

On the eve of the Congress Repubblica carried an article on the various currents within the pci, naming their leading figures and estimating their relative strength in much the way that it would do before a Christian Democrat congress. There were seven identifiable currents at the beginning of April 1986: the Filosovietici (Cossutta, Cappelloni)—10 per cent; the Sinistra (Ingrao, Castellina, Magri, Bassolino)—20 per cent; the Berlingueriani (Minucci, Angius, Pecchioli, Fassino, Mussi, Reichlin, Tortorella, G. Berlinguer)—20 per cent; the Centro (Natta, Occhetto, Zangheri)—25 per cent; the Destra Storica (Bufalini, Jotti, Pajetta, Macaluso, Cervetti, Vitali, Chiaromonte)—10 per cent; the Miglioristi (Lama, Napolitano)—10 per cent; and the Destra (N. Colajanni, Perna, Galluzzi, Turci, Fanti)—5 per cent. We shall look in some detail at the left and centre, but a word should first be said about the currents on the right of the Party. The Destra Storica, which is closest to Natta’s Centro, has the greatest distrust of the new social movements and its conception of politics is firmly based on alliance strategies of the traditional type. It favours an opening to the Socialists and attacks the Berlinguerian line of diversit`, rejecting any approach that lays stress on claims to represent alternative moral values. The Miglioristi are more preoccupied with the danger of a long-term decline in the pci’s electoral fortunes, such as has befallen the pcf and pce, footnote2 which they hope to avert through an urgent social-democratization of the Party’s image. They have also gone further than the Destra Storica in attacking Berlinguerian moralism and explicitly condemn an emphasis on egalitarianism as out of keeping with modern trends in society. The Destra Pura, much the smallest current on the right, believes that the pci should effectively transform itself into a forza d’opinione, along the lines of all other Italian political parties. In the late summer of 1985 a maverick pci deputy had even proposed that the Party should change its name to the Partito Democratico del Lavoro—a proposal which had been a matter for serious discussion, at least in the press. But in the event the Party has kept both its old name and its new leader—neither of which was challenged at the April Congress.

Natta’s leadership has proved more vigorous than anybody had forecast. While his age may preclude a long spell in office, his Secretaryship will be remembered in a way that Longo’s interregnum between Togliatti and Berlinguer is not. Despite his long-standing position in the centre of the Party, Natta has not been a mere caretaker reiterating Berlinguer’s declaration, in 1980 to 1984, of the pci’s distinctiveness from all other parties. Indeed, in a sharp image-reversal, he has broken the last taboo by saying: ‘We do not claim to profess the truth or to be superior to others . . . we know that we are a fallible human association just like any other.’ The language employed by Natta in his three-hour harangue bore no impress of Marxism: if one excepts its inordinate length and certain tactical ploys rooted in Italian political life, the speech could have been made by any leader of a large social-democratic party in opposition to a right-wing government. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Giorgio Galli, the distinguished political scientist, remarked that one of the most enduring characteristics of the pci was its disguise of a very revisionist practice in very orthodox language. This is true no longer: the lexicon of Leninism has been consigned to the attic, as Natta has sought to revive the pci’s electoral fortunes by associating it with the large social-democratic parties. The constant references in his speech to the ‘European Left’ were precisely meant to designate a West European, social-democratic left.

The pci line has now executed a 180-degree turn, with a rapidity reminiscent of the zig-zags of the later Comintern. Whereas it was formerly regarded as a matter of debate whether the Socialists were any longer in a meaningful sense part of the Left, the task now is to preach for a ‘reconciliation between the two great currents into which the workers’ movement has been divided’. Craxi’s allegedly vigorous defence of Italy’s national interest served as the justification for the change in policy, and the meeting between the Communist Occhetto and the Socialist Martelli immediately after the Achille Lauro affair—the first time Craxi’s supremacy in the ruling pentapartito had been brought into question—was the first official sign of a thaw in the arctic relations between the pci and psi. But in reality it had been the pci’s defeat in the scala mobile referendum that had led large sections of the Party, not just the miglioristi Lama and Napolitano, to argue the necessity of a rapprochement.

As early as 17 July 1985 Occhetto had asserted: ‘It ought to have been recognized that the Socialist premiership was the result of a shift to the left of the whole political axis of the country.’ footnote3 Natta was not prepared to go this far in his congress speech, but his invocation of Soares’s recent election as Portuguese President, with Communist support, was deliberately pitched to assuage any fear that Craxi might have about the pci’s ambition to dominate an alliance, as well as to pander to his barely concealed designs on the presidency of the Republic. Naturally Natta was critical of Craxi’s economic policy: it would have been very strange if the leader of the main opposition party had shown no fire at all. Yet the Communist solutions are merely based on Keynesian economics, with an emphasis on reducing unemployment. Planning is advocated, nationalization is not. The untrammelled operation of market forces is condemned but the market as such is not. The black economy is ritually denounced in one breath, before ‘widespread entrepreneurship’ is praised in the next. In short, there is nothing that would distinguish the Italian Communists’ economic approach from that of even a rather moderate social-democratic party, at least during a period of opposition.