by Gianfranco Spadaccia

ABSTRACT: The fear of an imaginary "coup d'état", which could be carried out by the "Right" and by the military, is used to cover the real, permanent coup d'état against the republican institutions which the Christian Democrat Party has been enacting for years. Italy is neither Greece nor Portugal, it is a country with a consolidated capitalist system, which does not need traditional fascisms but authoritarian regimes maintaining the semblance of democracy.

(RADICAL NEWS n.155, 29 March 1972)

The theme of the "coup d'état" against the democratic institutions is a recurring theme in our political debate, used by the most different political forces with different motivations and arguments, from the official parties of the Left to extraparliamentary factions of the Christian Democrat Party itself. At an examination of some of his works and according to the testimony of several people, the obsession with the "coup d'état" seems to have been the prevailing reason for which Feltrinelli (1) opted for clandestinity in the last, dramatic period of his life, which was to conclude itself with the tragic epilogue at Segrate. Clearly, the candidates for the role of protagonists of the "coup" change, according to the forces that agitate this political subject and present this danger as an impending threat. According to some, in the reconstruction of the "1964 events", Segni (2) and De Lorenzo plotted against the institutions together; according to others, Segni alone, an old man on the eve of having an apoplec

tic fit, was the author of the plot, whom General De Lorenzo backed with the sole intention of thwarting his plans; according to others yet, the culprit was De Lorenzo alone, without either the Head of the State, the Ministers of Defence and Interior or the Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party knowing anything about it. According to the political forces talking about it, the possible protagonists of a bloody totalitarian takeover are identified with the fascists of Almirante (3), with the complicity of sectors of the Armed Forces, the police and the public administration, a "strongman" belonging to the Christian Democrat Party, description which corresponds to Fanfani (4), the leaders of the CIA, and, needless to say, when the polemic is stirred by the Right, the dangerous groups of the extraparliamentary guerrilla warfare. Clearly, according to the Christian Democrat Party, the plot against the democratic institutions is devised only by the forces of "opposite extremism". A skilful organization seems t

o channel all the attention and all the polemic of this electoral campaign toward these different but converging fears. Electoral campaigns have been transformed; whereas they were once fundamentally based on the programs of the parties and on the speeches of their "leaders", today they are all based on ballistic expertises, autopsies, sensational revelations, arrest warrants, searches, chain indictments, "red" and "black" plots, tardy discoveries of left-and right-wing armed bands. With different and opposed interpretations, all hope to take advantage of this muddy situation, resorting more to people's fears than to reason or the electors' consent: be it fear of disorder, deliberately fostered by the moderate or well-thinking classes, or fear for the danger of a new authoritarian order.

The fear of an imaginary "coup d'état" that could take place in Italy is skilfully used to make people forget that the "coup d'état" has been under way for years, and that it repeats itself daily against the republican institutions and democracy. Impending fascism enables to make people forget the other, far more serious fascism of which the State institutions and laws are still filled with. The Christian Democrat Party can thus dodge its past responsibilities and illegal acts committed on the eve of these elections before the electorate.

For twenty-five years, the clerical party, which has been uninterruptedly ruling the country with the support of the most varied political parties (PCI (5) and PSI (6) in the post-war period; PLI (7), PRI (8), PSDI (9) in the fifties; monarchists and fascists after the crisis of centrism; socialists and centre-Left in the past ten years; the liberals again today) has been detaining all the power in its hands and has been using it to wipe away the rules of democracy as established by the Constitution. For eight years, during which it was ruled, according to our independent papers, by "men of assured democratic faith" such as De Gasperi (10), it opposed the achievement of the Constitutional Court; it took fifteen years to establish the Supreme Magistracy Council; twenty-two were necessary for the institution of the regions. These are delays that correspond to a precise political plan, the existence of which can be fully realized only today, after a quarter of a century: the plan was that of rooting its power u

sing corporative and fascist structures and laws dating back to Mussolini's State, which the Resistance had demolished but not replaced.

And when the new institutions provided for by the Constitution became operative, the Christian Democrat leadership did all that was possible to take possession of it and control it, or to hinder and nullify its action. For fifteen years, the Christian Democrat Prime Ministers which succeeded one another at the Head of Government defended, through the Avvocatura dello Stato (11), the fascist norms contested by the Constitutional Court. For years the Supreme Magistracy Council remained a body controlled by the Cassation and, through it, by the most backward part of the magistracy. The regions are achieved only now with the purpose of better consolidating the Christian Democrat power in the country, leaving some space and limited power to the Communist Party in its traditional areas of influence, but without really modifying the organization of the State. Parliament has been put in the impossibility of acting, paralysed by Christian Democrat resistance, by governmental and assembly agreements, by the absence of

effective and inflexible parliamentary struggles on the part of the parties of the Left and of the lay forces. The Constitutional Court has been left alone in the task of conforming the legislation to the Constitution, task which was not its competence, in that it belonged to the republican governments and Parliaments. For years, the Government ruled by the Christian Democrats has had to limit itself to an action of containment toward this body. From the moment the enormous political importance of the Court, which is responsible for the abolition of several fascist norms and of a first yet incomplete attempt to democratize the legislation, became evident with the sentence that ratified the constitutionality of the law on divorce, the Christian Democrat Party has not hidden its intention of paralysing it and recovering its control. First, they hindered the election of Lelio Basso; now, with the appointment that the new President of the Republic will have to decide in the coming months, they hope to complete

the operation and to subject this rare exception to regime conformism and to the condition of subordination which characterizes all the other structures. A similar thing to what occurred for the fascist legislation on the part of the Constitutional Court has occurred for the Public Administration on the part of the magistracy: the latter has tried to replace the function which should be the competence, in a democratic state, of the oppositions, that is, denouncing at least the most patent cases of embezzlement carried out by the class in power. But unlike the Constitutional Court, contradictions inside the magistracy are more evident, its autonomy is inferior and its interior division deeper. Even trials for embezzlement or abuse of power have soon been turned into occasions for getting opponents out of the way, as an instrument for a political battle among different Christian Democrat currents, or an instrument to be used against the parties that collaborate with the Christian Democrat Party in Government

.

Closely linked to the party and to its internal currents, and indirectly participating in the struggle for power are the Public Prosecution Office, the police, the army, and the intelligence service. In Sicily the mafia battle corresponds to the political battle of the prevailing party, and has no hesitations in killing magistrates and journalists and kidnapping relatives of eminent Christian democrats. The clerical and corporative interests linked to land revenue, school, assistance, spare time, oppose any urbanistic, school or sanitary reform. The clerical pillage of the public assistance, the evidence of which are several trials left without political consequences, is systematic and continuous. In 1964 the real "coup d'état" never consisted of a ridiculous "Solo plan" devised by General De Lorenzo, or of the authoritarian ravings of a senile Segni, but was carried out by the leaders of the Christian Democrat party - Moro (12), Rumor (13), Zaccagnini (14) and Colombo (15)- who used those ravings and those

threats to push the socialists to comply with their will and to force them to give up any policy aiming at carrying out reforms.

In the field of economic reforms, the only ones which the parties of the Left aimed at, an increasingly powerful State capitalism directly controlled by the Christian Democrats dictates the conditions to private capitalism, and is the central element of this capitalist system. It competes with private capitalism in the corporative and discriminating pattern of production.

The intertwinement of private and public interests influences all the means of information and mass media, from State TV to newspapers, excluding all the forces that do not accept the current political equilibrium and struggle against the accomplished transformation of the democratic State into a regime from any right to democratic information. Every truth is confiscated, every remaining bit of respect toward democratic fair play in this field is but hypocrisy and lies.

Faced to this situation, to speak about the threat of a coup d'état, to identify the paleofascists of Almirante as the enemy to be destroyed is plain ridiculous. Italy is neither Greece nor Portugal, but a country with a mature (albeit with deep contradictions and pockets of underdevelopment) capitalist system, in which the dominating classes do not need traditional fascisms, but an authoritarian regime maintaining the semblance of a democracy. The real coup d'état has already been carried out, without tanks and concentration camps, without palace revolts, but slowly, from inside the different institutions. To give the future the face of the past, means to dodge the duties of the present and the needs of the battle against a regime which has already carried out its march on Rome, and which already has its fascist lists in these elections.

Editor's notes:

(1) Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (1926-1972): Founder of the Feltrinelli Institute for the history of socialism and of the international worker's movements (1950) and founder of the homonymous publishing firm (1954). He was killed during the preparation of a terrorist attack.

(2) Antonio Segni (1891-1972): Italian politician and jurist. Christian Democrat, Minister of Agriculture (1946-51), he developed the agrarian reform (1949). Head of Government (55-57 and 59-60), President of the Republic in 1962, he resigned in 1964 due to health problems.

(3) Giorgio Almirante (1914-1988): Italian politician. Secretary of the MSI from 1969 to 1987.

(4) Amintore Fanfani (1908): Italian politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1954-59; 73-75), Head of Government (58-59; 60-62; 62-63; 82-83), Foreign Minister (64-65; 65-68), President of the Senate 868-73; 76-82).

(5) Italian Communist Party

(6) Italian Socialist Party

(7) Italian Liberal Party

(8) Italian Republican Party

(9) Italian Social-Democrat Party

(10) Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954): Italian politician. Member of the Italian Parliament for the Popular Party (1921), of which he was Secretary from 1923 to 1925. Antifascist, arrested in 1927, he served a 16-month sentence in prison. Organizer of the clandestine Christian Democrat party, and Secretary of the same from 1944 to 1946, Head of Government as of 1945, he signed the peace treaty with the allies (1947), expelled the parties of the Left from the Cabinet and lead the DC to the 1948 electoral victory. Until 1953 he presided all the coalition governments with the parties of the Centre that directed the economic reconstruction.

(11) Avvocatura dello Stato: a body of the public administration that safeguards the rights and the interests of the State.

(12) Aldo Moro (1916-1978): Italian politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1959-65), Minister on several occasions, Head of Government (63-68). Author of the Centre-Left policy. Foreign minister (69-74), Head of Government (74-76), President of the DC as of 76, he favoured the participation of the Communist Party in Government. Kidnapped by the Red Brigades and found dead on 9.5.1978.

(13) Mariano Rumor (1915): Italian politician. Secretary of the DC (64-69), Head of Government (68-69; 69-70; 70; 73-74; 74).

(14) Benigno Zaccagnini (1912): Italian politician. Minister of Labour (1959) and Public Works (60-62), President (69-75) and Secretary (1975-80) of the DC.

(15) Emilio Colombo (1920): Italian politician. Minister of Treasury (63-70; 74-76), Head of Government (1970-72), Foreign Minister as of 1980.