Italian Socialist Party rocks the boat

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Lenin once said that "for the bourgeoisie there are no absolutely hopeless situations"

But he hadn't seen Italy in the 1980s. No sooner had the bourgeoisie won the recent struggle at Fiat, aided by and aiding reactionary mobilisations of scab workers and provoking new confusion in the heart of the trade unions; no sooner had it put together, with surprising ease, a new coalition government, led by the President of the Christian Democratic Party, Arnaldo Forlani, than everything once more seemed to fall apart.

It is "traditional" for the parties composing Italy's coalition governments (the new one is the 40th since the war) to refrain from tearing each other apart, at least in their first few weeks of office.

This time however, Forlani was obliged to make a passionate appeal for the unity of the coalition parties even before the Parliament had given the government a vote of confidence.

Such unheard-of disunity resulted from the increasingly tortuous position in which "Tempt me, please" Italian capitalism finds itself. The new government has come into office with the explicit objective of implementing the programme of economic cuts and restrictions which its predecessor could not get through Parliament.

The only reason that it was impossible was that MPs of the government parties responded to the vast working class pressure against the austerity measures by voting (in a secret ballot) against their own government.

Two things have changed since then which Forlani hopes will allow the measures to be passed this time.

One is the defeat of the Fiat workers, though not betore a situation bordering on civil war had erupted in the streets of Turin.

The second is the series of manoeuvres by Bettino Craxi, leader of the Socialist Party (the second largest in the government coalition), which asserted the dominance of his rightist faction against the left.

But Craxi knows that his party's support for the reactionary economic programme of the Christian Democrats, and his naked manoeuvres against the left, have deeply compromised the already very limited credibility of his party in the working class.

It was he therefore-in order to distract attention from these things and regain a little credibility -who rocked Forlani's boat in the confidence debate.

He did it by resuscitating Italy's potentially most explosive political issue-abortion.

Referendum

Craxi supported a referendum on the legalisation of abortion-which is of course vehemently resisted by the ever-present Vatican and the deeply embarrassed Christian Democratic Party.

The dilemma of Italy's bourgeois politicians however is expressed in the fact that the Socialist Party has to press an issue which may split the coalition apart in order to cover up the issue which destroyed its predecessor.

It becomes ever harder to see how the bourgeoisie can resolve such a contradiction within the ing another Chile or another Nothing will get it there sooner than the treachery of leaders of workers' parties like Craxi and Communist Party leader Berlinguer, who collaborate in the plans of the bourgeoisie and sabotage the resistance of the working class.

48-HOUR FAST Friday November 7 at 7pm to Sunday November 9 Downing Street Participants include Lord Gifford, Alan Sapper (ACTT), Jonathan Hammond (NUJ), Gordon McLennan, Carmen Callil, Jill Tweedie, Pat Arrowsmith.

Mass picket, 3 pm Sunday 9 November NATIONAL For British withdrawal from Northern Ireland Saturday November 15 Assemble 1 pm.

Embankment

PUBLIC MEETINGS Monday November 24 at 7.30 p.m.

Lower Town Hall, Brixtor Called by South London Hunger Strike Action Committee Wednesday November 26 at 7.30 p.m.

Battersea Town Hall, Lavender Hill Called by Charter