XV.

THE OTHER TWO GOALS OF THE BOLOGNA CONGRESS. THE THREE THOUSAND NEW MEMBERS OUTSIDE ITALY. AN ANALYSIS OF THE NEW MEMBERSHIPS. FROM MADRID TO BOHINJ TO STRASBOURG. THE CHALLENGE OF THE RADICAL PARTY ON THE STRASBOURG LINE.

ABSTRACT: In the fifteenth part of his report presented at the Radical Party in Budapest, First Party Secretary Sergio Stanzani points out the difficulties encountered in realising the goals of the motion approved by the preceding Bologna Congress. The decisions of the Federal Council. The analysis of the new trans-national memberships. At least 10,000 members by the end of June 1989 if one wants to avoid the alienation of the PR's property and hence to its closure.

(35th Congress of the Radical Party - Budapest, April 22-26, 1989)

Dear Comrades,

Being here in Budapest, in Hungary, in this splendid city, and conscious of the exceptional nature of this 35th Congress and its historical import in the course of our party's existence - all of this does not exempt me from dealing in this report with the things the party organs did or did not do during the sixteen months since the Bologna Congress in the first days of June 1988.

It is a good rule for us Radicals to have the party executives answer to the members every year at the Congress with regard to the mandate they received in the motion approved before the elections - each year on a fixed date, according to a precise dictate of our statute, which is one of the party's distinctive and essential traits, ours being an annual party.

This year, for the first time in our history, this date has not been respected: we are meeting almost four months later than the established date. The reasons and events which have caused this delay are well known. We all know them. They are reasons and events deriving from a decision of the Bologna Congress which, in the motion, had called for the party organs to hold this 35th Congress in "a non-Italian European city".

With the holding of the Congress in Zagabria having proved to be impossible, Budapest immediately became the most significant choice, the one most able to rise to the political occasion and to better fulfil our trans-national commitment. The uncertainties, the obstacles, the errors of the West European countries in proceeding towards unity, the change in the East European panorama, the relevance of the events and the indications coming from Hungary clearly suggested this country and Budapest as the goal of our journey. However much we desired it, the choice was still not easy, above all keeping in mind the limited time available for the Hungarian authorities to make the decision - objectively restricted limits for any government of any country.

We considered Vienna as the site of the Congress in case time obstacles should be insurmountable. In Strasbourg, however, we decided to make public the discussions which were already going on with the Hungarian authorities, having decided that we could and should put our confidence in them, and in the strong conviction of the significance of our initiative and our proposal. The danger of this choice was also increased by the logistical and organisational difficulties to be overcome if we were to make it possible for the members, particularly the ones residing in Italy, to participate in the work of the Congress in conditions similar to the ones that had in the past been habitually assured for them in Italy. The risk - which some considered excessive - which we consciously assumed, was once again compensated for by exceptionally good results which are of historical importance for the party.

On the strength of this result, I consider we may be able to agree that, in convening the Congress this year while breaking the fixed date for the first time, this delay constitutes to all effects an exception which we can correctly consider "the exception that proves the rule" since the Radical Party is and wants to be an annual party [i.e. a party with a yearly membership that supports a yearly programme of political initiatives and not a general ideology, ed.] It is also true that this delay was dictated by the need to observe the dispositions of the last paragraph of the Bologna motion.

The motion approved by the 34th Congress in Bologna also involved the pursuit of another aim: the double-goal of four billion lire (about three million dollars) of self-financing and of 3,000 new members outside Italy.

At Bohinj, at the beginning of 1989, after one year, the self-financing owing to memberships, to contributions (including the part of the indemnity contributed by the members of Parliament elected on the Radical ticket to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in Italy and the European Community) and to other activities, had not exceeded three billion lire in all. The registered members outside Italy were less than a thousand. The result: insufficient. This objective was not realised.

In his report, Paolo Vigevano will furnish more details about this.

In my opinion, these are results which, in the light of this year's experiences, are not as disappointing as the figures might lead one to think. Nevertheless, it was a kind of failure, a negative result which must induce careful reflection, because it is an indication of a very difficult situation which is aggravated and not attenuated by my thought which tends to underscore that there was, in fact, a commitment, an activity was pursued, an initiative that was not - on the whole - totally lacking. The lack of success is even more significant if placed in relation to how the Bologna motion stated and defined the goal: the four billion lire and 3,000 members judged together with "the creation of the first significant small associations in at least a few European countries" as the "minimum indispensable conditions for the existence of the party and of trans-national activities".

What errors were committed, what deficiencies encountered? Where these errors and deficiencies the cause of the failure? Or are there not more general and deeper reasons for these negative results?

Many of you will remember that when I accepted the responsibility of being First Party Secretary for 1988, I made clear my intention of calling the Congress early if I should become aware of the impossibility of obtaining these results. You will also recall the fervid and passionate contrapositions that emerged during the debate on the motion, so that while it was passed by a large majority, it did not receive the 3/4ths of the vote necessary to make it binding on all members according to our statute.

I believe that the choice of becoming a trans-party and trans-national party was a correct choice. Thus we did well in deciding not to run in national elections, even in Italy. Of this I am more certain and aware today than I was in Bologna.

But these were not the only issues on which important differences were encountered in Bologna. Some comrades sustained authoritatively the need to insert in the motion again the clause for the automatic dissolution of the party if the goals should not be realised. I, along with other comrades, was against the insertion of this clause. On the basis of further experience I must admit that a binding motion with the clause for automatic dissolution would have been a big help for the party's executive organs in facing and doing their job: the initiative could have been more finalised and selective, the activity more decisive and simple, more capable - probably - of involving directly the available energies of the activists. I remain convinced, however, that in Bologna the group of leaders and a large part of the members had not had sufficient experience and collective reflection - and thus, conviction - on the priority, indispensable, and undeferrable need for the party to be trans-national and trans-party,

and so in Bologna the Congress was not and could not be prepared once again to lay its life on the line, openly, without margins and without reserve, by betting everything on a goal, among other things, formally so similar to and echoing the slogan of the ten thousand members, "Either you choose it or you lose it", even if it were a winner. The trauma is too recent, had a positive outcome, but how different the conditions and prospects! In Bologna there should have been at least a fracturing of the Congress and, inevitably, of the group of leaders.

Was this the way that best corresponded to our needs and resolved the party's problems? Would we have avoided the failure that today we must acknowledge? Can the Bologna delay, if there was one, be made up for today?

As far as I am concerned, in Bologna I believed that the unity of the party and of its leadership group was an indispensable basis for attempting to bring about the changes that the trans-national and trans-party choice seemed to make one think would be necessary. The motion was the thing that was able to express that unity. My election was the price I considered to be able and to have to pay personally for my convictions.

I believe that with humility and patient constancy I have dedicated my energies to unity during these sixteen months with the loyal contribution of the Treasurer, first of all, as well as the vice-secretaries and the members of the Secretariat. The results were not the expected ones. But I hope that our individual and mutual experiences will put each of us in a position to make more and better contributions here in the Congress to dealing with the problems and situations that weigh on us all.

On the other hand, I want to make it clear here that only after a few months did I, did we, become aware that it would be impossible to realise the goal of four million lire and 3,000 members by the end of 1988.

In my report to the first meeting of the Federal Council in Brussels, partly because of the possibility that the motion of the Congress could be made binding by a vote of the Council, I proposed deadlines for verifying the feasibility of the objective and also foresaw an early convocation of the Congress.

At this point it is necessary to call attention to an important, a positive element that characterised the party's political conduct throughout this period: the deliberating, often decisive role assume by the Federal Council. This is a theme on which I dwelt in the report presented to the Federal Council in Strasbourg and which on that very occasion aroused a distinct response.

Two factors contributed to determining this role, both of them connected with its make up: firstly, the majority of the council being composed of members not residing in Italy, and secondly, the active participation of Marco Pannella.

As a result, the Federal Council in Brussels not only did not make the motion binding on all members with their vote, but it did not accept my recommendation for verifications to be made by an early convocation of the Congress.

I later proposed and supported this solution in the Secretariat backed up by my offer to resign. It did not gain a sufficient consensus and was then rejected once and for all in Madrid where the Federal Council took note of the proved impossibility of realising this objective.

The "Radical Year" of 1988, from the Bologna Congress until today, can be considered as divided into three periods, or better, three phases, each characterised by particularly significant factors for evaluating the way things are going.

I will refer to these factors and leave the rest to the consultation of the available documentation.

In this regard, I would like to make a digression: available here at the Congress are the reports Paolo Vigevano and I presented to the Federal Council meeting. Altogether they contain more than 150 pages. Unfortunately it was only possible to have them translated into French.

During the year a kind of register was kept that gathered little by little the working notes on the tasks assigned and the progress of the activities on the programme (which text is also available in French translation).

During the year, furthermore, 21 issues of the paper »Notizie Radicali were published and 17 issues of »Lettera Radicali .

The paper was also distributed in a French edition (two numbers also having been translated into Slovenian and Serbo- Croatian); while all the issues of »Lettera Radicale were distributed to the non-Italian-speaking members in French, English, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian. Recently a "single issue" has also been prepared which is available at the Congress in draft form translated into English, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and, I hope, also in Polish.

It is a documentary history of the party's life and activities which at least in quantitative terms I do not believe has ever been done in the past, and which is an element, however tiny, of novelty in answer to the needs of being - of wanting to be - a trans-national party. I am, as are others of us, aware that it is still an insufficient and entirely inadequate answer, but we are conscious of how much dedication, effort and money it cost.

Having finished the digression, let us return to the phases that have followed each other this year.

The first one began with the formulation of the programme divided according to the six subjects indicated in the congressional motion and having a priority goal: The States-General of the European peoples. This is a factor that involved the whole party on the European Community front, with particular attention given to Western European countries. These were the points on which our comrades in the European and Italian Parliaments worked hardest, winning there extraordinary successes - a moment marked by the work of our comrades in Italy and a few other countries, who were employed in collecting signatures for the referendum petitions and proposals.

Hannover, with the incredible and offensive behaviour of the governments of the twelve countries and the President of the European Parliament, marked the culminating moment.

The results of this experience, which involved substantial investments of energy and money, promoted and nourished reflection on the "state of the party" which, with the report and the conclusions of the Federal Council meeting in Madrid, was another important factor of this first phase, and, I believe, of the entire year.

In short, what was the conclusion of this reflection?

The party on the whole - as a structural, functional, operational, economic and financial reality - constituted an organised "system", a "combination", that in the last ten years, with its having entered the Italian institutions, has changed remarkably from the party which was created on and by the 1967 Statute. The parameter assumed for indication the change was the financial one, partial and thus incomplete, but nevertheless significant: the party in its totality - taking into account, that is, both the Parliamentary Groups and Radical Radio - is "worth" 13 billion, five hundred million [lire] - the report states, of which only three billion are not owing, directly or indirectly, to its presence in the institutions, but to self-financing.

In effect, this may appear more a factual observation than a conclusion - and, furthermore, an obvious observation to those who knew and lived with the party for years; an observation already made on the technical level, considered as a datum for calculations, without awareness of its political value and, thus, never presented as an element for an important judgement, essential for choices regarding the party's life.

The importance of the Madrid report lies precisely in the fact that the observation became a political conclusion, an object of analysis, of evaluation, of public debate for its implications and its effects upon the party's life and prospects, pointed out, discussed and publicly recognised on an official level so that it can no longer be repressed or ignored.

It is an observed fact with which the party, all of us, have had and will have to come to terms.

There is no doubt that the reflections on the "state of the party" have been decisively affected by the decision to be a trans-national party and by the problems and difficulties which have immediately presented themselves in trying to actuate this decision.

The position that the party has always held on public financing of the parties and the value of self-financing, along with the decision taken in Bologna not to run in national elections, has made much more evident the theoretical and conceptual contradiction between being a trans-national political force and the direct and indirect contribution of public funds. And by also making it in fact impracticable it has favoured the perception and then the understanding of the interconnection and interdependence of being trans-national with having to be trans-party and vice versa.

What essentially contributed to this clarification were the initiatives assumed in the meantime by Marco Pannella and other comrades, as citizens, to promote and put together new tickets for the municipal elections in Italy outside and cutting across the parties.

This is a process that is still under way and has created disorientation, uncertainty and negative reactions on the part of the members residing in Italy, but which, in and by this Congress and in and with the next European Parliament elections, I believe ought to receive confirmation and affirmation.

These are the presuppositions that, in considering the "state of the party", have led us not only to point out the magnitude of the party's financial crisis and how essential self-financing is, but also the need to change the party's relationship with the institutions and, consequently, to return to the methods and operating conditions which were the mark of the party, above all during the years before the party got into the institutions.

These are methods and conditions that directly concern the "Radical's" way of being and of living which once again propose activism and non-violence as possible factors for resolving issues.

From all this emerges a complex of problems and questions which certainly do not lend themselves to easy solutions or immediate answers, but which are critically urgent. Time, dear comrades, is the resource which we are most lacking, it is our worst enemy, are one and only real enemy.

These are persisting problems and questions with important implications for each of us and this Congress is obliged to provide us with at least some indications and bearings concerning them.

The second phase concludes with the Federal Council meeting in Jerusalem, and with another, intermediate, occasion of special significance: the Federal Council of Grottaferrata. On this occasion Paolo Vigevano and I gave reports containing references to the problems already discussed in Madrid, and we showed that the progress of the membership drive and of self-financing was as inadequate as ever and would not allow us to embark on our programme of activities. Consequently we proposed shelving it and launching a special subscription for raising at least 1,500 million [lire] for self-financing. We made the eventual success of this subscription a condition for a gradual revival of the programme.

The Federal Council did not accept our proposal and advanced the idea of closing down the party, also committing the executive organs to setting and arranging the dates for this to be done.

It is my personal conviction that the members, and the activists, the sympathisers, taking into account the true situation in Italy and the impact with the trans-national prospect, have responded in a way that should not be underestimated, even if it is less than the minimum requirements.

On the other hand, the non-acceptance of the proposal to interrupt the activities programme has also produced uncertainty and hesitation, and we have not had the possibility of the capacity to take complete advantage of the idea of closing down by taking more precise and direct actions that would make the real critical condition of the party more immediate and perceptible. We have not been in a position, among other things, to pin-point and concentrate all the party's energies in actions that would lead us to the use of non-violent political struggle.

Has it only been our incapacity, or rather the result of a further stiffening of the political system in Italy and the ever narrower margins within which political battle in this country is restricted? To what degree has it been the resources at our disposal, our structural and organisational set-up, but most of all the conditions (individual and collective) to represent the principal obstacle?

In the meantime, the financial crisis had become accentuated and, given such disappointing results, Paolo and I considered it to be our distinct duty to offer our resignations in order to free everyone, even our comrades of the Secretariat from the bonds of solidarity which had always been respected and thus put the Federal Council in a position to evaluate the situation and take the necessary decisions in total freedom in Jerusalem where, in the meantime, its meeting had been called - a decision which not everyone considered opportune at that moment.

I believe that it was a happy choice and that to have managed to hold a meeting of the Federal Council in Jerusalem was a success and an important political event which contributed to the re-launching of the trans-national initiative.

As you will remember, the Federal Council, at the end of a lively debate - having twice rejected our resignations - approved the method of closing down the party in the terms we had proposed if the Congress should so decide.

In Jerusalem the Federal Council also entrusted us with the task of organising the 35th Congress in Zagabria. The calling of the Congress and the initiatives connected with it, which I already mentioned at the beginning of this report, characterised the third phase of this "Radical year".

To complete the picture, there are still two other events: Bohinj and Strasbourg.

In my opinion these were two important and illuminating interconnected events. Trieste and the beginning of that Federal Council meeting that was happily concluded at Bohinj remind me of circumstances that caused anguish; a bitter, very difficult moment, even if not the only one.

I maintain, however, that collectively this event furnished important elements for helping to clarify our understanding of the whole situation of the party, its role, its limitations, and the prospects of the "party as such", as well as the responsibilities directly entrusted to the citizen-Radical in the national sphere, and also in the electoral field.

Marco Pannella's speeches once again have had a determining influence on the debate. The function of the Radical Party as it has developed and affirmed itself in Italy (the country of those among us here in Budapest who are still in the majority), of this party which has been capable of realising in deeds "a segment of the theory of practice", has concluded a significant, extraordinary and exalting part of its history. In its present condition - the Radical Party - is no longer able to proceed along its path rigorously and coherently. To proceed in one's own past is not possible.

To take up our path again we must find other routes, other realities, other energies.

The trans-party and trans-national party could be the source of a new road of life and hope: it could be the "new party". But to be, to be able once again to be that which we once were and still are, as Radicals, as registered members, is not and no longer can be entrusted to us alone - to our quantity and quality - to our energies, our resources, our abilities: there is a need of others, many others, who are not and have never been registered Radicals, who must join with and stand by us, support and also replace us. And among these many must have been born and raised in various countries.

In Italy, as in every country, the political battle proceeds in any case and cannot help but proceed in the national sphere as well. It is a commitment that befits the citizen, in particular the citizen who is a registered Radical, who can and must work in and with the existing political forces, or by promoting various initiatives, including electoral ones, in order to contribute to the acquisition of ever wider and more substantial practicability and the conquest of democracy in his own country, aware that only the trans-national dimension, if it is realised and to the degree it is realised, can bring about conquests and gains to resolve the issues for everyone.

This "inner" event which took place in the life of the party at Bohinj finds, to my mind, despite the apparent contradiction, an ensuing completion in the conclusions of the Federal Council meeting in Strasbourg.

It is true that in Strasbourg the Federal Council rejected in its own conclusions the project for closing down the party (a project that the First Secretary and the Treasurer had presented to the Council on the basis of the indications furnished by the latter in its preceding decisions) and approved instead a motion affirming that "the Radical Party decides to commit all of its strength, without reservations, not even its material wealth, to the proposition that the party is something useful and necessary".

I believe however that it would be a gross error to deduct from this conclusion that the Federal Council intended its decision to annul everything that had been acquired in the course of the year with the analyses and evaluations on the "state of the party", on the dramatic dimensions of the financial crisis and on our present inadequacy.

On the contrary all that is clearly present in the Strasbourg motion, just as the considerations and clarifications are lively and present on "the party as such" that were the result of the Bohinj debate.

Precisely those considerations and those clarifications, joined with the novel elements introduced through the analysis and evaluation of the political situation made in the report to the Federal Council, have contributed to composing the picture delineated in the motion approved at the conclusion of the Council's work.

I stated in my report: "From what has happened in the course of the year, or what has been done by us or others; from what I have heard and the reflections I make, for the first time I succeed perhaps in making out the shape of a line of reasoning that could be the specific of the trans-national party's political proposal beginning with both the context of the various one-party regimes (in Eastern Europe as in African and Third World countries) as well, at least, as the multi-party and proportionalistic regimes established above all in Europe and the European Community with the exception of Great Britain".

It is then the delineation of this line of reasoning, precisely grasped and then developed by Marco Pannella in his speeches, which has induced the Federal Council to make the basis of the motion of the 35th Congress "the proposed model of the Radical Party (trans-national and trans-party) as a proposal for the new party, of the new non-violent resistance, environmental, offering guarantees, lay oriented, for the defence and the conquest of the right to life and a life under law everywhere in the world".

This proposal is extremely ambitious and exacting, but for that very reason it may be perhaps capable of arousing and feeding a great hope, so much so as to furnish the necessary strength to overcome the conditions that had brought us to the point of preparing to close down.

It is the motion itself which does not allow for wrong interpretations, if on the one hand it emphasises that "the strength [is] always more manifest - that appears to be irreplaceable - of the ideas, the goals, the methods, the contribution of the Radical Party in facing the problems of our time and our society", while on the other hand reminding us "that the existence or not of the Radical Party can only be determined through the choice of the men and women, the citizens, who decree it by their joining it, their strengthening it, their re-launching it or - otherwise - their putting an end to it for lack of necessary resources".

Dear Comrades,

More and better than anything I have been able to say is your presence here in Budapest, the presence of all those non-members, non-Radicals, who are here with us, they too arriving from many different countries, the concrete expression of cultures, needs, different positions, that can give substance to the meaning and value of this proposal.

Dear Comrades,

The means available to us for realising our hopes is this party whose extraordinary potential we know, whose limits and restrictions we know, which we have all experienced in this long year, with constant commitment and dedication, even if, at some moments with deep anxiety and anguish.

With the decision to offer all our strength, all our resources, without any reservations, in the extreme attempt to keep this means of struggle and political initiative from being taken away from us and others; convinced as we are that it is still a necessary and irreplaceable element for building a hope of civil, economic, and social coexistence which, beyond national borders, guarantees democracy, the right to life and a life under law, we must here and now face the problem of what to do, how to proceed.

For that purpose I believe that the Congress should concentrate its attention on two aspects: goals and the time limits within which to realise them; available resources and those which can be acquired: people, means, money.

Time is our worst enemy, the most implacable: we must therefore identify and choose objectives which can be realised very quickly - several months, a very few months - because this is all the time we have for acquiring the minimum conditions necessary to proceed.

We must, furthermore, identify and choose objectives that can motivate, inspire, and mobilise the party - the way it now is, with how many and what we are - to organise at once the direct contribution of all our comrades. We must make a choice a choice that allows for the immediate communication and perception of the objectives to arouse a vast and rapid reaction of those who are not and have never been Radicals, a choice that allows us to concentrate and co-ordinate our energies and resources to the utmost.

The trans-national choice has induced us during this year to extend and amplify party action in the attempt to cover a vast field with the resulting great dispersion of our energy.

I hope, nevertheless, that the effort we have made will have produced the affirmation and consolidation of awareness in the party of being and having to be trans-national, and that this awareness may facilitate today the choice of more circumscribed and distinct objectives, more directly finalised.

The choice of objectives can be made according to two different orientations: the one more "inward" directed at the "party as such", characterised by quantitative goals (for example, the number of members, amounts of money to be raised), while the other is more external, directed at the institutions and their organisation, at governments and their decisions, at political forces and their behaviour, to obtain modifications or other provisions that answer more positively to our precise demands (for example, the process of European unification or the affirmation of human rights).

The need for new members, of new support, of contributions and financing, is however a component which cannot be neglected.

With regard to the resources available or to be acquired, I believe it is my duty to express some considerations on the "leadership group".

Dear Comrades,

We are not trying once again to ensure the existence of the party, the trans-national party: the responsibility of directing, of running this party have been borne until now almost exclusively by comrades born and raised in Italy and they have been formed by the experiences of the party in that country.

These are comrades with exceptional personal gifts and qualifications - age, my own age, puts me on the sidelines and allows me to make this evaluation - gifts and qualifications which have been tempered by long experience of working in and with the party; comrades who in their totality constitute a very valuable patrimony recognised and coveted by many.

But these are also comrades who are working sometimes at the limits of their strength, without stopping, for many years.

In this situation, faced with the task that awaits the party, the need to integrate and enrich ourselves with other comrades, particularly from other countries, the "leadership group", the party cadres, seems to me to impose itself on our attention.

First of all there is a quantitative aspect: the present resources are insufficient, the trans-national dimension in itself demands a broadening and more ample division of responsibility. It is furthermore indispensable to fit together diverse sensibilities, attitudes, and experiences to create a governing capacity for the party that corresponds more adequately to this new dimension of ours.

All of this involves assuming not only direct responsibility, initiatives, and work on the part of a greater number of comrades, but also the need of a consistent, active and continuous presence of comrades from other countries.

This year we have had a Federal Council with a majority of members not residing in Italy, and the Secretariat had comrades from other countries. The period we were going through did not, I think, offer these comrades very favourable conditions for utilising this experience even if, at various times, they made important and meaningful contributions.

Some of them, in particular, can already be considered secure acquisitions, but it is not enough certainly as the party needs. I am referring to those comrades in Brussels, rather than in Lisbon or in Yugoslavia and some other countries, are working capably, dedicatedly and constantly.

The problem of human resources, however, is not limited to these aspects and, more generally, to the formation of the party's political cadres, but to my mind it involves also the relationship with the leadership groups of the other political, cultural and social forces: the presence in the party of a significant number of components from these groups, their becoming registered members and also their participation in running the party is an important condition for realising and concretely affirming the trans-party character which we have seen to be an essential presupposition of being trans-national, only one example among many possible ones.

We are on the eve of the European elections. To whom will the party entrust its own initiative in the European Parliament? Only to the few comrades who, perhaps, may get in by being elected in Italy in virtue of the opportunities they themselves promoted? And finally, there is one more subject to consider which is connected to that of human resources - the one regarding the political cadres which the party must have at its disposal. It regards the establishment of the party in Italy and the other countries where the first, significant presence of registered members is to be noted, the constitution of small groups, the demonstration of the will to do and to wage political battles.

This is a subject which at present is essentially due to de facto situations but which involves the more general issue of the party's structural and organisational set up, with possible effects on the statute. The comrades residing in Italy are the ones today who are manifesting their uneasiness and are asking themselves in what terms and what way it would be possible for them to secure their active presence in regard to the "national" realities that surround them and which they must face day after day without losing their own identity on the one hand, and on the other, without missing out on their duty and desire to be Radicals registered as members of the trans-national party. Analogous requests are being presaged in other countries, coming from comrades residing there and more and more of which will reach us as the membership, their presence, and the presence of the party, as we hope, takes on substance, will and the capacity for initiative in the places, in the regions, where they live and can be ac

tive.

Thus we must reflect in order to discover if any new departures, and of what kind, should be proposed and introduced into the party's present set-up, to answer to the various exigencies that can arise from being a party to and practising trans-national politics.

For my part, I feel a need that strikes me as essential: that of discovering more articulated and differentiated solutions, at least partial ones. This need is related above all to the "local" realities for which one can certainly not constitute references on a "national" level, but of a regional character more suitable to overcoming the bonds and limits imposed by the pressures and interference of the "state" organisations of the individual countries, and also more adapted to perceiving the "truer" and more significant data of the "environment in which one lives", of both the natural and political one, of the civil and social one, of the traditional and economic one.

The same need also regards the party's "central" organisation which, in my opinion, must strengthen its own total capacity for political guidance and management, entrusting more and more to the independent initiatives of the federated movements, both on a central and regional level, for identifying, choosing, and confronting the single initiatives while reserving to the Congress (to be called - perhaps - every two years) the prerogative of making binding decisions on all members.

The need for a more articulated and differentiated party set-up ought also to be put into relationship with a contradiction in which we find ourselves and will find ourselves always more embroiled. This contradiction is owing to the need of making the party keep its character of a non-violent and militant political force to which is counterpoised the need for increasingly sophisticated, high-cost instruments which require structures, organisations, capacities and attitudes of professional quality.

The importance of utilising such means is evidenced by the difficulties one encounters in resolving the problem of "communication". And this is only one example.

In the history and the tradition of the party, communication has been nourished in essentially "oral" ways: meetings, assemblies, radio programmes, congresses. Written work has only been encountered on a few occasions, important ones, but which were and remain episodic.

I think it is evident that the trans-national party cannot do without written communication.

I think it is evident to all what obstacles must be faced just to overcome the diversities of language and the distances.

But besides these aspects which we might call quantitative, there are others which I would call "quality ones" and which refer to the contents of the message, which in order to correspond adequately to the trans-national dimension should above all be able to profit from a system that is not, like our present one, one-directional. To make it clearer, the process of communication originates and is prevalently directed from Italy with only one precious exception which is our comrades operating out of Brussels.

Communication is of "central" importance and it is extremely significant for the changes to be made in the party, not only to make it really conform in functional and operational terms, but also to capable of establishing and maintaining "relationships" and, thus, also provided with a different mentality, a different culture, such as is necessary for a political force that is and does not merely desire to be trans-national.

This is a problem that from the composition of the texts, to the translating, to the printing, to the distribution, is of such complexity that I consider it insurmountable without the use of advanced methods of working out and transmitting the data - methods which require unusual solutions for the party and are not easily compatible with an activist structure.

The problem of communication links up with that more general one of information and, in particular, the relationship of the party with the large information media, public and private: television and the press.

This is a problem which has distinguished and characterised the history of our party with some victorious initiatives and non-violent political battles of exemplary and exalting significance.

It is a problem that has taken on bigger and bigger proportions and a connotation of exceptional gravity: as I have already recalled, in national as well as international spheres conditions are taking shape in the use of the mass media which threaten to become more and more uncontrolled and uncontrollable, to the point of endangering the affirmation, maintenance and development of democracy with ruin.

The effects of using the great communication media without effective guarantees of democratic control are already making themselves felt in Italy where the party-power regime not only allows but can even demand a use of the mass media that not only blocks or impedes information on our party but, even worse, distorts and falsifies it to the point of annulling our identity, thus denying the people any real possibility of choice.

Unfortunately I must admit that in recent times the party has not or could not react to this situation with adequate and efficacious measures. This is one of the aspects in which, perhaps, we have been and are most lacking. We must ask ourselves again if and what there is to be done, aware that democracy is primarily knowledge for being able to judge and decide - for the citizen also to decide on whether not to enrol in the party and thus make its right to exist possible.

Before ending I have only a few considerations to make regarding our financial resources, those which we have and those which we must acquire in order to be able to continue.

This is a subject which the treasurer will deal with more completely.

I can only repeat that our financial resources, including those which come from liquidating our property, secure the party's activities and initiatives only for a very few months: it would be reckless to bet that we can make it to the end of the year. By September we must find new resources, raise more money.

Our self-financing, considering how the membership enrolments are going, is entirely insufficient, the proceeds are absolutely inadequate. Expressed in terms of membership dues, the minimum financial requirements suggest a goal of 20-30,000 memberships.

Personally I am convinced that the party set-up, its organisation, structure, and functioning must, in any case, guarantee its essential character as a non-violent political force, a party of activists. But I am equally convinced that the trans-national party cannot exonerate itself from posing the question of acquiring other sources of financing other than the dues of members and the contributions of sympathisers. This conviction leads to formulating hypotheses that may not only be questionable, but which also - according to some - are to be rejected. It is nevertheless a conviction that I consider to be founded on the basis of objective evaluations.

Militant, non-violent action, transferred onto the trans-national plane cannot do without the support and aid of "services" that require experience, competence, structural and organisational references, investments and costs which are incompatible with the set-up of the "party as such", without injuring and prejudicing that articulation, that differentiation, that essentiality and flexibility which are indispensable to a correct and effective functioning.

Therefore it is necessary to consider if and how one can provide the "services" by means of setting up a centre of activity distinct from the party, not only independent but with a different character and organisation, with goals and tasks that make it suitable to receive directly private financing too. An eventual solution ought to be adopted publicly, strong in its specific character and ends.

These are still just hypotheses needing time for reflection and realisation that have nothing to do with what we have available for the decisions we must adopt here, but which, if directed towards solutions, might allow for more certain prospects of continuity for the party's existence.

Dear Comrades,

In finishing I cannot escape from a direct and pitiless confrontation with our worst adversary: time.

In identifying and choosing our objectives we cannot ignore that if we want to guarantee the party's existence while remaining true to its identity and history and the goals and directions expressed in the motion approved by the Federal Council of Strasbourg, it will be indispensable to concentrate all our work and energy in the coming months.

On the basis of the experience acquired by the party in recent years, to sustain and nourish the initiatives and activities required by such a commitment, it will be necessary to get hold of more than two billion [lire] by the end of the month of June which corresponds to at least 10,000 members. Another two billion would then be necessary to continue in the subsequent months.

With such premises, the party organs, which will be elected as soon as we finish our work, will in any case be faced with the necessity of beginning to alienate the party's possessions, since however fast and sufficient the reply of all those in Italy, Hungary and the other countries who will be willing and able to accept our appeal, the deadlines for the minimum funds we require will be more immediate.

Thus one will cut into the reserves of our assets which constitute the last resource of our economic situation and break the balance of the party budget, a goal we have respected up to the Strasbourg Federal Council. In the coming days, without the rapid aid of adequate new resources, our budget will deteriorate in a way to cause a deficit which our assets no longer cover with the great danger of rapidly approaching bankruptcy.