by Galina Ackerman

ABSTRACT: Pannella talks about the history of the Radical Party, the battles it has fought, especially those against world hunger and for the respect of human rights in the countries of Eastern Europe. He explains the meaning of Gandhian nonviolence as well as the transformation of the Radical Party into a transnational party. He answers questions on why the party is not a party of anarchists, why it does not support terrorists but has former terrorists as members. Lastly, he talks about the extraordinary number of adhesions the party received when it was about to disappear a few years ago, of its links with the dissidents, of the attitude which the West should adopt vis-à-vis the countries of Eastern Europe and about the election of Cicciolina (1).

(Radical News n. 3 - June 1988)

Q. You are the leader of the Italian Radical Party. What are your objectives?

A. First of all, our party is a universal, transnational party. It is not the Italian Radical Party, it is a Radical Party tout court. In Italy, our activity in favour of certain rights and of certain liberties (divorce, abortion, conscientious objection...) have aroused a great deal of interest. Our interests, however, have never been restricted to national problems. For example, in 1968, we reacted "violently" to the invasion of Czechoslovakia, we distributed 42.000 pamphlets to protest against the fact in all the countries of Eastern Europe. I was arrested myself in Sofia, and spent a few days in prison.

Between 1979 and 1984, we conducted a campaign against world hunger; by hunger we mean a means of mass extermination. We believe it is a political problem, and that it is necessary, to ensure survival, to create an Euro-African system of mutual aid and interdependence. In the Italian Parliament as in the European Parliament, we repeat that if we manage to reorganize the economies of the poor countries and to ensure the survival of their populations, this will mean the victory of democracy over the military regimes and the Soviet or Cuban type of society.

Also, during the past years, we have carried out about 80 actions in the countries of Eastern Europe. Recently in Moscow, our militants distributed pamphlets which invited the young to refuse to carry out their military service in Afghanistan.

Q. Were you activists arrested?

A. They were simply expelled. The Soviet police are acquainted to our militants, and it was not in their interest to shed any "glasnost" on the affair. Paradoxically, our Party is the second party of the USSR. We have 16 or 17 militants in Moscow and a few in the country, mostly refusniks.

Q. How would you define your militants from a psychological point of view?

A. They are people who refuse any kind of violence, they are followers of Gandhi's philosophy. It was not Gandhi who invented the doctrine of the refusal of violence, but he first applied it in politics. The refusal of violence is a fundamental principle of the Western mentality. Striking, or hunger striking, is an active and at the same time nonviolent resistance, typical of the Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Gandhi was an English lawyer, we shouldn't forget that!

Q. Are you in any way the heirs of the anarchists, who were so deeply rooted in Italy?

A. We are for freedom, but we are not anarchists. We are "for the life of rights and for the right to life". But an oversimplified interpretation of Rousseau can be dangerous. The universal leveling out, as well as the myth of the good savage are disastrous ideas. Savages live in the jungle, which is ruled by violence.

Any barbaric law, even the "eye for an eye", is better than the law of the jungle. It is the law which is the guarantor of freedom. Nonetheless, I believe we have a lot in common with the Christian, Tolstoian, extremely liberal tendency of anarchism, even if we have nothing in common with its nihilist tendency.

Q. It is a common opinion that you support terrorists...

A. Only KGB agents or completely disinformed people could state something like that! In the students' movement of 1968, there was a strong revolutionary, Leninist component, which produced a number of terrorist groups, whereas we were known in Italy to be anti-Stalinists, anti-Leninists and anti-totalitarians.

At the time of the first trials against the Red Brigades in Turin, it took the authorities three long weeks to form a jury. 150 people presented medical certificates in order to avoid coming to court. The Secretary General of our party, Adelaide Aglietta, a mother of two children, was the first person who accepted. That enabled the jury to be formed. The trial was held thanks to the Radical Party, whose entire direction, including myself, was sentenced to death by the terrorists.

On the other hand, some of the terrorists sentenced to life imprisonment became followers of democracy in prison, and joined the Radical Party. 70 imprisoned terrorists signed my appeal to the "brothers assassins" (Action Directe, E.T.A., etc) where they were asked to relinquish violence. And the Communist Party abandoned them, just as Togliatti, one of the secretaries of the 3rd International, was personally responsible for the assassination of thousands of Italian communists who had fled to the USSR to escape fascism.

Q. How many are you?

A. We have a few thousand militants in Europe, 80 per cent of which in Italy. But the number is not relevant. Jesus Christ only had twelve disciples. In the Middle Ages, monastic orders had one or two hundred members. I consider the Radical Party as a modern, lay order, well organized.

Two years ago, we were on the verge of disappearing because we couldn't attract enough attention. We had deputies in the Italian and European parliament, but the medias would not allow us to have access to their readers or audience. A strange phenomenon occurred at that moment. The press published the information about the risk of our disappearance and suddenly we were submerged with adhesions. Many people, including an important number of prisoners, did not want the disappearance of a party specialized in civil rights, including prisoners' rights. It was on that occasion that Soviet dissidents such as Leonid Pliouchtch and Avital Chtcharanski joined us....

Q. How did you establish relations with the dissidents?

A. It dates back to a long time ago. In 1956, I was the President of the Italian Students Union. After the repression of the Hungarian revolution, I immediately went to Vienna to bring the greatest possible number of Hungarian refugees to Italy. We have always used the same methods. When Jaruzelski came to Rome, invited by Mr Craxi (2), my comrades and I threw ourselves on his car and blocked his passage for a few seconds. The scene was broadcast live on television. That is how we protested against the suppression of "Solidarnosc".

Over the past years, the immigrants, the dissidents started to notice that we defend them systematically, that we struggle for their rights, that we organize hunger strikes and that we submit parliamentary motions. They have realized, in other words, that we are on their side!

Q. What do you think about the "Gorbachev phenomenon"?

A. A nonviolent transition from a totalitarian regime to a liberal regime is possible. One example is Spain. However, Spain was a backward, agrarian country. It is hard to believe that such a painless transition can take place in the USSR, an industrialized, powerful country. Moreover, the West does not advance the requests that it should toward the totalitarian regimes, because it does not believe in the democratic potential of the populations that live under the rule of such regimes.

Q. Which strategy should the West adopt vis-à-vis the East European countries?

A. The problem of the West, today, is that it is the victim of its passive ideologies. We should not wait to be attacked. We need to attack the Soviets, we need to deliver the populations of the Soviet Empire. We Radicals have an aggressive ideology toward the Communist world. Clearly, by this we do not mean an armed aggression, but a destabilization by means of an information campaign. I have already submitted two draft bills on the subject to the Italian and European Parliaments.

Our military budgets are exorbitant. We should use a part of this money to carpet bomb - literally - the countries of the East with information, manuals, novels, poems. We believe 10 per cent of the military budget should be used for this purpose, instead of being spent to build missiles that will never be used. Dozens of thousands of young people could diffuse information in the USSR instead of carrying out a useless military service in the West. What could Gorbachev do against young people who come full of books and flowers? We suggest simple ideas, but ideas that do not belong to the traditional political philosophy. And yet, we could obtain extraordinary results, as Gandhi did in his time.

Q. To finish with, a slightly indiscreet question. How did Cicciolina become the image and the symbol of your party?

A. The Italian legal system is extremely imperfect. In order to attract the attention of the press and of the public on scandalous facts, we often included people unfairly accused or imprisoned for years without being tried in our electoral lists. It was the case of Toni Negri (3), accused of terrorism, and of Enzo Tortora (4), accused of belonging to the mafia. Both were elected to important positions in the party and both were ultimately declared innocent.

Cicciolina is a different case. We defend sexual minorities at all times, because we believe in the theory of Reich, who views Nazism and Communism as the result of a sexual repression. As far as this young woman is concerned, a porn star, she simply joined the Radical Party two years ago, when we were about to dissolve the party. When elections were to be held, she wanted to be part of an electoral list (that is the right of every member), She hadn't a chance, because she was n. 49 on the list of the constituency of Rome. But the press, and especially the communist press, exaggerated the whole event. In two months' time, the porn star became a political personality, and was elected in Parliament, despite our incessant appeals to the electorate to vote for serious candidates. We are in a disastrous position. Fine members of our party, such as Emma BONINO, who took part in the campaign and who saved the life of 150.000 people in the Third World, hold press conferences and no one talks about them. Whereas Cicc

iolina attracts enormous attention by unveiling her breasts. Moreover, we have lost 300.000 members, because our opponents have taken advantage of the incident to discredit us.

Apart from anything else, she is a respectable woman. She is Hungarian born, and she came to Italy to study. When she decided to remain in the West, she needed a job to support herself. The profession of porn star is a profession like any other, but personally speaking I disapprove of the sex trade, which has nothing to do with sexual liberation.

But after all, the Radical Party isn't Cicciolina!

Translator's notes:

(1) Cicciolina: stage name of Ilona Staller, porn actress, Radical member of Parliament.

(2) Bettino Craxi (1934): Former Prime Minister, currently Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party.

(3) Toni Negri: member of an extreme-Left movement, was arrested and kept in prison for years without being tried. Was released after having been elected member of Parliament.

(4) Enzo Tortora (1928-1988): famous Italian compere. Was arrested on charges of being a member of the mafia and later acquitted.