ABSTRACT: A few proposals for the imminent Congress of the Radical Party (Rome, 26, 27, 28 February 1987): creation of the transnational party; nonviolent destabilization of totalitarian regimes; adoption of a new symbol, no longer to be used in electoral competitions; proposal for the presence of lists of "Federalist and Republican Front for Reform" at the elections, striving for the adoption of the uninominal electoral system.

(CORRIERE DELLA SERA, 21 February 1987)

The Radical Party is experiencing an unprecedented moment of grace. The quality of the almost 10.000 members for 1987 combines itself to that of the hundred most "significant" non-Italians, whose global stories represent a section of the tragedy and nobility of our time, without possible comparisons with any other current political formation.

Thirty years cement themselves through unimagined ways: from Ernesto Rossi (1) and Leonid Pljusce, from Mario Pannunzio (2) to Eugene Ionesco, from Vittorini (3) to Marck Halter, from Ursula Spinelli (4) to Rita Levi Montalcini (5), from Elena Croce to Avital Sharanskj and Vassilj Leontieff, from Mario Ferrara to Emanuele Gazzo, not to mention the preeminent journalists, parliamentarians and politicians who have paid the token of hope and strength, of tolerance and civil action, the artists of all types, the hundreds and hundreds of people who, honouring themselves, their own and other people's tragedy, have offered and continue to offer fraternity to the Radical party, from personal stories of convictions and penalties, prisons and hallucinating stories, "out of gratitude" toward the most intimate and dangerous rivals of yesterday.

Symbols have an importance, be it positive or negative, but they have it, and a major one. To make an example in Italy, Mimmo Modugno (6) who wants to sing "Volare!" at the opening of our Congress - he who is so shy, so vulnerable still, so self-demanding and generous, as a sign of the victory of freedom, of the individual versus adversities and despair. Whether he succeeds or not, it is an act of civil poetry which belongs to other times, the memory of which has been lost. At least ten thousand of the members since October, one thousand of whom are well beyond middle age, had never joined any party before. In 1967, it was Loris Fortuna (7) who gave the following answer to the journalists: "The radicals? You've got it all wrong: they are the most incredible activators of democracy and of people's institutional and civil action". At our Congress, Bukowskj delivered a sort of invective: "Dissolve? You have no right to. You claim that in Italy people are not given the chance to know you adequately? I don't beli

eve it. But even if it were true, I tell you have no right, because in the U.S.S.R. and in the oppressed countries and hearts you are known and judged, and you cannot betray them..."

Captain Sankara, the military "dictator" as much as the honest, gentle, honourable and old-fashioned follower of Mazzini (8) ("La Patrie ou la mort: on vaincra!") of Burkina Faso, who blesses us and lets his foreign minister, Basile Giussou, join the Radical Party of nonviolence and who recovers "Novalis' dream" to speak of his country's expectations...And the theologians, the priests and the Catholic religious.

Now we have no other choice but to create that lay, tolerant, nonviolent party of the right to life and of the life of rights which the manifesto-appeal of one hundred Nobel Prize winners urges. But is it feasible? The problem is being equipped for the purpose day by day, passing through the eye of the needle of our life.

Following are a number of proposals for the imminent congress of the Radical Party:

1) The Radical Party must aim at thousands more non-Italian members by November, with the purpose of creating an International Party, beside the obsolete Party Internationals, for a campaign and a project of Gandhian, nonviolent and mass action for the creation of the United States of political democracy, in Europe and of Europe, in the Middle East area (starting from Israel) and in the African one. A "government of things", of institutions, of market and autonomy is necessary for the safety of the ecosystem, for security and defence, for a technological revolution based on the rules of freedom and the rule of law, of market and autonomy, on a continental scale: European Union now, as it is proposed by the draft Treaty passed by the European Parliament, after three years of struggle and work, with the animation of Altiero Spinelli (9).

2) The Radical Party must mobilize, and incessantly recreate itself, making full and aggressive use of the weapons of nonviolence, of democracy, of the "political" affirmation of human rights, setting the example of the most intransigent commitment for civil liberties in the "Western" area where it operates, in order to better determine a policy of destabilization of the regimes included in the Soviet totalitarian imperial system, that is, convincing and proposing every responsible impulse of liberation and revolt;

3) The Radical Party must therefore increasingly assert itself as "transnational" and "transparty", aiming at the objective of a major federalist and federal State and at that of an "Anglo-Saxon" structure of continental democracy, aimed at a correct democratic management and no longer at the "Lebanese" institutionalization of ideological pluralism. To do this, the party must rule out any further use of its symbol (do be adopted ex novo), with the probable exception of the upcoming political elections in Italy, in national electoral constituencies. It must therefore increasingly and exclusively propose itself as a "second party", in the same sense of the expression "second newspaper", confirming the exclusion of any discipline, continuing to reform itself yearly on precise objectives, with all those who express "consent" by joining it.

In conclusion: a) lists of "federalist and republican Front for Reform" at the upcoming elections for the renewal of the Senate, with the announcement that the successful candidates will propose the adoption of a uninominal system if the Front obtains more than 30% of votes (it should currently count on 26%) as the first act of the legislature; b) lists of the Radical Party at the elections for the renewal of the Chamber, for the last time, with the reasonable hope of reaching and overcoming the MSI as first "minor" party, later to be dissolved into a single parliamentary group with the other lay parties. For the Congress of the end of the year, scientifically prepare the transnational reprise of the major campaign for the right to life (new campaign for Africa, for the political unification of Europe and part of Africa through the "blooming of the Sahara", the defeat of starvation and the integration of hundreds of thousands of European in the populations of that area), for the right to life and a "just jus

tice system", for an honest and democratic information, which is the ultimate condition of democracy.

In Italy, we should immediately see to the conversion and the dissolution of DC, PCI and the "first reformative force" itself, which we will have created, in order to redistribute ourselves according to the Anglo-Saxon two-party system in the various institutional, social and regional realities.

In order to carry on in the direction of these and other "new radical absurdities", if the Congress (and those who are reading us) will support them, I will run for first secretary of the Radical Party for seven months, until October, asking everyone to give us the strength for these hopes, with the joy of joining the party.

Translator's notes

(1) Ernesto Rossi (1897-1967): Italian journalist and politician.

Leader of Giustizia e Libertà (1929), he was arrested in 1930 for his antifascist activity. After the war he promoted the European Federalist Movement and was one of the founders of the Radical Party. His best known work is "I padroni del vapore" (1955).

(2) Mario Pannunzio (1910-1968): Editor of the newspaper "Risorgimento Liberale" (1943-47) and of the weekly "Il Mondo" (1949-66).

(3) Elio Vittorini (1908-1966): Italian writer. Collaborated at "Solaria", and introduced American fiction in Italy with the anthology "Americana" (1942). His works of fiction include "Il garofano rosso" (1933-34), "Uomini e no" (1945), "Il Sempione strizza l'occhia al Frejus" (1947).

(4) Ursula Spinelli: wife of Altiero Spinelli.

(5) Rita Levi Montalcini: Italian scientists. Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1986.

(6) Mimmo Modugno: popular Italian singer.

(7) Loris Fortuna: Italian parliamentarian who introduced the bill on divorce which was passed by Parliament.

(8) Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872): Italian politician. Imprisoned in 1830 and exiled in 1931, he settled in France, where he founded "La Giovine Italia" (1831), with a unitarian and republican program based on the initiative of the young and of the popular masses. After the failed expedition on the Savoie and the attempted rebellion in Genua (1834), he fled to Switzerland, where he created "La Giovine Europa". He contributed in the foundation of the Union of Italian Workers, the first labour union in Italy. An interclassist, he opposed revolutionary violence, had a religious conception of life and believed in a profound idealization of political action.

(9) Altiero Spinelli (1907): Italian politician. Leader of the Italian Communist Party's youth organization, he was arrested in 1927 and convicted by the special court. During his imprisonment he abandoned communism and in Ventotene, where he was confined, drafted the program of the European federalist Movement (1941) with Ernesto Rossi. After participating in the Resistance as a member of the Partito d'Azione, he was appointed secretary of the Federalist Movement (1948) and strived for the constitution of the European Federation. In 1970 he was appointed member of the Commission of the European Communities.