CHAPTER II

THE BATTLES FOR DIVORCE

ABSTRACT: The second chapter of the book is divided into three paragraphs.

1. All together in the League: a reconstruction of the campaign for divorce, from the introduction of the Fortuna bill to the establishment of the Italian League for Divorce (LID) to the first initiatives and campaigns. 2. From the street demonstration to the passage of the bill: the battles, namely the parliamentary ones, which lead to the passage of the Fortuna-Baslini bill during the 5th legislature. 3. The referendum. We were alone and desperate, and now we are millions...: the battles for divorce until the victory in the referendum of 1974 in the framework of the political situation and of the most important events (e.g. the Chilean crisis and the war of Kippur). Special attention is given to the positions taken each time by the P.C.I.

(Lorenza Ponzone, IL PARTITO RADICALE NELLA POLITICA ITALIANA, 1962-1989, Schena, January 1993)

1. All together in the League

On October 1st, 1965, the socialist member of Parliament Loris Fortuna introduced a draft bill with the purpose of introducing the dissolution of marriage, albeit in limited cases (88). On presenting the bill, Fortuna motivated the need to introduce such reform with the condition of isolation of the Italian legislation on this particular institution to compared to the foreign regulations; also, he explained that in those years the yearly average of illegitimate couples totaled some 22,000, and that the yearly average of legal separations was between 9,000 and 10,000 (89). On the basis of this type of situation, the radicals realized that it was possible to transform what had long been a private fact into a social issue: by summing the 600,000 separated spouses to the 1,5 million de facto separated spouses and the remaining thousands of people involved in the separations, such as the children of separated parents or the new partners of separated spouses, gave the result of about 10, 15% of the Italian populat

ion which was in one way or the other involved in the pathological aspect of marriage (90). Thus, all these people could have represented a rather vast potential of mobilization and consent.

A situation of this kind, therefore, looked like the ideal ground to experiment the radicals' conception of politics and of the party: by appealing to those directly interested in the single campaigns, individually, guaranteeing them a means of political expression by means of the party or of organized movements. By combining a personal fact with a general need of the citizens, they thus aimed to obtain maximum commitment from all those who were concerned by the problem. An essential intuition lay probably at the basis of choosing civil rights, and divorce in particular, as their forte. The radicals believed that a de facto secularization had taken place in Italian society. In other words, that the morals were well ahead of the law in force. The idea that the laws of the Italian republic were to be identified with criteria of social morality of the Church had been partly set aside.

The problem of divorce, which had become a reason of constant political conflict for almost ten years, and one of the reasons for the country's first preschedule elections, was also and especially a question of sovereignty: the Catholic Church's claim to exert full jurisdiction over all civil effects of concordatory marriage came to conflict with the Italian juridical regulation (91). This monopoly of jurisdiction originated, according to the Church, from art. 34 of the Concordat of 1929, reiterated by art. 7 of the Constitution, which, in addition to committing Italy to the respect of the civil effects of religious marriage as it is regulated by canon law, charged the ecclesiastical tribunals with deciding over the events following the act of marriage and therefore on its possible dissolution.

With no divorce, it was possible to dissolve marriages only through an annulment pronounced by civil tribunals for civil marriages and by ecclesiastic tribunals for concordatory marriages, according to the rules laid down by the canon law for the validity of the sacrament of marriage and with civil effects. However, the annulment did not dissolve a bond. It considers it invalid from the beginning, and had a retroactive effect, ex tunc, in the sense that it is as if the marriage had never existed. One consequence of this was that the rights of the children were not guarantied, nor was alimony provided for the weaker spouse (92). All this, combined with the extravagant costs of the ecclesiastic trials, determined an evident damage for the rights of the weakest social parts.

Therefore, the complexity of the marriage trials created an evident state of suffering in those who happened to come across it, so that the battle for the introduction of divorce in the Italian legislation was not a demonstration of anticlerical principles, but the acknowledgment of a right.

The radicals' successful idea was precisely that of taking advantage of this link between personal motivations and politics, and drawing the attention of the parties back to strictly individual problems which the Marxist forces in particular neglected for ideological reasons. According to the radical philosophy, politics is basically the means to solve the problem of the individual's happiness, the achievement of which lies not only in the solution of economic problems, but especially in the safeguard of the freedom of the individual and in the achievement of civil and human rights (93). The radicals therefore opposed solidarist ideas or Catholic or communist types of ethics of sacrifice, and considered the public as a whole formed by autonomous individuals, and not as something that transcends the individual and lies above it (94). It was, therefore, a new use of politics as a means to release categories of persons that were isolated by forms of social oppression which were even more unbearable than the eco

nomic ones, because they thwart the liberties of the citizens as individual. That is why a movementist tendency prevails in the radical party, especially between the sixties and the seventies. The party is transformed into the place where each militant may express his personal history. The trait d'union of all these personal situations is a general project to change society, which is obtained by means of a new administration of public affairs. The spontaneous, grass-roots reformation of the unity of the left, and, ultimately, the aspiration of the movements of the left to rule the country, was the ultimate purpose of the introduction of the civil rights campaigns. It was a means to overcome the situation of stalemate in Italy, the regime based on the D.C., with the consequent freeze of the Constitution, the elimination of the political contrasts which the radicals judged to be beneficial in a real democracy, the degrading of Parliament to a corporative chamber of negotiations and mutual concessions between m

ajority and opposition. Thus, divorce was not an isolated problem. It was part of a complex project of renewal and laicization of the Italian state.

After the introduction of the Fortuna bill, it was the radicals who suggested to organize the support of the public opinion--the only way to prevent the issue from being shelved. Admittedly, they were assisted by the fact that the popular weekly "ABC" supported the initiative at once, thus ensuring a vast echo among the public, which was precisely what the radicals wanted to obtain. The first step in the direction of the actual organization of the battle was taken during a debate held in Rome on December 12, 1965, at the Roman section of the radical party. The meeting was chaired by Massimo Teodori, and featured the participation of Mauro Mellini as radical relator, Luciana Castellina for the P.C.I., the catholic Migliori and Loris Fortuna (95).

The idea of creating an association of supporters of divorce, totally independent of the parties on the model of the Anglo-Saxon leagues or pressure groups, which was new for the Italian political scene, dawned during this meeting. In his report to the meeting, Mauro Mellini outlined the structure and strategy of the movement: "an independent, active, organized, politically clear pro-divorce action aiming to stir feelings and beliefs that are by now widespread in the masses and channel energies, coordinate the efforts of those who struggle for divorce, stimulate and support the action of the political forces who have decided to back the pro-divorce action, is now both possible and effective" (96).

In January 1966 Mauro Mellini himself, together with the secretary of the R.P. Marco Pannella, announced the creation of the Italian League for the introduction of divorce. The structure of the League was planned as a centre for the coordination of the activities carried out throughout the country, an open and informal body whose main novelty consisted in the fact that the members of the national direction, while coming from different countries, were members as private individuals and not as delegates of the political force they belonged to. This contradiction had been devised on purpose to free the League from any cross-party negotiation and compromise. Preminent members of the promoting committee were Loris Fortuna, the magistrates Mario Berutti and Salvatore Gianlombardo, parliamentarians Lucio Luzzatto of the P.S.I.U.P., Giuseppe Perrone-Capano of the P.L.I., Giuseppe Averardi of the P.S.D.I., the scientist Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, the jurist Alessandro Galante-Garrone (97). To succeed in its intents, t

he League on the one hand used means aimed to ensure an appropriate coverage of its activity and enhance adhesions. On the other hand it used direct pressure on the single parliamentarians to urge them to step up the parliamentary progress of the bill on divorce (98).

A series of publications were divulged, without a fixed periodicity, with a maximum circulation of 150,000 issues: "Battaglia divorzista" (battle for divorce, transl.) (99), the League's official organ, which began publications in November 1966, "Il divorzio" (Divorce, transl.), and "Notizie LID" (LID News, transl.). The publications were sent on the basis of a mailing list assembled during the demonstrations promoted by the League.

The national LID also organized mass demonstrations with the representatives of the lay parties, and managed to collect a few thousand participants. In November 1966, 15,000 gathered in Piazza del Popolo in Rome. In February 1967 2,000 people gathered at the Teatro Adriano in Rome and 8,000 in Piazza Navona in September 1969, always in Rome (100).

The League's local groups, which had arisen spontaneously in various cities of Italy, promoted a series of rallies, round tables and debates on divorce: two hundred in three years' time (1966-1969),

As far as pressure on Parliament is concerned, the LID, at the initiative of radical militants, experimented various types of "direct actions" for the first time on a large scale. The first of such was organized by "ABC" in the period October 1965-March 1966, and consisted in inviting the readers to send postcards to Loris Fortuna, notifying their support of the bill on divorce. Some 32,000 postcards and 4,000 letters were sent (101). This method was later adopted several more times, during the campaign for divorce, urging citizens to send letters, postacards and telegrams to the parliamentarians signatories of the bill each time a deadlock in the legislative procedure occurred. Moreover, the radicals, namely Marco Pannella and Mauro Mellini, carried out an in-depth investigation of the parliamentary procedures (102) with the purpose of advising the deputies concerned on how to accelerate the examination of the bill.

Presumably, the radicals' idea of the crucial importance of Parliament in the political struggle underlay this new method. Decisions were taken within the institutions, and therefore simple street demonstrations whose direct objective was not that of urging the institutions to carry out their role were pointless. The letters were addressed to the single parliamentarians and not to the leaders of the party, obviously in order to avoid any compromises between majority and opposition in the passage of the bills, appealing to individual beliefs rather than to political affiliation. Other methods of pressure devised by the radical party were hunger strikes: the first hunger strike to protest the obstructionism of the Christian Democratic Party against the Fortuna bill was enacted by Pannella and Cicciomessere, at the time respectively treasurer and secretary of the Radical Party, in November 1970 (103). Along with the hunger strikes, protests against the RAI were also organized, which had the effect of obtaining

five televised debates on divorce in September 1970, with the participation of non-parliamentary personalities.

A more traditional instrument was also chosen: in 1967 a popular petition signed by 100,000 citizens was addressed to the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, requesting Parliament to issue a decision on the Fortuna bill as soon as possible (104).

The national League, strong of 20,000 membership fees collected in three years' time without any actual enrolment campaign, organized itself into a central structure, with the creation of a collegial council, an equally collegial secretariat and a national directive council elected by the congress.

We mentioned above that about one third of the militants of the League and of the elected representatives in the directive organs of the organization were radical members or sympathizers, and that the most important initiatives were organized by Mauro Mellini, member of the presidency of the LID, and by Marco Pannella, member of the secretariat of the same. We can say that until the bill on divorce was passed, and also during the campaign for the referendum, the radical party channeled most of its energies into the LID, which greatly encouraged the campaign while probably subtracting resources from the party. The latter counted no more than 1,000 members until 1972. The participation proved extremely useful to experiment the methods of action outside Parliament and to make the radicals emerge on the national scene. There remains to verify whether the political objective pursued by the radicals was achieved, apart from the immediate result of the introduction of divorce. In other words, whether any progress w

as made in the direction of the unity and renewal of the Italian left for an alternative government compared to the D.C. and its long-time allies.

2. From street demonstrations to the passage of the bill

The members of the LID of those first months of 1966, when the bill started its progress in Parliament, were confronted with a rather grim situation. No political force was truly willing to play its strategies to the very end and at all costs. It is a fact that the League was politically isolated, and that the parties of the left themselves proved reluctant to break off contacts with the Catholic circles, starting from the P.C.I., against which the radicals carried out a bitter polemic. The P.C.I. kept a rather cautious political position in those months, careful to the needs of the Catholic popular masses (105) and in line with Togliatti's political scheme which aimed at a coalition between the communist and Catholic masses "for a platform of economic, political and social renewal". As a consequence, it was better for the P.C.I. not to raise a question such as divorce, which would have inevitably lead to a conflict with the Church. In such a political context and with no prospects of a change, it was necess

ary to devise a new solution enabling the parties of the left to take a stance in favour of divorce, without (at least for the moment) implying changes in the political coalitions and, especially, choices of an ideological nature. Divorce was thus presented by the LID as a necessary law to solve intolerable situations in human terms, regardless, therefore, of the strategies which the single political forces wanted to pursue. This laicizing choice, of overriding merely ideological oppositions in the political struggle, was advanced by the militant radicals of the LID: it was the practical experimentation of politics by subjects on the basis of which, as we saw, they had organized the party. The LID's rapid success, on which a vast movement of opinion formed itself, was due to the ample freedom of movement allowed precisely by the declared independence from any party or class mechanism and at any rate from any parochial interests. During the first three years of its activity, the struggle for divorce took plac

e almost exclusively in the streets, where the LID organized demonstrations to draw the attention of the "outlaws of marriage". The didactic publications written by Mauro Mellini are part of this same effort to publicize the bill on divorce. Along with practical advice to obtain annulments from the Sacred Rota easily and at little cost, the league also published the cases handled by the ecclesiastic tribunals on marriage with clarity and irony (106).

It has been estimated that some 200,000 citizens took part in the demonstrations organized by the LID during the first three years of the campaign: they were people with different social backgrounds, a fact which reveals a general interest for the battle. However, the bill was not passed during the fourth legislature (1963-68).

The Christian Democrats' opposition in upholding the indissolubility of marriage was inflexible and bitter, so much so that the Christian democratic deputies took advantage of every possible chicanery to hinder and prevent the bill from being discussed (107).

The attitude of the lay and left-wing parties was not equally univocal and coherent in defending the bill, at least initially. There was widespread fear that such a reform could, for the two larger parties of the left, jeopardize the relationship with the masses, especially the Catholic ones. The socialist party, moreover, was concerned about not discontinuing the relation of government with the D.C. Among the lay parties, the P.R.I. was also cautious because it did not want to open up a confrontation with the traditional Christian democratic allies, while Malagodi's P.L.I. was internally split.

The bill, introduced by Loris Fortuna on 1st October 1965, was assigned to the Chamber Justice Committee, on 5 May 1966 (108). Its examination began only on 15 September. The christian democratic deputies immediately raised a prejudicial cause of unconstitutionality (109), thus blocking the progress of the bill which was forwarded to the Constitutional Affairs Committee for an appraisal. It remained there until 19 January 1967, when the Committee issued a favourable opinion. The justice Committee started the discussion on 16 June 1967 and on 21 September the closing of the discussion of the general lines was voted, and the single articles were examined. The discussion on the single articles was far from easy, so that the Committee was forced to divide it into two distinct articles, one for the dissolution of civil marriage and the other for the concordatory marriage (art. 1 of the Fortuna bill, which introduced the general principle of the dissolubility of marriage).

After the passage of the first two articles (on 16 November 1967 and on 10 January 1968), the committee examined the one concerning the reasons of divorce, on the subject of which new conflicts broke out among the members, including the lay ones. The article was eventually passed on 25 January with a few restrictive amendments compared to the initial bill.

The deadline of the political elections, which were held on 19 May 1968, prevented the further prosecution of the bill's progress. As early as in December 1967, the supporters of divorce realized the impossibility of passing the law by the end of the fourth legislature, considering the scarce time left. It was necessary therefore to concentrate on the objective of guaranteeing its approval by the the following legislature.

During the 1st Congress of the LID (Rome, 9-10 December 1967), the hypothesis of proposing pro-divorce lists to the electorate was considered, considering that the parliamentarians had engaged in the project reluctantly, and only because they were forced to by the mobilization of the public opinion. Marco Pannella's suggestion, of not presenting autonomous lists and relying instead on candidates who would publicly declare themselves ready to reintroduce the Fortuna bill in the first day of the fifth legislature, prevailed at the congress. In fact, during the electoral campaign, no one took too open a position on divorce, so the radical party asked its sympathizers to return a blank voting paper in sign of protest.

The political elections of 19 May 1968 rewarded the D.C. and the P.C.I., with a slight increase of votes, and marked a heavy defeat for the Unified P.S., which obtained 14.5%, losing almost a fourth of the electorate which had voted for the P.S.I. and P.S.D.I. separately at the elections of 1963 (19,9% PSI + PSDI in 1963). However, Loris Fortuna reintroduced the bill on 4 June 1968, managing to obtain the signatures of sixty socialist, communist, PSIUP and republican deputies, always with the mediation of the LID (110).

During the fifth legislature, the League coordinated two parallel initiatives: a parliamentary and so to say institutional one, and a popular one, outside Parliament. The first type of action was used to try to overcome mistrust and hostilities among the various parties, and to form a lay if somewhat shaky front. The popular actions were used instead to challenge the charges that the Fortuna bill was a bourgeois bill, and to keep alive the control of the public opinion on the activity of the parties. The radicals did not consider the situation in Parliament after the elections as favourable, because of the loss, caused by the defeat of the Unified Socialist Party, of some positions which had proved crucial for the first achievements of the league. The Hon. Bucciarelli Bucci, a christian democrat, was appointed president of the Committee for Constitutional affairs, whereas it had been chaired by a socialist during the previous legislature. The liberals introduced their own bill, highly restrictive compared to

the Fortuna bill, signed by Baslini, at the time president of the LID.

To protest against this, Marco Pannella, member of the secretariat of the League, resigned, hoping to obtain the liberals' withdrawal of the bill. These did accept the Fortuna bill, though completed with a series of amendments developed by Baslini. Subsequently the discussion in the Justice Committee carried on rapidly as the one in the committee for constitutional affairs. In early June, the Fortuna-Baslini bill reached the Assembly. The debate was postponed several times owing to the obstructionist interventions of the christian democratic parliamentarians. On 10 November 1969 the situation was unchanged, so the LID decided to resume the control of the situation, with an initiative of Marco Pannella who, together with Roberto Cicciomessere (Secretary of the RP) started a hunger strike in front of Montecitorio. The result was that the D.C. promised to vote by the end of the month, and on 29 November the Fortuna bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies a 325 to 283 voting.

The bill then passed on to the Senate, where the pro-divorce bloc (P.S.I., P.C.I., P.R.I., P.L.I.) was small, and therefore even a simple absence could cause unforeseen obstacles and delays in the discussion. Moreover, the political situation at that time was extremely particular, in that it was a turning point in the political history of our country. After 1968, the parties of the left were forced to relinquish all forms of tactics and caution related to the problems of coalition, and this new climate had beneficial effects on the battle which the LID wanted to wage with scarce hopes of victory.

On the eve of its passage, all the observers regarded the bill on divorce as a mirage. The parties of the left (the ones most concerned) were in a critical moment, with schisms, rivalries, controversies and actual crises of identity. The Unified P.S. had split after the electoral defeat of '68; the communist party, after the events of Prague, had for the first time backed the reformers versus the military intervention of Russia. All this ferment added to what was referred to as the strategy of tension, i.e. the first acts of terrorism. In this tragic context, the LID, with its system of street struggle, was faced to a few additional problems, at a moment in which the base unleashed itself in sensational and dramatic forms. Admittedly, the bill did represent an obstacle in the way of the formation of the various governmental alliances in that period. And the continued ministerial crises that characterized the political scene in 1970 made the lay parties extremely cautious and hesitant. The destiny of the Fort

una bill was decided with a compromise in March 1970, after a long cabinet crisis; it was an elegant compromise between the Catholic forces and the pro-divorce parties and movements: the lay parties pledged to preventively pass the law for the application of the abrogating referendum, an institution provided for by art. 75 of the Constitution and which had not yet been applied, with the purpose of submitting the bill to the popular will. In exchange for this, the D.C. allowed the bill to continue its progress at the Senate. However, the accord did not immediately pave the way for the passage of divorce because the parties of the left were afraid of further deepening the division with the Catholic circles, and therefore with the Christian Democrats. In the meanwhile the LID endeavoured to keep its bill outside of the "dubious bargaining of the establishment" by organizing demonstrations and inventing a committee of guarantors in order for the bill to be voted by the Senate by 9 October 1970.

A sudden coup de théatre seemed to jeopardize the bill at its voting: a christian democratic motion requesting the rejection of the bill point-blank failed to pass by a single vote. It appeared clear to all that defectors were operating in the pro-divorce front. The outcome of the affair seemed, paradoxically, in the hands of an unlikely surrender of the christian democratic party. It was decided to rely on the mediation of senator Giovanni Leone, who made the lay parties accept a few restrictive amendments.

Pannella's and Mellini's resignation from the leadership of the LID to protest against the compromises which could have altered the spirit of the bill were instrumental in drastically stepping up the negotiations (111).

On 9 October 1970 Senate approved divorce, which became a law of the state with the approval of the other house of Parliament, on second examination, on 1 December 1970. The radicals proved that the ideal force of a minority, by resorting to political means other than those of the Italian tradition, had managed to impose the passage of a law which was already ripe in the conscience of the country.

But the most outstanding result, apart from the technical success of the experiment, was essentially political: for the first time in the short history of their group, the new radicals had managed to aggregate forces which, while having a common or similar origin, had been long divided by irreconcilable differences. Nonetheless, the longed-for political result obtained by struggling for the introduction of divorce, a single bloc formed by all progressivist forces, was a pure illusion. And it was inevitably so, considering the compromises, the negotiations, which the historical analysis still needs to fully reveal, on the premises of which the bill on divorce was born. Ultimately, the coalitions or positions pro or against of the left, were never clear-cut and precise: a lay policy could certainly not be constructed on the misunderstanding, to obtain which it was necessary to be truly free and without reservations for future choices. Thus, the radicals considered that an experience such as the one on divorce,

which had originated from the initiative of a single parliamentarian and an anomalous movement such as the LID, could not be repeated considering the social and political conditions which had made it possible (112).

Quite rightly the radicals came to believe that all parliamentary parties would not have been taken by surprise by passively accepting a theme of political struggle which was not part of their objectives or in their interests.

Nonetheless, the radicals drew from the campaign on divorce a confirmation of the possibility of success for the politics of contents. Thus, they decided to adopt a new means of political struggle in subsequent years, the referendum, the only means to influence and affect the political balance. It would have also allowed to obtain the consent of the citizens on the contents of a specific political initiative rather than on a break-away from the party they traditionally belonged to.

3. The referendum: we were alone and desperate, and we are millions...

The tension had nonetheless had the effect of cementing the lay bloc, which was now on the verge of breaking up: the radicals, immediately informed, publicly denounced the thing (113). According to the radicals, the fraction had already manifested itself in the declarations of vote expressed by the lay and left-wing parties, at the final rush on the bill on divorce. It was easy, therefore, to detect a certain fear of winning in the positions of the representatives of the pro-divorce forces which the radicals viewed as the main reason for the defeats with respect to the christian democratic party (114).

In the meanwhile, the anti-divorce groups had far from accepted the situation, and started to operate for the repeal of the newly-passed law. A committee chaired by a professor of Roman law, Gabrio Lombardi, introduced a request to hold a referendum in early January 1971. The radicals and the LID countered the activity of the pro-abrogation front promptly and resolutely. At first they contended that the request to hold a referendum was unconstitutional, in that it was illegitimate to submit an inalienable right of the individual to a collective judgment. Then the radicals changed strategy, accepting the referendum to prevent any compromise from tampering with and altering the Fortuna-Baslini law (115).

The constitutional objections expressed by the radicals against the request for a referendum received tepid attention among the parliamentarians who had just voted the law. At that point, the LID and the radicals resorted to direct methods, and moved against those who seemed to control the referendum group, i.e. the ecclesiastic hierarchies. Pannella and Mellini started by denouncing a number of bishops to the magistracy for their support given to the movement for the abrogation of divorce: the hierarchies' intervention, the radicals believed, was penally relevant and therefore punishable.

The initiative, taken at a historical moment of an at least tactical conformism towards the ecclesiastic hierarchies, raised the reactions of the liberal opinion, which opposed any resort to the Codice Rocco, considered repressive, to obtain the end of the Church's interference with the affairs of the Italian state. However, the radicals' intention was not that of incriminating the hierarchies, but rather that of stirring the progressivist public opinion in support of divorce. While failing to obtain a vast consent, these anticlerical positions served the purpose of interesting the newspapers and therefore dramatizing the situation. Thus, they mobilized the popular movements: the local militants of the LID carried out a capillary control on the regularity of the signature gathering for the referendum, and denounced the blackmails suffered by the signatories in the churches, in the hospitals, in private schools, in monasteries. However, these dossiers lead nowhere. The political context in which the radicals

operated after the passage of the bill on divorce was even more complex than the previous one. The parties of the left were experiencing a critical moment: a stage of transition from the verbal paleo-maximalism in the wake of the confrontation with the European socialdemocratic movements and of the onset of the crisis of real socialism. After condemning the Soviet intervention in Prague, the communist party was embracing a cooperation with the christian democratic party, following a line of soft opposition to the government.

The P.S.I. was unable to find a new strategy, and was torn between participating in the government with the D.C. and seeking "more advanced equilibriums" in view of an alternative. In that critical situation, all political forces tried to defuse that drifting mine of divorce, which admittedly represented a reason for tension and risked upsetting the existing balance in the parties' internal and external relations. That is why, in the two years that followed the introduction of divorce, a compromise was sought for at all costs with the D.C. in order to avoid a clash on the abrogating referendum, which would have forced clear-cut choices where the minor parties feared being crushed between two blocs. Also, the idea that there was no pro-divorce majority in the country was widespread.

At that point, the LID and the radicals, fearing that the political alchemies, the fruit of compromises, could have lead to a painless, so to say, alteration of the Fortuna bill, ceased opposing the referendum and committed themselves to safeguarding the integrity of the law at the cost of a popular response. They moved along a broader political line, including divorce in the traditionally lay issues, such as the request to denounce the Concordat.

In order to apply this policy aimed at overturning the Church-State relations, they called a national anti-Concordat assembly in parallel with the party's ninth national congress on 14 February 1971. During such assembly the LIAC (Italian League for the repeal of the Concordat) was founded, with the participation of some of the most authoritative members of the LID (116). The parliamentarians who joined the LIAC introduced resolutions and interpellations aimed at causing a debate on the Concordat. These initiatives were part of the left-wing parties' revision of the agreements reached b the fascist regime and the Church. The radicals for their part supported and enhance the LIAC's activity and sent all lay parliamentarians of the Chamber of Deputies a document drafted by the party's executive directive, which specified and explained the radicals' position on the State-Church issue (117).

The radical document was extremely detailed and touched on the entire array of relations that originated from the Concordat, from family to education to welfare. These interests of "clerical power" gave life to a huge heritage which was wider and more powerful than the public ones, and that was free to thrive and prosper in a sort of grey area thanks precisely to the Concordat. The radicals concentrated on practical matters and referred to the thousands of billions transferred each year from the funds of the state with pretexts which sometime bordered illegality, into the pockets of the administrators of clerical economic structures for welfare, primary school, leisure activities--all subtracted to any control including fiscal ones. Therefore, the question was not only the transfer of the competences of the state to another "sovereignty", but also the transfer of huge financial resources. The radical party was deeply convinced that this sort of antagonism had its roots in that historical conflict between opp

osite forces that had been building up for many decades in our country. Hence the radicals' hard-shell refusal towards any attempt to revise the Concordat, in that they considered that only repealing the Lateran Pacts would have avoided the compromises. The exchange between the revision of the Concordat and divorce provided the proposed referendum with the force of a blackmail: an unacceptable position for the radicals, who ultimately required for a harmonization of the "Italian situation on the model of every civilized, democratic and modern country, without any religious oppositions" (118).

Consistently with what the documents maintained and with what had been said during the various meetings, the LID's directive bodies became the promoters during a meeting of 18 May 1971 of a series of legislative measures with the purpose of guaranteing full-fledged civil rights also to the religious and at the same time to punish the religious ministers who interfered in the political struggle by abusing their position and forcing the conscience of the believers. On that same occasion, the LID suggested that its members abstain from voting at the administrative elections of 13th June, repeating the decision taken by the socialist party (119). In the meanwhile, that process towards the compromise between the pro-divorce forces and the Catholic ones--a process which the radicals considered to be a sort of secret conspiracy against divorce to avoid the referendum, and an unacceptable price for the lay opinion.

The negotiations, monitored by the P.C.I., were becoming all the more urgent in that the communists wanted to be part of the majority; to achieve such objective they were willing to pay a price to the Catholic circles--surrendering on the question of divorce. It is in this view that we should judge the project introduced by senator Carettoni (independent left) in December 1971, the fruit of an agreement among all lay parties, which made the procedure to obtain divorce more complicated, difficult and subject to dilatory expedients such as the one that provided for an extension of the trial time requirements in case of opposition on the part of the Catholic spouse. The proposal did not advance because the D.C. did not accept it. It would have reluctantly accepted the compromise suggested by the PCI only for civil marriage. At that point, the most convenient solution for all parties concerned was dissolving the two houses of Parliament and calling preschedule elections, which would have allowed to postpone the

referendum by one year. The radicals criticized the decision (120), warning that postponing the referendum implied losing the opportunity for a confrontation that would have lead part of the Catholic electorate to embrace lay positions, a unique opportunity offered by the peculiar political circumstance to tilt the balance to the left. They maintained that after the elections, it would have been harder to isolate the problem of divorce from the more general context of the crisis of the institutions, with the consequence that a victory of the referendum would have been more difficult. With such premises, the radicals and the LID took a stance for abstention: they opened a campaign proper against what they called "fraudulent" elections. The electoral campaign was particularly bitter especially on the part of the Catholic masses and therefore of the D.C., which wanted to recover votes to the right to enlarge the anti-divorce bloc. The D.C. feared a strong recession as in the last administrative elections: the P

.C.I. nurtured the same fears because of the competition of the group of Il Manifesto to its left. However, the results were not as sensational as predicted. The P.C.I. obtained a small increase, the D.C. kept its positions, the P.S.I.U.P. disappeared as a parliamentary force, the group of Il Manifesto obtained no quorum. The M.S.I. rose less than expected. The Andreotti cabinet with a centrist majority that was formed after the elections was to call the referendum in the following spring. However, the government, comforted by the favourable opinion of the state council (requested on 30 January 1973 and issued on 24 February) managed with a juridical chicanery to postpone the referendum for another year, i.e. to 1974. It was a useful delay to seek a compromise. The various political forces' positions on divorce were strongly influenced by an unstable political situation, caused also by two major international events that characterized 1973: the military coup in Chile and the Arab-Israeli war of Kippur with t

he consequent oil crisis.

The P.C.I. in particular drew important consequences from these events. On the morrow of the Chilean crisis Berlinguer announced the thesis of the "compromesso storico" (historical compromise, transl.): he proposed an agreement between the D.C. and the P.C.I. to avoid a swing to the right of the Italian economic and social crisis, as in Chile. Having outlined this political change, the P.C.I. of course gave show of a greater willingness, compared to the recent past, to find an agreement with the D.C. on the referendum.

At that point the radicals decided to struggle to hold the referendum, which they had initially opposed and then accepted, as soon as possible since this tool of direct democracy was the only way to defend once and for all the Fortuna bill. The radical choice was not dictated by circumstance. In other words, it was not limited to the question of divorce, but was part of a new political strategy of the party which was launching in that period a campaign to gather signatures for eight referendums. This meant practically applying the radical method of using new tools in the political struggle.

"The way in which we risk being defeated in the struggle on the referendum is that of being unable to wage it", wrote "Prova Radicale" on the subject of those who contended that the referendum would have been a religious war, a "shot in the dark" (121).

The communist suggested did not meet with a uniform reaction of the Catholic circles: while one part hesitated and war on the verge of accepting, the most solid and ideological part was for an open and final clash, and assumed that the lay bloc was internally divided, weak and represented a vital minority but a minority nonetheless. The inflexible position of the christian democrats, embodied by senator Amintore Fanfani who was again secretary of the D.C. after the Congress of June 1973, lead to the referendum, which was scheduled for May 12, 1974.

The electoral campaign highlighted the differences of position among the various components of the pro-divorce bloc. The communist party, the only one that could have mobilized the masses, began the electoral campaign with little enthusiasm. It seemed devoid of any ideal drive, and became slightly more active only towards the end, while constantly safeguarding its strategy of rapprochement with the Catholics. The subject of divorce, which was the object of the referendum, was not mentioned. The question of saying 'yes' or 'no' to divorce was transformed into a campaign against the christian democratic party, which had reached an alliance with the M.S.I. The communist attitude was driven by fears of creating conflicts with the Catholic hierarchies. The radicals promptly grasped the danger lying in the communists' way of carrying out the referendum campaign. Pannella remarked in an editorial on "Liberazione" that the campaign, carried out in this way, risked losing its peculiarity, for which several millions o

f electors seemed willing, for the first time, to vote against the D.C. with respect to which they continued instead to issue judgments on other issues, and on the political elections (122). The radicals had realized the opportunities opened up by a direct consultation and on a single subject, with respect to the election. In other words, the specificity of the means lay in the way to shift the electorate from an ideological vote, the expression of the indications of the parties, towards a more lay choice which, ultimately, translated into a progressivist majority which, confessions of affiliation notwithstanding, was a leftist one de facto. The media excluded the radical party which thus remained mute. Only the weekly "Il Mondo" hosted the radical opinion in an inner page controlled by the party itself and by the LID on a weekly basis (123). The radicals used "Il Mondo" to outline their positions which, as the referendum drew nearer, became more and more radical, and came to include an opposition to the int

erference of the hierarchies. They also organized rallies, but according to a new approach, consistent with their philosophy on the relations between citizens and parties. One example was the rally-concert held at the Palasport in Rome in March 1974, whereby they stigmatized the image of the traditional political rally. The result of the abrogating referendum was the following: 40.9% in favour and 59.1% against.

NOTES

(88) Cf. AA.VV. »Il divorzio in Italia , Firenze, La nuova Italia 1969.

(89) Cf. ALESSANDRO COLETTI, »Storia del divorzio in Italia , Savelli Roma 1970, p. 134.

(90) Cf. MASSIMO TEODORI, »Il movimento divorzista in Italia, origini e prospettive , "Tempi moderni" n. 3, summer 1970.

(91) Cf. MAURO MELLINI, »Le sante nullità , Savelli, Roma 1974, p. 13 and foll.

(92) Cf. MAURO MELLINI, »Così annulla la Sacra Rota , Samonà e Savelli, Roma, 1969.

(93) Cf. TEODORI »Il movimento divorzista... , op. cit. For the "radical philosophy" see also Marco Pannella, preface to the book by ANDREA VALCARENGHI »Underground pugno chiuso! Arcana Editrice 1973, as well as several interviews granted by the radical leader. For example, the one with "Playboy" in January 1975 or with AMICA in March 1975.

(94) MARCO PANNELLA in "Notizie Radicali", July 1971, wrote: "We abhor sacrifices, both ours and other people's; we owe others - and they owe us - nothing but life and serenity; we do not like that which is built with blood or even with the "sweat of one's brow", by wounding and being wounded".

(95) TEODORI, »I nuovi radicali , op. cit. p. 78-83; TEODORI »Il movimento divorzista in Italia , op. cit.; A. COLETTI, op. cit..

(96) Report by Mauro Mellini at the debate held on 12 December 1965 at the teatro Eliseo in Rome, quoted by ALESSANDRO COLETTI, »Storia del divorzio in Italia , cit., p. 135.

(97) TEODORI, »I nuovi radicali , op. cit., p. 80.

(98) A. COLETTI, op. cit., p. 136.

(99) COLETTI, Ibidem, p. 137.

(100) TEODORI, Il movimento divorzista in Italia, cit.

(101) TEODORI, »I nuovi radicali , cit., e »Il movimento divorzista cit.

(102) Letter by Marco Pannella to the weekly magazine "L'Astrolabio": "L'Astrolabio" n. 34, 30 August 1967, p. 16 (»Lettera di un divorzista. Divorzio e lotta democratica ).

(103) A. COLETTI, op. cit., p. 145.

(104) TEODORI, »Il movimento divorzista , cit., p. 92.

(105) TEODORI, »Il movimento divorzista , cit. p. 90.

(106) Edited by M. MELLINI, »L'annullamento facile del matrimonio , ed. Partito Radicale 1967, MAURO MELLINI, »Così annulla la Sacra Rota , Samonà e Savelli, 1969; M. MELLINI, Le sante nullità, Savelli 1974.

(107) Cf. CARLO GALANTE GARRONE, »Profili politici della battaglia , in AA.VV. "Il divorzio in Italia", edited by L. Piccardi, La Nuova Italia, Fi, 1969.

(108) Cf. CARLO GALANTE GARRONE, op. cit., pp. 77-88.

(109) The question of constitutional legitimacy concerned the extension of the dissolution to concordat marriages, in relation to art. 7 of the Constitution which would have generated the inclusion of the indissolubility if marriage in the Italian regulation--a principle that pertained to canon law. More in general, the constitutionality of the Fortuna bill was challenged, also in relation to article 2, 3 29, 30, 31 of the Constitution.

(110) The events that preceded the passage of the bill on divorce were reconstructed on the basis of information drawn from articles by radical exponents published on the weekly magazine based in Parma "L'opinione Pubblica", and of articles published on daily newspapers and magazines.

(111) Cf. GIUSEPPE CATALANO, »E lasciateli divorziare , "L'Espresso" n. 42, 18 October 1970, pp. 4-5

(112) Cf. GIANFRANCO SPADACCIA in »Un'ondata di referendum per battere un parlamento clerico-fascista , "La prova radicale" n. 4 summer 1972.

(113) Cf. MARCO PANNELLA »Difendere il divorzio, abrogare il Concordato , "Notizie Radicali" n. 107, 10 December 1970.

(114) Cf. GIANFRANCO SPADACCIA »La paura di aver vinto , Notizie Radicali n. 107,10 December 1970.

(115) The reconstruction of the radicals' attitude in this period was possible mainly through a consultation of the quarterly "La prova radicale" 1971-1973, written entirely by radicals. Refer namely to G. SPADACCIA »Il comportamento dei laici: LID, LIAC, PR e partiti democratici , "La prova radicale", n. 1, Autumn 1977, pp. 167-192.

(116) G. SPADACCIA, last art. quoted, p. 171

(117) G. SPADACCIA, last art. quoted, p. 175.

(118) G. SPADACCIA, last art. quoted, p. 176.

(119) Cf. pp. 124-125.

(120) GIANFRANCO SPADACCIA »Dove porta la paura del referendum , "La Prova radicale", n. 2, winter 1972, pp. 17-22.

(121) Cf. »Rapporto sul referendum , edited by the Collettivo Radicale di studio sul referendum sul divorzio, e by Mauro Mellini, "La prova radicale", n. 5 March 1973, p. 80.

(122) MARCO PANNELLA, »Uniti sì ma contro la DC , "Liberazione", n. 7, 27 January 1974.

(123) "Il Mondo", 21 February - 12 May 1974.