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 (1375)

PART ONE

I. Politics and Society

II. The Accusations Against the Radicals (1377)

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

IV. Radicalism And Socialism (1379)

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

PART TWO

A Debate On The Radical Problem (1381 - 1397)

Referendums And Anti-politics

By Federico Stame

("Argomenti radicali", no.6, February-March 1978)

I have always been convinced that the emergence - in recent years - of a type of political action not tied to the rigid centralisation of the big parties, and of which the Radical Party has been one of the protagonists, is a fact of decisive importance and, even more, the sign of an irreversible morphological change in the political system and its internal functioning.

Already on other occasions I pointed out how, in terms of general theoretical thought, this fact was the expression of a deep crisis in the organisational-strategic models on which the left based its relationship with advanced capitalist state; and I believe that I have noted that this crisis is the crisis of "Leninism" understood as just this process of synthesising in which the workers' movement sees its relation to the state.

This crisis of Leninism, however, is peculiar in that it does not manifest itself as a "crisis of power" of the centralised organisations, but rather as an "overturning" of their functioning in society. As an instrument for introducing into the state the needs of civil society (as Gramsci theorised and as the Communists still today would like to pretend), the party becomes an instrument of the state for reducing that same civil society to obedience. The party is a "constitutional articulation" of the state for controlling social antagonisms: the State of the Parties, to be precise.

The problem strikes me as being of prime interest, also for reasons of political science, since it allows us to interpret in a new key the history of advanced industrial societies which the official Marxism of the traditional leftist parties has squeezed into the rigid schemes of the relationship between the public and the private spheres which has not existed in our societies for some time. The classical thematics, for example, which still functions today in the Italian Communist Party's democratic-authoritarian perspective of the public and private sphere makes the former the realm of public property and of disinterest, while the latter is the realm of egoism and the private devil. This is totally out of date. The political battles of the most developed countries show precisely that these thematics have been entirely surpassed and, where it remains, it is for the authoritarian political control that it permits as an instrument of rationalisation.

For a new theory of political conflict and its thematics which is liberating and "dynamic" in its typological view of present and future conflicts, it seems to me that one must take as decisive and irreversible the following basic fact: the process which dominates the crisis of the late-capitalistic state is the progressive integration in the state of the entire social dynamic; and consequently the political forms of this tendency are the progressive extension of the apparent sphere of representation of the institutions which "become the state" (the parties, to be precise). But on this level the principle contradiction becomes just exactly the one between this process of apparent rationalisation and the real tendencies that are becoming always more intensely expressed and of which the emerging movements outside the parties are the objective manifestation.

One basic point continues to perplex me, and I do not hide from myself the danger that my perplexity may also be the residue of my past Leninist formation (because it is still a part of the theoretical tradition of the workers' movement): the point is if this new way of manifesting the political struggle - having liberated itself from the cage of Leninist centralism (which in turn is the historical articulation of the strategic-tactical relationship): if this new way must still deal with the question of political mediation, or if it must simply entrust itself to the "subversive" element of its own "autonomy". That is to say, if it has to consider itself as "a new level of political action" or merely as a critique of politics. I do not hide from myself the iconoclastic character of an ontological critique of politics, but I still remain tied to a "historically determined" conception of political criticism. I understand that any determinate criticism must make a claim to universality, but I remain convin

ced that politics today are a "transcendental horizon" of a collective action within a mass society. Not to understand this would mean to revert to the past, to indeterminate criticism which - the comparison is coarse - can be likened to the counter-revolutionary ideas that followed 1789. And that is why I believe that not even the new movements of our political society can escape the need of rationalisation, of "repression", of political mediation, because only the disenchanted acceptance of our own transcendental horizons is the condition of one's own theoretical truth; that in collective action is always mediated by rationality with respect to the value of change.

These so general theoretical premises may seem exaggerated in comparison to the concrete political experiences of very recent times. But what has brought me to reflect on them are the very failures, objective ones, of the Radicals in the referendums. I remain convinced of the political validity of the effort, but continue to be much perplexed by the concrete techniques with which the action has been conducted. It seems to me that at bottom the Radical actions are essentially insensitive to the institutional conditions in which the initiative has taken on substance. The indeterminate abstractness of the referendums, the multiplicity of the norms which have so confusedly been brought to public attention all indicate, to my mind, a lack of attention to the political conditions in which the thing has developed, a misunderstanding of the problems of alliances, an insufficient consideration of the relationship of the PCI leaders and their own grass roots, with the former aiming at a brutal containment of th

e independence of public opinion from party regimentation, and the latter largely in favour of abrogating the laws which the referendum is contesting.

Is this merely a lack of attention? I don't believe it. I think rather that a great chance has been given to the top levels of the PCI, the DC and the Constitutional Court to trip up the political forces promoting the initiative. And I think that it should be honestly recognised that a substantial political defeat has been suffered. It is better to succeed in abrogating a few articles of the Rocco penal code (1) rather than set up a general battle - however just in itself - but which does not take into account the opportunities it offers to the adversary. I am aware that my arguments coincide greatly with those of the opponents who have tried to bury the referendums. But this is not something that should frighten anyone formulating critical considerations pertinent to the project of those wanting to revitalise the social energies outside the big parties.

But this example is not the only one. In many other cases the Radicals' initiatives have indicated too little attention to the concrete political conditions in which their actions were played out; and too little attention, furthermore, to the logic of the social forces without which no project for social advancement is possible. All of which, to my mind, brings up again the question of a definition of the strategies of actions "within the political field", without which not even the emerging movements - an expression of ripened social contradictions - risk becoming only symptoms and not dynamic negations as well, of the crisis in direction of the great traditional organisations. --------------------------------------------------------------

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) Rocco code - A penal code dating from Fascist times that is still in effect in Italy.