> no.1, April-May 1977) From time to time a new name is added to the list of those who consider the Radical Party to be right wing. A PCI [Communist Party, ed.] deputy started it (Antonello Trombadori: "Extremists yes, but of the right") followed by other Communists and some Socialists (Pannella, a DC agent, to save Gui and Tanassi from the Constitutional Court, implicating Leone in the Lockheed affair). (1) It was remembered that the Radicals had not voted for the abortion law in the Chamber of Deputies (for which there had been a slim majority: if it had not passed, this would have been another favour to the DC on the part of the Radicals).
In reality the Radical Party is so evidently a movement of lay, libertarian and Socialist character that one need not ask if these evaluations have even a minimal foundation, but why they are being made despite their obviously being unfounded.
From the electoral point of view, it is true that some voters who previously voted further to the right may have also voted for the Radicals. But this is a phenomenon from which the PCI also profited and which helped the left as a whole go from 40% of the vote (in 1972) to almost 47% (last June 20).
With regard to the abortion law, Mellini (2) has explained clearly that in its present form it contains a such degree of administrative and bureaucratic controls as to make it practically unusable (above all by women of the proletariat, as was emphasised by Mimmo Pinto, the deputy of Lotta Continua. (3) And this law was to be even worsened (by still more controls) as a consequence of the position of Catholic deputies elected on the PCI lists.
With regard to the Lockheed affair, it is evident that if it were ascertained that the DC president of the republic (elected with DC and MSI [neo-Fascist party, ed.] votes against Pietro Nenni, [the grand old man of the PSI, ed.] the candidate of the entire left) is involved in the corruption as a friend and protector of the Lefèbvre band, it would be a very hard blow to the DC.
If these are the facts, what is the origin of the insistence on discriminating against the PR as a leftist party? To my mind there is one reason: the left (and above all the PCI which represents three fourths of it) is looking for a justification for the policy of abstention that has been adopted since June 20; this justification would lie in the fact that the left has not had enough electoral success to challenge the domination of the DC. But if one were to add together the votes of the PCI, the PSI, the Radical Party and the Proletarian Democrats, one would obtain 46.7% of the votes. And one could not see why a formation of this kind, if it were to present a united front, would not be able to make the DC feel the weight of a relative majority so close to being an absolute majority.
Furthermore, while the Proletarian Democrats alliance felt defeated after June 20 and in crisis (for which reason the polemics and schisms), the Radicals quite rightly continued to consider themselves the representatives, in Parliament and in the country, of the shift to the left that had violently shaken the power of the DC from May '74 to June '75. And finally, because of the Radicals ideological formation, neither Marxist nor Leninist, and to which concepts of heresy were foreign, they did not subordinate their political direction to the fact that the PCI was now, beyond any doubt, the most authoritative representative of the working class in its organised and active form. This assures the PCI of exceptional qualifications for social representation (a decisive one for the left), but it does not in any way privilege the justice of its political direction. Naturally Pannella is wrong when he says, or thinks, or causes anyone to suppose that the Radicals' 1.1% of the vote represents the Communists' 34.
4% as well. But according to me the Communists leaders also make a mistake when they try to isolate on the left the 2.6 % of the Radical or Proletarian Democrats' vote (whereas the DC makes the most of the 3.4% of the PSDI vote - which is in serious trouble - or the 3.1% of the PRI).
The PR is therefore the party that makes the most use of its 1.1% of the vote on a left that makes the least of its 47%. But what would be the best way to implement the consensus that the left has acquired?
Evidently, either because the PCI and the PSI have proposed an emergency government of national unity (with the DC), or because the left does not have an absolute majority, the majority of the left (44% of the votes) can do nothing but insist in its proposal. And this is the point where the problem for the PR is posed of maintaining a united position on a project it does not agree with (governing with the DC).
It seems to me that if the PCI and the PSI confirmed with deeds their unavailability to support any government other than an emergency one with their direct participation, the PR could then prove its spirit of unity by accepting this position. Only this kind of behaviour could make the alternative line appear for what it is (a united one for the entire left) and not a polemical expedient against the PCI and its always more problematic historic compromise.
Only if the DC rejected all agreements for a transitory government coalition (of the 1966 German type that was followed by the elections which brought Willy Brandt to power as Chancellor) could the 47% of the united left then be utilised to form a minority government. It could function if it obtained the confidence of the Parliament, or else call and administrate early elections if it did not win a vote of confidence (it would have larger consensus than either the Andreotti government of '72 or the Moro government of '76 which obtained the dissolution of Parliament and permitted the DC to call elections while in power).
To sum up, the PR, a lay, libertarian and Socialist party, correctly interprets the 20th of June as a victory for the left. But its specific actions which do not harmonise with the left as a whole may appear to be exhibitionist and overweening. A confrontation on the proposal of the left for an emergency government (When? How? With what alternative if the DC refuse?) could characterise the RAdical position - today - better perhaps than a whole landslide of difficult referendums.
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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
* Qualunquisti/qualunquismo - a much-used term in Italian political parlance referring to an attitude of mistrust towards political parties and the party system in general.
(1) Gui, Tanassi, Leone, Lockheed affair - All DC leaders implicated in the scandal of kick-backs for placing orders for Lockheed Hercules aircraft.
(2) Mellini - Mauro Mellini, a PR deputy elected in '76.
(3) Lotta Continua - A far left political party which publishes a newspaper of the same name.
