Italian Communists

Contribution to International Communist Conference Athens
May 1999

We are delighted to be participating in this meeting, which
is on an extremely interesting subject and proving to be
very useful. Warm thanks to the Communist Party of Greece
for giving us this opportunity.
We wouldn't have wanted to miss this meeting, even though
our Party, the Party of Italian Communists, is holding its
founding congress at the same time.
We have real hopes of being a factor of unity for the
Left, and that we will be able, in time, to guide the
entire Communist front in Italy to the power and prestige
of the Communist Party of Italy.
However, regarding an issue like globalisation, but also
because of it, we cannot fail to deal with the problem that
today is the most immediate and alarming: the problem of
Nato's despicable attack against the sovereign state of
Yugoslavia, the ferocity of the bombing, the innocent
victims, the painful mass exodus of the population from
Kosovo, the devastation, the terrible attack on diplomatic
offices, the strikes, which we regard as criminal, against
television channels, factories, refineries, and bridges.
We condemn the NATO decision unequivocally and
unhesitatingly, despite our participation in the
government. There are no humanitarian reasons which prevent
us from expressing this particular opinion.
The attack is an illegal operation even in Nato's own
terms, as it bypasses the UN and violates its principles.
Italy's decision to take part in this attack is contrary
to the provisions of our democratic constitution.
But beyond that, the operation has been a failure and has
had the opposite result from what NATO declared it wanted
to achieve, i.e. to protect the ethnic Albanian minority,
which on the contrary, has suffered tragic repercussions.
Having said that, we do not wish to hide from you our
anxiety or our difficulties. But nor do we want the role to
be overlooked that we played in opening the road to an
agreement for the bombing to stop, and thus to avoid the
clash evolving into something even more fearful and
irreversible.
We could have decided to leave the government: a decision
which would certainly have been greeted joyously not only
by the forces of the right, but also by Trans-Atlantic
circles, in view of their own plans.
To leave would have been a relief for us: especially for
those of us who are personally involved in the government.
We were prepared to make the move.
In view of the openings we were able to make in the
government's position in the direction of renewing talks
with Belgrade and supporting the positive intervention of
the UN which would clarify and in essence did clarify the
Italian position, we listened to the appeals to remain in
the government and to act within the coalition. These
appeals, which came from democratic public opinion and from
the forces of peace, were addressed to our sense of
responsibility, counted on our role, and still do.
You are of course aware of how much enthusiasm we had, and
of the strength of soul and policy with which cde Cossuta
acted in this situation; of his meetings in Paris, Moscow
and Belgrade, about which we informed you in Cyprus, and
about the way in which he managed to support the reasons
for peace and for a truce and showed clearly the road to
agreement.
We were emerging from a very difficult situation. Italy,
for more than 40 years, has been characterised as the most
faithful ally of the USA, as Nato's most accommodating
member, the one which has agreed to the largest number of
military bases on its territory.
Within the democratic forces of the Left, we cannot hide
from you the fact that the ethnic cleansing campaign and
the atrocities against the Kosovars (which were also
counted among the mistakes made in relation to the lack of
respect for the autonomy of the minority) caused profound
discord.
Personalities of the Left who, in other cases, supported
the values of democracy and peace, seemed to be
disoriented.
The feelings of the masses, which could have increased the
pressure on the right, were pushed aside, and the right
once more showed its war-mongering face, by insisting that
ground troops be sent in.
Despite this feeling in favour of the ground expedition
that prevailed at the beginning among the majority, we
never tired of striving and working for Italy to take a
different attitude
We are certainly not satisfied with how things have gone
to date, although the reasons for Italy to become
dissociated from the attack are now being confirmed.
Our country not only kept open its diplomatic mission in
Belgrade, but it has supported the thin thread of
consultations more than others.
These days, in the direction of extending the �No to
Bombing� front, and with our positions as point of
reference, a resolution was passed in the Chamber of
Deputies obliging the government to seek a truce, a
resolution which had the unanimous consent of the forces of
the Left. Now of course, deeds are required.
We worked unstintingly to unite the forces of peace, to
give the protest not only just and strong slogans, but also
a concrete outlet, participating in every initiative, in
every event, such as e.g. in the great march in Assisi.
It should be said that Italy, which is a bastion of NATO
in Europe and in the Mediterranean, is regarded today by
many observers as the weak link in the chain.
It cannot be considered accidental that not only have
verbal attacks begun in Italy, but dark schemes have been
cooked up, and the murderous and fearful hand of terrorism
has returned.
We are very well aware that we must step up our efforts,
mobilise our forces and support every democratic action in
favour of a different policy in Europe, so that there is a
counterweight to the military superpower of the USA, and
for the problem of defeating NATO to be placed on a serious
new foundation. We also fight against the extreme positions
of parties and individuals in Europe who, with their
pro-war stance, betray the popular vote which was given to
them in the name of democratic and progressive principles
and values.
This is a great battle that we are waging by expanding the
effective front that will impose a policy of disarmament
and give the UN the role of a true peace-maker. It is a
battle which can also address the key problems of the
capitalist society as they appear today to the working
class and the young generation.
And now we've come to the main topic, which surely is
involved with the very serious problems of the war that are
of acute concern to us and that have provided the occasion
for this meeting.
Speaking of globalisation, we are fully aware that we are
on unexplored territory.
The term itself was generated by a culture which is not
ours: the phenomenon which people and states find
themselves facing has provided economists all over the
world with an opportunity to hold many deliberations and
discussions to interpret what is going on.
The tendency of capital to infiltrate and to act on an
international scale is most certainly not new.
This was seen in the first manifestations of the
industrial revolution and proved to be true by Marx, as one
of the contradictory elements in the capitalist mode of
action, one of the fundamental contradictions generated
within the bosom of the bourgeois society.
We can't forget that, at the very beginning of the
industrialisation process, in the struggle that broke out
in the early 19th century to secure markets, one of its
principles was the emergence of nation states and the
concomitant outbreak of wars between the most
industrialised nations of Europe (or federations of
nations).
The nation-state, in the name of the people (or peoples)
whom it represents, but in reality because of the interests
of the capitalist forces which administer it, is expanding
its influence on the markets: whenever it can, it encloses
them in its power and protects them, by military force if
necessary. Within the various institutional forms, the
national bourgeoisie imposes its choices formally and
systematically, but it also has to deal with the political
authority which to some degree established the norms by
which the domination of capital is exercised.
Something similar happens when, at the frontiers of the
nation-state, unions of states are created, large regions
are drawn into the US sphere of influence, single markets
are formed, such as the case of Europe, and the region of
the hegemonic influence of Japan's industrial strength.
We could assess that globalisation is nothing more than
the continuation of these processes; we could claim that
only the dimensions have changed of the theatre in which
big capital's and the transnational corporations'
operations are unfolding, with an emphasis on their natural
tendencies, the economic aspect of their manoeuvres with
the usual reasoning inherent in capitalism of loading the
burden of their spasmodic search to increase profit on
labour and on the working people.
But at the end of this century, on the threshold of the
new millennium, there is much more. There are new phenomena
which we cannot ignore and which assign, as has been said,
to the labour movement and to the Marxist forces not only
the task of analysing them but also of producing new and
adequate political responses.
Whatever the causes, the fact that one country with
excessive power over the others and with no countervailing
adversary, the speed with which large amounts of money can
be shifted from one part of the planet to another, the
development of new technologies and innovations that are
increasing productivity in an unusual way (and contributing
as never before to cutting jobs), and the new possibilities
of the information society (which abolishes distances and
makes it possible for the centres that administer the
economy to move, even as physical entities, from one day to
the next), affirm the unprecedented ability by the large
transnational corporations to bring pressure on the
political authority: companies can appropriate the sources
of raw materials (capital, taxes, jobs) for their own
benefit, in a number of different countries and states.
The truth is that the new phase in the
internationalisation of capitalist power (or globalisation,
as they like to call it) is at this moment, without any
counterbalancing fear of an adversary, sweeping away
nation-states and, along with them, the political,
statutory and social gains of the working people that
seemed to be indisputable.
The consequences weigh on the �social state, pension
systems, on the policy of social assistance and solidarity,
on the infrastructure, on the power of the trade unions, on
the control over fiscal policies, on the state's
intervention in the distribution system, and on fiscal
justice.�
In face of these phenomena, the forces of neoliberalism,
ever invoking the market, do not understand that they are
delving a blow to their own ability to administer, to their
own political role and power.
We could list here all the known distortions of
globalisation, the new concentrations of wealth some
comrades did this yesterday the new differentiations and
the social exclusions that are being created.
The problem for us is not only to count the results of the
new processes, some of which are devastating, but as
Marxist forces and Communists, to show the way and a new
prospect for the struggle that will provide not only timely
political responses (and define them) to the blows struck
by globalisation against the condition of the working
people, but also, precisely because of this and because of
the new divisive conflicts and contradictions that it
contains, to demonstrate specific ways to overcome that
which constitutes the main cause of the distortions: the
capitalistic organisation (or anarchy) of the society.
Our reply must not retrace the footsteps of the past.
Under the new conditions, we can't even think of playing
our role enclosed in the dimensions of the nation-state,
nor in the new field which supranational associations such
as the European Union offer us.
Regarding the new conflicts breaking out, it is time to
put our internationalist function into practice more than
in the past, which from the beginning of our history, since
the Manifesto of 1848, has been the real task of the labour
movement of Marxists and Communists.
In this way, we don't even consider abandoning the
national struggle to defend the material and political
interests of the working people and the democratic
sovereignty of the people, nor to renounce the battle to
bring about profound structural changes in our economic,
productive and, therefore, political system.
These are the basic motives of our alliance with the
social bloc to which we have referred, which we want to
consolidate and which offers us support. But in this
struggle, more so than in the past, we can and must adopt a
broader strategy and extend it to a plan which will respond
to the new reality, correctly refuting, since it would
ultimately be meaningless in terms of the interests of the
working people, the logic of protective defence, of global
capitalist competition, of competition between the
interests of the various geographical regions (east, west,
north, south).
�Globalisation also lays the material foundations for a
new internationalism that is not based exclusively on
solidarity,� as cde Saverino Galante, head of international
relations of the Party of Italian Communists, said recently
in Cuba. �Employment is diminishing in the old-time
industrial Europe, but a new working class is coming into
being, above and beyond the pyramid of the nation-states,
more and more products are being manufactured in the third
world without any rights for the workers, thus abolishing
many of the rights which had been won from the
manufacturers of commodities in the developed world. This
situation tends to split the old and new proletariat on a
world scale, but also creates unforeseeable acute conflicts
between salaried labour and capital in areas which for a
long time were immune to the class struggle. The working
class is objectively obliged to work out a general strategy
and a militant movement capable of confronting the downward
levelling of living conditions of all working peoples,
which is due to capitalist globalisation.�
We should not, finally, fail to mention that the old
slogans about economic development at any cost whatsoever
are being replaced in the orientation of the broad social
strata by concepts of development that are supported by the
generation of militant movements engaged in issues of
health, the environment, and social security; they are
struggling for a different form and a new organisation of
the cities, for a new quality of life, new fields of
freedom, and, through new means of production, for a
different society, free of the logic of capitalism, in
whatever global area it can be expressed today and impose
its interests.
We have an important task to accomplish; we need to create
a broad front of struggle, first of all for peace, which
will be able to draw from the changes, and even from the
difficulties of the present, a new ability to orient the
great masses and to guide their objectives and course,
toward the great objective goal of socialist
transformation.