ABSTRACT: 500,000 signatures have been collected to call the "eight referendums against the regime" promoted by the Radical Party (abrogation of the Concordat, of courts-martial, of the crimes of opinion contained in the penal code, of parts of the law on mental hospitals, of the law that grants special powers to the police as regards arrests, searches and wiretapping, of the law that allots a consistent public financing to political parties, of the "investigatory commission" (1) - the special "court" formed by parliamentarians, charged with issuing a preventive judgement on crimes committed by ministers). But 200,000 more need to be collected, if we want to avoid the signatures from being declared non-valid during the verification. Marco Pannella (2) launches an appeal to urge the attainment of this objective, to contrast with the weapons of nonviolence the inevitable provocations and lynching attempts which the police forces will try to unleash to prevent this political success.

(Lotta Continua (3)- May 1977 from "Marco Pannella - Works and Speeches - 1959-1980", Gammalibri, January 1982)

We've made it. We have collected 500,000 signatures (and 4 million certified signatures) for the eight referendums, and the regime and its voluntary or involuntary supporters and patrons are mad with anger. Once again they had underestimated us, as for divorce, abortion, and for many, more specific but determined campaigns for civil rights, such as the one we have been conducting for ten years against the RAI-TV (4) and the press, eunuches of an honest and democratic press, violent thieves of legality, truth and civil dialogue.

The non-radical comrades are confronted, these days, with a demonstration of the degree to which the regime hates and fears us, for the renewed effects of our nonviolent tactics and strategy; because this - and only this - separates us radically from the other positions of the truly socialist, libertarian and democratic alternative. A wide coalition of newspaper, including La Repubblica (5), Paese Sera (6), Il Corriere della Sera (7), La Stampa (8), L'Unità (9), La Voce Repubblicana (10), L'Avanti! (11), Il Secolo (12), has mobilized to intimidate us, crush us, violently attribute us positions, acts and objectives which are opposed to ours. They want to disqualify us, isolate us morally from the conscience of the masses, in order to better strike, and to strike at us once and for all, if we do not accept the fact of understanding that "style" is everything, and that our "style" is neither popular nor allowed in this democracy. The procedure is typical, and patent.

We are not willing - as followers of nonviolence - to become addicted and surrender to facts committed with violence, ascribing them in the general lot of the class conflict and of the day in which, from a position of "power", we'll make them pay for everything; to us, the feminist, the comrade from Lotta Continua Giorgiana Masi (13), was also a radical on that afternoon of 12 May, one of us in every sense (because one is what one does, what one chooses to do), and on her murder we are prepared to gamble our entire political existence, until truth and justice are made (and we've proven it); from the very beginning we refused the safety exit they wanted to force on us (depicting as the good and nonviolent radicals, manoeuvred by the trouble-makers from Autonomia Operaia (14), that day at least); they think they have succeeded once and for all in blaming that death on the "opposed violences" of the police and of the demonstrators; all the more they defend Cossiga (15) now, and they accuse us of having become c

razy and violent, to the extent in which this can isolate, discredit and throw into the ghetto of madness and violence even the eight referendums and the whole parliamentary, institutional and constitutional mechanism, which has represented for twenty years the other peculiarity and specificity of the Radical Party compared to old and new movements of the Left.

At this point, they are clearly implicating in this operation "revolutionary" comrades with a calm and poised style and class: the decision, of preventively forwarding the text of my political electoral debate to the Minister of the Interior, and of urging from him not an "answer" (which would call for two TV separate messages, not the counterfeiting of the message, with the consequent right to reply and rectify), but a counterfeiting speech, was voted unanimously, including Democrazia Proletaria (16). And - Luciana Castellina included - this same unanimity established that even before my speech, I was to be accused of foul play and of bringing groundless allegations against the Minister of the Interior. Moreover, it is useless, as our honourable comrade did, to issue statements of regret in order to try to cover her own responsibilities. In other words, as usual in dramatic and conclusive moments of a conflict, the enemies are always the closest to home.

It strikes me as no accident that there hasn't been the slightest reaction against our comrade Corvisieri (who maintains the said the same things I did on television on the events of 12 May and against Cossiga, only better): it is the combination of mass and street nonviolent struggles on the one hand, and exemplarily legalitarian constitutional initiatives, such as the one of the eight referendums, on the other, that frightens the regime, because it is explosive. It is the cocktail of disobediences and hunger strikes and marches, conscientious objections, arrests and trials we have always faced for antimilitarist objection, for the drugs law, for the law against abortion, for the law against divorce of the Sacred Rota (17), with the constitutionalist activism in the country and in Parliament that they are trying to defuse by striking at us.

This is why the nonviolent champions of the civil rights of the blacks and of peace against the Vietnam war (starting, also, from the violated rights of the U.S. Congress itself as regards international armed hostilities) were persecuted until the assassination of Martin Luther King: in order to "sever" the constitutional struggle, the class struggle and the struggle for peace, for civil, democratic and legalitarian order. This is why people like Cossiga and Trombadori (18), Andreotti (19) and Pecchioli (20) mobilize for a trifle, because they want to stamp on the radical flea on the mane of the noble horse of the "historical compromise" and of the more or less imperfect single party system.

Thus, on 30 May, with an editorial by Ghirelli, La Stampa can now clearly repeat that the events "place the radicals in an area closer to that of Autonomia Operaia that of the groups of the new Left themselves" (Oreste Scalzone, Toni Negri (21), after so many years, you see they want to reunite us in a common struggle!). There is some truth in every lie, and I answer Ghirelli and the others the same way he does: we have already been accused, in the past, of being closer to Pinelli (22) and Valpreda (23), the true victims of the State's massacres and politics, than to the "democrats" who were at the government at the time, who were at the time (and even now) close to the "control rooms", who organize on a national level the homicidal violence, or foster it, or kindle it to draw favourable tactic conditions for their various strategies of order, progress and peace.

But if we do not want to be blind or blinded by the virulence of their attacks, and gobble the counter-truths they are administering to us these days, we need to state clearly that the battle for the referendums is about to be lost, not won, despite the fact that we have achieved the legal threshold of four million signatures and 500,000 signatories.

The situation is the following: it has taken us 60 days to collect 500,000 signatories, and we should collect 200,000 in 15 days in order to safeguard the referendums from the first, inevitable attack, when their "authenticity" will be ascertained and when electoral ballots will be sent to the signatories.

For two months now, slightly less than a thousand radical comrades - in addition, perhaps, to a few hundred from Lotta Continua and the MLS - are wearing themselves out with an extenuating militant work, and are often exhausted; the operation, of collecting and verifying the signatures themselves calls for dozens and dozens of millions of material expenses to be made at once; the radical party itself has up to this moment shown gaps or political and organizational shortcomings as far as the campaign for the referendum on abortion is concerned, with an often surprising growth, in areas of the importance of Milan, Genua or Trieste, which can hardly be filled; the continuous, pressing and daily lynching we will be the victims of will obviously have its effects; in many comrades, the suspicion of a tactic

exaggeration on our part of the final efforts and of their needs, combined with the fatigue and the final period of university and high school examinations, will create the risk of a progressive demobilization, whereas there is absolute need to multiply the results and the efforts. Other dangers are the conditions in which the signatures are sent to the national committee, where, for example, dozens and dozens of comrades have been forced to spend two days and two nights to verify or re-arrange 10,000 signatures sent by the comrades from Milan, who seem to be caught in a hallucinating sort of irresponsibility or political liquefaction. Elsewhere, anywhere, the money collected at the tables is not immediately forwarded to the centre, which could be paralysed in a matter of hours more than days. Small events, clearly. But political achievements, the greater and necessary they appear to us, the more they require from each of us not heroic acts, but the a humble work as "workers" in the factory of the alternativ

e and democratic every day life, symbolized by the pencils and the tables instead of spanners and machinery.

This is the problem to be solved, for which the "direction" and the "centre" become useless, and that only the imagination and inflexibility, the sense of responsibility and the militant force of every single group and every single comrade can solve positively. How many haven't signed? How many haven't committed themselves for a day, or five days, to collect signatures at the tables or in the local secretariats, in the chanceries and in the courts? Obviously, there will be no time to rest immediately after.

The leadership of the Communist Party is already cynically preparing an attempt to rob the referendums, refusing to place the Court of Cassation in the conditions that guarantee to respect the law and to carry out its operations in time. The signatures of Umberto Terracini and of dozens and dozens of thousands of comrades from the PCI should be abrogated according to them, like all the others. Otherwise, as Zanetti, the editor of "L'Espresso" (24) concludes, the "package" of programmatic agreements between Berlinguer (25) and Moro (26) could be crushed by the equally political and programmatic "trunk" of the referendums for the acquisition of the constitutional and democratic order in the country. Zanetti's single fault (which many comrades generally ascribe to us) is considering us affected by a referendum mania, or at any rate of underestimating the fact that our answer to the events of 12 May, to the PCI and to the government that support the murderous violence in a converging way simply because it was St

ate violence and violence directed against us, is equally central and frightening for the regime; its roots and its capacity to create scandal lie in the fact that for twenty years we have been determined and careful militants of the battles.

Nonviolence does not mean passivity. "Armed with nonviolence", we specified and proclaimed so many times. Often they have hoped to make us fall into the trap of passive or violent evasion. If, in the Movement, the reflection and the militant action will develop along this central node of the alternative struggles, and if our heritage becomes common to others, not only the political and personal lynching of these days will be useless, but also the following step, which Cossiga clearly and menacingly announced with his televised message. It will be too late, even to kill us.

Translators' notes

(1) COMMISSIONE INQUIRENTE. Formed by ten deputies and ten senators, it is called to judge upon acts of penal relevance committed by the President of the Republic or by Cabinet Ministers. Enjoys the same rights as magistrates do. Forwards to the Constitutional Court the proceedings of its inquiry for an impeachment or an acquittal. In 1977 and in 1986, the Radical Party promoted two referendums to abolish it. In the referendum held in 1989, the majority of Italian electors voted to abolish it. In 1989 it was replaced by the committee for prosecution formed by the board for authorizations to proceed of the Chamber and Senate.

(2) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

(3) LOTTA CONTINUA. One of the most important and widespread political movements of the extreme left, established in 1969 in Turin. In 1971 it created the homonymous newspaper, which became immediately popular. It detached the extraparliamentary Left from the laborite prejudicial, penetrating the youth and students' milieu, the conscripts, the prisons, etc. Its chief leader was the journalist and writer Adriano Sofri.

(4) RAI. Italian Radio and TV.

(6) PAESE SERA. Rome-based daily paper, established 1950, subsequently shifted to the communist area. Its publication has been discontinuous and is currently in a deep crisis.

(7) CORRIERE DELLA SERA (IL). Daily newspaper established in Milan in 1876. Long considered the most authoritative Italian paper. Conservative.

(8) LA STAMPA. Liberal-conservative daily newspaper belonging to the FIAT, established in Turin in 1867.

(9) L'UNITA'

(10) LA VOCE REPUBBLICANA. Daily newspaper, organ of the Italian Republican Party, established 1921.

(11) L'AVANTI. Daily newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), established in Rome in 1896. Suppressed by fascism in 1926, it resumed its activity in 1944. Official organ of the Italian socialist Party.

(12) IL SECOLO. Milan daily newspaper, established in 1866 by E.Sonzogno. In 1927 it merged with "La Sera".

(13) MASI GIORGIANA. On 12 May 1977, in Rome, the police charged the thousands of participants in a nonviolent demonstration organized by the Radical Party, called to collect signatures on the "eight referendums" promoted on fundamental themes (abrogation of the Concordat, restrictive norms of the penal code, law on mental hospitals, public funding of parties, parliamentary committee of inquiry on offences committed by ministers, etc.). A young woman, Giorgiana Masi, was killed by gunshots, and other demonstrators were wounded. The Radical party showed pictures and tapes which show policemen shooting point-blank and others which portray armed plainclothes policemen in the crowd, denouncing the deliberate attempt to cause a massacre.

(14) AUTONOMIA OPERAIA. Political movement of the extreme Left, active during the second half of the '70s. Reached its peak efficiency in 1977, in 1979 was denounced for connivance with terrorism, and some of its leaders were tried. According to its theorists, the working class was to organize itself in forms that were to be "independent" from the State, its historical enemy.

(15) COSSIGA FRANCESCO. (Sassari 1928). President of the Italian Republic from 1985 to 1992. Deputy since 1958, under secretary (1966) and Minister (1974). Minister of the Interior (1976-78) when Aldo Moro was kidnapped, he resigned when the dead body of the statesman was discovered. Prime Minister (1979-80). As President of the republic, during the second part of his term he actively promoted changes in the Italian Constitution, participating in fierce controversies with the majority of political exponents, and overcoming the limits laid down by the Constitution. For such reasons he was denounced by Marco Pannella in August 1991 for attempt on the Constitution.

(16) DEMOCRAZIA PROLETARIA.

(17) SACRA ROTA. The Court of the Sacred Rota, the supreme jurisdictional organ of the Church, which also handles divorce cases.

(18) TROMBADORI ANTONELLO. Roman communist exponent, member of Parliament, essayist and writer.

(19) ANDREOTTI GIULIO. (Rome 1919). Exponent of the Christian Democratic Party. Secretary of A. De Gasperi, very young, as under-secretary of the Presidency of the Council, he began an uninterrupted career as minister: Interior (1954), Finance (1955-58), Treasury (1958-59), Defence (1959-66), Industry (1966-68), Budget (1974-76). Prime Minister from 1972 to 1973, then from 1976 to 1979 and from 1990 to date.

(20) PECCHIOLI UGO. (Turin 1925). Senator, exponent of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Minister of the Interior in the shadow Cabinet. For a long period in charge of the issues relative to domestic politics, pointed out by the radicals as the responsible for many obscure affairs connected to the years of terrorism.

(21) NEGRI TONI. (Padua 1933). Italian writer and philosopher, exponent of the laborite and revolutionary extreme Left, was convicted as the architect of the assassination of ing. Saronio. Ran on the Radical Party ticket (provided he waive his parliamentary immunity and accepted the trial), he was elected member of Parliament in 1983. He escaped his trial by fleeing clandestinely to France, where he currently lives.

(22) PINELLI GIUSEPPE. Italian anarchist. Accused of the attempt on the Banca dell'Agricoltura in Milan, he died mysteriously, falling from a window of the Prefecture of Milan while he was being questioned (1969). The police commissioner Luigi Calabresi, who was killed in a terrorist attempt as a revenge of Pinelli's death, was accused of being the real responsible for his death.

(23) VALPREDA PIETRO. (1933). Dancer, anarchist militant, was accused together with his companions, of the terrorist attack at the Banca dell'Agricoltura of Milan in 1969, which caused 17 victims. Tried, was recognized innocent.

(24) L'ESPRESSO. Rome-based political and cultural weekly magazine, established in 1955 by Arrigo Benedetti, with a radical orientation. During the first years it carried out important moralization campaigns.

(25) BERLINGUER ENRICO. (Sassari 1922 - Padua 1984). Italian politician. Deputy since 1968, secretary general of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1979 to his death, after the crisis and the assassination of Allende he became an advocate of the "historical compromise", which produced, between 1976 and 1979, the so-called "majority of no no-confidence", the greatest achievement of Togliatti's strategy for an organic agreement with the Christian Democratic Party. Architect of the project of creating the so-called "Eurocommunism", an attempt to project in the West a reformism which would not entirely deny the communist experience.

(26) MORO ALDO. (Maglie 1916 - Rome 1978). Italian politician. Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party (1959-65), mastermind of the Centre-Left policy. Several times minister as of 1956, Prime Minister (1963-68, 1974-76) president of the Christian Democratic Party as of 1956, he favoured the participation of the Communist Party (PCI) in the government, outlining the hypothesis of a so-called "third stage" (after those of "centrism" and "centre-left") of the political system. He was kidnapped by the Red Brigades on 16 March 1978 in Rome and found dead on 9 May of the same year.