disqualifies an entire class of leaders.

Much of what is happening reminds us of the way in which Europe deliberately buried the Resistance with its revolutionary charge of liberation and freedom. It was not a question of making politics then, but of uniting for reconstruction. And what they reconstructed was the old pre-Fascist world, the national states with their classist, racist, clerical and war-mongering vocation. And no complicity, no resignation, no "comprehension" of all this can be allowed any longer.

An insidious operation, dangerous, which reaps victims also and abundantly among the Radicals, is about to be brought to its conclusion. It only looks new. In large part it is counting for its success on the inability of Europe's left wing groups to pin down the constants of the development of industrial society which by now are evident in this half of the Twentieth Century. The myths of this operation are twofold: the politics of development and the creation of material well-being to which freedom and democracy can be sacrificed cheating the will to achieve them by themselves which now animates the popular masses. But the politics of development and the creation of material well-being are nothing but the social objectives to which right and left, Fascism and anti-Fascism, neo-capitalism and Socialism all equally tend; the simultaneous offer that both freedom and non-freedom are making to society today. From Raymond Aron to Bertrand de Jouvenel, to Kennan, to Oppenheimer, all of them, in a discussion o

rganised by the Association for the Freedom of Culture at Rheinfelden, are expected to reach an agreement that "throughout the five continents the same words are used, the same values proclaimed, the same goals pursued. A particular type of society, the industrial society, is becoming, in a historically unprecedented way, the model for all humanity". In Europe sooner or later, to a greater or lesser degree, the logic of the development of industrial society - be it the state-owned kind of the East or the capitalist kind of the West, whether or not trusts or cartels, monopolies or oligopolies persist, whether there is the Common Market or the seeming divisions of the "Europe of Fatherlands", whether the political regime is Gaullist, or follows the models of Franco, Adenauer, pre-Fascist ones (such as in Greece), or clerical ones as in Italy - it will lead by itself with gigantic steps towards material well-being an an ever higher industrial growth rate. It is Utopian to imagine that it will be possible to imp

ose a fairer distribution of goods within this kind of system. Those who are primarily interested in material well-being and their own increased buying power, once they see these things realised will find it hard to find sufficient democratic resources in themselves to rebel against an unjust regime only in the hope of a hypothetically greater well-being.

"Affluent society", condition of material well-being, another "new deal" - when these are indicated as objectives for the policies of European nations, and Italy in particular, they are nothing other than unsuitable, abstract, provincial and deeply reactionary lures.

At best those who continually call for them in our country can be credited with the function, now so well known, of so many pressure groups. Their products are "eminently" technical - that is to say, usable by heterogeneous and opposing forces. Historically, in a society which is fundamentally divided on cultural and ideological lines, pressure groups are not capable of determining the beneficiaries of their programmes.

In Italy, in Europe, anywhere in the world, the Church is in a position to opt for systems of greater economic democracy it this is the price it has to pay historically in its fight against liberalism and Socialism, against laicism and the politics of freedom. In our country too, however many individual crises, however many corrections of patronage they may have to cope with, the clerical forces too are capable of promoting "new deals" and material well-being on the condition that hands are kept off art. 7 of the Constitution and that there is no radical change in the state's ruling class. This much we knew, we Radicals and as many of us in other parties who tried to be Radicals, before 1955.

These are the grounds on which we originated and affirmed our particular opinions in our country. But instead, what happened?

"The problems of Italian society are well known to everyone and have been amply discussed, and there is really no need of a lot of words to recall this fact once again. It is a question of breaking the conservative grip on the country's economy, it is a question of removing Italy's economic and social development from the speculative concept of the great economic fiefdoms and entrusting them to a political direction that will keep in mind not so much the profit motive but the well-being of all".

This is a quotation from an editorial in »Il Mondo (the issue of October 10, written by Vittorio De Caprariis). We also refer you to another article by the same writer: »Il muro dell'oro [The Wall of Gold] in the August 15 issue. On the surface there seems to be no flaws in the argument. »L'Espresso , our friends among the management, the Radical right, and »Il Mondo base their policies on this thesis. All of you, my friends, would do well to think about these texts which are faithful summaries of the dangers that the Radicals will abandon their struggles and their ideas.

Slowly, artificially, technical objectives with imposed solutions are put at the centre of political life in order to bury the political objectives that the Radicals had the merit of having brought to the attention of the country; they even assume tools that can serve opposing ideas and goals.

Then, on the basis of these data, begins the endless dripping of the "reappraisals", of the "distinguishings", of the "deadlines", of the "conversions", which De Caprariis can well call a waste of time, a lack of courage and clarity. We firmly claim that these are smoke screens, ostrich politics and discretional surrendering on the part of our country's traditional forces of non-liberty.

The centre-left supporters were forced in the end to set up as an adversary and symbol a person who in himself expresses the pitiful of what is at stake: Malagodi (6).

There is a piece of blackmail in our country which is truly historical and which was proposed mutually by the maximalists, the Catholic fundamentalists and the clerical-moderates. It was the accusation made against anti-clericalism of using the issue of liberty against Italian society and many of its traditional forces to cover up economic interests, the reality of the class struggle, and because of its mean petit-bourgeois spirit, etc. This same piece of blackmail is implicit in the current polemics that many centre-left supporters are using against those who, from a well-considered and responsible anti-clericalism, oppose the attempt to feudalise, the Church and its ideals, some new social levels and some new interests. The problems of liberty, the dignity and courage of a daily fight which respects and remembers some ideas without which political life is poor stuff, have now been erased from the things which can possibly be accomplished in our country.

To better impose this abandoning of positions, the present ruling class and its new recruits is amusing itself and us with a game of dissension which has no deep truths. But our country will become "modern" only when it takes on the responsibility of not postponing and evading once again the choice between the ideas and force of freedom and the structures and faiths that oppose it. All the rest is lies. All the rest is Realpolitik.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Art. 7 of the Constitution - The article establishing the Concordat of the Catholic Church and the Italian State.

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

3) De Gasperi, Alcide (Pieve Tesino 1881 - Sella di Valsugana 1954) A native of Trent, he was a Catholic deputy to the Austrian Parliament in 1911. After World War I the area was made over to Italy and De Gasperi becomes a Partito Popolare deputy in the Italian Parliament. He will become president of that party from 1923 to 1925. Under Fascism he is employed at the Vatican Library. Clandestinely he reorganises the Christian Democratic Party and becomes its secretary in 1944. Prime Minister in 1945. He signs the peace treaty in 1947. Once he obtains the confirmation of the Lateran Pacts, he manages to exclude the left from the government permanently thus giving it a stable centrist form.

4) Saragat, Giuseppe - (Turin 1898 - Rome 1988) Socialist, exiled in Austria under Fascism. Minister of the first Bonomi government in 1944, President of the Constituent Assembly in 1946. In 1947 he led the Socialist right-wing in a split from the PSI to form the PSLI (Socialist Party of Italian Workers) and then the PSDI (Italian Social Democratic Party). He was Vice Prime Minister and President of the Republic from 1946 to 1971.