The demonstrations organized by our Radical colleagues in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary, claiming the right of the citizens of the "democratic" and Western countries, to be informed, represented an important event which goes far beyond the limited actions in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw and Budapest.

For the first time in Eastern Europe, a concept has been introduced which is unrelated to the politics of our times, to the current international debate on Perestroika, even within those circles most sensitive to the rules of the State of right--that model of "Real Democracy" which is in the West actually degrading true democracy and which could become the only direction available to the governing classes of the East in managing the exit of "Real Socialism". The affirmation of this model in the East would frustrate and disappoint all hope of true freedom and democracy animating most of those populations so long oppressed by totalitarianism.

Anyone struggling towards democracy in the East must therefore realize that the success of their struggle is closely connected to the restoration of democratic principle in the West, and not expect only support and solidarity from the Western democracies; they must also contribute, according to their possibilities to that other struggle.

Otherwise, there is the danger of joining the chorus of those in the West who dismiss as extremist--or worse--terrorist the positions of anyone denouncing the degradation of democracy and the systematic violation of its fundamental principles.

These well-thinkers of democracy are the same who, while they denounce with burning prose the violation of human rights in East Europe, are very careful indeed to avoid interrupting the flow of economic and political aid which for the last forty years has guaranteed the survival of the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet empire. They are the same who have always preferred the stability of Eastern regimes to the freedom and democracy claimed by the people. They are the same who never raised a finger when the revolts of the Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Polish people were crushed by police brutality or Soviet tanks.

The Radical demonstrations in Moscow, Prague and Budapest have thus brought attention to an issue which could be considered, in Moscow as well as in Rome or New York, a litmus paper for democracy: the citizen's right to be informed.

Popular sovereignty can in fact be expressed and affirmed only when accompanied by the respect of the citizen's right to be informed.

When this right is violated or, as is often the case in the West, information is manipulated with more sophisticated methods, democracy becomes merely formal.

The situation is aggravated when the mass media--television--invades homes and private lives, the very consciences of citizens; when politics become, for the manipulators of information, no more than merchandize to be purchased and sold to the highest bidder.

If the essence of democracy is the continuous debate between conflicting interests and the political groups representing them, with the mass media, that debate has been moved from the institutional seats--from parliament--to the great mass media networks, and television in particular.

It is no longer Parliament which causes a government to fall or which decides on political issues, but the great information and economic potentates guiding consensus, dissent, scandals, promoting or removing political figures and parties.

It is not surprising then that information on formal opposition, to Parliamentary debate, has become merely marginal compared to the great spectacle of televised politics.

The fourth estate, in brief, with the growth of the television audience, occupies a position and enjoys a degree of power which would have been inconceivable in the past.

Today, therefore, obtaining the right to vote freely, to present tickets, to elect a sovereign Parliament, does not mean in itself either in the East or the West, obtaining democracy.

Each affirmations of mature democracy must pass through regulation by the fourth estate, rather than being based on the precise division of powers between Government, Parliament and the Magistrate, as it was traditionally in the past.

Without established rules which guarantee above all the right of the citizen to "controversial", correct, and impartial information, open to all cultural and political tendencies; without laws which protect society from the attempts at manipulating information and which guarantee the citizen's right to the image and the identity, democracy is in danger of becoming nothing more than another, more acceptable, face of totalitarianism.

This is a difficult and countercurrent struggle, which will be incomprehensible even to many of our campaign companions who too often underestimate the structural importance in democracy of the right to be informed.

However, we did not join the Radical Party to be involved predictable and commonplace issues. or to follow fashions which change in the space of a political season.

That is why Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto have considered it necessary to take last stand measures and use non-violent protest--hunger strike--against the negation of the public's right to be informed.

We should know that the stakes are high, and the price paid to achieve our aims will be equally so.

That is why Marco Pannella resigned from Italian Parliament.

That is why those small, modest demonstrations in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw and Budapest could become the inspiration and the strength of the Transnational Radical Party.