ABSTRACT: From April 27-30, 1991 a Radical Party seminar was held in Rimini on the following themes: a) party-form in continental practising democracy with particular emphasis on the Italian situation; parties and institutional reform; b) party-form, its rules, the trans-national and trans-party project in relation to the Italian situation, the Radical Party's proposal; c) the Radical Party, the Italian political forces, the proposal for a democratic constituent assembly.

In the introduction to the seminar, the PR Secretary Sergio Stanzani, dwells on some of the particular characteristics of the 1967 statute and on the PR's goal of giving an organised form to the trans-national idea.

1. In introducing this seminar it is more a question of correctness than of any obligation to thank those who have replied to our invitation: the authoritative figures of the scientific and cultural worlds as well as in politics, the Radical Party members who, in various groups, are active in the institutions or who in the past have been burdened with the major responsibilities in the service of the party; and, finally, those comrades who are presently collaborating with us in the task of doing whatever is necessary and possible for securing the party's continued existence.

Our thanks are all the more sincere, and not merely formal, the more they are merited.

2. To specify the reasons for this seminar with these particular themes is the task of Marco Pannella's report, the President of the party's Federal Council.

3. In my opinion, this meeting - on "Party-Form In The Continental Practising Democracies", on the "Trans-national and Trans-party Proposal of the Radical Party" and on the "Relationship Between the Radical Party, the Italian Political Forces, and the Proposal for a Democratic Constituent Assembly" - must take its start from a central question - indissolubly linked with the very concept of democracy and the analysis that the Radical Party has been making ever since the resolution of the 1985 Florence Congress - which observes the impossibility in Italy of exercising democratic rights in the light of the disdain for the constitutional guarantees and which furthermore has also had an important "precedent" in the "election strike" campaign the Radical Party promoted during the 1983 national elections.

Democracy means choosing among different options. If the knowledge of what is at stake should be lacking, if the opposing forces should not be starting from equal positions, if the citizen is not guaranteed the real possibility of "knowing in order to decide", then the indispensable conditions of democratic feasibility will be missing, choice is no longer possible, the conditions do not exist for the effective exercising of freedom that democracy ought to guarantee to each and all.

If it is the great public and private potentates who set the conditions and who govern de facto because they dominate the information media, consent and dissent, promote or cover up scandals, determine or annul the success of parties and politicians - in short, if they should come to constitute a faction, there will be a crisis in the very foundations of the democratic state: the Government, the Parliament, the Judiciary.

Today, in fact, in both the East and the West, having won the right to present a ticket, to vote, to elect a parliament, does not in itself mean that democracy has been won.

There is no doubt that today the effective exercise of democratic liberty depends upon the right to information, the regulation of the fourth estate, that of the mass media and of television news programmes above all else.

Without certain rules that guarantee the right of the citizen to information which presents all opposing sides, which is correct, open and available to all cultural and political tendencies and which guarantees, among other things, the right of the individual citizen and organised groups to their image and identity; without the observance of elementary but essential guarantees sanctioned by the Constitution; without the certainty of legality; without the effective respect of the norms which sanction it; without the citizens being equal before the law, there develops a crisis in the constitutional state and a de facto suppression of democracy.

These are obvious considerations, but nevertheless it seems to me that they cannot be ignored in confronting the question of "party-form".

4. On the other hand, it is not only the Italian situation that is making these considerations topical.

It not an accident if for some time the Radicals - once again coining a completely new term - have counterposed the term "democrazia reale" ["practising democracy", ed.], understood as the degeneration of not only the "party-form" but also of the political system in the countries of continental Western Europe, to the term "socialismo reale" ["practising Socialism", ed.] understood also as the "party-form" in Eastern countries.

The crises in these Western countries develops when and because power, rather than being a means for governing democratically, becomes the exclusive end of political action, and hence the party turns from being a tool for the promotion of and organisation of the consensus aiming at realising goals and programmes for government, turns instead to being a group aiming primarily at keeping a hold on power. In Italy, for example, the parties have already become places where power operates, within and without the institutions, according to rules and modes which are in fact foreign, when not in contradiction, to the written norms: "practising democracy" in Italy is counterposed to democracy just as the "applied constitution" is counterposed to the formal one.

On the European continent a paradoxical situation is taking shape to say the least: precisely at the time when the leadership group of Eastern Europe are being obliged by the failure of Communism to choose different forms of civil and political life, thus creating hopes and expectations, tension and debate on the "Western" values of freedom, law, justice, and on the actuation of democracy, these same values are in danger of losing their potency because of the degenerating political system in the West and hence of the degenerating "party-form".

5. In this situation it seems to me that a problem is posed that in turn poses a question.

The future of humanity, its existence and its progress - I think everyone sees this point - is connected with the capacity of confronting and resolving problems that have planetary dimensions: if this is a conviction on the level of knowledge, it is very far from being recognised on the level of power.

Therefore the hope of managing these problems and overcoming this contradiction, which is also an opposition, in a positive manner, is something entrusted to the political capacity, a capacity which cannot be other than a victory of democracy.

Limiting ourselves to Europe, the stubborn resistance to the need of setting limits to the sovereignty of national states and the disintegrating impulse of fanatical nationalism in the Eastern European countries constitute a difficult obstacle for the affirmation of those processes of democratic progress which is the salvation of us all.

In this context and in relation to the theme of this encounter, the following question presents itself: how much depends on the parties, their functioning, and their capacity to organise a consensus when it comes to effectively involving the citizen's participation in politics and thus in working out and promoting proposals, setting them against others and getting them affirmed, and making conscious and responsible choices? With what principles, what criteria, what methods, what right-duty relationship and what reciprocal guarantees, what theoretical and organisational model can the party-form today contribute which will determine the establishment and affirmation of processes leading to the democratic acquisitions necessary for the salvation of the men and women in this society?

6. In this fast and summary introduction, I certainly do not intend to supply an answer. Allow me only to mention briefly the contribution that - in my opinion - the Radicals, the Radical Party has given, once again with their peculiar gift of intuition, in delineating the essential features of the "party-form". These are aspects relating to the principles, criteria, and methods which ought to be adhered to in defining a means, a tool for political action capable of promoting, nourishing, regulating and guaranteeing democratic confrontations and skirmishes.

In preparation for this seminar I have re-read the original draft of the Radical Party's statute approved at the Bologna Congress of 1967.

This was sent to many of you along with other material pertinent to the themes of this Congress. For those of you who may not have received it, copies of the text are available from the Secretariat.

Others will be able better than me to explain this subject more completely and thoroughly.

Here I feel impelled to call your attention to one single aspect of this draft of our statute - even if it adheres to norms that the party has not been able to apply fully up to now - because I believe that it clarifies the special character of the model we have proposed and indicates an essential element of that "segment of the theory of practise" which we have not only conceived but also pursued and which we once again propose today with - in my opinion - renewed topicality.

It is a theoretical model, but not an abstract one, for organising the participation of citizens in political struggle, demanding their direct commitment in seeking and identifying everything that can unite them, in the face and in the respect of their specific differences.

This draft of the statute tends with great care and attention to assure, primarily within the party itself, the pursuit of the democratic process as a preliminary constituent condition.

The norms of the statute impose on all those who want to register as members, three conditions alone: the acceptance of the statute, payment of membership dues, and the commitment of joining or establishing Radical associations "according to their own political, cultural, onion or other interests".

The essential commitment, to my mind, is the last one: that of associating, which anyone who becomes a member must assume, while absolutely respecting his free choice of goals and objectives, of initiatives and activities to undertake, which cannot in any wise be conditioned or precluded by the party organs. Only the decisions adopted by the Congress with a three-fourths majority of the members are binding on the associations, but these constitute an added commitment - certainly not a secondary one - to be integrated with but not to replace those which each association freely chooses according to its own objectives.

According to these norms it is the Radical associations, recognised by the statute as a constituent element of the party, that solicit, gather and express the "diversities" and which by means of their own specificity, their own initiative and activity, constitute the party's creative and dynamic factor and determine within it alternative positions and proposals destined to confront each other each year in that single moment which is the only one when decisions are made in unity: the Congress.

At the Congress, the participants are called, by virtue of the high quorum demanded, to chose among differing proposals, each of which has been worked out by a different association which submits it to the Congress on the strength of its initiatives, activities and the results and experience acquired.

Among these proposals only the one can prevail which finds a large consensus and which therefore in itself guarantees the acceptance of its being formally binding on all the party, thus by the other associations as well. These, furthermore, even if "defeated" are free to pursue their own activities and their own differing goals which they are free to propose again at the following Congress as a united choice of the party. The party organs are obliged by the statute to hold a Congress yearly on a pre-established date.

This concept of a continuous and permanent "dynamic alternative" in the life of the party does not only involve the members and Radical associations but is open to others, individuals and associations, that can adhere to the party's policies on specific goals and even for limited periods of time only while enjoying ample occasions for speaking on suitable occasions about the political merits of the decisions to be taken.

In fact, the model which inspires the statute is federative and not merely federal, which fact is emphasised by its flexibility and mobility.

The "dynamic alternative" in the life of the party generally, is guaranteed by the powers reserved for the executive organs. This power is "absolute" with regard to the responsibility for putting into effect the decisions adopted by three-fourths of the Congress. (Ever since its inception - first in Italy - the Radical Party Secretary and Treasurer have always been elected by the Congress during its session.) But this power is "nil" with regard to the members and associations. It is sufficient to remember that there are no "judges" and that one leaves the party simply by not renewing one's membership the next year.

The original statute of the Radical Party intends to insure - primarily internally to the party - democratic confrontation as an essential condition for its being, in turn, a tool and a means for affirming democracy in the country.

In fact, it is evident how much attention this statute dedicates to making explicit right from the start, at the moment of the establishment of each association, the reasons and the terms of the confrontation within the party. These reasons and terms, furthermore, are inserted into an operational relationship - of militant activity and not only of testimony and the affirmation of ideas - with the needs of civil society and the legitimate interests which are in opposition there.

This confrontation is nourished by these various reasons and by the results of the activities of each association. The ways of governing and running the party are directly connected to these reasons and results. (The Secretary and Treasurer and their respective working commissions are elected and ratified by the Congress with distinct and separate elections.)

With this structural division - keeping in mind that all mandates expire after one year - an effective and concrete obstacle is erected against the creation of a bureaucratic party structure with power of its own (which is furthermore formally prohibited by the exclusion of any recompense for posts at all levels) and, above all, the formation of opposing internal factions aiming essentially at the holding and sharing of power.

The "federative" model also tends, with adhesion, to make explicit the the party's relations with external organisations, which normally are not only ambiguous but are the source of veritable clandestine negotiations and blackmail.

7. I have called to mind this aspect of the party's original statute here because it seems to me significant for indicating - considering the substantial lack of inner conditions for making democracy practicable within the parties - one of the reasons that seem to me essential with regard to the subject of "party-form" and to the crisis of the political systems, of "practising democracy" in Italy and the countries of continental Europe.

It strikes me as evident that - if things are like this - the party, understood as a means for realising an effectively democratic political system, is not fulfilling its reason for existing because it does not first of all ensure conditions of democratic development within its own orbit.

The Radical Party approved this statute in 1967 in the conviction that it was offering a theoretical contribution and a political proposal to the "left", to all the left, that favoured its operating in unity while respecting the "diversity" of each component, above and beyond any pretensions to hegemony.

There are many other aspects that distinguish and characterise this statute. Among them I will only indicate a few:

- the norms regarding elections and the "relationship of separateness" among the members elected, the party and its organs;

- self-financing and the rejection of public financing;

- the accentuated duplication of the federative model and the data of autonomy on the regional and local level.

In recalling this model and the original statute of the Radical Party I have certainly not intended to propose it as the only or the best one; I have done so only in order to make a contribution to this encounter which, as Secretary of the party, I felt was my duty.

8. At the beginning of this introduction I posed a question which I said was central and one of the reasons for this meeting: the supra-national dimension in which democracy takes its place as an indispensable factor for resolving planetarian problems which are threatening the existence of all humanity; the looming of "practising democracy" over continental Europe; the irresponsible, myopic egoism of the national states and the unconscious exaggerating of nationalisms, as well as the crisis of the political system and the impracticability of democracy in Italy.

It is a question which is also at the bottom of the road taken by the Radical Party for more than five years.

These are the arguments which little by little have emerged from our thinking which has created the conviction that it is impossible for the party to keep its identity, safeguard its values, the reasons and the meaning of its existence and history, without putting into question again the party's existence and its way of being.

These discussions have led, as I think you all know, - ever since the Bologna Congress of 1988 to the Budapest one in April 1989 - first to making the and then to confirming the decision that it was necessary for us to be the first trans-national and trans-party party with the ensuing renunciation of running as a party in national elections in Italy as elsewhere.

It has been and still is an extremely difficult road, very ambitious, possibly impracticable, but which - for our part - within the limits of the possible, of our strength and our capacity, we believe to be the only one that corresponds to the needs of our times as well as to the respect for our being.

The decision to commit our energies, the last of our resources, to giving life and breath to the trans-national and trans-party Radical Party (and here is another direct reference to the subject of "party-form") has in these last two years determined the inevitable need of a break with the continuity of the party's past life made evident by the present extraordinary statutory situation with the assuming of "full congressional powers" and, thus, statutory ones, by the first secretary, the treasurer, the president of the party and the Federal Council, which, with the suspension of all the other organs, has "reduced" the party as such to these four persons. The decision of the Congress entrusts them with the mandate to re-establish "statutory normalcy" by convening the 36th Congress only if conditions develop such as to make reasonably practicable the prospects of being a trans-national political force.

This break in the continuity of the party's past life has already had no small consequences: from the overcoming of the economic and financial crisis to the suspension of activities in Italy to the renewed membership drive - brusquely interrupted by the "Persian Gulf crisis" - to the inevitable disengagement from party activities of those members and militants, including the most authoritative and expert ones, who were not among the "four".

Leaving aside for the moment any other reference to the situation - still very serious - in which the party finds itself, it seems to me that the effort which has been made, a necessarily fragmentary and discontinuous one, to set in motion the process of the party's conversion and recomposition, furnishes some first indications that are not foreign to the subject of "party-form" and the possible models of reference.

In Italy members are reviving their association commitment, among them many of the most authoritative and representative - in these days the ARCOD (1) is holding its Congress in Rome, which follows the CORA (2) Congress in Milan. This could be a first step towards an active contribution to this process if, profiting by an initiative for the most part "Italian", a precise goal and certain tie-in to the trans-national commitment and trans-party development become the objectives.

On the other hand, it is no coincidence if the party First Secretary abstains, on this occasion too, from discussing the merits, as such, of the questions that most directly relate to the political system and the crisis of the system in Italy.

These are indications that, however limited and still insufficient, recall to mind aspects of the original statute which I have previously mentioned and which could reveal their usefulness in forming the model for the new party - trans-national and trans-party, non-violent, environmental and ecological, federalist, European federalist, liberal democratic, libertarian, lay, anti-party-power system, with direct individual membership, (3) which we must realise with our complete commitment.

The resumption of that model, not the return to it, might perhaps help us to make that leap in quality which we need, but which can only be made with the contribution of others, and so also of your contribution, of those of you - authoritative, interested and expert - even if not members of the party (or being members of some other party) who have accepted our invitation and are here with us today.

It was - as you see - an invitation with ulterior motives, and I hope that you attention to this seminar can result, if not in your becoming party members, in a new form of support which will become joint action, something precious not only for us.

9. The party today is committed to a single objective: the constitution of a trans-national and trans-party force, self-financed and with direct individual membership.

This objective involves the practising of a method aimed at constituting a veritable international "action party", a place for non-violent action, where each activist can dedicate himself in non-violent ways to making the parliaments of several countries approve contemporaneously, even on different subjects, the same legislative text prepared by the members of parliament of these countries who have been interested and involved in the party's political initiative.

The party puts itself at the service of this objective, with this method, conscious of the fact that politics must transform knowledge of the great problems that influence destiny into collective knowledge, into the assuming of responsibility and the capacity for decision, hence into power.

Thus the need to create a political project that will also secure for the party the establishment of relationships with the political and ruling classes of the other countries, above all the European ones.

At the third Italian Congress of the Radical Party, which was held in Rome last February, we talked about the project in an ample report with which we propose in the course of the year to establish these relationships, which are indispensable for affirming the trans-party and trans-national party.

The report was published in the issue of Notizie Radicali which was prepared for the Congress, included in the material sent to many of you, and is available from the seminary's secretary.

As many of you know, it is a question for now of mailing a series of monthly pamphlets in 15 languages to all the members of parliament of 34 Eastern and Western European countries as well as to the members of the federal and regional legislative assemblies (which means more than 35,000 people).

With this initiative we propose, on the one hand, to make known the political proposals of the trans-national party, and on the other hand, to arouse interest, discussions and debate on the proposal or even on one or more specific arguments, in order to rally the action of trans-national and trans-party groups of members of parliament and other components of the political and ruling classes of these countries.

There has been a delay in starting this project in comparison to the time we had anticipated.

The first delaying factor is political in nature and regards, in essence, the change in conditions which at the beginning of the year presented prospects for the re-launching of the party which are no longer the same.

This has happened for three reasons: the blocking of the membership drive in Italy - due in great part, as I have already said, to the "Persian Gulf crisis" - which has also caused a substantial decrease in the expected income from self-financing; the dropping of the membership drive in other countries, which is a consequence, partly inevitable, of the recent events in the Italian political situation; the very limited human resources at the disposal of the party and the inadequate support from "others".

The second factor is of a technical-organisational nature, above all regarding the problems of translation and delivery of the pamphlets, which at the moment find no other solution.

These are questions which regard the party more directly, a situation which we know to be full of old and new reasons for serious concern and which we must nevertheless confront, but on the proper occasion.

In conclusion, the goal of the party, its political project, make topical the first reflections on the form, the model, the set-up and organisation of a trans-national political force, self-financed and with direct individual membership.

As I have already mentioned, this seminar I am sure will produce a significant and important contribution for this purpose as well, due to your presence and the authoritative research or the experience which distinguish you, or due to the responsibilities which you assume in the institutions as well as the contributions you make to the party.

My fragmentary, incomplete and for now totally inadequate reflections suggest to me only a few first questions:

- Can the first aggregations of parliament members, of political and ruling class groups, be a presage of a structure of associations - trans-national and trans-party - suitable for constituting with its own members and supporters the base of federative and federal order of the party?

- What is the party's relationship with the militant initiative?

- Can these eventual Radical associations, if separate and with their headquarters in diverse countries, also adequately constitute a territorial point of reference?

- What criteria can help avoid a momentarily unified participation of the party - the Congress - not subject to the suspicion of "national" impulses and aggregations, if it should ever be necessary - as is to be hoped - to resort to proxies?

This is little enough and perhaps premature. Nevertheless it seemed to me useful to conclude by soliciting considerations of this kind, also to get off to a good start.

Within the Western context there is no longer any debate, broadly speaking, For this reason there no longer are any deep differences among the parties as places where differing and alternative value systems are represented. There different names are by now only the effect and the reflex of historical memory. They do not in any way correspond to political programmes and current ideals.

The existing order is in substance accepted, not so much as just but as unmodifiable; the only problem is to adapt to it in the best way, with everyone - the individual, the social group, the country - cutting out a niche for itself and then, perhaps, working for adjustments.

Something paradoxical occurs: precisely when the failure of Communism "compels" the ruling classes of Eastern Europe to choose, to take on a model, a form of political and civil life and a debate, tensions, are created around the values of "occidental" freedom, law, and justice, the West no longer feels itself to be the place with the responsibility to realise, defend, exalt and propagate these values.

If in the East one were to pass from the dictatorial regimes, from one-party systems, to parties that automatically re-propose old ideological divisions and of a national or even nationalistic character, one would go from the by now recognised failure of the anti-democratic model - which necessarily brings about the immutability and not only the instability of governments - to the certain and rapid failure of multi-party and proportional model that has marked the failure of democracy in a great part of Western Europe between the two wars and which punctually re-proposes in recent years the tendency to instability, but even more the sterility of governments and the governing of the crisis in world societies and of each "national" society.

The West has not noticed that in today's world, so radically interdependent, democracy and "Western" law are lame and impotent precisely with regard to the sphere of fundamental decisions if they are not extended to supra-national and trans-national dimension.

The West today is the true site of the crisis of the democratic-liberal model - a model which for a decade has organised itself in the party-form understood as a rallying point for consensus, not experienced as value to be fought for, not felt to be a "problem".

What reply is it possible to give to this crisis in "practising democracy" which is burying democracy more and more in the West, to say it briefly, and which threatens to become the only outlet sought by the ruling classes in the East for managing the escape from "practising Socialism"?

If the multi-party system in the West is in crisis, if the economic and information lobbies have more power than parliaments, than governments, than judiciaries, if consensus is created through delinquent circles and private use of the room for action, not for democracy but for political feasibility, what kind of outcome can one forecast?

What "model" can allow for the affirmation of political primacy in the West or the East?

What "rules" ought to govern the organised actions of individuals in the East or the West?

Can a "national" party, reformed or to be reformed, be a candidate for the governing of global, planetary questions regarding the right to life and a life under law?

What is the Radical Party's plan of action?

With the trans-national choice definitively adopted at the Budapest Congress in 1989 - and confirmed when the party presented no ticket in the European elections and the subsequent municipal elections - the federated, lay, operational, non-exclusive nature of the Radical Party, its "non-representation" of anything in particular, but its character as an instrument, a tool for anyone, of public service for all in the diversity of every individual, its structure "open" to the contribution of the "others", its deliberate refusal to discriminate according to age, sex, religion, "politics" and nationality - that is to say, some of the most important characteristics of the 1967 statute - make a leap in quality, freeing themselves of the contradictions courageously assumed in 1976 for "self defence", for a "state of necessity" which existed in the Italian front, the only one existing after the law on public financing of political parties and after the seizing by the latter of all communications and room for civ

il and democratic struggle.

The "Italian emblem" of the Radical Party - the emblem of a party which since 1967, by its statute, is not a national party - is liberated from a burden, from a limitation, from an entailment. With the trans-national choice - which has as its purpose the creation of another political instrument - a break in the party's continuity is sanctioned "because that segment of the theory of practice, that party, that tool, was dead, was no longer adapted to provoking the reform of politics". And the trans-party is associated and theoretically joined to the trans-national party: to be a Radical too in order to realise the fulfilment of the civil life of a city, a region and even perhaps a country. And the trans-party also is based on the statute of 1967 and finds its model there in the part that proposes an "open" political organisation, "non-exclusive" founded on the associative proposal and on a model of support coming above all from "others".

Putting into effect the decision of the Congress of Budapest of April 1989, made the party experience the condition of "full congressional powers". This means that in political terms the party is represented by four people: the First Secretary, the Treasurer, the Presidents of the Party and the Federal Council.

These people have, on the one hand, assumed the responsibility for returning the party to "statutory normalcy" only when the conditions have been removed that determined their "assumption of full powers" - conditions bound to the situation of non democracy in which the party has been obliged to live in Italy where the party-power system has occupied the institutions, the information media and everything else which serves for consolidating itself as a regime. On the other hand these four are committed "to releasing" as the Budapest motion states, "all the party's energy and it's last penny for the objectives contained in the decision of the preceding congresses and which have not been realised according to the reports of the Secretary and the Treasurer".

Those who have assumed "full congressional powers" - and thus the party - have as the goal of their action the constitution of a trans-national and trans-party force, self-financed and of direct individual membership.

I use the word "constitution" in a political sense: the Radical Party's 1991 project tends to form a great trans-national and trans-party political force, an international force.

The achievement of this objective is bound to the possibility of identifying, in regard to several issues, some norms of positive law to present contemporaneously, "at the same hour of the same day" in the greatest number of Parliament of democratic countries.

To create the mobilisation, to rally the members of parliament and those of the international ruling class who are the recipients of the project, the latter must have its moment of being widely publicised.

In this sense too, it is an extremely complex and ambitious undertaking never before attempted by anyone.

The initial objective is to reach in Western and Eastern Europe, the members of parliament and of the legislative assemblies or those with significant political clout, either "national" or who express a federal or regional type of state organisation endowed with autonomous powers. It is a question of reaching and communicating with some 35,000 elected representatives located in about 300 places in 35 states, besides the European Parliament.

In the attempt to reach this objective, the party is working out a feasible technical-operational-organisational project.

I will say nothing here about this moment of being in the news.

Instead I would like to emphasise the novelty that this project represents: it is not that of offering a list of proposals from which a single initiative is to be chosen, but of organising these proposals but of organising them as a whole group and all of them at once. The project, the proposals, the initiatives live with those who make them their own and everything and everyone gives life to the trans-national political force which is the site where every year or two the study will be made and the general importance, the graduating of the contribution, the budget, the investments of each single proposal and initiative in order that it may in turn become a project.

The present one is a political project that primarily wants to and must verify on a new level the reaction, the reply of the "others" which is a requisite and a condition that we know to be indispensable for securing the party's existence.

It is a project that can, if it has a significant outcome, also offer precious indications on the new structure, the new set-up and organisation of the party - on how from being a "centre" and a "service", the party can also give itself a new statutory guise that will allow it an "orderly" existence and development.

The organisation of the message into "subjects" and the possibility of adhering to even just one of the proposals may foreshadow that federal statute "of and for the left" - now changed into "of and for democracy" - which remains one of the Radical Party's most precious ambitions.

Only the results and experience can, however, furnish all the material and the connections, the subdivisions, the dates and the ways for being able to reach a new "form" which would give the party substance and operational capacity by establishing new and definite relations between a centre and which is and wants to be a "political service" and the will and the initiative "of the many" that are necessary to practice with strength and continuity that political renewal - not only and no longer only in Italy - and make an efficacious contribution to effectively establishing democratic conditions for "the right to life and a life under law".

This is not only an objective but also a method which aims at constituting a real and true "action party" which is the site of non-violent action for all those who want - by way of demonstrations, hunger strikes, and non-violent initiatives - to dedicate themselves to getting a few dozen parliaments to pass legislative provisions. And all of this passes through the associations to the party to the giving birth together to trans-national organisms, autonomous and federated, promoters in their turn of support and activist presences in each country for a liberal, Socialist, democratic, non-violent, and environmentalist revolution against the established disorder.

THE RESOURCES - a page of syntheses

What are the human and financial resources that the party can count on for launching the project and realising the objective which it has identified as necessary for the constitution of the trans-national political entity?

The human resources

For their activities these persons make use of a series of collaborators: some of these are political, others are tied to structural, logistical and organisational types of activities.

There are eight political collaborators, five of them directly connected to the activity in the Eastern European countries (above all the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia where some memberships have been consolidated during the last year). Three of these comrades reside permanently in Eastern Europe: one in Prague, two in Budapest.

There are thirteen structural, logistical and organisational type of collaborators: two relating to the Administrative sector, three to Memberships, three to the switchboard, two to the Secretariat, and three to the internal or logistical services. Another three people are employed part time: one is the curator of the paper archives while the other two help with the software.

The financial resources

In 1990 the Party suspended its activities, de facto. The four people invested with "full congressional powers" pursued a policy of financial reconstruction which had the following results: the Party budget was closed at the end of 1990 with a deficit of $156,500 which was $2,307,000 less than the deficit for 1989 ($2,463,500).

This result, if it is pursued rigorously, opens the possibility of returning to an "ordinary statutory status" by the end of 1991 with the convening of the 36th regular Congress.

For its expenses in 1991 the Party can count on the entire sum earmarked by the law on the public financing of parties ($2,461,000), on the contribution of the television sector and the concession of the rights of the Listening Centre ($1,087,000), on part of the compensation of the Radicals elected to the Italian houses of Parliament and to the European Parliament and the quotas of the salaries of the Radicals elected to the Regional Councils ($1,065,000), and on the contributions of the Chamber's Parliamentary Group ($199,173,000).

These items show that the "Italian connection" is still essential, above all with regard to the financial aspects.

We must add to these sums the proceeds from membership fees and contributions from those who want to associate themselves with the Party in order to make of it in 1991 a trans-national group. A prudent estimate of self-financing would be about $1,304,000. This is the variable most directly connected to the use of the financial resources available, because it is necessary to gain a new and different dimension for the party - that of tens of thousands of registered members. Above all it is through the memberships coming from other countries, in particular from those of the East, that the Party can and must measure its growth (these memberships from the East: an old or a new parameter?) This is the importance of this whole text and of the immediate reply that we expect.

The items referred to constitute an estimate of income for 1991 totalling $6,090,000.

There are three expense categories: Structural expenses; running expenses and for services; Activities.

For the Party structure (a Federal Congress at the end of August to be held outside Italy, and two Federal Council meetings, one in Italy, the other abroad, collaborators with the Secretariat, the Treasury, and the membership drive) there is an estimated expenditure of $1,390,000. The running and services expenses involve $1,139,000 of the estimate.

The expenses for activities (most of which go for the activities the Trans-national Party intends to continue with in the Eastern European countries, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in particular and the activities connected to the functioning of the telecommunications service Agorà) come to $1,203,500.

For the project of the 1991 Party the estimate foresees an expenditure of $2,609,000, equal to 7-8 issues of the publication to be sent in a year to the members of parliaments and of institutionally relevant assemblies in Eastern and Western Europe.

The total estimate of expenditures amounts to $6,428,000 and would involve a deficit of $338,000 in the 1991 budget.

Besides the resources that make up the income estimate, there are, in different forms and ways, some substantial assets concentrated in Italy: real estate (the headquarters the Party acquired in Rome at the end of 1987), radio (Radical Radio), television (three stations, Teleroma 56 and Canale 66 in Rome, and Canale 25 in Milan).

The risk of early elections

The Party's programme of activities and its project are conditioned by the "Italian connection", its presence in the Italian institutions. The normal term of the legislature goes until spring 1992, but in Italy there has been a high risk of early elections in recent weeks. If that should happen, the Radical Party, having decided not to run "as such" in any kind of election, and having already carried out this decision on a number of occasions during the last two years, could include in its estimate hardly one of the income items (first of all public financing) which are connected to its presence in the institutions.

The one way to avoid this danger would be to realise the Party's political objective of creating a non-violent, trans-national and trans-party, self-financed force direct individual membership. This is the reason for the importance, the urgency, of the membership issue and support for this project, for this political organisation, which desires to be unique also in its methods.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) ARCOD - Associazione Radicale per la Costituente Democratica [Radical Association for the Democratic Constituent Assembly, ed.] Created to develop and realise an idea proposed by Marco Pannella during the first Italian Congress of the Radical Party (January 1990), it tends to constitute a point of reference for democratic forces. Later, in the direction impressed on it by Giovanni Negri, Massimo Teodori, Peppino Calderisi and, for a few months, Gianfranco Spadaccia, it represented primarily the rallying point for those Radicals who did not accept the trans-national project as an absolute priority. It has had an important role in the gestation of the Comitato Giannini per i Referendum [the Giannini Committee for the Referendums] and, therefore, in the Referendum Ticket of the 1992 national elections.

2) CORA - Radical Anti-Prohibition Co-ordinating Committee, an association founded in 1989 by Radical Party members interested in the problem of drugs.

3) DIRECT INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP - This phrase is meant to distinguish between the kind of individual membership in the trans-national party and the collective kind of membership that, for one example, a member of the Socialist Party would have in the Socialist International because of his party's affiliation with that group.