ABSTRACT: Commenting on the position of the PSI [Socialists] and the PCI [Communists] in favour of a referendum to abolish life imprisonment,l Gianfranco Spadaccia laments over the lack of any publicity campaign sponsored by these two parties who thus miss out on an exceptional opportunity for democratic confrontation. Instead of supporting the referendum to abolish life in prison, the PCI is conducting a campaign against a non-existent referendum, against the MSI's [neo-Fascist] petition for the death penalty, thus falling into the trap of Giorgio Almirante's (2) swindle. The MSI's petition in fact asks for the application of the military code in the fight against terrorism, in effect, the state of war and the militarisation of society; and only within this framework, as an indirect consequence of it, the possibility of military courts' applying the death sentence.

(NOTIZIE RADICALI, January 2, 1981)

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THE JURIDICAL FORMULATION

The undersigned Italian citizens request a popular abrogative referendum - according to art. 75 of the Constitution and in application of the law of May 25, 1980 no. 325 - on the following question: "Do you want the abrogation of article 17, first sub- paragraph no.2 (life imprisonment) and no.22 of the penal code approved by royal decree on October 19, 1930, no.1393 and subsequent modifications?

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The PCI and PSI have taken positions in favour of abolishing life imprisonment. Here at least the left would have the possibility of presenting a united front on one great question of ideals and principle important not so much on the practical level as for the values which it can be used to affirm. Certainly the ruptures provoked by divisions over the other referendums (primarily abortion, but also on the Cossiga law (3) would in any case remain serious ones. But the perimeter of unity represented by the life imprisonment question could be an exceptional opportunity with great alternative potential in terms of democratic confrontation.

The PCI and the PSI could seize this opportunity. They could compete in giving life to this potential. But will they want to? Everything points to the answer "no", at least at the moment in which we are writing. If we look around in the streets and squares where the young militants, men and women, of the traditional and official left are hanging round with their leaflets and newspapers, and if we read the slogans on the walls or the editorials and articles in »L'Unità (4), the only referendum campaign we see being fought is a non-existent referendum. The left is not waging a campaign for a "yes" vote on the Radical referendum to abolish capital punishment, but for a "no" vote for Almirante's petition to revive the death penalty.

Almirante's campaign is a swindle to the detriment of the electorate. And the massive reply of the left is both a buttress to this swindle and a serious political error. Almirante asks the people to sign what they are convinced is a petition for the death penalty, whereas it is a document asking for the application of martial law in the fight against terrorism and the Red Brigades: in effect it asks for the proclamation of a state of war, the militarisation of society and the government in a state of siege. In this framework and only as an indirect consequence of it is there a theoretical possibility of military courts' applying the death sentence.

How many of those who are favourable to the death penalty being introduced into the civil regulations of the state also want militarisation, the state of siege and war, and judgements entrusted to military courts? This a question of small import to a left-wing which - as we have learned from the abortion referendum - is also known for its double-dealing, its lies and which mistrusts the laity's decisions, the clarity of the debate, and democratic confrontation. But in this way the left has supported Almirante's swindle and has assisted with full responsibility in distracting the public from a real problem in order to follow the polemics of a false problem.

There is probably a good dose of bad conscience in this immediate and massive mobilisation of the left against an impossible and unrealistic reintroduction of the death penalty. Because Almirante's campaign does nothing but draw all the consequences of policies which not only Almirante, but all the political forces unanimously, except for the Radical Party, have desired and practised in recent years: the politics of special laws and licenses to kill, of the annulment of the basic guarantees of freedom, the harshening of punishments and, at the same time, postponement and shelving of the Constitutional provisions for securing safety and public order, social peace and the correct, effective functioning of justice and of the police.

To choose to fight on the front against the non-existent referendum for the abolition of life imprisonment, as has happened until now, furthermore allows this left-wing to take up the cudgels once more against the "Fascist" Almirante's "death" - and here too "in favour of life" (what life? the one of the license to kill?) in fictitious and futile unity with a vast front includes Pope Wojtyla and the DC [Christian Democrats]. Rather they should be confronting the DC and forcing it at least to make a choice on the abolition of life imprisonment.

But the deadly mistake that comes from this approach is to have chosen once again a defensive position which moreover does not regard a problem of political and electoral choice but mere propaganda. A losing battleground. It is precisely the left which has given weight to Almirante's campaign and thus made it appear dangerous. To fight - and defensively, of all things - against the death penalty - does this not mean to have half compromised the battle for the abolition of life imprisonment which one said one wanted to pursue? If public opinion and the Communist rank and file itself is in favour of the death penalty, is it not madness to ask for the abolition of life imprisonment? Is this not the secret meaning, the secret message underlying the choice of this campaign?

One of the reasons that has compelled this choice is supposed to have been the attitude of a part of the PCI's membership. The Communists themselves have been the very one's to publicise the fact that a part of their members and sympathisers were in favour of the death penalty. I would take with a grain of salt this thesis of the PCI's leaders, because as in the case of Afghanistan or Poland, in this case too there may be an unconscious projection which makes the PCI's leaders tend to represent the Communist base as much older and worse than it really is. But even if it were true, the problem ought to be faced in terms of a cultural and political battle, in terms of principles and values, besides consequent political, legislative, and government programmes: not from rear-guard positions replying "no" to the juridical civilisation proposed by Almirante. So the problem is not then one of the Communist rank and file, if not exactly as a projection, but of the PCI's leaders who are always balancing between

the juridical civilisation of practising Socialism (5) and a humanistic and liberal juridical civilisation; between the Jacobin and Leninist, the Napoleonic and Stalinist cultural and political heritage, and the principles of a left-wing that in Italy has identified with Cesare Beccaria (6), Achille Battaglia and Piero Calamandrei (7).

At this point it is legitimate to express a suspicion and advance a political judgement. The very possibility of dialogue and the premise for any agreement and unity depends on the candour of the respective viewpoints. It is with this candour that I have analysed the choices of the left on life imprisonment and the death penalty, on the Radical referendum and the Almirante campaign. With the same frankness I would like to present a question and a hypothesis. The question is: why, if things are as they say, have the PCI and the PSI chosen among five possible "yes" votes, only two: the ones on life imprisonment and on military courts? A possible reply is that these two leftist parties have assumed this position because otherwise they would not have been able to resolve their contradictions and deny an important part, to my mind essential, of their history and democratic traditions. But perhaps they made this choice without conviction, without believing in its practicability and possibilities of victory. D

id they perhaps decided on it with the mental reservation of not working for it, of not getting their fingers burned, or even of taking its defeat for granted in order then to attribute it to the Radicals' recklessness with referendums, their political incompetence, their meagre sense of the "opportune"?

Is that how it is? I still hope not. The perimeters of possible consensus, even if limited to life imprisonment and military courts, is extremely important. A great democratic and popular victory could still fail, a turning-point in institutional policies, in justice and public order. It could help to cool off the other referendums (on Cossiga, licenses to bear arms and, above all, abortion) and bring them back to a basis of loyal confrontation - to establish these as well on a terrain of confrontation and encounter which would be positive for all, for the entire left and for the country.

But if this should not be the case, let no one delude himself into imagining that we are going to go along with that game, that we will passively accept the part that too cagey groups of leaders would like to assign us. At that point the polemics would also turn against the responsibility of the left, and they would be harsh.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Berlinguer, Enrico (Sassari 1922 - Padua 1984) - Italian politician. Deputy from 1968. Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1974 until his death. After the crisis and assassination of Allende he fathered the "historic compromise" that brought about the so-called "abstention-from-no-confidence majority", the apex of Togliatti's strategy for an organic agreement with the Christian Democrats. It was his project to bring about so-called "Eurocommunism", an attempt at Western reform which would not entirely reject the Communist experience.

2) Almirante, Giorgio - (Salsomaggiore 1914 - Rome 1988) Secretary from 1969 to 1987 of the MSI [Movimento Sociale Italiano or Italian Social Movement], the right-wing party that considers itself the heir of Fascism.

3) Cossiga law - An emergency law for the purpose of fighting terrorism and named for the then Prime Minister who devised it in 1979.

4) »L'Unità - The official Communist party newspaper.

5) "Practising Socialism", a phrase coined by the Radicals and eventually taken up by the rest of the left which refers to Socialism in all of its negative anti-democratic and degenerate party-form aspects as it is practised in the Eastern countries.

6) Beccaria, Cesare - (Milan 1738 - 1794) Essayist, economist, exponent of the Italian Enlightenment. Author of the famous essay »On Crimes and Punishments in which he supports the abolition of the death penalty and of torture.

7) Calamandrei, Piero - (Florence 1889 - 1956) Italian jurist, free-lance journalist and statesman. Drafter of codes even during the Fascist period (as a "technical" consultant), later exponent of the anti-Fascist viewpoint of a progressive tendency. Founder of the review »Il Ponte . Constitutionalist.