ABSTRACT: In the page which "IL MONDO" offers every week to the Italian League for the Institution of Divorce (LID), Pier Paolo Pasolini states that for the first time it is possible to defeat the "new fascism" represented by the Christian Democrat Party. The occasion is offered by the referendum on divorce and by the "eight referendums against the regime" promoted by the Radicals.

(IL MONDO, March 28, 1974)

("Il Mondo" devotes a whole page to the Italian League for the Institution of Divorce during the entire campaign for the referendum; by this it wants to guarantee that the League will not be hindered in its struggle. We are extremely glad to do this, despite the fact that the opinions and the positions of the LID often do not correspond to the ones held by "Il Mondo").

Fascism remained in power for twenty years. It collapsed thirty years ago. Therefore, it should already have been forgotten, or at least be a faded memory, out of fashion, unpopular. And fundamentally this is true. A fascism such as the one that lasted from 1922 to 1944 could no longer gain power in Italy; unless its illogical ideology concentrate exclusively on "Order" as a completely autonomous, almost technical concept: an "order", in other words, no longer serving "God", the "Homeland" or the "Family", values which no one believes in any more, especially because they are indissolubly connected to the idea of "poverty" (not to say "injustice").

In barely a decade's time, the "hedonism" of the power of the consumerist society has disaccustomed Italians to the values of resignation, to the idea of sacrifice, etc; Italians are no longer (radically) willing to relinquish that bit of prosperity and wealth which they have somehow managed to acquire. The values which a new fascism could therefore promise would be "prosperity and wealth": which is a contradiction in terms.

However, there has been and there is in actual fact, in Italy, a new Fascism which bases its power precisely on the promise of "prosperity and wealth": it is that fascism which Marco Pannella imaginatively but correctly defines the new Regime. Despite the fact that such Regime has founded its power on principles that are fundamentally opposed to the ones of classic fascism (going so far as relinquishing, in these last years, the contribution of the Church, whose prestige is close to zero), it can still legitimately be called 'fascist'. Why? First of all, because the organization of the State, that is, the sub-State, has remained practically identical: or rather, with the contribution of the mafia, for example, the gravity of the forms of sub-government has very much increased. This archaic burden - which the new Regime, modern, ruthless, cynical, agile - drags behind itself, incapable of ridding itself of it, makes the presence of men of power like Fanfani, for example, perfectly logical and even historicall

y coherent. In Fanfani, the old values (legalitarianism, clericalism and dirty business) can peacefully coexist with the new ideals (production of superfluous goods, hedonism, cynical and indiscriminate development): because such coexistence is an objective fact of the Italian nation.

The continuity between the twenty-year period of fascism and the thirty- year period of the Christian Democrat Party rule is based on moral and economic chaos, on indifference and mistrust toward the political system as a consequence of political immaturity, and on the isolation of Italy from the world scene. The real, formal difference between the old fascist barons and the new Christian Democrat barons (who have nothing Christian in them: they have cynically revealed themselves for what they are) is the exercise of power: the fascist twenty-year rule has been a dictatorship, the thirty-year Christian Democrat rule has been a parliamentary police regime. The Parliamentary system is a luxury which is guarantied to the new (antifascist!) barons by the presence of the Church. The overwhelming majority which the DC has always obtained at the elections of these last thirty years, thanks to the Catholic masses subjected to the authority of the Church, has ensured it a semblance of democracy, which is dishonestly

used as the evidence of its discontinuity with fascism. In these thirty years, the DC has suffered a slight decline at the elections, and also a few let-downs, but never a real defeat.

Today, for the first time, the perspective of a defeat opens up for the DC: the masses of consumers over which it has lost control, the creation of a new "modern" mentality, the collapse of the ecclesiastical organization and of its prestige, all expose the DC to that defeat which will force it to drop the mask of democracy, and will place it before a single alternative: that of resorting to the same means of classic fascism to detain power. A thing which - in my opinion - is historically impossible at this stage. If ever, the threat for Italy is that of a coup d'état similar to the one carried out in Ethiopia (or in Portugal?): a coup in which the Army would break ranks with the old fascist ideological universe. Such a coup could be founded uniquely on one "slogan": "Order"; but an "order" maintained no longer to safeguard a state of misery and injustice (as fascism and later the DC in the fifties), but to safeguard "development", and the interests of the industrial complex.

For all these reasons, I am in favour of a direct confrontation, leading the DC to its first defeat. Not only therefore I do not fear a "referendum", but I strongly support the Radicals' challenge of the "eight referendums". Apart from two more considerations which alone would be enough to induce me to support this position: 1) The abrogations requested by the "eight referendums" are fully legitimate, they are the least that can be done for a "real" democratization of public life (personally I have some perplexities only as regards abortion); 2) one must never fear the immaturity of the electors: this is a demonstration of brutal paternalism; it is the same sort of attitude adopted by the censors or the magistrates, when they deem the audience too "immature" to view certain works.