ABSTRACT: At the Budapest Congress in April 1989, the decision was taken to set up the "New Party", a transnational and cross-party organization. A challenge to the "real democracy" of the system of national regimes, which is a long way from, and often contrary to, the rules and the laws of true democracy. The appeal addressed to the "forces of democracy and tolerance in every country", to "their leaders and in particular their freest and most responsible leaders", to set up an international, nonviolent, direct-membership organization capable of creating new supernational laws to govern the major problems affecting the fate of humanity. And to do so as quickly as possible. This organization aims to put out roots in the complex world of public administrations, positive law, official power, and the ruling classes, with objectives, proposals and laws that nonviolent and democratic activists can adopt as the cause for mobilization and creative participation -- in and around the seats of power in the world and i

n their own countries. The initial response from members of the Soviet Supreme, the Czechoslovakian Parliament, the European Parliament, the Israeli Knesset, the Burkina Faso, Slovenia, France, Spain, Hungary, Portugal, Belgium, Canada, Poland, the Ivory Coast, and Brazil. "The Radical Party is the only organization on the face of the earth that my conscience allows me to join. Why am I doing it? Because I love my planet, I love people who, like me, live for and appreciate the ideals of liberty rather than violence, who recognize that all living creatures have the right to be themselves," says Dimitrij Zapolskij, deputy in the Soviet of Leningrad and a member of the Radical Party.

(The Party New, n.2, July 1991)

The transnational choice

The XXXV Congress of the Radical Party was held in Budapest in April 1989, in a scenario which foreshadowed the events that were to cause great upheaval a few months later in the countries ruled by real socialism. It was here that the decision was taken to found, and subsequently to organize, the "New Party", a transnational and cross-party force. 1,518 people attended the Budapest Congress -- 1,074 from Italy and 444 from other countries: Hungary, Poland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal, France, Burkina Faso, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, the Ivory Coast, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.

The Budapest motion confirmed a break with the past of the Radical Party: the party members present at the Congress decided to dedicate "all the energy and all the financial resources of the party for the objectives contained in the deliberations of the previous Congresses and not yet achieved, and in the speeches of the Secretary and the Treasurer". The vote, moreover, showed 75% in favour of the motion, a majority which is binding for the party leadership according to the statute.

The above extract from the Budapest motion explains the subsequent decisions and actions of the Radical Party, and constitutes a substantial step forward compared to the motion approved at the Bologna Congress in January 1988 -- here the decision to become transnational was taken, in the declaration that the Radical Party as such would not take part in future elections of any sort, but not with a binding majority.

The Budapest motion states clearly and unequivocally that the Radical Party either becomes transnational or does not exist. It is a challenge launched by the Congress to the "real democracy of èthe system of Western regimes, far from and at times contrary to the principles, the rules and the laws of true democracy", in the awareness that "when information for decision-making and choice are assured, the transnational and transdivisional Radical Party meets a precise need of political leaders no less than it meets that of the dissidents in our society and our time". The Radical Party's proposal is to set up, as quickly as possible, an international, nonviolent, direct membership organization capable of creating new supernational laws to govern, in our society and in our time, the great problems, some of them of historic importance, affecting the fate of humanity - a proposal which is addressed to the "forces of democracy and tolerance in every country" and "the ruling classes and their freest and most respons

ible exponents".

In order to face the serious problem of the scarcity of members and the lack of resources - which are almost all derived, now as in Budapest, from state funds for Italian political parties - "the Congress confers all its statutory powers to the First Secretary, the Treasurer, together with the President of the Party and the President of the Federal Council, for all decisions relating to the life and the patrimony of the Radical Party, in the case that violence manages to prevail over our resistence". The assumption of "full congressional powers" took place in December 1989: from that date four people, Sergio Stanzani, Paolo Vigevano, Emma Bonino and Marco Pannella -- each maintaining his or her own responsibility -- represent the "extraordinary legality" of the Radical Party. These four people nurture a hope: to create a transnational and cross-party political force capable of financing itself in terms of structure and organization. They will put into effect the strategy indicated to them by the èBudapest Co

ngress: to spread the roots of this organization in the complex world of the institutions, positive law, official power and the ruling classes, with objectives, proposals, and laws that the organization of nonviolent and democratic activists can adopt as the cause for mobilization and creative participation, in and around the seats of power in the world and in their own countries, in and around the cities, the territories and the places where the waters, the atmosphere, and the possibility of living together are dying.

The Federal Council

The Federal Council, which was convened from 20 to 24 September, is composed of the members elected at the XXXV Congress of the Radical Party and of the members by right, parliamentarians, ex-parliamentarians, and ex-members of the secretariat of the Radical Party, provided they still members of the party. Including both permanent members and guests, the Federal Council is made up of over one hundred people from around twenty different countries. It is a political representation of what the Radical Party aims to be: a nonviolent, direct-membership international of liberals, Catholic liberals, socialists, social democrats, federalists, European federalists, greens, anti-prohibitionists, and supporters of nonviolence. All united by a common purpose: to build and give an organized form to the political alternative to war and to the possible eversive and totalitarian consequences of the ecological catastrophes that threaten the planet, to fanaticism, intolerance, poverty, famine, real democracy, and "partycracy

".

Elected members:

Mike Ajayi, Italy; Mario Albi, Italy; Joaquin Arce Mateos, Spain; Laura Arconti, Italy; Lucio Bert è, Italy; Marie Andr ée Bertrand, Canada; Eros Bicic, Yugoslavia; Marino Busdachin, Italy; Paolo Buzzanca, Italy; Orna Csillag, Israel; Gaetano Dentamaro, Italy; Alexandre De Perlinghi, Belgium; Andr é Gattolin, France; Paolo Ghersina, Italy; Michel Hancisse, Belgium; Anthony Hennman, Brazil; Massimo Lensi, Italy; Adolfo Linares, Spain; Anne Losonczy, Hungary; Giulio Manfredi, Italy; Maud Marin, France; Anna Niedzwiescka, Poland; Gaoussou Ouattara, Ivory Coast; Marco Pannella, Italy, President of the Federal Council, member of the European Parliament, Non-Attached Group, elected as a candidate in the "Liberali, Repubblicani, Federalisti" list; Paolo Pietrosanti, Italy; èBepi Podda, Italy; Danilo Quinto, Italy; Jean Luc Robert, Belgium; Jean Pierre Roche, France; Moustapha Sarr, Burkina Faso; Francesca Scopcelliti, Italy; Andrea Tamburi, Italy; Alberto Torzuoli, Italy; Juan Vazquez, Spain;

Members by right:

Adelaide Aglietta, Italy, President of the Green Group at the European Parliament; Oktaj Ahmedov, Soviet Union, member of the Soviet Supreme; Shulamit Aloni, Israel, member of Parliament; Ren è Andreani, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, Green Group; Gaetano Azzolina, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Dezider Balog, Czechoslovakia, member of the Czechoslovakian National Parliament; Angiolo Bandinelli, Italy; Antonio Baslini, Italy; Franca Berger, Italy; Virginio Bettini, Italy, member of the European Parliament, Green Group; Emma Bonino, Italy, President of the Radical Party, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Willer Bordon, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, PDS Group, ex- Communist Group; Giuseppe Calderisi, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, President of the European Federalist Group; Santiago Castillo, Spain; Roberto Cicciomessere, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; G.Battista Columbu,

Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, Partito Sardo d'Azione Group; Franco Corleone, Italy, member of the Senate, President of the European Federalist Ecologist Group; Piero Craveri, Italy; Sergio D'Elia, Italy; Mario De Stefano, Italy; Mauro Del Bue, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, Socialist Group; Gianfranco Dell'Alba, Italy; Maria Teresa Di Lascia,

p7É3 Italy; Georges Donnez, France; Vincenzo Donvito, Italy; Olivier Dupuis, Belgium; Adele Faccio, Italy; Laura Fossetti, Italy; Roberto Giachetti, Italy; Basile Guissou, Burkina Faso; Zdenek Guzi, Czechoslovakia, member of the Czechoslovakian National Parliament; Alexandr Kalinin, Soviet Union, member of the Soviet of the Russian Republic; Gianni Lanzinger, èItaly, member of the Chamber of Deputies, Green Group; Oscar Lopane, Italy; Etibar Mamedov, Soviet Union, member of the Soviet Supreme of the USSR; Primo Mastrantoni, Italy; Gianni Mattioli, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, Green Group; Gianluigi Melega, Italy; Luis Mendao, Portugal; Domenico Modugno, Italy, member of the Senate, European Federalist Ecologist Group; Giovanni Negri, Italy, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Gina Ondrej, Czechoslovakia, member of the Czechoslovakian National Parliament; Sandro Ottoni, Italy; Jorge Pegado Liz, Portugal; Angelo Pezzana, Italy; Francesco Rutelli, Italy; Gianfranco Spad

accia, Italy; Ilona Staller, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Antonio Stango, Italy; Sergio Stanzani, Italy, First Secretary of the Radical Party, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Lorenzo Strik Lievers, Italy, member of the Senate, European Federalist Ecologist Group; Marco Taradash, member of the European Parliament, Green Group, elected as a candidate in the "Anti-Prohibitionist" list; Aligi Taschera, Italy; Massimo Teodori, Italy; Alessandro Tessari, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group; Andrea Torelli, Italy; Maurizio Turco, Italy; Andrea Valcarenghi, Italy; Emilio Vesce, Italy; Paolo Vigevano, Italy, Treasurer of the Radical Party; Vojtech Wagner, Czechoslovakia, Vice-Foreign Minister; Dimitrij Zapolskij, Soviet Union, member of the Soviet of Leningrad; Bruno Zevi, Honorary President of the Radical Party, member of the Chamber of Deputies, European Federalist Group.

Amongst the guests:

Evgenij Averin, editor of the Soviet journal "Literaturnoe Obozrenie"; Vladimir Bukovskij, writer, formerly a political prisoner in the Soviet Union; Rosa Del Olmo, Venezuelan, Vice-Chairman of the International Anti-Prohibitionist League; Vladislav Fronin, editor of the Soviet newspaper "Komsomolskaja Pravda"; Natalia Gorbanevskaja, Soviet writer; èLester Grinspoon, American, Vice-Chairman of the International Anti-Prohibitionist League; Vladimir Maksimov, editor of the Soviet journal "Kontinent"; Jorge Pegado Liz, portuguese lawyer, former member of the European parliament; Leonid Pliusc, mathematician, formerly a political prisoner in the Soviet Union.