ABSTRACT: An essay on the nature and historical roots of the new Radicalism and a debate on the Radical problem with contributions from: Contributions by Gianni Baget-Bozzo, Giorgio Galli; Francesco Ciafaloni; Domenico Tarizzo; Ernesto Galli della Loggia; Brice Lalonde; Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi; Giuseppe Are; Alberto Asor Rosa; Silverio Corvisieri; Ruggero Orfei; Sergio Cotta; Federico Stame; Paolo Ungari; Giuliano Amato; Fabio Mussi; Giulio Savelli

(SAVELLI Publishers, October 1978)

Introduction (RQ-1375)

PART ONE

I. Politics and Society

II. The Accusations Against the Radicals (RQ-1377)

III. The Radicals As A Two-Front Party (RQ-1378)

IV. Radicalism And Socialism (RQ-1379)

V. Radicalism Or Marxism, Co-existence Or Techno-Fascism (RQ-1380)

PART TWO

A Debate On The Radical Problem (RQ-1381 - RQ-1397)

Where Are The Radicals Going?

By Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi

("Argomenti radicali", no. 5, December '77 - January '78)

Radicals: To be or not to be. Every lay democrat is capable of giving an immediate clear reply to the question: why do they exist and act in such an explosive way? One can paraphrase what the Russian existentialist Nicolai Berdiachev said about Communism being a living reproof to Christianity for what it had not accomplished. The PR today is a pointed reproof to the traditional Italian leftist parties - and to the PCI in particular - for the blindness to civil rights that sets in as soon as they enter the Palazzo. (1) In the Fifties the two workers' parties pursued an opposition to the regime which was also - or better, which was primarily - based on the issue of elementary rights to liberty of the citizen according to natural law. And the Radicals of those years limited themselves to providing a useful storehouse of ideas for the left. I am thinking of the well-known and concrete examples of the "Amici del mondo" ["Friends of the World", ed.] and of the studies made by "L'Espresso" [a well-known weekly revi

ew, ed.]. Today things have changed and bless the Radicals for it! Socratic torpedoes that they are, if they didn't exist one would have to invent them. For my part, I have signed almost all the referendum petitions and helped collect signatures.

But who are the Radicals? In reading the "polemics page" of this review, one is confused: for Baget Bozzo the PR is not a leftist party, for Galli della Loggia it is the "qualunquista protest of the country". There is the matter, of course, of agreeing on the meaning of the terms "right-wing" and "qualunquismo". But the mere fact of having to use such terms which, at first glance, have quite different meanings, shows the difficulties that the political scientist encounters in defining this "magmatic" phenomenon. (Baget Bozzo even finds that "the natural ally of the PR is the DC", which is true, but only in the sense that without the rope no one would be hung, without Fascism there would be no anti-Fascism, etc. That is to say, that in this sense one is not born a Radical but becomes one. Perhaps Baget Bozzo also means that under a non-Christian Democratic regime, under one not so formless but more "ideological" such as Eastern European Communists, the Radicals - if they were lucky - would be locked up i

n a psychiatric hospital for deviates).

To my mind the PR has to be a "complementary" reality - seen in the long run - a "contingent" one (I speak of what it ought to be, not what it can be). In a deteriorated political situation such as ours, even less would be enough to set up and keep alive an entity that counts and makes its presence felt in the thousand central and local negotiations (but this certainly is not the intention of our Radical friends). We have never had - unlike the French, for example - a space apart for a sturdy Radical party. We did not even have it in the time of Felice Cavallotti (2), a man who, though as spirited and prestigious as Pannella, fought duels rather than go on hunger strikes. A party, they teach us, is to be defined by its programme, or its social composition, or its "culture" (which also includes its history), and, of course, by the way in which these three factors intertwine. Let us take a look at them.

a) "Programme". Recently (in "Provincia pavese" of Nov. 6) Ernesto Bettinelli called the PR "the party of projects with programmatic objectives". One speaks of a "service party", of a "strategy of referendums". Walter Vecellio, in the debate preceding the congress, proposed the "street and sidewalk party". Evidently the method does not fulfil a programme: in theory, with that method it would be possible to actuate quite different services, promote referendums of an opposite nature.

b) "Social composition". If we look at the results of the study published in the first issues of "Argomenti radicali", the PR appears to be a party of young people, of women, of intellectuals, not without a considerable "lumpenproletariat" fringe. The workers make up 1.5%, the farm workers zero. In the debate preceding the congress again, Foschi sociologically gave his speech this title: "With the drug addicts, the crazies, the queers and the diverse for the referendum".

The fact is that the idea of a party of outsiders seems new, but it is as old as Marx. The party of the outsiders is the party of the working class alienated from the capitalist regime.

Who is more an outsider than he who is working under illegal employment conditions, than the unemployed young, than the pensioners, the commuters, the southerners in the Roman slums or in the dormitory cities of the North? So then, it is a mass question for a global transformation of society.

c) "Ideology or culture". Liberal-democratic culture in Italy is weak and vacillating per se, charged with moods contradictory in meaning. It is Benedetto Croce, who did not understand Fascism (There we are - Pannella ready to accept Plebe (3) and to talk with Almirante (4)). It is no weaker and no more uncertain in its fundamental choices with Gobetti (5), with Rosselli (6), with Salvemini (7), because in one way or another it latches onto the working class.

This is why the PR is a complementary factor. Speaking to "L'Espresso", Massimo Teodori said that "the new Radicals have introduced into Italy the Anglo-Saxon method of mobilising people on specific and single issues". But he forgot to add that many people in England who march for peace or are opposed to nuclear establishments are carrying Labour or Liberal party cards in their pockets. That double-membership which is possible with us as long as the Radical presence remains a movement and not any longer, obviously, once it becomes a competing party to all effects.

For me the PR is complementary to the PSI (and here I neglect examining the rights and wrongs of the two parties, the pettiness that kept them from forming an alliance in the last elections), where the Marxist and liberal-democratic elements co-exist (for at least thirty years with the official convergence of the "Partito d'azione" which was the first of so many relevant politico-cultural convergences). It does not exist in the PCI which remains for the moment - and I do not take into account the consequences of Berlinguer's letter to the bishop - a Marxist-Leninist party (with the hyphen or without?), totalitarian and centralised, where the other cultures do not co-exist but are absorbed. This is something which the Radical militants feel instinctively as is shown by the oft-cited study published in "Argomenti radicali". ----------------------------------------------------------------

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) The Palazzo - A common journalistic term referring to the political powers in a negative sense, their unconcern and insensitivity to the will and the needs of the people. Here it could well be rendered by the phrase: "the halls of power".

2) Felice Cavallotti (1842-1898), a politician and journalist of the Radical far left, who died in a duel.

3) Plebe - A member of the neo-Fascist MSI who, it was thought, was about to ask for PR membership. The issue split the party into two groups even before Plebe made a formal request: those who adamantly rejected the idea, and those who felt that there were neither ethical or "legal" grounds on which to deny membership to anyone since the PR accepts members from other parties and has no apparatus for deciding on whom to accept and whom to reject.

4) Almirante - Giorgio Almirante (1914-1988), the MSI party secretary from 1969-1987.

5) Gobetti - Piero Gobetti (1901-1926), ideologist of Liberal Socialism, died in Paris in exile during the early Fascist era.

6) Rosselli - Carlo Rosselli (1899-1937), anti-Fascist Liberal Socialist who died in French exile at the hands of Fascist killers along with his brother Nello.

7) Salvemini - Gaetano Salvemini (1873-1957), Socialist historian and politician who collaborated with the Rossellis in Florence and went into exile under Fascism.