ABSTRACT: The Radical Party is now about to change from being a specifically Italian party in order to create for the first time a political unit of a truly trans-national kind and to confront those problems which by their very nature must necessarily be dealt with on a supra-national scale. An appeal to the citizens of Europe to declare their interest in this project and take out membership in the Radical Party during the next party congress.

(NOTIZIE RADICALI No. 227 of October 1, 1987)

Non-violent. Lay and Socialist. Libertarian. Ecological and European federalist. This is the Radical Party as it has been according to its own adversaries who have been obliged to recognise that its battles and victories have profoundly changed the laws, customs and life of an entire country. In a backward, clerical and militarist Italy divorce, abortion, new family legislation, conscientious objection, the vote for eighteen-year- olds, the abolition of the Concordat between Church and State, women's liberation and sexual liberation have all become realities.

With a million votes and members in the Italian and European Parliaments, the Radical Party continues to be a "scandalous party": its members practice civil disobedience and accept gaol sentences just in order to win different laws and rights that are more humane and civil.

In Italy they block the construction of dozens of nuclear power plants, promote the referendum on atomic energy and fight for the protection of the environment and against hunting.

Contrary to the death penalty and to life imprisonment, committed to defending the rights of those in prison, it is the Radicals who are fighting for the reform of a system of justice that has been condemned by Amnesty International and by European courts of justice, as well as for the reduction of the limits on preventive detention, for the civil responsibility of judges and the reform of the Fascist codes still in effect.

In the face of the overbearing power of the parties, political corruption, and the rigid control of television news services, the Radical deputies reach the point of promoting a "voters' strike" in the elections, come close to victory in the referendum against public financing of parties, abolish the Investigating Commission that for decades has been blocking progress on crimes of the ministries, and impose the freedom of broadcasting law that allows the birth of private radio and television stations.

Often accused of "provoking strife" and noted for the scandalous candidacies of Toni Negri, the TV master of ceremonies Enzo Tortora, and Cicciolina (1), the party's battles give grounds for reflection, divide public opinion, and are affirmed in the society's laws and customs.

The Radical-called referendum on nuclear power and justice issues will be taking place soon, but also the stirring debate on the proposal to strike at the Mafia and large-scale crime by abolishing drug prohibition on an international scale which only promotes its spreading and allows for enormous, illegal profits.

The Radical Party, in short, is only provoking to the old parties and an old way of practising politics. It has rejected all the offers of power quotas that its share of the vote entitled it to.

It rejects all ideologies, does not write vague platforms and insists that a party is not what it says but what it does. Its statute does not allow it to deny membership to anyone at all, and it cannot expel anyone but is open and allows dual party membership to those from other parties. It has no party apparatus, functionaries or bureaucracy. It does not invest its money in headquarters of local branches but for Radical Radio which broadcasts throughout the country. It maintains that the reforms needed in Italy today are the reform of the parties that have become ever more business concerns and ever less seats of ideas, values and hopes.

To strengthen and win their battles last year the Radical Party, composed of not more than 3,000 registered members, made it a condition for their continuing existence that at least 10,000 citizens should join the party. Many, many more joined up: an extraordinary list of Nobel Prize winners and convicts, professional people and outsiders, intellectuals and students. Italy's most prestigious names in culture, art and show business are among them. No sooner had this objective been reached than the Radicals at their Congress gave themselves a new challenge: to become a new, a trans-national party. Yes. The little party that had made come true in Italy things that seemed Utopian, once again put its existence into question and bet on the concrete possibility of giving birth within a few months to that new "trans-national" party which is indispensable today.

From the economy to the information media, from energy decisions to defence policies, there is now no large question of our epoch which, there is no decisive issue for the life of this society which can be handled decisively and democratically in national parties, institutions and governments. Inasmuch as they are national they cannot give the answers. Therefore the Radical Party has decided to denounce all limits and confront the age-old failure of the antiquated party Internationals, whether liberal or Socialist, Communist or Christian, and to counter them with the creation of a party capable - because of its struggles and its composition - of crossing borders, parties and states which by now have been surpassed.

There is need of the trans-national party of the United States of Europe and the assignment of constituent powers to the European Parliament as the objectives to be pursued during the life of this generation and not in historical time; need for a Europe which is not broken into twelve policies and twelve bureaucracies, but which is finally united as the new and strong subject of political democracy, of the affirmation of the values of constitutional states and the rights of the individual.

A trans-national party is needed that, armed with non-violence, democracy and [free] information, can denounce the many tyrannies of the "status quo" and impose political choices that can interrupt and change its nature. Faced with the established disorder that today is founded upon the holocaust of hunger of millions of men, women, and children; faced with the violations of human and civil rights in the far-greater part of the world; faced with armies and national military services that by now are not even useful for their own goals; faced with a critical divorce between science and [political] power which expels even the gravest threats to the ecosystem from the news and the political debate, it is necessary to act with trans-national policies and a trans-national party.

What is needed is a party with great personality and intransigent in its non-violent actions which knows how to invoke and impose emergency action to save millions of human lives condemned to death by starvation; to impose the respect and the free circulation of of ideas and people outside all gulags and beyond all frontiers; to impose the right of conscientious objectors in the name of a different kind of politics and international peace and security; to impose new supra-national laws for the protection of the earth, air and water.

The Radical Party is ready to disband as a specifically Italian party and transfer to this new project the entire heritage of its struggles, experience and its few organisational instruments. This would be a trans-national party without any electoral character and totally uncompetitive with national parties, open to the militants of all political ideologies and people of all religious faiths exclusively united around a few great goals and battles to be determined year by year.

But all this will only be a concrete possibility if at least several hundred citizens in all countries of the West and the East manifest their interest and their will to bring life to this project and strength to this hope by becoming members. The next congress of the Radical Party, perhaps the last one as an "Italian party", will be held on January 2 - 6 in Bologna. Help us by becoming a member to make this great leap in quality of the Radical adventure and to recommence its struggles all over Europe.

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

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Toni Negri - A university professor considered to be the ideologist of Red Brigades terrorism who took refuge in France from the risk of prosecution in Italy, and was later elected a Radical deputy which gave him parliamentary immunity. But he never returned from France.

Enzo Tortora, accused of Mafia-connected activities, was defended by the party, elected as a member of Parliament which gave him parliamentary immunity and was finally exonerated of the charges.

Cicciolina, a Hungarian born strip-tease artist who presented herself as a Radical candidate and won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. She represented the PR's defence of sexual freedom.