ABSTRACT: At a moment in which the student movement is in full explosion, the Radical Party must resist the temptation of believing that, in the face of apparently wider and more incisive phenomena, its function as a party has come to an end. The best contribution the Radical Party can give the movement of protest is that of keeping faith to its political objectives. Rather than adding other objectives to those that have already been decided, it is necessary to open a debate on the methods and on the prospects of our struggles and on the problems relative to the party's organizational growth. In particular, we need to analyse the position of the Radical Party's traditional objectives (laicism, anticlericalism, antimilitarism, antiauthoritarianism) with respect to the movement of global protest; the value of the single civil rights campaigns; the methods with which such campaigns should be conducted; the function of the radical minorities (should they dissolve into mass actions?); the relation that should exi

st between new and young movements of the Left. The points in common with the movement of protest and the radical party's distance from the revolutionary dogmatism and the violent illusions of the "new Left". To struggle against the establishment or to struggle against the regime? Spadaccia concludes his report stating that there are all the elements for an effective radical strategy: but is there a party capable of promoting it?

(RADICAL NEWS N. 51, 18 October 1968)

PART ONE - "The Radical Party and the radical movement in the country: a political strategy for the new Left".

We are opening the party's fifth national congress in a political situation which is radically different compared to a year ago. As recently as last year at the congress in Florence, we were alone, supported only by small, minority groups, in promoting objectives of radical struggle versus the apparata of the official Left and of their policy of dialogue and practical integration.

The events of winter and spring of 1968 - radicalization of the political struggle.

In winter and spring of 1968, a whole series of events took place which contributed in bringing about a strong radicalization of the political situation. It is unquestionable that what Amendola (1) called the "explosion" of the student movement, some news aspects of the labour unrest and the widespread demonstration of the Catholic dissent, have deeply modified the pattern of the political struggles and relations of the Italian Left. Thus, whereas in November last year we were confronted with a stagnant and motionless official Left, a year later the party is operating at the presence of a widespread, complex and often contradictory radical movement in the country, which is it difficult to establish the consistency and length of, but which in some cases has assumed mass dimensions, overriding and upsetting the habits of the Left. This movement reproposes, in new terms, the problem of the relations with the other forces of the Left, especially the forces of the opposition, which have had to come to terms with

this reality in the past and in the present.

It is undeniable that all this has gone in the same direction which the radical party has long been pursuing from positions of minority. The party's first task should be that of giving a political judgement on the new facts that have occurred in the Left, and which have radical characteristics, and also that of carefully analysing the new possibilities they offer and the new tasks they impose on our political action.

Two temptations to be avoided.

The risk we need to avoid is that of indulging two temptations: an optimistic one, of believing that our position as Radical Party is made stronger simply by the presence of new, and in some cases vehement, radical phenomena and movements in the country; the pessimistic one, of believing that our function as a party has come to an end or almost owing to the presence of apparently wider and more incisive phenomena. In both cases, this would be a demonstration of immaturity or in any case of scarce faith in the long-range tasks which the promotion of the radical party call for, i.e., the idea of providing the radical party with solid bases, a political strategy and especially structures that are adequate for the political objectives we mean to pursue and at the same time are not contradictory with regard to the principles of freedom, direct democracy and self-administration which we profess. These are risks and temptations which the party as a whole has been incapable of resisting in the winter and spring of 1

968. Thus, the party, which might have drawn the occasion for a more intense initiatives and growth from this new political situation, has on the contrary assumed an attitude which is not very dissimilar from that of the other parties of the Left: the attitude of someone who feels taken aback and overwhelmed by the events, an attitude which is all the more despicable in a minority force which cannot and does not want to rely on the self-conservation resistances that are typical of the other political organizations.

Student movement, Catholic dissent, new aspects of the labour struggles. The best contribution we can give the movement of protest is that of keeping faith to our political objectives.

The best contribution we can give the development and enhancement of the movement of protest is precisely that of keeping faith to our objectives, developing our political action accordingly, improving our structures and our methods as a lay and libertarian organization. All this will not imply forms of seclusion with respect to the external world; on the contrary, in addition to offering a precise point of reference and of political and ideal confrontation, it will make it possible to avoid dispersing an experience acquired over a period of five years. With all its limits, far from underestimating it, we should be aware of the fact that this experience is not only our own heritage, but is also a heritage which can and should become of general usefulness for all the radical forces of our country. Precisely because of its mass characteristics, the student movement, the Catholic dissent, the new demonstrations of struggle of the workers' movement are facts that reveal a situation which we had analysed and fore

seen. They still do not express all there is of new and all that is likely to express the social situation of the country. However, these facts in particular cannot, per se, compensate the lack of organization and political strategy of the Left. On the contrary the are the basis for different hypotheses and political strategies which are often contradictory and are undergoing a difficult experimentation.

Self-management and direct democracy in the movements.

The self-management of the campaigns, which has become a widespread practice in the universities, the libertarian organization which the spontaneous groups have chosen, the growing participation of the working classed in labour unrest, are the positive and new field in which this confrontation is taking place, preventing the crystallization of small ideological groups or the final affirmation of a univocal political direction. I believe we can all agree on saying that precisely this libertarian character of the new movements and principles of self-management which are prevailing for the first time over the traditional centralism is the aspect which we share most with the forces of the new Left that have emerged in the country, since we considered it fundamental in formulating the party's new statute. However, we also need to take into account the fact that it is probably the weakest aspect, because it relies on practically non-existent structures and because - as a consequence - it is supported in particular

by spontaneous participation and by the variable (in the case of mass phenomena) movements of opinion.

Likewise, we can say that we identify ourselves in the anti-authoritarian struggles which have represented the essence of university protest, in the socialist and strongly lay claims which the movement of the spontaneous groups has assumed, in the dissolution of the union equilibrium which occurred during the labour unrest at FIAT, Marzotto and in several other cases. However, to believe that all this already represents the new Left, whereas it is, on the contrary (in the best of hypotheses) only a premise, would not only be a logic mistake, but also a very serious political mistake induced by optimism and superficiality. We must therefore keep faith to the policy we chose during the two previous congresses of Bologna and Florence.

Two subjects for a pre-congress debate: political strategy; objectives for the party's promotion.

I believe the congress debate shouldn't insist prevalently on the contents and on the objectives of our struggle. In this field, I not only believe there are no consistent divergences in the party, but I also think we would have little to add to all that has been said at the congresses of Florence and Bologna. It would therefore be a mistake to have too many irons in the fire, pursuing other objectives, when the most urgent and serious problem we have is that of reaching the conditions to pursue the objectives that have already been decided in the most effective way. In order to do this, we need to bring the debate on two more levels: 1) a frank discussion on the methods and prospects (i.e. the global political strategy) of the radical forces and of the forces of the new Left; 2) the ways and objectives for a political and organizational growth of the radical party.

I will therefore devote the first part of the document on the methods and the prospects of our struggle, i.e. on the strategy of our political initiative. A second part, to be published early next week, will focus on an analysis of the situation inside the party on the basis of the experience of this last year's work. This document simply wants to be a first contribution from the Secretary of the Party to the congress debate. It is not, therefore, the expression of debates occurred in the party or of collegial positions. For reasons of practicality, it prescinds, for the moment, from a wider political analysis which I pledge to bring to the congress with the introductory report.

Five questions for the Congress.

It means to answer the following questions:

1) the position of the political objectives we have decided (laicism and anticlericalism, antimilitarism, anti-authoritarianism) with respect to the movement of the so-called global dissent. In particular, the relation between what we called struggle against the regime and the global challenge of the system.

2) the value of the single campaigns which the party promoted in the context of those general objectives and which are prevalently civil rights battles. Do the campaigns for divorce, for conscientious objection, for the abolition of the Concordat, for the abolition of repressive laws, for sexual freedom, those against the clerical manipulation of the common heritage and against corruption, and all the other campaigns we have promoted have a purely reformist value, and are they such, once achieved, as to be reassimilated by the establishment? Which is the strategy which unites these campaigns and the general objectives we have chosen to pursue?

3) With what methods should these campaigns be conducted and developed in the country? In particular, what is our judgement on the use of the instruments of political democracy and of the nonviolent means, which we have widely used in our political action to this moment.

4) The role of the radical minorities. Should they dissolve in mass action or, on the contrary, do they have an irreplaceable function in preparing mass movements and in guaranteeing permanent lay and libertarian structures for the struggle?

5) What relation should there be between the new left and the old left, between radicals and forces and apparata of the official and traditional Left? Other issues (the function of State capitalism, the judgement on the countries of popular democracy, internationalism and national ways, relation between revolutionary forces of the Third World and campaigns for democracy and for socialism in the West, democracy based on parties, relation between party and social forces) will not be developed in this part of the document, as the party's position is sufficiently consolidated on such issues, and there are no consistent divergences.

We can pinpoint many elements that are common to our action and to the movements of protest: first of all, the discovery of the subjective and voluntaristic element in a truly revolutionary movement.

Refusing the existing equilibrium.

For years, the ideology of the Left has caused an overestimation of the objective elements to become an alibi to procrastinate every political choice and to justify a policy based on dialogue and practical integration. The ascertainment of the lack of revolutionary conditions has been the cover for a maximum acceptance of the existing equilibrium and for the bureaucratic leveling of every campaign and initiative. The movements of protest refuse the acceptance of the existing equilibrium, and have reminded the entire Left of the fact that revolutionary conditions need to be prepared and created with a revolutionary action. In this sense, its referring to Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro is a polemic reference and a valid opposition, more in terms of praxis than of ideology.

Refusing economicism.

The other element we perceive as common is the refusal of economicism, i.e. the claim to combat the opponent and to transform the system by analysing the economic conditions and by trying to transform them through an economic and social policy. The student movement as well as the workers' movement prove that the movements of protest have understood that the establishment should be attacked not at the sources, but where it exerts its authoritarian, oppressive and repressive function: in schools, in factories, in the jurisdiction, in the relations with the police, etc. This is how I interpret the struggle against academic authoritarianism in the student movement and the struggle of spring 1968 against repression.

Refusing a policy based on power.

The third point we can say to have in common with the movements of protest is internationalism, or rather the request for a new internationalism based on the refusal of the absurd distinction between foreign policy and domestic policy, and on the refusal of the policy based on blocks and on power as a valid means to affirm the struggle for socialism in the world. Understanding that the liberation movements of the Third World should be supported not through diplomatic initiatives and generic declarations of sympathy, but by relentlessly promoting the struggle for socialism in our country, has long since made us say, as radical party, that a truly internationalist policy must be necessarily antimilitarist and against the military structures, national and supranational or international, which the Italian armed forces are part of.

The risk of a new dogmatism.

The above points we can consider common. From here onward, we must further analyse and repropose our methods, our objectives and our campaign strategy without inferiority complexes. And this is all the more necessary in a situation in which all the traditional vices of the Italian Left could become worse: abstractness, maximalism, verbal revolutionism, sectarianism, dogmatism. Aspects of this kind are probably to be considered natural and unavoidable in a spontaneous and vast movement such as the student movement. Precisely for this reason, however, they call for clarity of political judgement and awareness of the differences and of the moments of dissent. Already today, we perceive the temptation, on a series of events and prospects, in the student movement, of new forms of revolutionary dogmatism. For example, on Czechoslovakia or on the need for an antimilitarist struggle, or on the anticlerical policy, we see not only different positions, but ideological objections that are similar to those raised in the

past by the Marxist Left of the traditional and official socialist and communist organizations. On these facts and on these moments of dissent, the party should express its political opinion, make known its position.

Struggle against the regime and global challenge of the system.

Moreover, to the extent in which the debate in the student movement and in the Catholic dissent becomes deeper and wider, we must know how to pinpoint the various positions, the various lines and political prospects which emerge, underline these differences, participate in the political debate and operate consequent choices. Already this congress faces this need. We cannot pretend that what we called during our last congress struggle against the regime is the same thing as the struggle against the establishment, of the global challenge of the establishment, which are the central points of the new movements of protest and of dissent. We cannot ignore that global protest often has not only the meaning of a refusal of the current society and the desire to transform it radically, but it ultimately becomes the quest for a total and final clash with the class opponent. Such totality is useful neither from the point of view of the analysis nor from that of the political struggle. From these points of view, it is no

less harmful than the global one we criticized in the past in the parties of the Left. The worst defect of this totality lies in its genericness and, at the same time, in its unidimensionality. Its genericness because the struggle against the capitalist system globally speaking causes a neglect of the peculiar characteristics of "this" capitalist system against which we need to struggle here in Italy and not elsewhere, and which separate it distinctly from the way in which the capitalist system is organized and expressed in other countries and in other states; on the other hand, despite every contrary intention, such globality, precisely to the extent in which it wants to pinpoint and attack the first and essential factor of the system - i.e. the capitalist power - inevitably neglects all the other components and all the other factors of class-related power. While this is true from the point of view of the analysis and ideology, the inconvenients are no less serious from the point of view of the methods an

d of the objectives of the struggle.

A strategy as complex and flexible as the system it wants to fight.

Precisely because of its complexity and flexibility, the system can contain and isolate movements that claim to want to achieve such a form of global challenge. The use of repressive means and the monopoly of the media enable the Establishment to isolate, as in a ghetto, movements that are incapable of having a strategy which is as complex and flexible as the system it means to oppose. It is worth noticing, on this point, that the most fruitful moment of the student movement was when it challenged the academic establishment, precisely because it clashed with a part of the system which was experiencing a crisis, and it was easier to tackle and conduct the struggle against the very attempts to rationalize and to find a moderate and conservative solution of that crisis on the basis of a problem of general understanding. On the other hand, precisely at a moment in which external alliances are quite aptly sought with the country's workers' movement, the risk is that of falling into a sort of generic, obsolete lab

ourism. The failure which in many cases has crowned this legitimate quest for a connection with the working class probably depends on the fact of having wanted to insert generic mottos in the labour struggle, without an understanding of the specific facts and of the specific conflicts of interest which were the origin of those labour protests.

Realpolitik and extremism frustrate every radical policy.

We need to overcome this situation in which the Left, in its official and parliamentary components, seems to have no other objective but that of opposing a formula and a program for the government, and which, in its new and extraparliamentary components, aims to achieve the inviting but abstract objective of struggling against the system.

Realpolitik and extremism go hand in hand in frustrating every radical and revolutionary policy, and have both been responsible for the incapacity and impossibility of finding and giving a political outlet in France to the mass protests of may 1968.

The struggle against the regime is the apt field for an effective challenge of the system, because it enables to find the various components of the block of forces which detains power, the concrete ways with which the attempt to integrate and frustrate the oppositions' action is carried out.

Apart from this concrete and precise field, it is easy even for the Church, in which the temporal power is one of the bases of the regime and therefore - in Italy - one of the fundamental components of the system, to appear and propose itself as a force of ideological challenge, thanks to an largely preindustrial anticapitalist attitude. At the same time, the official forces of the Left can try to serve the country with the movement of protest through "ideological" concessions without in any way changing their political objectives, which remain characterized by an attitude of compromise with the regime. The challengers will remain, on paper, anticlericals, and will continue in a sectarian way to launch their anathemas against revisionism, but the masses interested in the protest will lose sight of the watershed between a truly radical and alternative policy and a policy which is not.

The false alternative between peaceful way and insurrectional way

to revolution.

Thus, we must also unveil the alleged and false alternative between peaceful way and insurrectional way to revolution, between two supposed revolutionary outlets which in fact have the purpose of covering on the one hand the peaceful and far but revolutionary acceptance of the status quo, and on the other hand to postpone every initiative to a moment of final, general clash, which, if it occurred, the Lefts would be incapable of supporting politically, as in France, and would pave the way for a success of the Right (May 1968 in France) or for new solutions of compromise of the Left (July 1960 in Italy).

Reforms and revolution.

In fact, the context we have chosen for our struggle - the one against the regime - and the antimilitarist and anticlerical analyses which our political action has based itself on, have enabled us to conduct effective battles, to open new fronts of opposition for the movements of the Left, which have represented and still represent important centres in the balance of power our system is based on.

Divorce, conscientious objection, civil rights - reformist objectives or elements of crisis of the system?

From the campaign for divorce to conscientious objection, from the campaign against the clerical interference on the school, the family, on welfare and more generally against the concordat, from the campaign for sexual freedom to the one against repressive and authoritarian tendencies of the law in the field of civil rights, from those for social security to those against state capitalism, a series of objections have been raised by the right and the left, from inside and out of the party.

The points of our political initiatives which are questioned are:

1) their supposed sporadic and sectorial nature, which would rule out a global political strategy, necessary to buttress the existence of a political party;

2) their reformist characteristic, which supposedly makes each of these campaigns, once successful, liable to be reassimilated into the system;

3) the need for many of them to find expressions also from the point of view of the legislative initiative, thus paving the way for relations with the parliamentary components of the left and in many cases, not only of the left of the opposition but also of the left in the government.

Thus, our struggle for conscientious objection is simplistically opposed with the slogan "no to war, yes to guerrilla warfare", and even inside our party, a campaign such as that for divorce which we have promoted, has been underestimated as an obsolete, reformist and parliamentary front of struggle.

Bourgeois classes, capitalism and clericalism in the specific Italian reality.

At the basis of all this, an insufficiency and an analytical mistake on the political and social situation, on the specific factors on which the organization of the capitalist system in our country is based on, where after the Resistance, the bourgeois class and capitalism have entrusted the defence of their interests to a clerical party instead of a traditional conservative and nationalist party, as in other European countries. This choice is not new in the history of Italy, where the bourgeois élites, except in the period of the historical Right, have always respected the church's hegemony in the field of mass culture and customs. What is not incompatible in other capitalist systems, or which on the contrary has been achieved in other capitalist systems thanks to the initiative of the liberal political forces, could become, in Italy, a strong element of crisis not of the capitalist system generically, but of the concrete equilibrium and system of power which has been created in Italy.

Regime, clerical forces, real hegemonic forces of the capitalist system.

However, we cannot neglect another fact: within this equilibrium between bourgeois and capitalist forces and clerical and regime forces, it is not true at all that the first, as the engine of the capitalist economic development of our country, are the avant- garde forces, whereas the latter represent the cultural rearguard, conservative and obscurantist. It is not true that the Italian clericalism and reactionary-ism is something which the capitalists are forces to accept half-heartedly, something which opposes the rationalization of the capitalist system itself, and which the capitalist forces would gladly do without, if they disposed of a moderate political alternative (liberal or social democratic); this scenario does not correspond to the reality at all, it is denied by facts, even if there have been, in the past two or three years, socialdemocratic forces and even consistent capitalist interests which have cultivated these ambitions and these projects. The contrary is increasingly true: we, in a positio

n of isolation, have carried out for years an analysis against the entire Left, according to which the forces of the regime, through State capitalism, do not represent the most backward part, the restraining forces, the elements of contradiction, but represented and represent the real hegemonic forces and the spearhead of our capitalist system. Understanding this reality has lead us to oppose the sectarian tendencies of the Left, which lead to locate the enemy in social democracy far more than in the Christian Democratic party and in the clerical forces of the country; this understanding has made us realize that the social democratic project and the objectives of a reformist and social democratic policy were not only unattainable, unlike in other countries, but were elements of crisis of social democracy itself, and field of conflict for an effective left of opposition.

State capitalism has strengthened the oppressive and class-based system.

In fact, all we need to do is look at the reconstruction carried out in the last years in our economic structure, with a growing integration between public and private technocracy, with the growing weight of the state capitalist groups, with the increasing capacity of manoeuvre and intervention of the public means in the field of finance and industry, to realize this. The regime has not grown stronger against the logic and the interests of the capitalist system, but, on the contrary, acquiring essential and determining positions of control and guide inside the capitalist system, not for purposes of socialization and collective interest, but with the purpose of enhancing a class-discriminating power which is no less authoritative and repressive than the one of the traditional potentates (it is no chance that precisely the public corporations are the most advanced parts in the policy of reorganization and restructuration and in the repression of union liberties). Obviously, the nature of the capitalist system

cannot be changed this way, nor can there be that change of sectors of the economy from private capitalism to state capitalism; simply, through a new dislocation, there will be a change in the forces that administer the system, and in this new equilibrium it is the forces of the regime that prepare to assume a hegemonic and prevailing role.

Direct initiatives from the base, parliamentarism and extraparliamentarism.

According to such analyis, for the moment barely outlined, I will briefly expose a number of beliefs:

1) our objectives regard fundamental positions of power and are therefore liable to create serious breaches in the Italian political equilibrium;

2) the current situation of regime, despite all contrary convictions, frustrates every possibility of affirming these objectives through the institutional mechanism and the parliamentary delegation. They can therefore be achieved only through direct initiatives from the basis;

3) the opposition between initiatives of minority and mass initiatives should be rejected. The task of the minorities is that of opening new fronts with their battles, capable of involving vast masses of citizens;

4) the judgement on the impossibility of relying on the parliamentary mechanism to carry out an effective struggle against the regime and to acquire new civil and political rights should not mean giving up on resorting every time it is useful to the instruments of political democracy. The direct action and the initiative from the basis, far from being incompatible with the instruments of political democracy, is the only one that can make them operative once again for a struggle to transform society and the State; the positions of certain components of the extraparliamentary left should not be accepted, according to whom political democracy is an instrument of the class power, and should as such be opposed.

The instruments of political democracy, acquired by the working classes with their own struggles, and voided in contents and functionality by the forces of the regime, remain the most powerful factor of contradiction inside the authoritarian and technocratic logic of the system.

Relations with the traditional Left.

Another thing to reject is the refusal a priori of any form of relations and alliance with the forces of the parliamentary left. The problem should be posed in other terms: at what conditions and when these relations should be sought for and developed. The example of the LID (2) is a good example of a valid relation, guarantied by an effective form of direct democracy. The problem, essentially, is that of the existence of independent radical forces. I don't believe the electoral problems themselves should be posed differently.

Violence and nonviolence.

5) lastly, we need to consider, in the face of the technologies of repression at the disposal of the system, the surge of new interest in revolutionary violence, which is spreading in the country inside the extraparliamentary left. In the past, we have always practised nonviolent methods, without turning nonviolence into the single possible method and without theorizing it in a religious or ideological form. Also from the point of view of the method, however, we need a political formulation and we need to make choices. Personally speaking, I consider the theorization of violence - including as a means of self-defence - superficial and mistaken in our political situation. I believe there is a misunderstanding to be clarified, according to which one tends to identify a nonviolent struggle with a necessarily legalitarian struggle. The problem is a problem of effectiveness faced to the repressive means of the regime. The problem calls for a debate and for political choices. To state that the violence of the blac

ks, or of the students or of the workers is justified by the tacit daily violence which the system inflicts on the oppressed is a moral statement, but it does not provide a valid criterion of political behaviour as regards strategies of struggle.

Despite the necessary brevity of these remarks in this first congress document, I believe there are all the elements for an effective radical strategy.

The problem is another one: whether there is a party capable of promoting this strategy and whether we can create it.

Translator's notes

(1) AMENDOLA GIORGIO. (Rome 1907 - 1980). One of the founders of the PCI (Italian Communist Party), long considered the heir of Togliatti. Architect of the agreement with the "sound productive forces", he was head of the party's reformist, pragmatist wing. Member of Parliament for many years. Author of a series of remarkable autobiographical works.

(2) LID. Italian League for Divorce.