ABSTRACT: In the preface to a collection of articles on the Radical party published in the 1979-1980 period, the author reconstructs and analyses the difficult relations between the Radicals and the other left-wing parties, and especially the Communist Party. He analyses some of the reasons of the great political antagonism which for years divided Radicals and Communists: only two great strategies competed in the Italian political scene, that of the PCI and the Radical one.

("The Radicals: comrades, drifters or trouble-makers?", Quaderni radicali, August 1981)

The most appropriate thing about Radicals was probably written by Leonardo Sciascia, in reply to a note published by Eugenio Scalfari (1a) on "La Repubblica" (1): "...He is mistaken at such a point as to believe that I have lost consent among the youth and that, as a Radical deputy, I am bridled by Pannella and Aglietta. He still hasn't understood that among Radicals there is no such thing as bridles".

It is not, of course, simply a question of lack of bridles. It is Sciascia himself who captures the essence and the importance of the Radical "phenomenon": "Concerning that which the Radical Party in its nonviolence is attempting to accomplish and is accomplishing, I think the appropriate word is 'break', in all its moral and metaphorical violence. To break compromises, to break the power patterns, the mafias, to break the plots, the conspiracies of silence; to break that sort of pact between stupidity and violence which manifests itself in Italian affairs; to break the equivalence between power, science and death which seems to be asserting itself in the world; to upset plans, in other words, before they can be made; and so on...

As can be argued by the title of Jean Daniel's recent book, this is the era of rupture - or the moment of rupture. It must not be left to escape amid our indifference, amid our sloth" (2). Of all the documentation in front of me I will choose a small booklet,

published in 1963: "The Radical vote", less than twenty pages, edited by Elio Vittorini (2a), Marco Pannella and Luca Boneschi, containing the indication to vote for "one of the four left-wing parties" (an appeal answered by Vittorini, Pasolini (3a), Gozzi, Risi N., Rendi A. (4a), Rogers, Sorrentino, Roversi (5a), Cagli, Mila, Ceccato (6a), Gaggero, Monteverdi, Sciascia (7a), Eco (8a), Baroncelli D. (9a), Boneschi M. (10a). At the time, Vittorini had accepted to be appointed President of the Radical Party. That was, as we said before, in the beginning of the sixties; ten years before, with the "subtlety" of which he was capable, Togliatti (11a) had written on "Rinascita": "Gone is Vittorini. Alone he has left us" (3).

I would like to open a parenthesis, and quote an excerpt of this "editorial", in many ways an exemplary one. "To say the truth, few among us had realized it. Few have also realized that he was still among us. Vittorini? Yes, he had been with us during the battle against the internal tyranny and against the foreign invader. Just like many others. Neither better or worse, they say...He compares himself with Silone (12a). He is wrong, morally wrong, because Silone is not a good man; but he is wrong also for another reason. When Silone left, or rather, was kicked out of our party (for his part, he would have continued to tell lies and weave plots), it was an important event. Silone helped us, substantially, not only to probe into and meditate, by discussing and fighting, a number of things; but also helped us to recognize a human type, peculiar forms of hypocrisy and disloyalty as regards facts and men. But Vittorini, in what, for what, is he important?...

Vittorini believes that "freedom" will remain for him and for others. But already he is thinking like a slave". Prosit. I think there is enough of that which Giuseppe Saltini calls "lousy and presumptuous post-fascist intelligentsia, ideologically antifascist but substantially demagogic and still now triumphalist, blowing in the Party's horns" (4). Those were the years in which "L'Unita'" merrily announced that "a pamphlet has been released, edited by the PCI's press centre, called "Russia, a free, peaceful and happy country", the first of the series: "The true aspect of Russia", a precious weapon for all the comrades and sincere democrats who, confronted with the spreading campaign of lies against the Soviet Union feel it their duty to unmask the slanderers and to proclaim the sympathy of the Italian people for that country and for socialism" (5).

These were, quite obviously, dark years, years of mental and cultural Middle Age. Silone and Vittorini, it must be said, were not the only ones to be excommunicated because they refused to turn into preachers of the Norm, because they did not want to be the officials of that forced optimism represented by the Single Authorized Speech.

Guttuso (13a) accused Paul Delvaux of producing "cheap pornography" (6); Soldati (14a) was to realize that "sex cannot produce a human problematic but only a sophisticated case-book" (7); Article n.7 of the Concordat had not been voted by the Communists to gain the gratitude of clericals, but "if ever, to do them an ill turn!" (8); Pasolini (15a) and Patroni Griffi (16a) were reprimanded by Giovanni Berlinguer, guilty of having represented, in "Ragazzi di vita" and "Ragazzo di Trastevere", a cabbage thief with a Communist membership card in his pocket, the Party's Sections (please notice the capital letters) as dancing places, one of Otello's "Clients" sympathizing for the left" (9); "A retrospective exhibit of Alberto Savinio and small things by Clerici" were the "modest little altar" of Italian surrealism (10); Camus falsified facts, because he said that "everyone can see, at this stage, that socialism is capable of producing wars just like capitalism" (11); Lawrence was a "typically decadent author, espec

ially an individualist, rebelling against false perspectives" (12); "Lo scialo" by Vasco Pratolini (17a) was an "ugly, boring and dirty" novel (13). That champion of intolerance, Togliatti, wrote (14) that "To listen to Gide (18a) on the problem of the relationships between parties and classes, highlighting everything by identifying the absence of opposition parties in a society void of classes, with the relative terrorism and tyranny, one would feel like telling him to deal with pederasty, in which field he is an expert, but to leave these things, of which he is totally ignorant"...Oh, what a noble, what a deep feeling! Ruggero Guarini (19a) wrote in those years: "The only herald of Good amidst the slough of Western corruption is, of course, the Proletariat, and the only authorized, infallible helmsman is the Party's intelligentsia; zeal, perseverance, discipline and pugnacity, sacrifice and chastity, moderation and confidence in the future, simplicity and sentiment, true suffering and genuine joy of living

- these are, according to the unappealable decree of the helmsman, the unquestionable virtues of the herald..." (15).

I remember an article of the present Prime Minister, senator Giovanni Spadolini (16); he wondered what was left of the Radical movement of the 55-60s, the radical movement of former Liberals such as Leone Cattani, Nicolo' Carandini, Mario Ferrara, Franco Libonati, former members of the Action Party such as Ferruccio Parri, Ugo La Malfa, Mario Paggi, Leo Valiani, Guido Calogero; former members of the Action Party who became socialists, such as Riccardo Lombardi; veteran socialists such as Lelio Basso; writers such as Vitaliano Brancati, Sandro de Feo, Ennio Flaiano; isolated intellectuals such as Gaetano Salvemini and Ernesto Rossi...in today's radical movement, which is the centre of the polemic unleashed these months by the acts and the declarations of the post-referendum Pannella..."Nothing or hardly anything", Spadolini answered. The fact that Pannella "had given up, in these weeks, the symbolic membership of the Radical Party" was not, according to Spadolini, void of meaning. It was an act aimed at under

lining "a position of 'protest' against any political formation, against any constructive and disciplinary pattern". Spadolini's opinion is shared by many, especially by the Communists, who often go beyond. "Because anti-communism, especially when it is concealed and crawling as in the case of the Radicals, must be unmasked, in that it is a general attack to democracy", they often said. "The present radical-oriented movement is totally alien to the controversy, for example, between the Italian Communists and Gaetano Salvemini or Ernesto Rossi or the editors of 'Il Mondo'", Antonello Trombadori states with his usual likeable-disliking impetuosity (17). According to Trombadori (20a), Pannella is not even a Radical: rather, he is a Maximalist or a blunderer" (18) and Radicals should put themselves "in a constructive approach as regards institutions, where they could give their consistent contribution".

This opinion is supported not just by a "free batsman" like Trombadori. It was also expressed by an authoritative communist activist, Emanuele Macaluso: "The central nucleus of the Radical Party was established in the sixties by the group of "Il Mondo", which conducted a battle from a different position as compared to that occupied by Pannella and by his colourful group today. One of the most important fruits of that battle was the constant and biting attack against qualunquismo, against approximation, against demagogy, which are presently Pannella's and his followers' manifesto" (19).

Okay. Today's Radicals are reprobates, traitors of the "Left". The one-time Radicals, on the other hand...

On "Rinascita" of March 1950, Togliatti thus described Salvemini: "Either this man really believes all this nonsense, provided it is of American make and anti-communist, or he is dishonest". What was Salvemini guilty of? He had mentioned the fact that the anarchist Camillo Berneri had been killed by the Communists.

This is Togliatti's version: "Camillo Berneri was an anarchist, and among the anarchists of Barcellona he belonged to that current which in some ways was getting close to the unified socialists, to the Catalan activists and to the republicans, in that he had strongly protested, causing much contrast, against the behaviour of the famous "incontrolados". There followed the well-known revolt of Barcellona in May: a confused series of bloody street battles, home to home, roof to roof, etc. Berneri died in one of such battles: that is all..."

Since then - thirty years have gone by - the Communists have never rectified this version. As a matter of fact, Camillo Berneri was killed in the evening of the 5th of May 1937. Berneri, who lived at number 3 of Plaza del Angel in Barcellona, was abducted from his home together with a comrade of his, Antonio Barbieri, by a group of Communists, and killed. The reconstruction of the Berneri "affair", carried out by Pier Carlo Masini and Alberto Sorti, conceived as an appendix to a collection of works of the anarchist activist (20), has always been denied by the Communists. However, the press organ of the PCI in Paris, "The cry of the people", on May 20 1937, wrote: "Camillo Berneri, one of the leaders of the "Friends of Durruti" group, who, disavowed by the direction of the FAI itself, caused the bloody insurrection against the government of the People's front of Catalogna, was "executed" by the democratic Revolution, to which no antifascist can deny the right to legitimate defence".

If Salvemini was, according to him, a seditious anti-communist gull, or a dishonest person, Ernesto Rossi (21a) was a person whose thought contributed to "the triumph of the reactionaries and of the clericals" (21). The "guilt" of Ernesto Rossi was that of having asserted that the Communists supported certain opinions belonging to the tradition of democratic battle, but that they did so purely as a means to tease those who believed in such things. If they, the Communists, were in power, they would certainly do the same things that the reactionaries do. Thus, Togliatti said, for Ernesto Rossi "freedom is no longer a real historical perspective, it is at best a puzzle of concepts. This is one of the most serious symptoms of the erosion of their political conscience" (22).

As a matter of fact, with the perspective acquired after thirty years in which we witnessed all sorts of things, we can now say that Ernesto Rossi was wrong: the PCI does not support the positions that belong to the democratic tradition: it simply conducts a reactionary policy, that's all. No to everything: no to the referendum; no to the abolition of the laws concerning public order, which are blasphemies that offend the memory of all those who, from Beccaria (22a) to Calamandrei (23), were the fathers of civil rights; no to the lay state, no to an effective and not just mannered anti-militarism; no to a regulation which could really guarantee the possibility of having abortions...

To say these things, the first thing we are accused of is: anti-communism, visceral anti-communism. Now, it would be time to stop it with these idiotic replies: we are all visceral once a day, like all other human beings, excepting complications, and it all ends up by flushing the toilet.

I will try to write down a couple of words on this accusation of anti-communism. What a puzzle, someone might say.

For some time now the Radicals, especially on the occasion of elections, when the party is not present with its own lists, have been accepted among the large family of the "comrades". My God, it's not something to get excited about: to be "comrades", after all, is no extraordinary thing. Renato Curcio (24a) is also a "comrade", and among themselves, Pietro Longo and Luigi Preti also call each other "comrade". Lagorio (25a), who is giving a rather peculiar interpretation of the message of Pertini (26a), is also a "comrade". Let's empty the weapons, which are instruments of death, and fill the barns, which are source of life. What he does is to take the missiles and hide them in the countryside near Comiso (27a); from the barns to the straw-stacks, Pintor (28a) mocked on "Il Manifesto". The Communists are "comrades". Federico Stame (29a), perhaps one of the finest brains of the non-historical left, indulged in what he defined as a "paradox" in the pages of the "Quaderni Piacentini": the paradox is that all mea

ns are legitimate to prevent Pecchioli (30a) from entering government occupying the seat of Internal Minister. There are no doubts - and this is no paradox - that the "public" declarations of Senator Pecchioli prove that, for the well-being of all, he should be excluded from any position of power, now and forever.

I was saying that for some time now the Radicals have been accepted among the "comrades". This occurred when the "others" were forced to deal with them; to say it with simple words, from the moment they obtained votes for 18 deputies, 2 senators, three members of the European Parliament. The hint was taken immediately, and "Rinascita", the Communist magazine, organized a "historical" issue of the "Contemporaneo", the monthly cultural supplement, on "The Radical phenomenon of the seventies",; the dossier is published unabridged in this selection of texts on Radicals from 1979 to 1981. Contributors of the anthology: Boffa, Abruzzese, Badaloni, Baget Bozzo (31a), Boato (32a), Bobbio (33a), Boccia, Bolaffi, Cacciari (34a), Cecchi, Coppola, de Felice (35a), de Giovanni, Gravagnuolo. Natta (36a), Marramao, Panebianco (37a), Pasquinelli, Rodota'(38a), Roversi, Stame, Tranfaglia, Vacca. The debate was subsequently enhanced by the contributions - also published in the present anthology - of Umberto Eco ("L'Espresso"

), Angiolo Bandinelli (39a) ("Rinascita"), Renato Guttuso and Leonardo Sciascia ("L'Espresso").

That supplement to the "Contemporaneo" was interpreted as a sympton that the party of Berlinguer was opening a season of détente with the Radicals. A rather hasty judgement, as facts later proved. Since then the occasions have not been lacking (referendum, d'Urso (40a) affair) for harsh and fierce polemics, accompanied by plenty of insults and falsifications. At the time, howwever, that dossier of "Rinascita" was understood as the closure of a decade during which any approach between the PCI and the Radical Party meant big trouble. The last of such occcasions had occurred some weeks before the elections of June 3. The congresses of the PCI and of the Radical Party were being held simultaneously in Rome. Marco Pannella, from the stand of the congress, referred to the episode of Via Rasella (41a); "Comrades of the PCI, you who are so fierce against people like Renato Curcio, against their mistakes and their despair, give us an explanation for the murder of 33 boys from the Alto Adige in Via Rasella, who were g

uilty simply of wearing a different uniform and following which the comrades of Freedom and Justice and the Jews died at the Ardeatine!" The essence of the speech was that both the partisan commando of Via Rasella, both Curcio and comrades, were inspired by the same terrorist philosophy that was to be strongly condemned. After that the discussion went on for a long time (23). At the time, however, Giorgio Amendola (42a) and Luciano Lama accused Pannella of being a fascist, while Antonello Trombadori denounced him. "Neo-Qualunquismo", and other such exegeses ranging from D'Annunzio (43a) to Guglielmo Giannini (44a) were the glossary for the pre-electoral expressions of the Communist commentators, who were called upon to proclaim their act of faith on the "Radical" danger.

It is perhaps useful to go through, even if briefly, the stages of twenty years of kicks and caresses. More kicks than caresses.

The first "polemic" dates back to 1959. In March of that year the "Paese Sera" published an article by Marco Pannella, at the time leader of the Radical left. Pannella wanted to open up a relationship with the Communist party, without hiding, but on the contrary underlining, the substantial differences, and the necessity for a confrontation between the Communist conception and the democratic, left-wing conception. Togliatti answered on the pages of the "Paese Sera", abruptly dismissing the whole thing: "We cannot accept these polemics concerning the policies carried out by the PCI".

A few years later, between 1961 and 1964, during the Italian council for peace, there followed meetings and conflicts between Radicals and Communists: in favour of disarmament, against the blocks, against nuclear energy the former; heralds of the necessity of bilateral agreements between the two blocks the latter. It is in those years that the term "neo-qualunquista" was invented, naturally directed at the Radicals. Another occasion for polemics was offered by an interview to Pannella on "Nuova Repubblica", the review of the presidential movement headed by Pacciardi (45a); topic of the interview: the developing of corporative elements in the Italian State. The Communist Party reacted immediately through the person of Maurizio Ferrara on the pages of "L'Unita'": "The true nature of a character who has been present these last times in the left political milieu has been unveiled; that of being a comrade of Pacciardi". The expression "Radical-fascists" was also invented in that period. The time was ripe for one

of the few, serious reforms accomplished in Italy, divorce. The Radicals supported the necessity to create a lay front, ranging from the Liberals to the Communists, to defeat the Christian-Democrat Party and the Church. The Communist accused the Radicals of being accomplices of the extremist clericals of Gabrio Lombardi. The Radicals wanted the referendum to divide the country, they said.

With the Radicals present in Parliament in 1976, we enter recent history. Those are the years of the national unity, the Communists were virtually the majority. The "pile-up" was born. As a democratic, lay, left-wing opposition there were the Radical deputies inside Parliament and outside, and the civil rights activists collecting signatures to summon the referendum. Natta labeled this intitiative "a clear attempt to be of hindrance, causing occasions for polemics in the difficult task of the unity of the democratic forces". The Radicals were accused of being irresponsible trouble-makers; on like this until the 1979 elections, and the sixteen pages of "Rinascita" with its 24 opinions on Radicals, containing much criticism, even stinging one, but not one word of invective.

Columnist Rita Tripodi of "L'Espresso" collected the opinions of some Communist exponents, on what the party should have done with Radicals initiatives, programmes and themes.

In synthesis, the answers were three:

a) The Radicals invented nothing.

b) Their initiatives are good, but they lack a comprehensive political project.

c) They invented a new way of conducting politics, and the Communists must acknowledge this.

"Civil rights are the ancient heritage of the PCI" - Maurizio Ferrara said - they were not invented by Pannella, and the Radicals can do their part today because the Communists and the workers' movement have done and continue to do their part. It must however be acknowledged that the Radicals are brilliant propagandists of the new forms of political battle: marches, fasts, which we often found laughable, have undoubtedly been successful".

According to the writer-member of Parliament-sentinel Edoardo Sanguineti: "A whole series of problems, ranging from the condition of women to sexual discrimination, are presented by the Radicals with a moralistic kind of approach, in terms of an injustice against nature, whereas in the PCI they are viewed as social injustices. Generally speaking, the Radical attitude is a moralist-psychological attitude, with prevalently bourgeois characteristics. Even their obstructionism in Parliament has all the characteristics of a sabotage against institutions, which obtains people's consent because it involves the consideration of politics as being something dirty".

Biagio de Giovanni, a communist intellectual (one of the persons who intervened on "Rinascita") said that the Radicals' battles, those concentrated on the referendum to be more precise, are "based on detail, they prevent people from seeing in which political dimension the goal is set against. What are they aiming at? In any case I am in favour - de Giovanni says - of all battles that bring politics closer to real life, and cannot deny that the Radicals have sent this strong signal".

Antonello Trombadori acknowledged the fact that the Radicals "often subject issues of vital importance which others neglect, except when they are demagogic (against the public financing of political parties) or secretly trouble-makers (against the Reale law (46a) or against General Della Chiesa (47a). In any case, the praise-worthy themes of the Radicals are valid only if the masses accept them and experience them as a field for unitary progress". After this original thesis on the value of themes, of a clear Leninist nature, let's hear Mario Spinella, an intellectual who for years ran the party school in Bologna. The PCI, according to Spinella, has already started to take many themes presented by the Radicals. "Their attitude on homosexuals, for example, has changed. But there is also the problem on how things are formulated. There are forms of political imagination which are no doubt effective, and which correspond to the so-called "show civilization", which is questionable, but in which we must live".

What Spinella says is partly true: the attitude of the PCI has changed concerning homosexuals; their letters are published on "Rinascita" and "L'Unità"; the left-wing administration of the municipality of Rome organizes conventions with the cooperation of the FUORI! (.) (to remark that all this occurs during the electoral campaign period is of bad taste and mean); perhaps the leadership of the party will soon establish a civil rights, homosexual, lesbian and transsexual section. We shall see.

For the moment, let's make sure that Pannella is not the only one to fast. The prisoner, the pensioner, the homeless, the teacher of L'Aquila, the Neapolitan patient who wants to be operated and instead lies in a hospital room also go on hinger strikes.

The signatures for petitions, referendums, draft bills are collected by everyone, every occasion is good for asking autographs. Even the PCI organizes marches, and sometimes protest sit-ins. If the Radicals used to conduct politics even with music, by organizing demonstrations in Piazza Navona, now councillor Nicolini organizes concerts in Massenzio, and the results of his 'Roman summer' (48a) can be reckoned in terms of preference votes in the elections...If in Piazza Navona you hear music, you go there and you find out that the concert was organized by the Socialists of the Roman federation, or by the UIL (49a). The "instruments" for political battle, non-violence, civil disobedience, become not only a Radical prerogative; even those who "laughed" about these things, as Ferrara said before, have started using them.

All well? My foot!

Among the articles contained in this anthology I would like to underline especially that by Michelangelo Notarianni, "Pannella the politician", published on the "Manifesto"; an article to cut out and keep.

Notarianni, commenting on the works of the XXV Radical congress, remarked that "in international politics, in the battle against starvation and rearmament, the Radical Party identifies the main area of contrast with the Socialist Party, the axis of its renewed political intiative and the inevitable opening of an area of confrontation with the Communist politics and traditions".

The issue therefore is broader. What we said before about the PCI wanting to build itself a new "face", so to say, is true; and the fact that Ferrara (always Ferrara), in a speech at the XXV Congress in Bologna, addressing himself in an open letter to the Radicals, started with: "Dear Radical comrades", is not void of meaning...

But there are other things to be said; in June 1979 the Communist leadership, after a meeting in which the trend of the electoral campaign had been examined, stated that "the coming up once again of a political behaviour triggered by the Radical Party and characterized by a confused piling up of different forces and issues, by the complete absence of political and programmatic choices and proposals, therefore such as to determine a right-wing, Qualunquista movement, dangerous for republican institutions and for democracy, cannot be regarded but with concern". Paolo Spriano, the authoritative author of the history of the Communist Party, wrote that the Radicals were the "neo-Qualunquisti" (24) and Giglia Tedesco warned that there was no need for the Radicals (25). Paolo Franchi joined in, adding to this that the Radicals were a symbol of the crisis affecting our democracy (26).

The reasons and the occasions of these polemics are all too known, we have already mentioned them: in Parliament and in the country, the Radicals had found themselves countless times the object of Communist criticism, because of the initiatives on the Concordat, on abortion, on the RAI-Tv being split into areas of political influence, on civil rights. Maximalists, so they were labeled. The most frequent reprimand was: even if they claim so, these people have nothing to do with veteran Radicals, the "genuine Radicals"; they are not the heirs of Ernesto Rossi, of the "Mondo", they are rather a scum, a motley crowd of "lascivious people, poofs and naked cows, Godiva-style" (27). As we can see, they were forgetting about the polemics of Togliatti when he attacked Salvemini, Rossi, Bobbio.

Perhaps the "comrades" were forgetting what the ineffable Palmiro replied to the objections: "There is no bread without freedom, precisely that contemptible bourgeois freedom": "If you happen to be near a journalist of "Il Mondo", watch your wallet! He may be a a liberal, left-wing or right-wing, an anticlerical, or a bigot; but he is bound to be a thief" (28).

I really don't know whether Berlinguer was also thinking about these things, when he said: "Politics existed in '45, in '48 and still in the fifties and up to the end of the sixties. Great debates, great conflict of ideas, and certainly of hefty interests, but enlightened by clear perspectives, even if different ones, and by the resolve to ensure the common well-being. What passion there was then, what enthusiasm, what bloody rage! Above all there was the effort to understand the reality of the country and to interpret it. And opponents used to esteem each other. De Gasperi (50a) esteemed Togliatti and Nenni (51a), and in spite of polemic tones, was esteemed by them" (29). Maybe so. However, given that the we do not much like the new face of the PCI, the one mourned by Berlinguer is even less likeable; but back to our epoch. It should be courageously acknowledged - instead of mourning the past - that in all these years the left - and the culture it produced - have refused to accept Radical proposals and th

eses which represented, first of all, a theoretical datum postulating a challenge to the intelligence of today's society and of state institutions. It is that challenge, that debate which had been solicited already in 1959, with the above mentioned article by Pannella on the "Paese Sera", in which two themes, later to become the central point of the radical strategy, were specified: the necessity of an alliance of all the left, including the PCI; and the formulation of a candidature proposition of the left for government, by means of a "democratic alternative" of government. The quest for a dialogue between the "democratic left" and the PCI was meant, already at the time, not just like a front-like alliance, but in a positive sense as a platform for alternative reform of the government, capable of setting itself in an international context and have, as effective interlocutors, the European social democracies and unions. Togliatti dismissed the whole thing, without examining the question, but simply defending

the traditional behaviours of the European Communist parties.

Now, after twenty years, the Christian Democrat Party - and the conservative block which this party represents - seems destined to a catastrophe, because of a number of scandals and a decaying process which seems to find no halt. The impression is that the tragical prophecy made by Moro is coming true, when he forecasted a terrible period; at the same time the wish is coming true for a "freedom" which Moro, in the last days of his life, acquired with "immense pleasure"; we are, in fact, losing all the Christian Democrat leaders one by one, buried by scandals and internal battles.

All this occurs in a country which - the results of the recent referendum prove this - possesses an unquestionable lay aspect where the catholic vote is the minority. Immediately after the vote for the 1981 referendum, we witnessed a certain festive exuberance on the part of the PCI. It cannot be denied that the double NO on abortion prevailed, and the Radicals cannot proclaim themselves the winners. But there is more to these referendum results, and it is that which emerges from the votes on the referendum against life sentence.

The left obtained only half of the votes which it was legitimate to expect. Why? The PCI says that there wasn't the time to carry out debates, to discuss, to talk to people. This explanation is original. To explain that the life sentence is intolerable in Italy, a country which claims the noblest and most traditional values of its ancient culture and civilization, the PCI allegedly waited the three months of referendum campaign (which was carried out scarcely and poorly). And what have they been doing up to now? In what has the commitment to diffuse a better and different, reactionary and bourgeois culture among the "masses" translated itself?

And they mean to say that they have not found the time to "talk" even in the Emilia-Romagna region, even in Bologna, where they have been ruling for thirty years?

"Il Resto del Carlino" reports that only the citizens of Crespellano, a small town near Bologna, has a majority been achieved in favour of the abrogation of life sentence; a scanty majority, in any case; 50,2%, in the last elections the PCI and the PSI had polled 77%. Therefore, in the "Red region" (52a) there hadn't been the time to discuss, to debate, to talk, to convince. Or is there more to it? It will be necessary to ask ouselves which have been the insufficiencies, the shortcomings of the left. You reap the whirlwind only if you sow wind. And the left sowed much wind. It witnessed, without reacting, the great fuss made on social alarmism, except when it did not provide it with theoretical form and dignity; it accepted the fact that the battle against terrorism was conducted with dangerous, useless and wrong means. It found no alternatives, it conducted its governmental bluffs. It was satisfied with the fact that within the left there was still a consistent component imbued with an authoritative cultur

e which considers justice more in "biblical" terms than in "evangelical" terms, at such a point that it justified the 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' philosophy, and perhaps resolves - it has already happened - to sign the proposal to restore the death penalty, which is "in force even in Russia".

Therefore the country in which we live is the country of common sense and mediocrity. It has given up on being fairer, stronger, more free by abolishing the Cossiga law, the life sentence, the weapon permit; it is a lay Italy in which there is a consistent minority on decidely liberal positions and another, more consistent minority on reactionary and clerical positions; the majority, on the other hand, is strongly lay, tolerant, and at the same time eager to have order, seecurity and authority. A majority which has no problem whatsoever in cohabiting with a law which has a single norm, sometimes useful in the battle against terrorism (the norm on "repentants"), and which doesn't care about the fact that people can remain in jail - possibly innocent - awaiting a trial.

Rossana Rossanda (53a), who writes her articles with her brain as well as with her heart, published an intelligent article on the "Manifesto" with the title: "Antipathetic considerations". Rossanda says that in that occasion we had been less intelligent than usual, and that it was necessary to say so, if ever to "go against the fake and superficial general satisfactions".

Let's make some of these "antipathetic considerations". Starting from the fact that the voting on the referendum has clearly shown that there are only two competing strategies, that of the PCI and that of the Radical Party. Still "today" the essential questions, the "fields" in which it is necessary to discuss and look for answers, are the same as "yesterday's": which right? Which state? Which "class"? Which "internationalism"? Violence or non-violence? Bandinelli was asking himself and others, in contrast with Sechi (54a) (30). And so on. "Antipathetic considerations" are to be made, however, also looking inside the Radical Party. Immediately after the voting on the referendum, we started wondering if perhaps the referendum strategy had not encountered as crisis, if the problem had not arisen on which we had often discussed: to simply be a movement or a less informal party.

1981 undoubtedly proves the fact that there are people working to achieve this first hypothesis; others instead claim the necessity to embody the second project. In an interview to "L'Espresso", Giuseppe Rippa (55a) gave an opinion which, in spite of the brevity due to editing space, focuses on the core of the question: the Radical Party can still become the mass party of a post-industrial society. Provided that it doesn't destroy itself before that.

Commenting on the results of the referendum, Ernesto Galli della Loggia wrote a note on "L'Espresso" of which I'm quoting an excerpt, it contains some things which appear to me as very correct, and on which I believe it is wise to meditate (31).

Galli della Loggia states that "...if ever the day of the referendum has yielded a surpise, this has been offered by the Radicals. And it has been a negative surprise under all aspects, first of all for those who insist in considering the Radicals as the best thing that the Italian political context can offer. First of all, their reaction to defeat: that attitude of theirs of refusing to acknowledge it, that of blaming others (?) or the electors was a sorrow spectacle which reminded me of Covelli (56a) and Saragat (57a) at their best. All were accused: the press (okay, but in '74 on the abortion referendum all the press was against Fanfani, these are the rules), the "Soviet" influence of the PCI on its electors (what do they mean? if in '78 and '79 there was a propaganda on the "secularization" of the electorate), the lies of the opponents (but why, then, had they remained uneffective in other occasions?), and much more. But not one word of self-criticism was uttered: in spite of the fact that it was strongl

y needed. The results of the 17-18 May represent the possibly irreversible crisis of the "referendum project" with which the Radicals had thought of launching their attack on the system of parties which dominates in Italy. The referendum had the purpose of opposing civil society to the parties, thus destroying the latter with a gust of delegitimation: according to the Radicals the civil society, the electorate (and mainly the left-wing electorate), was against the party system in the name of ideals which can be called libertarian - pacifist - anti-industrial. The essence of the protest against the political system, in other words, was to be an ideological essence well rooted into the tradition of the left, and which the parties of the left allegedly betrayed. Completely wrong. Society's protest against the parties and the government the latter express has been, in Italy, for several years, first of all a protest against the wide-spread corruption, against the incapacity to rule, it is a request for efficien

cy, order and security. It may well be that such request has been given a leftist ideological aspect, but precisely this is the challenge to be won, the problem to be faced: to achieve which, the referendum instrument is in the long run inadequate.

The evening of the 18th of May the Radicals consoled themselves by saying that in any case their party (but hadn't the partisan logic been banned?) has tripled their "audience". Even if that was true, it must be clearly said that a party with 7-8% of votes, consisting in champions of the anti-nuclear battle, disarmament and battle against starvation, has the same chances to be of some use, be it for the left or for the country, of a party of 10% of extremist pro-Soviets or of any other "crazy" faction Providence chooses to provide us with".

This was Ernesto Galli della Loggia (58a). As I said before, these are things on which it would be extremely wise to meditate. It reminds me of a symptomatic, so to say, episode which I was given the opportunity to witness. I was at the seaside, on a beach crowded with people, the way the beaches of the Adriatico can be in summer. There were people sun-bathing, and in the mean while they were talking, with the tones and the accents tyical of people who are on holidays: life, problems, work, politics. Then they played the game of the tower: who would you push down from the tower, Berlinguer, Craxi, Pannella?

A massacre. They were pushing down everyone, saving no one.

Now, I believe that it must be acknowledged that the day of reckoning comes for everything. Some of the problems were identified, I believe, by Giuseppe Rippa in a recent article (32): "...it must be discussed and verified if and why in the crisis and in the transformation of politics, the hegemony role of the Radical Party runs the risk of being subdued. If the reasons for this must be sought for also in the incapacity of the Radicals themselves to transform themselves in the facts and in politics, because of certain essential defects, into protagonists of the democratic and libertarian change..." The game is still open, we shall see. For the moment I'm interested in recalling a part of the "Seventh Paragraph" of the speech Pier Paolo Pasolini was to deliver at the Radical Congress in 1975, had he not been killed the day before:

"...By means of the Marxists-oriented adoption of civil rights on the part of the extremists I mentioned in the first paragraph of this speech, civil rights have become a part not only of the conscience, but also of the dynamics of the whole progressive political leadership in Italy. I'm not referring to your supporters. I'm not referring to those you reached in far away and various places: a fact of which you are legitimately proud of. I'm talking about the socialist intellectuals, the left-wing catholic intellectuals, the intellectuals generally speaking: in this mass of intellectuals - thanks to your achievements - the irregular passion for freedom has been codified, it has acquired the certainty of conformism, and even (thanks to a model always "imitated" by young extremists), of terrorism and demagogy..."

Now, I believe that the "barbarians have already entered the cities", and maybe it is no longer possible to defeat them. But I wish to finish with a smile, and therefore dedicate a poem, which I recently fell upon, to all of us, libertarian radicals, non-violents, pacifists. The poem is by Roberto Roversi from Bologna, it's called: "Tragedy of a true sage in the month of April".

An old sage,

(his name I know, but say not)

with his right hand wrote

in the book of truth

while with the left

caressed the moon

suspended in the sky.

Then the moon fell into the sea

being it the month of April

and went fishing with a shoal of tuna fish.

The sage remained alone

and continues to write, to poetize

but he is bored

because he no longer knows

what to do with the left hand

And finds no joy.

Enough. Finished. Even though I realize I barely touched on the problem.

This is a problem to be continued.

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

(1) Leonardo Sciascia, "Le chiare spiegazioni di chi non ha capito", "Corriere della Sera" 4 July 1980; also published in "La palma va a nord", anthology of works by Leonardo Sciascia, "Quaderni Radicali".

(2) Leonardo Sciascia, "no all'indifferenza, no all'ignavia", "Notizie Radicali", 15 May 1979; also published in "La palma va a nord".

(3) Palmiro Togliatti, "Rinascita" 8-9, 1951; also published in "I corsivi di Rodrerigo", De Donato.

(4) Giuseppe Saltini, "L'utile pratico e la sua venerazione" in "I primi della classe", SugarCo.

(5) F.F., "Unità" 31 October 1946.

(6) Renato Guttuso, "Rinascita", June 1954.

(7) "L'Unità", 20 January 1956.

(8) "Rinascita", March 1949.

(9) Giovanni Berlinguer, "L'Unità", 29 July 1955.

(10) Paolo Ricci, "L'Unità", 25 June 1954.

(11) Carlo Salinari, "Il Contemporaneo", 5 January 1956.

(12) "L'Unità", 7 September 1956.

(13) Carlo Salinari, "Il Contemporaneo", July-August 1960.

(14) Palmiro Togliatti, "L'Unità", 9 June 1950.

(15) Ruggero Guarini, "Quel monotono delirio", in "I primi della classe", SugarCo.

(16) Giovanni Spadolini, "La battaglia dei radicali", "Corriere della Sera", 25 July 1974; also published in "Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(17) Antonello Trombadori, "Il PCI, replica a Pannella: troppo vittimismo", "Corriere della Sera" 14 December 1976; also published in "Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(18) Antonello Trombadori, "L'astio del PCI", "Panorama", 4 January 1977; also published in ""Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(19) Emanuele Macaluso, "Dire no a tutto per rendere ingovernabile la Repubblica", "L'Unità" 10 May 1979.

(20) Pier Carlo Masini and Alberto Sorti, "Pietroburgo 1917, Barcellona 1937", SugarCo.

(21) Palmiro Togliatti, "Rinascita" n.10, 1952.

(22) Palmiro Togliatti, "Rinascita" n.10, 1952.

(23) Referring to the debate organized for "Quaderni Radicali". In n.5-6 the unabridged text of the interventions of Marco Pannella is available. In n.7 the interventions of Bobbio, Baget Bozzo, Guiducci. In n.8-9 those of Bandinelli, Galli della Loggia, Ronfani, Roversi, Sechi, Stame, Pannella. In n.10 those of Alfassio Grimaldi, Saltini, Mughini, Tarizzo, Timpanaro. In n.11-12 those of Bocca, Del Buono, Lombardo, Manconi, Scalia, Settembrini. It it also useful to refer to the interview granted by Pannella to Tajani for "Il Settimanale", and published in the book "Noi e i fascisti", "Quaderni Radicali".

(24) Paolo Spriano, "Il nuovo qualunquismo", "L'Unità", 3 May 1979, also published in "Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(25) Giglia Tedesco, "Non ci serve certo Pannella", "Rinascita", 11 May 1977, also in "Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(26) Paolo Franchi, "Marco Pannella, un simbolo della crisi della nostra democrazia. Un radicale all'americana", "Paese Sera", 6 April 1979; aslo published in "Il pugno e la rosa", Bertani.

(27) Maurizio Ferrara, "Er trionfo della LID", a sonet, 15 May 1974; included in the collection "Er compromesso rivoluzzionario".

(28) Palmiro Togliatti, "Rinascita", 1951.

(29) Enrico Berlinguer, interview to Eugenio Scalfari, "La Repubblica", 28 July 1981.

(30) Angiolo Bandinelli, "Polemica con Salvatore Sechi. Per chi suona la campana?", "Il Messaggero", 2 June 1981.

(31) Ernesto Galli della Loggia, "Era prevedibile", in "L'Espresso", 31 May 1981.

(32) Giuseppe Rippa, "Dove vanno i radicali?" in "Quaderni radicali",n.11-12.

_______________________

Translator's notes:

(1)a Eugenio Scalfari: editor of "La Reppubblica",

Socialist.

(2)a Elio Vittorini: Sicilian writer, sympathizer of the

PCI, former President of the Radical Party.

(3)a Pier Paolo Pasolini: Italian writer

(4)a Aloisio Rendi: Radical activist

(5)a Roberto Roversi: poet

(6)a Silvio Ceccato: semiologist

(7)a Leonardo Sciascia: writer

(8)a Umberto Eco: writer

(9)a Diego Baroncelli: Radical exponent

(10)a Mario Boneschi: Radical exponent

(11)a Togliatti: former Secretary of the PCI

(12)a Ignazio Silone: writer

(13)a Renato Guttuso: painter

(14)a Mario Soldati: writer

(15)a Pier Paolo Pasolini, author of "Ragazzi di vita"

(16)a Patroni Griffi, author of "Ragazzo di Trastevere"

(17)a Vasco Pratolini: writer

(18)a André Gide: French writer

(19)a Ruggero Guarini: journalist

(20)a Antonello Trombadori: Communist exponent

(21)a Ernesto Rossi: one of the founders of the R.P.

(22)a Cesare Beccaria: illuminist contrary to the death penalty, author of "Dei delitti e delle pene".

(23)a Piero Calamandrei: jurist

(24)a Renato Curcio: founder of the Red Brigades

(25)a Lello Lagorio: former Defence Minister

(26)a Sandro Pertini: partisan and former President of the Italian republic

(27)a Comiso: Sicilian U.S military base

(28)a Maurizio Pintor: editor of the Communist-oriented daily newspaper "Il Manifesto".

(29)a Federico Stame: exponent of the extra-parliamentary left

(30)a Ugo Pecchioli: exponent of the PCI.

(31)a Baget Bozzo: priest, deputy of the Socialist Party

(32) Marco Boato: founder of the extreme left organization "Lotta continua".

(33) Norberto Bobbio: jurist.

(34)a Massimo Cacciari: Communist deputy.

(35)a Renzo De Felice: historian.

(36)a Alessandro Natta: former secretary of the PCI.

(37)a Panebianco: political analyst, columnist, member of the Radical Party.

(38)a Alberto Rodotà: jurist.

(39)a Angiolo Bandinelli: Radical.

(40)a Giovanni D'Urso: judge kidnapped by the Red Brigades.

(41)a Via Rasella: Partisan attack on the Nazis which engendered a massacre. Following this episode the Nazis, under the command of Kappler, killed three Italians for each dead Nazi at the Fosse Ardeatine.

(42)a Giorgio Amendola: founder of the PCI.

(43)a Gabriele D'Annunzio: writer.

(44)a Guglielmo Giannini: founder of the "Qualunquista" movement.

(45)a Randolfo Pacciardi: partisan of the Resistence.

(46)a "Reale law": antiterrorist law.

(47)a Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa: General of the Carabinieri murdered by the mafia in Palermo in 1982.

(48)a Roman Summer: Communist councillor Nicolini organized a series of cultural events open to all.

(49)a UIL: Socialist union.

(50)a Alcide De Gasperi: former leader of the Christian Democrat Party.

(51)a Pietro Nenni: Former Secretary of the Socialist Party.

(52)a "Red region": thus called because of the traditional strong Communist presence.

(53)a Rossana Rossanda: columnist for "Il Manifesto".

(54)a Alberto Sechi: columnist.

(55)a Giuseppe Rippa: Radical

(56)a Covelli: President of the Italian Monarchic Party. Created a coalition with the Fascist Party headed by Almirante

(57)a Giuseppe Saragat: Former Secretary of the Italian Social-Democrat Party.

(58)a Galli Della Loggia: columnist.