ABSTRACT: An historical interpretation of the Radical Party based on the reconstruction of the various phases of Radical

developments from 1955 to 1977.

Index:

I From The Old To The New Radicals

II The Solitude Of A Minority

III The Campaign For Divorce

IV A Party In Search Of Its Self: From The Congress Of Refoun- dation (1967) To The Congress Of The Relaunching (1972)

V Opposing The Regime With Civil Rights

VI For A Democratic Revolution

VII In The Country And In Parliament

("THE NEW RADICALS", The History and Sociology of a Political Movement, Arnoldo Mondadori, Publishers, October 1977)

1. THE FIRST RADICAL PARTY (1955-1962)

The Radical Party was founded in December 1955 as the result of a factional split in the Liberal Party. Elements that merged with the Radicals also came from the Popular Unity Party (which was formed in 1953 to fight against the majority-vote law, called "the fraud law"), such as Leopoldo Piccardi; ex Actionists such as Leo Valiani (philosopher, historian and journalist,ed.) and Guido Calogero (philosopher,ed.) who had not joined any other parties after the dissolution of the Action Party; prestigious contributors to the newspaper "Il Mondo" such as Ernesto Rossi; numerous intellectuals and journalists of the laity (1) and just as many youths and university elements that had and were having experiences in political militancy in the Unione Goliardica Italiana (UGI, a students union, ed.) and the representative local and national organisations (UNURI).

In the political ranks, the new party represented the crisis of centrism and of the support the moderate progressive forces had given it. In ways and at times analogous to what was happening on the left, where around 1955 the Socialists raise questions about frontist politics (the XXXIst Congress in Turin), and in the center the lay parties, to which category the Radicals belong, denounce the excessive power of the Christian Democrats and declare the need of forming a new political group along the lines of the Radicals. The general points of reference of the Radicals, even if they were not unanimously held by everyone in the party, are contained in the words spoken by Leo Valiani, one of the most lucid spokesmen of the Radical position, when the party was formed: "the methods of the western Radical experience, Roosevelt laborist" with the criticism of "what there is of rigidity even in that experience" for which reason the Radicals must conduct "the battle for the dismantling of not only Fascism's pol

itical bases, but of its economic and corporative ones as well." (2) As a party substantially founded on concrete reform programs, the PR (Radical Party) in the first two years of its existence, until 1958, proffers a strong opposition to the DC (Christian Democrats), its bad government and usurpation of the State, making reference to the smaller lay parties (PRI and PSDI) [Republican and Social Democratic Parties, ed.], to the autonomist process of the PSI (Socialists), which were accelerated by the events of 1956 and by the Krushchev report to the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR.

The PR is thus in favor of a "third force" constitutional opposition to the centrist forces which it considers to have degenerated into reactionary positions, and in favor of a "lay alternative" whose positions and components are clear, yet not such as to constitute in itself a coalition capable of presenting itself as a candidate for running the government. The equidistant and antithetical attitude of the Radicals is on an ideal and political plane with regard to both "clerical centrism" and "Communist totalitarianism" to which there can be no compromise. Instead they hope to establish a dialogue on study and action projects with all individuals and groups of the "non-totalitarian lay and Socialist area".

"Study and meditation", Valiani affirmed in 1956, "are the things that distinguish us from the Socialists. Nothing can distinguish us from the democratic Socialists except our liberal habit of disinterested, and courageous objective study... Only the fruits of our study, our philosophy, make it possible and obligatory for us to distinguish ourselves from them, because our culture is liberal whereas theirs is eclectic, bound by practice, and under the mantle of a Marxism in which they really put very little faith. It is to have this intellectual will and honesty, to examine in detail and stringently the concrete problems of the schools, the economy, the life of society, the administration." (3) The << "Il Mondo" Conferences >> (4) which have succeeded each other with increasing frequency from 1955 to 1959, represent the tool of intervention and of pressure in this sense, not of the Radical Party as such but of its collateral environment.

On the electoral level the lay area's political hypothesis took concrete form in the alliance of the PRI and the Popular Unity Party in the various municipal elections of 1956 and 1957 by presenting the "democratic renewal" candidate lists. The alliance of the PRI and the PR in the 1958 national elections was the culminating moment of this tendency and at the same time the full expression of Radical politics and that which demonstrated its electoral limitations. To the electoral campaign the Radicals brought all the vigor of their most determined commitment to non-conformist democratic leftist policies with proposals on issues that neglected or ignored by others: the stringent separation between Church and State and the defence of the lay State; the elimination of monopolies, caste privileges, corporative excesses, the administrative elephantiasis resulting from government job patronage; the creation of modern schools; the defence of the citizen against the abuses of executive power; fr

eedom of the press and of domestic migration; control of energy sources; the fight against speculation on zoning laws for construction.(5)

There had been the commitment of a limited group, from when the Radical Party was formed up to the national elections, to maintain, in Galli della Loggia's words, "a territory open to reason and discussion" and taking shelter "from the most saccharine mythologies and the most insipid apologies, thus offering a not negligible example of intellectual honesty" (6). Immediately following the election, a disappointing test in its results, (7) and perhaps because of it, this commitment found itself faced with the paradox of a liberal-democratic position with a Radical content and tone due to the circumstances reigning in the country: either push the opposition to the Christian Democrat regime to its political consequences and thus create a conflict with its own way of being and carrying the flag of freedom on the left, or else remain involved in the search for new political balances in which the various parties from the DC to the PSI were converging from the end of the 50's until the 60's. From the end of 19

58 onwards, the Radical Party chose, first reluctantly and then with ever greater acceptance, a second type of direction: of subordination, that is, to the "political logic" of what was called the center-left, its particular and specific contents and the entirely singular way in which it confronted the country's politics.

The party was fragile. It had, to be sure, at first collected a prestigious list of names from the world of culture, journalism, and the lay intellectuals (sometimes including them, even on its own initiative, as adherents) (8), but it had not formed for itself - either not wanting to or not knowing how - real structures of political power. Its members never exceeded 2000. Rather than in its political organs and organisms, the party's leaders entrusted themselves to an ambience that found its expression in the weekly "Il Mondo" ("The World", in print beginning in 1949) and then "L'Espresso" ("Express", in print beginning in 1955). The group of leaders itself was divided by differing political cultures or differing attitudes according to their origins with the result that certain important but controversial issues were kept out of the party's debates and initiatives. First and foremost of these was foreign policy towards which certain leftist liberals of "Il Mondo" took a pro Anglo-American and strong At

lantic Pact line, whereas some personalities coming from the Popular Unity Party were not insensible to neutralist sentiments.

The results of the May 25, 1958 national elections, which the PR confronted together with the Republicans, and in which not a single Radical candidate was elected to Parliament, helped to ignite the contradictions of the PR as a party, with regard to its group of leaders as well as in its relationship to the various components, and finally in its very way of dealing with politics, counterpoising on the one hand direct action, even in elections, with the application of pressure on other political forces.

The crisis created by the Tambroni government (9) in July of 1960, and the opposition of the country to it, was a crucial factor in accelerating the process leading to the center-left coalition. The political ideas of the PR had always been declared as against any collaboration with the DC and had negatively evaluated, already at the beginning of 1959, the proposed "opening to the left" of the Socialists (10). In the period between about the middle of 1959 to the end of 1961, when the conference was held on "Prospects For An Economic Policy" organised by six democratic left magazines, among them "Il Mondo" and "L'Espresso", (11) the Radicals, because of their leadership, substantially changed their attitude towards the DC and the prospects of a center-left. Even while fluctuating between the fear of an encounter between the Socialists and DC which might reinforce the illiberal characteristics of both groups, and the hope for the lay forces imposing "liberal political reforms" in the framework of a new p

olitical balance, the Radicals adhered to their political ideas which were maturing. And a part of the Radicals, beginning with Leopoldo Picari and Eugenio Scalfari (12), were decidedly betting on an organic alliance with the Socialists ot further and sustain the political direction that was asserting itself.

Furthermore, the Radical Party, pushed by its grass roots membership and the more dynamic members of its leadership, had joined forces with the Socialists for the municipal elections of November 6, 1960 in almost all regional capitals, obtaining success with public opinion and winning votes, particularly in Rome and Milan. (13) These results along with the following factors all played a part in creating a crisis for the small party: confidence in the possibilities of the center-left to bring about reforms and the active role the Socialists could play in it; the emphasis on economic issues regarding the hopes for "democratic planning" at the expense of the more traditional Radical institutions; the prospects of a political alliance for the 1963 elections.

Crises of political identity; crises between different factions, of which one was moderately pro-Republican and the other pro-Socialist; a crisis in its role with regard to the center-left realised together with the DC that inevitably took on the appearance of an outlet for Radical anti-DC activities - these were the basic reasons for which the party fell apart when, at the end of 1961, the so-called "Piccardi Affair" (14) arose, which from a personal question was blown up into a political pretext. Even the strong nucleus of youths, who had represented the party's newest and most dynamic element, broke up because they didn't have time, according to Giovanni Ferrara , to consolidate their common needs into a mature and unified political view: "The group... became divided principally on the question of evaluating the concrete political attitude to take towards the Communists in the context of the European situation. Faced with the violence of the political issues, the common factors of the Radical youths'

experience became secondary, even though the young Radicals continued up to the end to hold dialogue among themselves and to feel responsible at the same time for the entire party. The two great questions that at the time touched the democratic and European sensibility... were on the one hand, the Algerian fight for liberty and the victory of De Gaulle in France that was connected with it, and on the other hand, the fight in Italy to reach a new center-left political adjustment". (15)

There then also took place - together with the schism among the youths into a "right" and "left" wing which alone could keep the party united - the resignations, quitting or retirement of all the PR's major figures excepting the component that had formed the "Radical left" and which was prevalently if not exclusively youthful".

2. THE CENTER-LEFT AND THE TECHNOCRATIC OPTIMISM OF MATERAIL WELL BEING

After an incubation period of almost ten years, the center-left was realised in a parliamentary and governmental formula as a result of the 1963 national elections. The formula represented something more and different than a simple coalition agreement: it was the response of some political groups to a deep change in the socio-economic conditions in the country and the way in which a part of the left (both on the party and cultural levels) thought of finding a solution to the problems of a society in ever more vehement transformation since around the 60's. The center-left did not intend to be a simple alliance ("historical encounter" or "convergence of opinions") of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Social Democrats and Republicans, but claimed to represent a "new road" - at least by that not small part of the intelligentsia that had prepared it and helped to realise it - that based its logic on the new conditions imposed by the development of capitalism in Italy as well as in other Western European coun

tries. It was the desire of its proponents that the center-left should constitute the process that legitimised the revision of the non-Communist left-wing's ideology and choices and thus the new international atmosphere, the new relations between the superpowers based on the fundamental philosophy of the productive competition of those relations.

The figures regarding the impetuous Italian development in those years are well known ("the economic miracle"): the rise in per capita income, the massive emigration from the South to the North, the flight to the cities from the country and the changes in the geography itself of our country (expressways, urban sprawl, building speculation). The general characteristics of these changed material conditions are also known: the indiscriminate growth of consumerism and industrial goods (with the automobile first on the list as a symbol of the economic boom) and thus the growth of a mass society quite different from the one that Italy had at the end of the war. What was developing in our country was a fragile and apparently materially well off consumer society with growing expectations that other European countries had in part already experienced in that same period but without undergoing the brusque break with the preceding cultural and human equilibrium that occurred in Italy. Together with the automobile

and household appliances, the general mobility of the population increased and the mass communication media expanded (television most of all); there was a consequent tendency to cultural levelling and standardisation in the way that sociology calls "modern". The material changes produced by the impulse of domestic capitalism were accompanied by changes in the way of being, in tastes, customs, in the individual conscience and the collective behavior of the average Italian.

The international panorama also exhibited growing signs of that particular "modernisation" that took the form of detente and competitive coexistence. The Korean war had ended in 1954 and was by now a memory of the last armed clash of the cold war. The fatal year of 1956 too, with its Budapest and Poznam, the XXth Congress of the Communist party of the USSR and Suez belonged to a past in which the rule was that the two superpowers did not interfere in the affairs of the other. But it was primarily John F. Kennedy and Nikolai Krushchev who represented, rightly or wrongly, the new international course of affairs, essentially based on a vision of the growing demand for consumerism and material well being applied on a world-wide scale. In 1958 the USSR had launched the first satellite, the sputnik: The USA responded to the "technological challenge" by massively and radically transforming their universities into technological institutes while the race for nuclear weapons went on ( with the corresponding test

s in the air, water and underground) which also was part of a kind of planetary competition for a monstrous equilibrium based on the reciprocal nuclear power of the contenders. Looking out on the international scene were the Third World Countries (in September 1961 there was held in Belgrade the conference of non-aligned countries where the positions of Tito, Nkrumah and Sukarno came to the fore) who for a short time seemed to represent a new alternative course to that of the great powers and outside the scheme of things established by them: competition, technology, consumerism, power.

The new era that was being proclaimed thus arose under the sign of technology, science, logic. In the West the emphasis was on "the capitalism of consumer goods" while in the East an imitation of this was being attempted in the form of "state capitalism". The social dynamics tended towards consumeristic integration; the emerging philosophy in the industrially advanced countries, starting with the USA which was the apex and the model for the others, made reference to "the end of ideologies" and to "the depoliticising of the West". Against this background the political replies had to change - above all those of the left. Every where in Europe the Social Democrats tended to adjust to this situation while the Communist groups remained stuck in the impasse created by the Krushchev report and the process of de-Stalinisation. In England, Labour was invested with Gaitskell revisionism which accepted the society of material well-being without putting into question it values and structures. In Germany the the

oretical principles themselves of the Social Democrats in their 1959 meeting in Bad Godesberg

changed (from a "class party" to a "people's party"). In France the Molletism of the SFIO (Guy Mollet, 1905-1975, Secretary of the French Socialist Party SFIO) was overwhelmed like the immobility of the Communists by the wave of Gaullism and the paternalistic technocratic reform that De Gaulle imposed on the country, taking advantage of the colonial crisis. In Italy, the last in chronological order, the only European Socialism based on positions differing from Social Democracy was getting ready to pass from an alliance with the Communists to one with the moderates, from the opposition to the government.

Especially in Italy, where the Communists had a solid social foothold as well as extensive political-electoral representation (22.7% in the 1958 elections and 24.4% in the municipal elections of 1960), the PCI offered no reply to the questions of the new society that had begun to be called "neo-capitalist", even though at their VIIIth Congress the PCI had begun a small process of internal revision. And it was not only a question of the objective difficulties that "1956" had created by alienating from the party a not insignificant number of intellectuals and partly destroying the myth that a Communist promise for a new world had aroused on the left in the bleak and static times of the cold war and the oppressive clerical-moderate atmosphere. But above all the Communists suffered for the inadequate analyses based on the theory of the stagnation, penury, and growing material misery produced by monopolistic capitalism which conflicted with the new reality. So it was that the prevailing reply that on the p

olitical level took on the form of the center-left coalition, on the cultural level it was present as a hypothetical program of social rationalisation, entrusted to the intervention of public planning. In this prospect, which quickly proved to be illusory,

there converged both the tradition of Catholic sociology, which operated by progressively occupying the organs of government administration (state-owned companies, reform agencies, the creation of parastatal organisations in all sectors), and the lay and Socialist cultural tradition which had become modernised through the assimilation of the human sciences and social sciences from that Anglo-Saxon world that had produced and used them in quite a different context.

Thus a period of particularly fervid politico-cultural initiatives, of studies and researches, of magazines that summed up and expressed the predominant collective effort (16), constituted the terrain on which the formulation of the new political combination could take place and most of all cloak itself in a kind of cultural dignity that admitted it into the particular national and international climate of opinion. The Italian lay and Socialist left thought that social planning would be possible by using enlightened leverage gained by "having a finger on the button" (17) in a coalition with the Christian Democrats who had dominated the political scene and made a fief of Italian society for fifteen years, without taking into account the mobilisation of the social protagonists who ought to have been the ones directly interested in a change in the running of the government. The PCI was kept isolated as a result of its inadequate response to the new conditions prevailing in the country and because of the po

litical and theoretical choices that the democratic left had made, as well as the Socialists' recent conversion to "autonomist" intransigence and in the lay elements' choice of the Christian Democratic partner.

Under the banner of the hopes inspired by John F. Kennedy (the American president assassinated in November 1963 after three years in office), by Krushchev's course towards material well being, and by the new direction Pope John XXIII gave to the Church of Rome (the encyclical "Pacem In Terris" was promulgated in April 1963), the new Italian direction counted on taking part in the general progressive optimism that in the West was based on the assumption of being able to easily eliminate the serious conflicts, or, at least, reduce them.

There is no doubt that the Radicals too were totally gripped by the new climate that had been created in the second half of the 50's. In that climate, the ingredients active in Italy were, on the one hand, the overcoming of the manichaean dualisms of the cold war and a more articulated vision of political and social life, and on the other hand, an optimistic idea of the possibilities of surmounting the country's old evils that had been added to the new problems created by the wild development of capitalism. The Radicals were certainly involved in creating the thaw that was accelerated by the events of 1956 and thus they were one of its political results. But on the other hand, the Radical circles had entered politics with a conception of political and social life not as a mass phenomenon and so were led to believe that it would really be possible to change the

course of events by the action of politico-cultural pressure groups, by newspapers, by idealistic enlightenment combined with the rationality of the proposed solutions.

Thus it happened that they too were progressively convinced that there was a chance for profound political changes (through government formulas and alliances) and cultural changes (through modernising the administration of the country's structures and putting them into the hands of the laity which would in itself already be a transformation). In February 1959 "Il Mondo" organised one of its conferences entitled "Towards A Regime" in which the title itself already was a stern warning about the Christian Democrats' attitude, "a political group that, holding unopposed power, tends precisely to turn into a regime, confusing its interests with the general interests, substituting its judgement for law". (18) A few months later, although hesitant and suspicious, Radical circles (even before the party itself) began to give thought to the possibility of collaborating with the so-called "democratic Catholics" and, therefore, to favoring the establishment of the center-left. "The problem is neither to support nor

prejudicialy to oppose the Christian Democrats as such", wrote Anonymous in "Il Mondo", "but only to patiently prepare the premises of a true center-left policy to be realised in collaboration with others". (19) And two years later, the Tambroni crisis by then having been ended and assimilated, another editorial writer for the same weekly, the Republican Adolfo Battaglia, who himself belonged to the same circles, no longer had any doubts: what was needed was "a combination of political groups that not only talked about reforms, not only passed legislation, but that would be united on a political formula and on the country's historical needs, and that had the courage, the capacity, the spirit of government, the sense of statesmanship needed to concretely carry forward the policy of renewal". (20)

Within the Radical Party itself the question of adhesion to the center-left became the dominant political issue even though there were shades of difference among the various party leaders. During the introduction to the pre-congressional debate in February 1961, reference was made to the (limited) convergence "with the most progressive part of the Catholic world" (21) as a necessary step in Italian political affairs according to which the function of the Radicals itself was measured. Participating in the same debate, Eugenio Scalfari authoritatively indicated that the first and most important problem to be faced was the relationship between the lay left and the Catholic democrats along with that of Socialism in regard to neo-capitalism.

(22)

At the same time an "angry" lay supporter such as Paolo Pavolini (a noted philologist, ed.), who after the elections of 1958 hurled the accusation against the country of being "immature" (23), now claimed for the Radicals the function of having attended the birth of the center-left both in regard to the Socialists and to the DC "which would hardly have pushed so far forward without our (Radical) exhortations and campaigns". (24)

Once the new formula seemed to be an accomplished fact, Vittorio De Caprariis, the culturally most aggressive and politically most conservative spokesman for the moderate wing of "il Mondo", and who yet did not suppress from time to time his perplexity on the predominantly technical character that underlay and obscured the alliance of Socialists and Catholics, exclaimed in an editorial: "Planning has become <> of Italian politics!", (25) and underlined the profound change in the country that had been reflected in the political parties, generating an evolution "that can be discerned even in the DC, within which the need for this renewal and the correlated problem of an agreement with the Socialists have been gaining ground slowly but surely". (26)

Entirely absorbed by the issue of the so-called "enlargement

of the democratic sphere" towards the left "in order to isolate the Communists", the lay culture, in its larger and most prestigious sectors - more precisely the ones connected to the Radical periodicals such as "Il Mondo" and "L'Espresso", that in preceding years had played their political cards directly and independently with the Radical Party - had not noticed that new conflicts had arisen and were still arising in Italy and other European countries. These could not be deal with by using the tools of the group of opinions nor could they be understood without deeply thinking out again, in the context of the new society, the meaning of the values of Radical liberalism. A modern authoritarianism was growing rapidly and taking on new forms: in France with the Algerian problem; in Germany, even before Italy, with the expansion of the government and its means of intervention and integration; everywhere with the decline of the traditional forms of parliamentary democracy, for which reason more organic methods we

re imposed to control the changing society.

The lay groups and the Radicals gave very little thought to all of this. And Vittorio De Caprariis himself, the most talented of theoretical interpreters of liberalism, was the one to openly maintain that the role and function of this cultural and political area could not be other than connected to a formula: "The forces of the lay center-left know very well that the problem of a change in Italian politics lies in practical things; and therefore they know that their survival as a political force depends on resolving that problem". (27)

3. THE NEW OPPOSITIONS IN EUROPE

The question of the continuity and the passing on of the torch from the new Radicals to the "old" ones has recently been raised in some quarters. (28) One must go back to the beginning of the 60's to examine the differences in political and theoretical stances in the circles of the early Radical Party and, on the other hand, those of the new Radicals in regard to changes in the Italian structures and the political aspects that followed from it. It is on the question of those two riddles that men of the same tradition of ideals, liberal democracy, even if of different generations, broke that highly fragile point of convergence that had kept them united in the Radical Party and chose to travel distinct and different roads: the ones, the road of lay-liberal moderation, and the others the democratic and liberal revolution. The choices that at that time were made and based on divergent analyses would have brought what at the time was called the "Radical left" to begin to give substance to a new political hy

pothesis: new in its strategy, new in its methods and new in its very way of making politics, even if the political goals of the they aimed for were in many ways the same as those of the preceding liberal-democratic and Radical tradition.

For the rest, one cannot understand the break of the new Radicals with the old without considering it in the context of the new opposition that had arisen to moderate regimes and, more generally, of the situations of conservatism and new authoritarianism that were creeping out everywhere in Europe to some degree. Such opposition was new also because, having been born from the Marxist as well as the liberal and Christian lines, it remained outside the political organisations of the two major political groups on the left - the Communist and the Social Democratic ones.

That ferment which from time to time took the form of rebellion, of specific campaigns, of agitation, of movements, of struggles or fragments of struggles, and of research and debate, were both of a theoretical and active nature, aimed in both cases at discovering and making evident new realities that had not been included in the politics of the official left.

In Italy as elsewhere, and perhaps before elsewhere, the first or theoretical type leads back to the tendencies of that time to "return to Marx", rediscovering and re-reading the messages that had been ignored, in the urgent need to find reasons to counterpoise to the tendency towards "integration"

of the working class and to the defeat of its political and union organisations. In our country one began to investigate the changed situations in the factories along with the theoretical study of (revision and re-reading) Marx and other Marxists of the libertarian and conciliatory line: thus arose around Raniero Panzieri (PSI theoretician, ed.) and the "Quaderni Rossi" (Red Notebooks, ed.),(29) the first symptom of the inquiries that preceded by many years the workers' insurgence.

The second or activist type was instead the property of the new left groups that formed around specific movements with more complex matrixes and in any case always oriented towards practical political action. Thus it was that the "Campagna per il Disarmo Nucleare" (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, or CDN; ed.) represented the British new left in action (1958-1963), and in France (1958-1962) the resistance to the Algerian war, the insubordination and refractory movement, and the Jeanson network (30).

It was these two last situations which, faced with new contradictions (the Bomb and the repercussions of colonialism in the metropolises), elicited political responses that were extraneous on the organisational level to the traditional left. And neither the Social Democrats nor the Communists knew how to gather the full meaning of these manifestations at the time they occurred in the explosive mobilisation that took place in Britain and the crucial clashes in France. Both of these movements represented above all new ways of making politics without the big organisations that were considered to have become bureaucratic. Moreover in the French movement there were men coming from lay and Christian backgrounds, liberal and Socialist, Marxist and libertarian ones, all of whom redefined their positions, analyses and alliances on that specific problem in which authoritarian factors clashed with those of freedom, and laid down the premises, more idealistic than political, of the basic motives for the extraparlia

mentary movement of May 1968. In England the anti-atomic movement in turn represented a mass mobilisation movement (a real and true spontaneous and collective phenomenon) of a liberal and humanistic character in the sense of deep dissent with the new technological rationality and of the society of material well being which surpassed by far the specific reason for which it was born. Both in France and in England the response of the new left movements were, according to the historical tradition of each, the responses of a new way of being liberal (and Socialist) when faced with the great issues confronting the West and with which the historical organisations of the traditional forces of progress and liberty were unable to cope.

In Italy too, the Radical left was aware of the emergence of the new opposition starting with specific causes and not theoretical reconsiderations was not only the common issues (e.g. disarmament and pacifism) nor the affinity ion the ways of confronting politics (militant commitment) that joined the small group of Italian Radicals to the most important European experiences. It was the more general question of a common state of mind (at best, of a shared analysis) in the face of the central problem of the new European societies who found themselves - all of them - having to come to terms with possible authoritarian tendencies owing to the growth of the technical and rational instruments of intervention, of social manipulation and integration in the ostensible society of material well being.

Thus the response of the Italian Radical group too assumed the form of a political redefinition of what it ought to mean in the new context to "act" (and not only "to be") as liberals, that is, of how the forces and structures of freedom ought to be distinguished from the non-libertarian ones, what historical

subjects could, by their material condition, play the role of renewal and which institutions of power could be distinguished as dangerous for democracy and thus be fought.

4. THE INHERITANCE OF THE GOLIARD MOVEMENT

In considering the division of the old and new Radicals, it is necessary to ask when and what were the political and idealistic origins on which the leftist Radicals drew, and how they manifested those positions which were the basis of all the affairs of the new Radicals in the following twenty years.

There is no doubt that the Radical inheritance - in the Lombardic Radical line of the end of the 19th Century: Salvemini, Gobetti, Giustizia e Liberta (Justice and Liberty), Carlo Rosselli, more an active politician than a theoretician, the Partito d'Azione (Action Party), Benedetto Croce's (Neapolitan philosopher, 1866-1952) religion of liberty, (31) Ernesto Rossi - belongs totally to the Radical left not only on the historical and idealistic levels but on the political one of the positions the PR had represented since its beginnings. But there had been other experiments and experiences that had formed the larger part of the little group of Radical leftists (32) together with other youths who would then continue their political activities elsewhere (33): it was the experience of the Unione Goliardica Italiana and of university politics.

Many of the attitudes about how to make politics and evaluations regarding the main political and cultural factions in the country came from the lay elements in the university that had been ever since 1949 a new phenomenon, relatively widespread even if in the sphere of an affair that had not interested more than twenty or thirty thousand university elements. This was the source, for example, of the concept of autonomy for every political factor in regard to questions of dependence and hegemony: "Autonomy is not any longer the product of collaboration (between UGI and INTESA) (34), or it is not the only product of collaboration, but it is an intimate quality of each group", (35) Marco Pannella had said in replying as president of UNURI at the 1957 Congress of the Unione Nazionale Degli Universitari, thus developing the statement that "UGI and INTESA cannot preserve for long the corresponding data of the life of the country, the lay spheres and the official Catholic spheres". (36)

For a decade university politics had represented a strongly independent sector in the political equilibrium of the country. And in particular the lay group of the UGI had been by no means a mere mechanical transposition of the smaller lay parties (PLI,PRI, and PSDI), but a movement which had lived its particular experience and around which there had formed reasons for unity, for agreement and disagreement. Brunello Vigezzi emphasised this in a lucid essay on the "Goliards": "The initial polemics, more instinctive than thought out, of the UGI in regard to the invasions of the parties into university life arose from a conscious judgement about them. In attempting a modern renewal of the university, it was above all considered that the parties were to remain entirely extraneous, that none of them - and not by chance - was capable of a concrete action in this sense. The quarrel with other university groups for the fact that they passively submitted to outside influences, had fortified this conviction. In th

e parties, as they existed in Italy, there was manifested a break between modern culture and political action. This was the reason that they were incapable of putting to themselves in an effective way the question of the schools". (37)

The formula with which this method was expressed within UGI - "Not the unity of the lay forces, but the unity of the forces on a lay basis is the foundation of democracy" - symbolised how far the small parties were from wanting to be a "third force" and instead stated the value of the lay method for keeping together rather than an ideological matrix. Giorgio Festi, a UGI representative, reminded the Florence Congress of 1952 that Italy was lacking in the civil and cultural contribution of the association principle while there was a preponderance of the party principle: "Associations have not been able to flourish because they have not found a suitable terrain and have always ended by being absorbed or destroyed by higher interests and privileges. The defect again presents itself today, and we goliards call it "partycracy". The associations never express anything original of their own and adhere to the party's influence, they stand by them in order to find a reason for continuity and a source of strength

. The fault is not with the

parties but lies in the absence of a precise civil responsibility of our organisations, and definitely in the humiliating lack of independence". (38)

The principle of associations and the lay manner of organising them against the church-party and against the all-comprehending party were to be cardinal re-discoveries of the new Radical Party who were to obstinately seek out ways of uniting the left and rejecting constantly collaboration in the tested form of "fronts", both in their single manifestations as well as in the organisation of specific movements. Furthermore the lay university movement had managed to win for itself an effective control along these lines during the first half of the 50's and this success probably had influence on the convictions of the new Radicals to be able to repeat after ten years in the country what had proved true on the university level - that is, assert a vigorous lay movement and not only a lay position.

The laity of the UGI affirmed in their relationship with the Catholic and Communist components (for the rest, very large groups in the country) such original forms for encounters and clashes that they were to be found in their totality among the succeeding Radical political ideas. The UGI looked for collaboration with the Catholics in the basic factors (and thus more among the Catholics of the FUCI group rather than among the Christian Democrats) as comparisons of original experiences in association and in rejecting the sharing of power. To the Communists and the Socialists, their allies of the time, the UGI offered to open their associations, asking the individual students to accept the democratic method without understandings that passed through party channels according to a set up that turned out to be so successful that the university organisation of the PCI and the PSI, the CUDI, (34) dissolved itself and asked its members to join as individuals the unitarian lay and leftist organisation. A set up

very similar to the associations of the UGI based not on organisational or ideological criteria but on open forms thus was to be found again in both the movements and leagues promoted by the new Radicals and especially in the Radicals' statutory debates. When, for example, the divorce movement was organised in 1966 by the LID (Italian League for Divorce, ed.) that League also was to present itself as an organisation not juxtaposed to the representatives of the lay forces but as an independent factor based on the common effort for concrete objectives, a method offered to and requested from "people" who were discriminated according to their political origins or ideological ties. Finally, the same concepts that inspired the associational tendencies of the UGI and its lay character, were turned upside down in the debate on the statute of the early Radical Party (1956) on the part of the youth component; and then, when it matured politically, in the statute that the new PR dictated for itself in 1966, based on

the federative model, on adhesion for a limited time, and on an annual work program, without ideological preclusions, almost a battle alliance to be fought together, circumscribed in its duties and endowed with broad areas of autonomy.

5. THE RADICAL LEFT

The first external manifestation of the Radical left was the appearance in the March 1959 issue of "Paese" of an article by Marco Pannella on "The Democratic Left and the PCI" (39) that took up again arguments already sustained within the party on various occasions. That article - polemical in regard to both the current Radical theses and the PCI - presented two central issues that would characterise subsequent isolated strategies of the new Radicals: The need of an alliance of the entire left including the PCI, and a formulation of a proposal for the coming to power of the left by means of a "democratic government alternative".

"Things in Europe are presenting us with a dramatic question: whether or not it is possible to form an alliance of the democratic left with the Communist left for the defence and the development of democracy", Pannella stated. And in replying positively in his own person, he developed the strategic hypothesis of the alliance without suppressing but rather emphasising their substantial diversities and the consequent need of a confrontation between the Communist and the democratic concepts with guarantees for maintaining the independence of the latter. Thus the dialogue between the democratic left and the Communists was seen not as the premise for forming a front (along the lines of the 30's and of '48), but positively as the possible platform as a reforming government alternative that would be capable of placing itself in the European context and would have as partners in discussion the European Social Democrats and labor unions.

At that time such a position was considered heretical both on the theoretical level of opening a discussion with the Communists when all the democratic groups of the left were trying to keep them isolated, as well as on the political level because it constituted an alternative to the emerging center-left proposal. Therefore Radical circles hurriedly closed the question (to which even Togliatti had replied) and published an editorial in "Il Mondo" significantly entitled "An Alliance of Cretins" which could not see any good reason why "democrats should put any faith in the thesis of a Radical who by chance repeats in a Communist newspaper the idea that the PCI has been trying to promulgate for years. In spite of everything it would be better to have as discussion with the hon. Mr. Togliatti".(40)

Within the party, the left brought its ideas officially to the national council of November 1960 (41) in a four-part document each of which dealt with what seemed to be the crucial issues on which to base a Radical policy. The first part on "relations with the Catholic world and for the abolition of art.7" (Lateran pact, ed.) stated that "in 1960 the thesis of an encounter between Catholic masses and progressive and modern ones could not be any longer considered sufficient, adequate and corresponding to the objective interests of our country nor corresponding to the events of recent years". In contesting the fact that it should "in any case be the Catholics to take charge of any radical change in the situation", it brought out the political function of the agglomeration around the Catholic world of interests not only of the Church "but of the capitalist and reactionary classes" and in rejecting the center-left proposed an action involving all the left exclusively for the "constitution of a national comm

ittee for the defence of the State and the abolition of art.7 of the Constitution".

In the second part, on "the meaning of the PR's alliance with the PSI and the will to continue a << democratic left>> policy", there was a rejection of the interpretations that wanted an alliance with between the Socialists and the Radicals (amply verified in the 1960 administration) like the encounter of certain intellectual classes and the bourgeoisie with the popular classes and it was affirmed that the PR was an integral part of the latter: it shares its fate, its will, its problems; it interprets its ideals and, independently, elaborates its political objectives in terms of the religion of liberty, its respect for dialogue, its democratic aspirations, its will to revolution". What was put into question was the concept of political representation in terms of class that the Radicals desired as an expression of the "liberal bourgeoisie" and the makers of "paternalistic operations in the face of the revolutionary and Socialist need of political struggle", instead of the expression of a political unit

y of the left that had been realised in an electoral alliance.

In the third section, the document recalled the Hungarian insurrection that demanded "of the democrats of every country and doctrine to assume the task of finding and imposing those solutions to the problems of our time, that they indicate their ability to resolve the libertarian aspirations and actions of individuals and peoples in concrete liberal and revolutionary conquests", at the very moment when there was being proposed an opening of discussions with the Communists with the view to a possible and necessary alliance.

Finally, in the fourth part, dedicated to "foreign policy, to the disarmament of nuclear and conventional weapons, to policies for peace", the declaration distanced itself from the traditional Western foreign policy of the democratic West and reprimanded those who were not sufficiently attentive "to the movements and leaderships, ideas and parties, that have a deep authoritarian and bellicose vocation".

The detachment from the way in which liberal forces realised their international policies seemed clean cut: "Those who for decades have represented the ideas and the will of the liberals seem to have been struck by a desperate logic of renunciation and abandonment; the Western world,in an erroneous concern with competing effectively with the Orient and the Afro-Asiatic world, tries ever harder to defend itself by a power policy that is actuated with the guilty support of Fascist , clerical and reactionary regimes and leaders". There follows, on the positive side, a series of objectives: "The pursuit of a European federation by means of direct elections; the disarmament of nuclear and conventional weapons with the consequent abolition of armies in the countries of this area; separate and conjoined peace with the two Germanies; the consequent denunciation of the NATO and UEO (Union of Eastern Europe) pacts; the proclamation of the right to insubordination and civil disobedience...; the federation, or at least

communal organisation of all Socialist, popular and revolutionary movements...in Western Europe".

At the beginning of 1961 the prospects for the center-left was almost an accomplished fact and the Radical Party took entire part in it. The Radical left came to the party's second congress (May 1961), having deeply studied and developed their own ideas. Pannella, while hoping the Congress would unite in finding solutions, warned: "What divides us are not only differences in methods but also differing evaluations of the substance of our political battles and of the function of our autonomy in the fight of the entire Italian left against clericalism, various types of nationalism, the big bosses of industry and the classist tampering with the State".(42) At least he indicated two immediate policy directives for the Radicals: "First, to begin the battle for the European federation with the union of the center-left parties in Europe; secondly, to attempt to form a government of the PSDI, PRI, PSI and the Radicals with the outside support of the Communists"; (43) and Mario Cattaneo, in denouncing the slide

of the PR's positions towards collaboration with the DC, said "we want an alternative politics, a politics of opposition, we want to prepare an alliance of the democratic left in this direction: no DC and no PCI" (44) accenting the independence of the Radicals in proposing solutions for problems.

That second and last Radical Congress (of the first party) not only ended without attaining unity on solutions such as the left had asked for, but with the exclusion of this latter, even as a minority, form the central party organ, the National Council, thanks to a trick in the voting organised by the majority. (45) Such internal events, besides those of the political scene in general, accelerated the process of the group's being organised into a faction even sooner perhaps than the group itself was prepared to do. In October 1961 the first number of "Sinistra Radicale" (SR) (46) came out, a monthly political information bulletin that was published for an entire year. The first editorial stated dryly: "No to the center-left, a definitive no, sever but clear (47): Its intention was to represent the negative side of the political program. That refusal found its place in a European vision that discerned the alternative facing the left in the opposition between material well-being on the one hand and on th

e other the development of the democratic resources for rebellion. "Slowly and artificially", the article continued, "obligatory solutions of technical objectives are being put at the center of political life in order to bury the political ones that it has been the merit of the Radicals to bring to the attention of the country. They take on... instruments that can serve for opposing ideas and ends". (48)

The attention of the group was turned to the new developments in Europe that were in opposition to the de-politicising of politics in favor of making it technical. Among these particular attention was given to the new opposition in France, to which SR dedicated as many as three main articles: Jacques Vergès, the defender of the Algerians, presented in no.2 the proposal for a "Nurimberg for colonialist criminals"; no.3 opened with an editorial by Vercours on now to be a "partisan" in the new situation, which was written for the new review "Partisans" that had been confiscated; and in no.6, after the Evian agreements, there was a reproduction of the interview with that Francois Jeanson who had been the head of the insubordination network during the colonial war. The attention given to the new French left had subjective as well as objective reasons: Marco Pannella, who was residing in France at that time,(49) was in political contact with the circles of the new resistance and was thus the channel that tra

nsmitted to the Italian group a particular sensibility for the clash going on across the Alps, a clash that took on importance for all of Europe and offered significant indications for the positions and the attitudes of the entire left. Along with the attention it gave to the European scene, SR developed the issue of disarmament and pacifism which aligned Italy with the activities of other countries (the British CND and Committee of the Hundred, the anti-nuclear Americans and the Swiss pacifists) and made the distinction clearer between both the Atlantic Pact loyalties of the "Mondo" group of Radicals and the generally neutral attitudes that for a certain period were taken by the Socialists and their sympathisers. The international proposals of the group were repeatedly expressed by by Giuliano Rendi who at that time was the big name for such issues, both in the development of positions and in publicising them through external political actions. "Today on e fights for peace", Rendi wrote, "working for disar

mament and detente on the one hand, and on the other in the fight against colonialism and the development of the UN's supranational power and the admission of China to the UN... The main objective therefore is a disarmament plan on the European level for nuclear and conventional weapons from the borders of the Soviet Union to the English Channel". (50)

Corresponding to the proposals of a political line, there were also specific actions to proposals of the Radical left: they participated in the first peace march held in Italy (Perugia - Assisi, September 1961) and then the March of the Hundred Towns (Camucia - Cortona, March 1962); they were part of the Consulta Italiana for peace tog ether with the Communist-inspired Peace Movement and the non-violent pacifist group that had gathered around Aldo Capitini; it constituted a true "Committee for Nuclear and Conventional Disarmament in the European Area"; they were an active part of the national conference on problems of disarmament (Florence, May 1962) in which Giuliano Rendi made one of the reports along with those of Lucio Libertini, Velio Spano, Aldo Capitini, Paolo Vitorelli and Giovanni Favilli; they went to Moscow for the World Conference for General Disarmament and Peace, and to Oxford as members of the International Confederation for Peace and Disarmament that grouped pacifist, anti-nuclear and

new left movements of the West.

Precisely on the issues of peace and disarmament, which were the order of the day on the international scene at that time, the Radical left tried to obtain an alignment of the entire left and particularly with the Communists while at the same time maintaining their autonomy position which was the Italian counterpart of analogous heterodox initiatives of other Western groups and movements. The Radical attitude towards the PCI was based on the search for collaboration in specific initiatives of common interest with the intention of remaining as independent as possible and of making explicit the critical reasons for differences between the Radical and Communist positions on single issues.

This policy of critical unity on the left was concretely supported by the organisations and initiatives for peace (Consulta Italiana per la pace "Italian Council For Peace") as well as by those for the schools (ADESSPI), the universities (UGI), and the politics of local agencies (Lega dei Comuni Democratici, "League of Democratic Municipalities", which the Radicals Piccardi and Villabruna, in disagreement with the "Mondo" faction, had joined along with Socialists and Communists). More generally, while the country was in the process of forming its first center-left government, (Fanfani, Feb.10, 1962), the Radical left elucidated the strategic hypothesis of a relationship with the Communists and what the nature of it would have to be: "In the precarious game of equilibrium being played in Italian political life, there are no different outlets really being offered for an authentic revival of liberal development. Faced with a new Hungary, with atomic blackmail, we know ve

ry well where our place is, and the Communists know it too. But let the latter carry on with the process of de-Stalinisation and the rejection of political blocks to its ultimate consequences and we will, as Salvemini said, "strike together". And there is more: we affirm that it is up to us democrats to, not less than to the Communists, to forward this process of the Communists approaching democratic politics and to revive the essential historical values of Western Europe. This difficult and dialectically complex process has already begun for us. To want to affirm that the goal is far off is only a way of distancing and negating it". (51)

The outward-directed initiative went hand-in-hand for the Radical left with action inside the Radical Party, which, after the Congress of May 1961, became progressively more divided and in danger of falling apart. In November of 1961 the two largest groups in the administration and the secretariat entered into conflict, the one (with Leone Cattani at its head) accusing the chief representative of the others (National Secretary Leopoldo Piccardi) of excessive zeal on the left. In taking a non-partisan stand on the disagreement, "Sinistra Radicale" had this to say:

"Rather than political issues, the basic argument is a question of competition and personal incompatibility. The administration is dividing itself between an accentuated pro-Socialist and an attenuated pro-La Malfa position (Ugo La Malfa, PRI), without either party being able to define the reasons for a solid autonomy of the Radical Party that goes beyond the mere (valid but relative) concern with tactics and alliances." (52)

In the meantime, the left, which was acting in defence of the party, won the majority in a number of local situations such as in Rome, where it got into the administrative organs, and in Milan. (53) Using the leverage offered by the "Piccardi Affair", which took place after and not before the worsening differences between the two largest factions, Leone Cattani, spokesman for the moderates, became Party Secretary in February 1962, while the prestigious Ernesto Rossi abandoned his work with "Il Mondo" after more than a decade of relevant collaboration. The directors of the two weeklies considered to be expressions of Radical circles - Mario Pannunzio of "Il Mondo" and Arrigo Benedetti of "L'Espresso" - had resigned from the party starting off the series of resignations that climaxed in the Party Secretary himself, Leone Cattani, leaving the party on March 25, 1962.

With the Rome municipal elections were set for the following June 10, the left found itself by now almost alone in the party and assumed completely the task of representing it with a list of candidates whose political weight was carried by Marco Pannella, Giuliano Rendi, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Massimo Teodori and Angiolo

Bandinelli. (54) After a few months, in Autumn of 1962, Bruno Villabruna (who in the meantime had taken on the post of Secretary), Leopoldo Piccardi and others of his group withdrew, who had formally remained party members. And some of them organised, the "Movimento Salvemini" under the guidance of Ernesto Rossi.

During the course of several months (March - October 1962), practically everyone had withdrawn who had been part of the Radical Party in 1951: the Piccardians; the moderate laity who had tried with no success to establish a "Unione Radicale degli Amici del Mondo" (Radical Union of the Friends of Il Mondo); the non-leftist group of young people (Rodotà, Ferrara, Jannuzzi, De Mauro, Mombelli, Craveri); Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Scalfari and together with them the larger part of the nationally and locally active members. The Radical left, by itself, took on the task of inheriting the Radical scutcheon bearing the Phrygian cap.

In the editorial of the last number of "Sinistra Radicale"

the problem facing the group was expressed thus under the emblematic title "What To Do?": "Although a great many of those who shared so original a political commitment are falling back today on moderate positions and are ending up by adapting themselves to the role of technicians for this or that group of the center-left, and many others, discouraged by so many desertions, have renounced it, we, for our part, are not disposed to renounce. In expressing our desire to continue along the Radical line, we are not hiding from ourselves the fact that we too are involved in the party crisis and that we do not have immediately at hand solutions that allow for continuation... Faced, in fact, with the new obstructions the Italian political scene seems to present and the serious situation in Europe that is taking ever-clearer shape, we believe that active and decisive "lay" minorities - aligned on the great civil rather than economic problems, great moral rather than technical problems, great ideal rather than practic

al ones - can play a great revolutionary role together with the traditional forces of the proletarian and Socialist left". (55)

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

NOTES

1) The Italian term translated here as lay, laity or lay party has no real corresponding concept or word in English. It refers to individuals, groups and parties that have no specific religious or ideological affiliations. Thus, for example, the Christian Democrats, Socialists and Communists are not lay parties. (Translator's note.)

2) The speech of Leo Valiani to the IInd National Congress of the PR, Rome, June 23-24, 1956, in "Il Partito Radicale e la situazione politica", published by the PR, 1956, p.30.

3) Ibidem, p.32

4) It is enough to recall the most important themes of the << "Il Mondo" Conferences >>: "La lotta contro i monopoli" (March 1955); "Petrolio in gabbia" (July 1955); "Processo alla scuola" (February 1956); "I padroni della città" (April 1956); "Atomo e elettricità" (January 1957); "Stato e chiesa" (April 1957); "Stampa in allarme" (February 1958); "La crisi della sinistra" (April 1959); "Verso il regime" (February 1959); "Le baronie elettriche" (March 1960)

5) From "Un programma radicale" published by the Press Office of the PR for the June 20, 1956 elections.

6) Ernesto Galli della Loggia, "Ideologie, classi e costume", in "Italia contemporanea 1945 - 1975", edited by Valerio Castronovo, Einaudi, Turin, pp.414-415.

7) The list of candidates of the "Alleanza radical-repubblicana"

(that presented itself with the PRI-PR symbol of the ivy leaf)

obtained 405,782 votes equal to 1.4% of the vote - a decrease in respect to the 1.6% obtained by the PRI alone in the 1953 national elections. Not one Radical was among the six deputies elected despite the fact that the analysis of the preferential votes made clear the great contribution the party had made, most of all in the great urban centers like Rome, Milan, and Turin where the PR candidates headed the list (in Rome, the primate of the not-elected).

8) To get an idea of the number and quality of the signers of the Radical manifesto, see "Per un partito moderno", editorial in "Il Mondo" of January 24, 1956 on the occasion of the 1st National Conference, February 4,5, 1956 which was followed by letters from Guido Calogero and Leopoldo Piccardi. In that list of adherents and in succeeding ones, the party on its own authority sometimes inserted the names of intellectuals who were not registered members but considered part of Radical circles.

9) Armaroli Tambroni, DC President of the Council in 1960 , was forced to resign because of the public protest over the support he received from the neo-Fascist MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano). (Translator's note)

10) In the political report of the Executive Council of the 1st National Congress of the PR (Rome, February 27 - March 1, 1959) one could read: "...This is the source of our constant opposition to coalition governments which have followed one upon the other without any of them being able to influence the predominance of the DC... The victory of the DC, although not absolute, has significantly strengthened the danger of its being transformed into a regime. Therefore all of our attitudes have remained valid, from our intransigent opposition to the incursions of the clerics to the restoration of absolute power endangered by the continuous expansion of the political patronage of the clerics, up to the need of combating and modernising our entire economic structure... [The autonomist majority of the PSI], abandoning the seductions of openings to the left, has declared its decision to function along the lines of an alternative that will gather together, in exercising a Constitutional opposition, the forces capab

le of confronting and resolving the great problems of our national life". Mimeographed by the PR, 1959.

See also : Anonymous , "I Radicali e gli altri", in "Il Mondo", March 10, 1959, in which it is stated that the Radicals must keep firmly to their positions "in order to overthrow or at least greatly reduce the power of the DC and to create a broad front among the democratic lay and Socialist left to oppose any convergence of the Constitutional opposition with the subversive kind."

11) "Prospettive di una politica economica", conference organised by "Il Mondo", "L'Espresso", "Critica Sociale", "Mondo Operaio", "Nord e Sud", "Il Ponte", Roma, October 28-29, 1961.

12) Eugenio Scalfari, managing editor of "L'Espresso" and later founder of the Rome daily "La Repubblica". (Translator's note)

13) In the municipal elections of November 1960, with the exception of Turin, where Bruno Villabruna was elected City Councilor on the independent list bearing the Radical symbol, in the other principal cities 51 City Councillors and 1 Provincial councilor were elected on the PSI-PR combined ticket. In Rome the Radicals Leopoldo Piccardi, Antonio Cederna and Arnoldo Foà were elected; In Milan, Eugenio Scalfari, Alessandro Brodrero, Sergio Turone and Elio Vittorini.

14) The "Piccardi Affair" was raised by the Radicals of the "Il Mondo" group following the information contained in the book by the historian Renzo De Felice "Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo" (The History of The Italian Jews Under Fascism") which tells of Piccardi's participation in two Italo-German conferences held in 1938-1939 which touched on the issue of racism. The nature of Piccardi's participation in the conferences (whether or not he gave a report) has always remained controversial; on various occasions Piccardi was defended by Ernesto Rossi and Ferruccio Parci who maintained that Piccardi had given "documented proof of not having helped in drawing up the report ("Razza e diritto", "Race and Law", ed.) and had not signed it."

15) Giovanni Ferrara, "La gioventù radicale" in "Il Veltro", year VIII, February-April 1964, no. 1-2, p.113.

16) It is enough to remember the number of reviews founded in this period: "Ragionamenti" (1957), "La città futura" (1956), "Tempi Moderni" (1959), "Passato e Presente" (1958), "Officina" (1955), "Opinione" (1956), "Rendiconti" (1956).

17) The expression "stanza dei bottoni" (literally "the button room" but translated here as "keeping a finger on the button", trans.), which became the symbol of a kind of politics, was first used by Pietro Nenni speaking at the Colosseum in Rome in October 1962 with regard to the center-left: "Thus the question of who is going to preside over the planning policies, who is going to be in the <> now that the government prerogatives in the economic field have grown to the point where the number and influence of the buttons have vastly increased".

18) From the pamphlet introducing the Conference of the Friends of "Il Mondo", entitled "Verso il regime", Rome, Eliseo Theater, January 31 - February 1, 1959.

19) Anonymous, "Morte e resurrezione", in "Il Mondo", March 31, 1959.

20) Adolfo Battaglia, "Il governo del piano", in "Il Mondo", October 3, 1961.

21) "La strada giusta", introduction to the congressional debate, in "Tribuna Radicale", February 1961, published by the Press Office of the PR, Rome.

22) Eugenio Scalfari, "Sviluppare il programma", in "Tribuna Radicale", cit.

23) Cf. Paolo Pavolini, "Un paese immaturo", in "Il Mondo",

June 3, 1958, in which he commented on the results of the national election thus: "Our people vote for the parties that they claim to detest, for the bosses that they hate, for the Fascists whom they fear, for the sterile sect of Communists with whom they have nothing in common".

24) Paolo Pavolini, "Bilancio Positivo" in "Tribuna Radicale", cit.

25) Vittorio De Caprariis, "Una svolta politica" in "Il Mondo", January 2, 1962.

26) Federico Gozzi [Vittorio De Caprariis], "Il tema dominante" in "il Mondo", February 6, 1962.

27) Ibidem.

28) See in particular the articles in "Corriere della Sera" of Antonello Trombadore ("Il PCI replica a Marco Pannella: troppo vittimismo", Dec. 14, 1976), Francesco Compagna ("Pannella e l'eredità di Pannunzio", Dec.20, 1976), Augusto Premoli ("Pannella e il PCI", Dec. 29, 1976), all following on the article by Marco Pannella ("Perchè ce l'avete con noi", Dec.12, 1976).

29) See: "Per le origini di <> e <> " by Franco Fortini in "Aut Aut", no. 142-143, July - October, 1974.

30) For these analyses, see Massimo Teodori, "Storia delle nuove sinistre in Europa (1936 - 1976), Il Mulino, Bologna, 1976, in particular chapters 1 and 2.

31) Gaetano Salvemini (1873-1957) and Carlo Rosselli (1899-1937), both Socialists who took refuge in France where they adhered to the Italian expatriate anti-Fascist movement "Giustizia e libertà". Rosselli and his brother Nello were assassinated by Italian Fascist secret police. Piero Gobetti (1901-1926), ideologist of liberal Socialism; Benedetto Croce, Neapolitan philosopher (1866-1952); (Translator's note)

32) Among those of the original group of leftist Radicals who went through the experience of university politics were: Marco Pannella (President of UNURI); Giuliano Rendi and Gianfranco Spadaccia (President of UGR and Vice President of the ORUR); and even if younger, Massimo Teodori (Goliardi Autonomi di Roma and Goliard Councillor of the UGI); Franco Rocella (President of the UGI); Sergio Stanzani (President of the UNURI); and Giuseppe Ramadori, Giuseppe Picca, Andrea Torcelli, Giuseppe Loteta in Rome. (UNURI, UGI, URUR, and ORUR were all students' organisations, ed.)

33) Among the Radical university generation that did not belong to the Radical left were: Stefano Rodotà; Lino Jannuzzi (later Senator of the PSI from 1968 to 1972); Gerardo Mombelli (later President of the UNURI); Tullio De Mauro (later Regional Councillor of the independent left for the Region of Lazio in 1970); Piero Craveri and Umberto Dragone (later of the PSI in Milan); Claudio Simonelli (later Regional Councillor for the PSI in Piedmont); Aldo Gandolfi (later PRI Regional Councillor in Piedmont); Giovanni Paladini (Venice); Sergio Bartole (Trieste); Giovanni Ferrara (later in the PRI leadership); Paolo Ungari (President of UNURI and then in the Democrazia Liberale and the PRI).

34) INTESA and FUCI were Catholic university organisations; CUDI was the PCI's equivalent. (Translator's note)

35) Marco Pannella, "Replica del presidente al VII Congresso del Unuri", Rome, April 1957, mimeographed.

36) Marco Pannella, "Relazione del presidente al VII Congresso del Unuri", Rome, April 1957, mimeographed.

37) Brunello Vigezzi, "L'Unione Goliardica Italiana" in "Il Veltro", year VIII, nos. 1 and 2, February - April, 1964, p.228.

38) Giorgio Festi, cited in Vigezzi, op. cit., p.229.

39) "Un articolo del radicale Pannella: la << sinistra democratica >> e il PCI" in "Il Paese", March 22, 1959. The long and politically discussed article was supposed to appear as an editorial and was preceded by this note: "We have invited the

Radical leader Marco Pannella , whose name emerged from the reports of the recent Radical Congress because of his original ideas about the role of his party in the Italian left, to express his thoughts on the present political situation..."

40) Anonymous, "L'alleanza dei cretini", in "Il Mondo", April 7, 1959.

41) "Progetto di risoluzione sulla politica del Partito Radicale"

presented by the National Councillors Marco Pannella and Giuliano Rendi, Rome, November 19-20, 1960, mimeographed.

42) Marco Pannella, "Soluzione unitaria", in "Tribuna Radicale" published by the Press Office of the PR, Rome, May 1961.

43) Silvio Pergameno, "Le due direttive" in "Tribuna Radicale" published by the Press Office of the PR, Rome, February 1961.

44) Mario Cattaneo, "Ritornare alle origini" in "Tribuna Radicale" published by the PR Press Office, Rome, March 1961.

45) The majority of the PR constituted by the Piccardi-Scalfari group and the Cattani group, arranged for a part of the vote to be given to a list of youths composed of Jannuzzi, Ferrara, De Mauro, Rodotà, Craveri and Mombelli so that they could win the seats on the National Council that were due to the minority and thus eliminating the representatives of the leftist minority. Of the latter only Roccella was elected, thanks to the votes of the Sicilian delegates and... Teodori and Gardi.

46) "Sinistra Radicale" (Radical Left), a monthly political bulletin directed by Giuliano Rendi, of which the following numbers appeared: 1 (October 1961); 2 (Nov.1961); 3-4 (Jan. 1962); 5 (Feb.1962); 6 (March 1962); 7 (May 1962); 8 (Oct. 1962). Authors of the principle articles were Manlio Gardi, Marco Pannella, Max Salvadori, Jacques Vergès, Ernesto Rossi, Elio Vittorini, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Francis Jeanson, Massimo Teodori.

47) Marco Pannella, "Una politica di abdicazione" in "Sinistra Radicale", no.1, October 1961.

48) Ibidem.

49) Marco Pannella, leader of the Radical left group, resided in Paris as a journalist from 1959 to 1962. The publication "Sinistra Radicale" was in fact put out by a group composed of Giuliano Rendi, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Massimo Teodori and Angiolo Bandinelli.

50) Giuliano Rendi, "Per il disarmo europeo, eliminare gli

eserciti" in "SR", , no.6, March 1962.

51) "Un disarmo Radicale", editorial, "SR", no.3-4, January 1962.

52) "Un dibattito non esplicito nella direzione del PR", in "SR", no.2, November 1961 p.3.

53) The leftist candidates that won the majority in the Rome section in January 1962, was composed of Mauro Mellini, Roberto Mazzucco, Giuseppe Ramadori, Massimo Teodori, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Franco Roccella, Giuseppe Loteta, and Angiolo Bandinelli. In Milan, Luca Boneschi and Mario Cattaneo were the leftists elected to the Administrating Committee for the section.

54) It is interesting to note that those June 10, 1962 municipal elections in Rome were the only elections , together with the Roman ones in 1956, in which an independent Radical list was presented with its symbol of the Phrygian hat. The list won little more than a thousand votes.

55) "Che fare?", editorial, "SR", no.8, October 1962.