ABSTRACT: Mauro Mellini reproves Radical Party leaders for having refused, after reaching the goal of 10,000 registered members in 1987, to pursue political objectives inside in Italy and instead gone over to improbable trans-national prospects which came down to being a senseless chase after members outside Italy. The consequent decisions, such as not entering the elections anymore, amount to a veritable gift to the party-power system spreading throughout Italy. He thus invites First Secretary Sergio Stanzani to take up again the old battles in Italy, to refurbish the symbol of a rose in a fist, to eschew "trans-national tourism" and, finally, to hold a true party congress in Italy and not in Zagabria.

(Notizie Radicali no. 262 of November 30, 1988)

Dear Sergio,

The discussions and decisions of the Federal Council of Jerusalem are another page in the no-longer brief chronicle of a death repeatedly and variously foretold. So very much repeated as to be a warning taken for granted and no longer very credible except for those who hold dear the life of this party and for whom the variety of the warnings is by now creating the conviction that this death is desired and in one way or another will be arranged.

I do not think that this warning lacks credibility or that the death is desired, just as I do not believe that the death is probable precisely and primarily because of the reasons proclaimed, nor that it is enough not to want this death of the party to exclude working in a way that will procure it. To be a Cassandra does not become me and I do not believe that I have ever acted as one. If anything I ought to reprove myself for not having always and completely said the things that might, all in all, have given me a justified reputation of that kind.

One thing is certain: at Bologna I said - in the few minutes allowed at certain congresses for replying to the mile-long reports of the secretaries - everything, or almost everything, that can be said today in the light of the results of the senseless decisions made by that congress; and, in substance, also concerning what was done during the second session of the preceding annual congress, in February 1987, and in the special April congress. Because an enormous error was made after the goal of the 10,000 registered members was reached by refusing, during a show-case congress lacking in all projects and debate, to give substance to a group that was beginning to take on proportions and a significance never before reached and instead to pose other conditions, this time "trans-national" ones. And this in order to avoid "ceasing activity", almost as if to underline that, even while continuing activity one was starting to "get rid of the nuisances" on the national level. This attitude was then confirmed duri

ng the ambiguous pre-election congress when it was decided to make no decisions about running in the elections for the benefit of the entirely contingent and exploiting polemics between Craxi and De Mita [the secretaries of the Socialist and Christian Democratic parties respectively, ed.]. And then one went to the elections with a weak, unconvincing, and badly accepted project for the lay-Socialist sphere that was destined to dissolve the day after the vote.

I was able to say in Bologna that it was senseless to go looking for members outside Italy at disproportionate expense, spending exclusively Italian money and energy which must be acquired day by day with already considerable difficulty and what is more bragging about having "risen above" one's interest for things Italian.

I was able to say that this trans-national turn of events with its ensuing decision not to present party candidates and the party symbol in the Italian elections meant offering on a silver platter an advantage to the spreading party-power system by disappearing from the scene and ridding them of our annoying presence as well as precluding all realistic rather than Utopian goals on the European and trans-national level.

I was able to say in Bologna that the expectations and hopes for the growth of a political force capable through non-violence of transforming into law specific needs of liberty and justice in the present world could only be represented by the Radical Party, at least here and now, and that its disappearance would only mean failing and frustrating these expectations and these hopes.

I said other things and could have said more on the foolishness of distinguishing between ceasing activity and the pure and simple dissolution of the party as well as the deleterious effect of repeating that the party would have to cease its activity. At Florence in 1985 it was said that this was because there is no liberty and freedom of information in Italy. It was said at the Rome assembly in the summer of 1986 that this would be to form a league for single-candidate constituencies (to re-establish the conditions for liberty etc.). At the Rome congress of 1987 it was said that this would happen if there were not 10,000 members in '86 and 5,000 members by a certain date in '87. In the February congress in Rome again it was said to happen if several thousand members were not found abroad - without adding that the ceasing of activity was decided on by the April 1987 congress in case Cossiga [Francesco Cossiga, DC, the President of the Republic, ed.] were to dissolve Parliament even if there were a major

ity government.

Then, in Bologna, in January 1988 it was decided, if not to cease activity, to take on other activities, improbable ones, at least without the support of an Italian policy and a presence in institutions abroad; to change the party symbol (and then to chose that horrible thing which, it seems, cost us a mere 30 million! [lire]; and not to run in the elections any more, etc., etc.

The trans-national character of the Federal Council is no more serious than the way in which it was elected in a practically closed congress, and its sessions held in various trans-alpine and overseas cities have only meant the senseless waste of the Italian members' money.

In spite of all this a slim but still incredible number of people join the party because it wants proper justice, legal responsibility of judges, the end of murderous drug prohibition, the defence of human rights, the fight against corruption, against the Concordat, against our national brand of "Gorbachevism" and "perestroyka", etc., etc. Since the decision not to run in the elections any more we have taken part in city elections in Catania, Trieste and elsewhere. And to make up for the missing Radical symbol, Marco [Pannella] has had to make appearances everywhere and hundreds of millions be spent to let it be known that we were there even if it seemed - and was meant to seem - that we weren't.

We lament the lack of information on our activities which, it then turns out, are essentially parliamentary ones. But we call our parliamentary groups "European Federalists", and so the little information that gets through confuses the people who listen to the RAI [Italian state radio and television, ed.] news broadcasts.

We lament the lack of funds, a chronic problem for a party that does not steal, while we organise Federal Council meetings all over Europe and its fringes, which, rightly or wrongly, the great majority of "potential Radical contributors and members" consider to be a useless and inconceivable waste.

Now dear Sergio, you ought to remain at your post on the condition that a miracle occurs or to handle the closing down of the party - perhaps according to the judgement, which has cost us dear, of illustrious jurists who have engaged in the "elegant" question of a party that shuts down, does not dissolve, disappears but can reappear, exists, does nothing, closes but doesn't close, unless etc., etc.

It would be much clearer and more honest to say that we have made a mistake - I say "we" even though I would have several grounds for saying "you" - and do something other than chew over and over this equivocal and dishonest cud of ceasing our activity. Because it is dishonest, this dilemma between the impossible and nothing, between unfeasible projects and failure, as if feasibility were a measure of degradation and corruption.

And it would be just and honest, above all towards the registered members, those who in spite of everything have kept up their membership, to change the music and at least a few of the players; to reinstate the symbol, the renowned and decent one, to return without hypocrisy and contortions to our battles, here where we and our comrades stand, to stop this trans-national tourism and "trans-nationality" as an alibi and a flight from reality, to hold a true congress here and not in Zagabria where the confirmation of the trans-national decision, with several hundred millions, would succeed due to a majority among 120 congressional delegates if all went well. Give the parliamentary group back its true name: Radical.

Meanwhile, with regard to the here and now, I beg you not to push to the point of no return the farce of the to-be-or-not-to- be congress in Zagabria.

One holds a congress to allow the members to decide on the party's essential choices, not in order to render the choices made irreversible and unchangeable, nor to obtain other things, perhaps make a little news (which it would then be poor consolation to call "censored", etc.) about a more or less formal prohibition. And all of this by spending enormous sums for a party that is broke with the result of making it impossible to hold a real congress in which deliberations and decisions are legitimate and meaningful.

With prospects of a true possibility for change I think it would be possible to promote and hold a membership campaign.

This is what remains to be done before it is too late. Otherwise I too would have to think again and decide that there is nothing here but the desire for the death of this party, with the permission of the trans-national, trans-party, European projects, etc., etc.