Italy: Who's in Charge

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less wage labourers that trek the countryside in this period are an important constituency for the mass organisations of the left, and to call for an uprising in the middle of the harvest, the only time of the year when hundreds of thousands of workers can earn any money, is considered suicidal.

By mid- to late-November, however, the peasantry will be once again without work and it is during this period of the year that it is traditionally most militant.

The second important reason for the lull in the left's offensive is the crisis inside the guerrilla high command-the DRUcaused by the departure of the FARN in September.

The orientation of the FARN, and its popular wing FAPU, has been towards an alliance with the progressive' junior officers led by Junta member Majano. There can be little doubt that this policy helped deprive the FDR general strike of 13-15 August of its full force.

This 'insurrectionary general strike' was called for a three day period, apparently denying its insurrectionary nature from the start.

But, nevertheless, it was far from the all-out failure proclaimed by the international bourgeois press.

"Does Italy have any head of government? If so, how many and who is/are they?

That, today, woula be a testing question in an exam in Italian politics-a subject beside which particle physics looks simplicity itself.

So what is the answer?

Well, of course, in the best tradition of academic answers, it all depends on what you mean by "head of government'.

If you mean the person who goes to work every morning in the Prime Minister's office and signs the letters, then it is still Francesco Cossiga. He was deposed in a parliamentary vote of confidence at the end of last month. But he remains as caretaker premier, witnout visible means of political support, paralysed and impotent.

If you mean the person who has been constitutionally nominated as Prime Minister by the head of state, President Pertini, then it is the Christian Democrat party leader Forlani who is the head of government.

Forlani has now formed a cabinet based on the same fourparty coalition as the Cossiga This is constructed, like Cossiga's government, in order to impose economic austerity on the masses of workers in a bid to alleviate Italy's growing economic crisis.

Central Of course, there is one theory which says that Italy's real head of government in Italy is the head of the Central Bank.

And it is true that through its history of 40 governmental crises the Italian bourgeois state has developed to a very high degree the ability of the financial, military and other repressive sectors of the state to function in the absence of any stable government in Rome.

But that relative independence of the professional fulltime state apparatus is completely insufficient to give the Italian capitalist class the power it now needs to draw the teeth of the working class and try to resolve the economic crisis.

Whether it has two governments, one, or none, Italy is politically adrift.

The dangers of that became apparent during the last three weeks of total strike in Fiat's Turin factories against the crisistorn company's plans to lay off 23,000 workers.

The strike has developed into a bitter conflict between the workers and the agents of capitalism in the unions.

Reactionary demonstrations of the "silent majority who want to work" have been organised and there have been provocative physical attacks on the Fiat pickets.

The courts issued a judgement giving police protection to any scab Fiat worker who wanted to cross the picket line.

Before this could be fully tested the union leaderships cooked up a compromise return to work formula. This failed to guarantee the thousands of jobs at stake but provided state funds to temporarily cover about 90% of the laid off workers.

In presenting the deal to assemblies of workers, the leader of the Catholic trade union federation was greeted by angry jeers from workers and he had to flee from the mass meeting under a shower of Far from As we go to press it is still not certain if the employers and union leaders, backed by the remnants of Cossiga's discredited government, can force Fiat workers back to work.

Even if they do, the industrial crisis in Fiat is far from OVeI.

And the same can be said for the government crisis. Forlani will soon seek a vote of confidence which there is no guarantee he will get.

The attitude of the Communist Party remains crucial to the short-term prospects. Party Secretary Berlinguer hinted that he may be willing to soften opposition to Forlani if