Party of the Italian Communists
by Riccardo Luccio

Dear Comrades,

the problem of the relations between communists and unions
is, of course today more than yesterday, a major issue in
the political agenda of every communist party or movement,
in every country, (developing countries as well as those
where a post-fordist level of structural economical stage,
has been reached. I think that it is superfluous to give
you also a brief sketch of the deep transformation which
the world met under the pressure of two extremely important
factors in the last twelve years, or so:
the collapse of the political structure of the countries
where the so called �real socialism� occurred, with a
tragic bankruptcy of their economics,
and the inexorable ascent of the globalisation, that like a
spider net, ties the economics
of almost all countries in the whole world.
My issue, here, is obviously confined only to the effects
of such events in my country, Italy. As possibly most of
you know, at the moment of the fall of the Berlin Wall we,
in Italy, had the greatest communist party in western
world, the PCI, that in the 80s had scored consistently
over 30% in each election, and three major unions, CGIL,
UIL and CISL, that were deeply linked and worked almost
always united, with very great success in the struggle of
the Italian workers in many fields; from welfare to
salaries, from rights to security, from treatment of
retired people to education and living conditions for
children and their parents. As a matter of fact, these
unions were able in these years to occupy any space that
the political forces left empty, beyond the mere defence of
the workers in the factories. I'd like to remind you that
the greatest union CGIL, leaded by communists, was a strong
leftist union with clear class contents, while CISL was a
catholic union and UIL was linked to the centre parties. I
can mention also that at the end of the 2nd World War in
Italy there was only CGIL. In 1948 with the American money
the other two unions were founded. The unity (not formal,
but in most actions) of the three organisations was
realised anew only in mid 60s, thanks to the great
struggles of the workers in this period, the so called �Hot
falls�.

Today after only twelve years, the scenario has deeply
changed. The PCI no longer exists. Trade unions go through
a deep crisis of political proposals and possibilities of
common actions. After the elections of held on May 13th,
Italy is ruled by a coalition of fascists, xenophobic and
racist forces, and overall by the worse representatives of
the criminal side of capitalism, linked with mafia and all
kinds of hidden power in Italy and abroad. And in front of
the government of Mr Berlusconi the opposition is divided,
fragmented, unable to find the space for a unitary action
against this new power, against this great danger for
democracy, this "cancer" that, after Italy, can infect all
Europe. Let's realise, for instance, that instead of a
great communist party, we have today in Italy two parties
which together sum up to less than a quarter of the PCI of
the 80s.

But let's think back to Trade Unions, and to our action in
and with the unions. I mentioned above the crisis of the
movement of the workers in our country in the last decade -
This crisis was due to a mixture of factors, internal and
external to the unions. The CISL, leaded, until few months
ago, by Sergio D'Antoni, who in during the last two years,
has shifted towards the right wing, breaking the unity
among the three unions. This was made as a support to the
political ambition of Sergio D'Antoni, who has founded a
new party, with the perspective, in few words, to help
Berlusconi in change of some minor position of under-
government. D'Antoni had very bad results in last
elections, and we can wisely think that his political
career finishes here. But the perspectives of the union
movement is seriously damaged, and with a right wing
government the CGIL is isolated.

However, I must be clear about our opinion on CGIL. We
believe, and we utterly said in many occasions, that in the
last decade CGIL has made several mistakes, and in many
cases very serious mistakes that have damaged the cause of
the workers. It is not a problem of single decision, but a
political line that, beginning with July 1993 (then there
was a general agreement between unions, government and
entrepreneurs, that marked a progressive withdrawing of the
political action of the of the unions beginning with the
abolition of the so-called �scala mobile�, the automatic
defence of the salaries against the risk of inflection, was
followed by other serious renounces to defend acquired
rights in several fields: pensions, security, health and so
on. July 1993 was the beginning of the so-called politics
of �consecration�, that is, the previous agreement among
government, unions and entrepreneurs for any decision that
could affect the life of workers, by reducing the risk of
strikes, social tensions and so on.

Anyway, we are aware that with all its limits today CGIL is
the lone mass left wing organisation existing in Italy, so
we have decided to stay within CGIL, and to support it
especially today, when the unity among unions is broken,
and when in Italy there's Berlusconi's government.
But two things must be kept clearly in mind.
First, we are strongly defending the autonomy of the unions
from the parties, and vice-versa. As a party we are free to
support or to criticise the political line of CGIL, but we
do not interfere in it. Our comrades (and we have many CGIL
officials are PdCI [1]members and most of the members of
our party is are also CGIL members operating within CGIL
make decisions within CGIL after debating there, while they
don't within the party. Of course, as a party we
continuously discuss with these comrades, but, politically,
it is a distinct moment.
Second, our comrades are free to take the way they consider
to be more likely to follow for their political action. The
great majority of them, joins CGIL, where there's a left
minority section, but this is not an �order� of the party.
It is absolutely natural that, because of our criticism to
the line of the majority of CGIL in the last ten years or
so, most our comrades are in that minority. Few others are
in minor leftist unions, like COBAS. This is also natural,
and there is no problem about it.
Let me conclude with a pessimistic note. In this moment in
Italy we are ruled by the war criminal gang that could take
the power in our country after the fall of fascism. And it
happens when the left forces are divided, when the unions
are divided too. Or we could merely state that this happens
`cause there are many divisions in the world that should
represent workers, parties and unions. In the meantime the
productive structure, in Italy like elsewhere in Western
countries, is deeply changing. Unemployment, that was very
bad till two years ago, is now decreasing but not for
productive activities, instead in the tertiary, goods and
services. There is a great confusion, most productive
activities are transported in the third world or in Western
Europe. Only in Romania about 60 thousands Italian
industries operate. If you visit the boundary of the great
industrial towns of North of Italy, where there used to be
big industries (Fiat, Pirelli, Brenda, Folk), in Milan as
like in Turin or Genoa or Mestre, now you find banks,
universities, theatres, or more often, and worse, all is
abandonment.

But we know little about what this has meant in the
conscience of workers. In a research on the vote in the
last elections of the inscribed to CGIL we have discovered
that more than half of these workers have not voted for the
opposition, but on the contrary, for Berlusconi and
associated, or have no voted at all. Or we will be able to
find a new unity in political as well as in union world, or
very dark days wait for us in Italy.