CONCLUSIONS

ABSTRACT: The text outlines and discusses some of the problems that had already been analyzed in the book, namely the stiffening and crisis of the party during the last ten years of life. It correctly underscores an important aspect of its campaign against world hunger, i.e. Pannella's renewed attention for the Catholic circles rather than for the new left-wing forces, and for civil rights. It gives a positive final judgment and a historically correct assessment of the global value of the radical experience.

(Lorenza Ponzone, IL PARTITO RADICALE NELLA POLITICA ITALIANA,

1962-1989, Schena editore, gennaio 1993)

Not a political analyst but a Neapolitan philosopher once said during a debate that Marco Pannella has been (and is) a researcher, in the academic sense of the word, and the mastermind of a political laboratory. The definition is only seemingly surprising. It is true, if we look at the various stages of his political progress and of the party which he tried to shape on his own image; in other words, that relentless eagerness to accomplish one or two ideas, by using both old and new instruments and material, in a constant search, with experimentations that are sometimes illogical, fruitless and seemingly self-serving.

Nonetheless, if we glue together the fragments of the political itinerary of this first group that formed itself under the auspices of Pannella in 1962, we can clearly see a coherent project which, despite the deviations, fragmentations and recompositions, has never subsided, from the initial heroic period to the dream of a transnational party conceived in Budapest in 1989. If we accept this view of a party-laboratory, then we can understand the party's continuous doing and undoing in terms of structure and method. We can understand the dissolutions threatened many times and never carried out, the attraction and repulsion for local associations, the constantly questioned and redefined statute. These behaviours, heretical for our history, have been judged to be factors of incoherence and even of flimsiness of intents. But if we analyse the first thirty years of life of this party, anomalous in all respects, its instability, the threats to close it announced at each congress, these are elements inherent in the

very idea that led Pannella and his friends to give birth to a new political formation.

The most innovative party ever to appear on the national political scene after the war stemmed, quite unexpectedly, from the branches of the most ancient political party. The new radical party's origin is liberal, lay and uncompromising. And if we closely investigate the principles and methods of struggle it followed, these were not unlike the European liberal thought; in its most vital and modern aspect, the thought that advocated the usefulness of individual conflicts in the political activity. Hence the strategy adopted by the new radical party: direct action and civil disobedience. The latter was never directed against the Institutions, but on the contrary aimed to uphold and protect them, make them more active in defending civil rights. They were methods, therefore, that were clearly an offspring of the Anglo-Saxon liberalism.

This new type of action, however, which had never been experimented in our country, clashed against a political system that was paralysed by the constant mediation between the two larger parties, PCI and DC, which on the one hand avoided any permanent conflict, and on the other hand prevented the various cabinets to govern and the opposition to become government. The radical party's global political project was interrupting this political stalemate that hinged on communists and christian democrats, both united in a consociate system. The referendums, the actions to safeguard the sovereignty of Parliament, the fact of denouncing the excessive power of the parties, of asking to reform the electoral system on the Anglo-Saxon model, had been conceived as ways to disrupt a bipolar power.

In actual fact, towards the end of the sixties and throughout the seventies, the radical intervention brought about a certain "destabilizing" effect, at least on the left-wing parties. These, which, after years of relative indifference, finally acknowledged the importance of civil rights issues and joined the radicals in the campaigns for divorce, abortion, conscientious objection, and for improving the quality of life. The objective of these campaigns was creating a coalition of left-wing forces in opposition to the catholic party, which was the expression of the authoritarianism of the conservative hierarchies, and thus lay the foundations for a government alternation. However, the circumstances of those years led to other alliances, the ones between the socialist and the catholic masses. This ultimately consolidated the unwritten Catholic-communist coalition that forced the radicals into a position of isolation and to become a minority in constant conflict with the parties. This was only obvious: in the I

talian political scene, the radical party was characterized by its "difference" both in the values it upheld and in the methods with which it carried out its campaigns. All this placed it in a position that was permanently external with respect to the system of the traditional parties.

In relation to the consolidated alliances, the radical party obviously did not follow the national traditional. It was a formation that operated empirically, and therefore a non-ideological party that concentrated on material issues. Nonetheless, the radicals also wanted to "carry out a revolution", but by underlining their difference with the left-wing parties, which in those years appeared to be still strictly based on economicism, they fought for individual liberties, namely, the anti-militarist campaigns, the campaigns for sexual liberation, for a juster justice, for the protection of the environment, for the quality of life, for the sovereignty of Parliament versus the bureaucratic systems of the parties. At least during the first period of its life, the Radical Party occupied a position in the left because it aimed to create a coalition of the forces of the left on civil rights issues.

To disrupt the paralysis of the Italian political system, the only instrument a small party such as the radical one could dispose of was that of addressing directly the popular will (the referendums) so as to translate the demands of the masses of the country into laws. However, it was a request that was addressed chiefly to the Institutions. The project was opposed by the organized political forces because as a direct expression of the popular will, it represented a means of mediation outside the parties, and as such a revolutionary means.

Hence the so-called radical "ambiguity": a party that on the one hand supported popular needs through the actions for civil rights, and on the other hand was respectful of the values of the Constitution while appealing to an anti-system rebellion.

The structure of this anomalous, "different" party was supported by people who were free from any political affiliation, came from the so-called area of the "counter-culture" and which embraced the radical campaigns. This heterogeneous political area was reflected by a loose organization such as the radical one, structured in local parties, leagues, associations and "one-off" militants.

Towards the end of the seventies, when the radical party obtained a representation in Parliament, that difference seemed to subside, and the party apparently took the shape of a traditional party. This created tensions within the initial group formed by the rank-and-file, which resented any form of apparatus. The peripheral radical militants were thus marginalized, suffocated, and many of those who had actively campaigned left the party returned to their private lives.

The party suffered a crisis of identity at its moment of greatest consent--the political elections of 1979. The inner dissent stemmed from the periphery, from that array of local organizations that advocated a return to the Statute and to federalism, which had been the basis for the Fundamental Charter of the Radical Party but which had never fully been applied. The leading group justified its opposition to the party's presence in the regions by saying that, by so doing, it prevented the formation of fixed structures--sections and federations. The militants were to get together on specific issues (divorce, abortion, etc.) and not territorially, as in traditional parties. However, the seed which the centre wanted to eradicate--self-serving power--took other shapes precisely in the Roman leading group, which was not devoid of a certain degree of political professionalism. Co-optation began to be applied within the party, in the sense that the leaders selected the militants they considered more in line with the

national leadership. The members of Parliament, local and regional councillors elected on the radical lists since 1976 gradually came to form a permanent class. This was a negative and dangerous phenomenon for a spontaneous party such as the radical party had been until then. The rank and file reacted by strongly advocating the creation of a stable structure. In other words, it wanted a real party, organizationally speaking, even if characterized by the traditional radical specificity. Obviously a clear set of rules would have ensured the rights of the minority and of the periphery, which appeared to be excluded from the decision-making process.

But the radicals' crystallization into a traditional party, with sections, federations and apparatus, would have thwarted that organizational looseness, that constant change which represented both its force and difference. At any rate, the radical party which had taken the shape of a party, would have had little space: the Italian electorate of 1948 had proved fairly rigid and had shifted only very slowly and in small proportions from one major party to the other. Thus, the radical party would never have attracted a massive consent. This marked the birth of the radical strategy of carrying out its own campaigns, namely the referendums, not under the aegis of a party, and with the precise aim of gathering the adhesions of militants from other political formations. Thus, the party experienced that crisis of identity we mentioned above, which grew more serious in the following decade, for the following reasons.

In the early eighties, the drive for civil rights campaigns subsided, with the consequent loss of the cementing element of the radical people. The party seemed to have lost that capacity to attract the sparse and politically unorganized components of the Italian society. Moreover, it failed to obtain the consent of the "liberal" opinion, which had supported the civil campaigns triggered by the radicals. The relations with the most similar parties, such as the socialist one, also loosened up. The opposition between the radical party and all other political formations became clear-cut and invincible. The radicals were a minority versus everyone else, both in Parliament and in the country.

Marco Pannella managed to steer his party out of a stagnating and desperate situation, which had no other possible outcome but a slow, inexorable exhaustion of its political appeal on the progressivist society. The historic radical leader, with his capacity to control the country's current moods, chose a new strategy for the radical party. It was a strategy that stemmed from a first political project developed by the radical left (1959-1962), whose guidelines developed along the traditional international line and then became transnational: the struggle against world hunger, the interventions at the European Parliament, the interest for the countries of Eastern Europe. This project managed to take the party out of its isolation, in the sense that it widened the scope of its action far beyond its traditional sphere (the left-wing forces) and for the first time attracted the interest of the catholics, who were liable to be sensitive to the issues of the Third World.

The new political line, however, upset the party's traditional structure: the local associations, the ties with the leagues and the local parties, which had all proven useless in the campaigns for human rights, were discontinued.

This created a sort of continuity between the Rome-based radical party and all the remaining local groups. The only structure with which the radical party still maintained a link was Radio Radicale.

But it is important to say that from 1983 on, the traditional struggle against party power remained constant, and in fact became the premise for every other ideal battle. The aim is always that of creating two opposite blocs, a conservative and a progressivist one, regardless of any distinction between right and left, which the radicals considered to be obsolete. The objective was a government alternative, with a coalition on specific issues: just justice, decent pensions, antiprohibitionism, ecology, European unity to comprise east European countries, reform of the electoral system in a majority sense, on the model of Great Britain.

As we write these last few lines, the radical phoenix seems to be born again under different shapes, as often in the past. The transnational revolution, especially in the Slav countries of recent independence, has obtained some success: the historical leading group, while divided under different symbols of movements and parties, is still ideally united.

Lastly, we should remark upon the vitality of the central organization, which shows force and capacity of mobilization, as shown when gathering signatures, at a moment characterized by a strong and generalized will for direct participation in the political struggles by the rank and file of society. Even if, in contrast to the past thirty years, the political subjects organized in the form of a party that channel spontaneous civil energies are many (Rete, Greens, Leagues, etc) and with strongly differing projects and which cannot, therefore, be associated for common civil struggle with the radicals. In conclusion, if we have to give an account of the history of this peculiar party for our society, we can reasonably say that those four or five young people who gave birth to the new radical party have not worked in vain.