Italy

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blindpig
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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:23 pm

The chickens return to the Washington chicken coop
by Giuseppe Sini

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When asked about the assassination of JFK Malcolm X, with the usual icasticity, he replied that from his point of view it was a case of "hens returning to the hen house", and in his autobiography he pointed out that it was a reference to internal hatred of the USA - that which materialized, and materializes, in particular against blacks - and to its foreign projection, which struck, and struck, with equal violence both on the puppets of imperialism now considered useless, as Ngo Dinh Diem, as much as on his strenuous opponents like Lumumba. The effective image used by the leaderAfrican American is well suited to the assault carried out on January 6 by Trump's most agitated supporters in Congress, interrupting the session that was to certify the vote of the electoral college in favor of the Biden / Harris duo, an operation that was then carried out once control of what, in the prosopopoeia of our Italian subservient journalism, we insist on defining - quoting the newly elected president - the “temple of democracy”.

The scenes from Capitol Hill seemed to many a re-enactment of the assaults on institutional headquarters carried out by demonstrators supported by Washington in the global south, but not only: from Latin America, with Venezuela and Bolivia, up to Eastern Europe. with Ukraine and Belarus and China with Hong Kong, passing through the Middle East, with Libya and Syria, just to name a few examples among many. A sort of "those who wait for it" (as the declaration of Malcolm X is rendered in the Italian translation) is the warm reaction, entirely acceptable, of a Telesur journalist , who has claimed the right of the peoples of the south of the world - target of US imperialist policies - to giggle at what was happening in Congress in those hours [1].

Obviously, it would be excessive to expect the Western "media" to try to see in this story the grotesque reflection of the operations promoted by the USA, really too much of a shock for those who for decades have praised the effectiveness of the procedures of US institutions, and fair playthat would accompany them, guaranteeing, according to them, the continuity of the “greatest democracy in the world”. However, once the bewilderment subsided, the commentators scrambled to put the pieces back together, resorting to the ideological glue that unites sovereignists and their liberal opponents, or the revolting mush of Western supremacism, a globalized version of the white one that is raging in the United States and not only. So here are journalists and politicians ranting indignant about scenes from the "third world" and "banana republic", ignoring the fact that these were bloody creations of US imperialism.

The traditional homage to the paranoia of the stars and stripes was not long in coming, evoking the shadow of foreign interference: Putin's Russia or China, the latter agrees both liberal and sovereign observers, both in their moderate wing, now busy to distance itself from Trump, and the more conspiratorial wing, among whose ranks there is no hesitation in ranting about foreign infiltrations in the demonstration, as an alternative to those attributed to phantom BLM or "antifa" militants. Take for example Ben Rhodes, who a few months ago complained about the incompetence of imperialism in Trump-Rubio sauce, who gasps on twitter: “This is the day Putin was waiting for”; and then reprimand Senator Rubio who, as deemed co-responsible for the crime, would not be entitled to refer in a pejorative sense to the proverbial third world, a prerogative that Obama's former adviser would seem to want to reserve only for Western supremacism of a democratic brand [2].

As for Italy, we can mention Federico Rampini who, after having educated readers for years about the empire of Cindia - providing him with a sweetened version of the most trite reactionary clichés about Asia - has carved out a place in the hearts of our local Trumpians. , commenting favorably on the tough poses of their favorite with respect to China; today he defines "chilling, horrible", the images coming from Washington and Trump "ignoble, irresponsible", after having flanked him, together with the Molinari management of Repubblica, when it came to shoveling mud on Beijing. A few words should be said for that once socialist or communist area which - taken from the now cloying tendency to attribute to a generic left practically everything that has occurred since 1989 - does not hesitate to relaunch the "evidence" of BLM's infiltration in the demonstration which resulted in assault; and to say that the political character of this, if you really want to stick to the photos circulating on social media , is partly easily deducible also from the waving of Confederate flags, of the Iranian monarchy, Israelis and from the ferociously anti-Marxist cartels unlined by some participants [ 3].

Taking into account that even the comparison with the taking of the Winter Palace was not lacking - the proximity to the reactionary sewers of the internet leads to confuse the Bolsheviks with the black centuries - it should be clear the bankruptcy to which having spent the last few years to legitimize the puppet arguments of the reactionary right, culminating in the illusion of a presumed less imperialist aggression by the Trump presidency . Especially since indulging certain tendencies, even when shared by sectors of the working class, brings no consensus except to the original supporters of such positions, admitted and not granted it is right to sacrifice principles on the altar of approval.

Moreover, the "left" rightly insulted for having been the protagonist or accomplice of the post-eighty-nine capitalist restoration - that of the Clintons, the Blairs and their Italian epigones to understand each other - did not limit itself to implementing liberal and imperialist economic policies, but has often embraced, more or less explicitly and opportunistically, right-wing values ​​and strategies on issues such as immigration, security and civil rights, albeit with a veil of humanitarian or rainbow makeup. Some of the homegrown remnants of this area have stood out for their littleness and classism in their painful attempts to "analyze" what happened on January 6, take the infamous tweet di Gori, completely indistinguishable from the signatures of the manor press such as Rocca, not to mention one of the bastions of Atlanticism such as the Foglio [4].

The newspaper founded by Ferrara, as already written in October , although harshly critical of Trump, has always given space or supported positions - especially in the field of civil rights and science - not dissimilar from those of many followers of the now next ex- US president, and already heritage of that evangelical right-wing base of that Bush jrtoday obscenely indicated as a positive example. Beyond the real juxtapositions, the convergence between sovereignists and liberals (conservative or progressive) on both sides of the Atlantic stands out in considering the United States, albeit for different and sometimes opposite reasons, as a beacon of freedom and democracy, bulwark against the assaults that, in the victim narrative that unites them, the West would be undergoing from within and above all from the outside.

A convergence that the Communists should denounce, together with the devastating effects on the working class of austerity policies - a real class beating in which the left has often played the role of those who hold the victim down or stand by - and the weight of these in the rise of the reactionary right; far from looking for dialogues or worse confluences, the latter must be pointed out as functional to a further enslavement to US imperialism, complicit in the aggression against the nations and movements that oppose it. As for Trump's suspension from twitter , it is worth remembering that accounts have been suspended or limited for some timeof officials, and even heads of state, of countries more or less hated by the US, from Cuba to Venezuela via China, or other subjects in some way attributable to them, without the supporters of the New York billionaire shouting at censorship. Therefore, no celebration of the measures taken by the social network , but also no indulgence with respect to the whining about freedom of expression, at most it should be noted that for four years the outgoing president has "incited violence", threatening to raze the 'Iran, the DPRK and others without the twitter leaders breaking up too much.

Returning to the assault on Congress, as long as it does not turn out to be just the last tragicomic act of Trump's four years - who after the bombastic declarations of the first hour would seem to have resigned himself to retreating with his tail between his legs - we must beware of the trend to see in the US events of the last few years the signs of an inevitable decline, but even if they are, this will be neither quick nor painless especially for the oppressed both within the US borders and beyond. And indeed, if this were the case - which by the way does not imply a loss of the effectiveness of the mechanisms of imperialist, economic, military enslavement and repression, etc.. - the reaction of the USA will be increasingly brutal not only against those who explicitly question its global dominance, but also against those vassals who should give signs, however timid, of not wanting to be dragged down.

1) Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, wiht the assistance ef Alex Haley, One World Book, 1992, p. 347 (trans. It. Autobiography of Malcolm X, with the collaboration of Alex Haley, BUR, 2004, p. 354); https://twitter.com/camilapress/status/ ... 4454636546 .

2) https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1346933221141843968 ; https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1346940574964744193 ;

3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar1bdWide-c ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IipcKO6fvK0 ; https://twitter.com/FedericoRampini/sta ... 5694143489 ; https://twitter.com/LalehKhalili/status ... 7995574272 .

4) https://twitter.com/giorgio_gori/status ... 0722878464 ; https://twitter.com/christianrocca/stat ... 2906045440

https://ottobre.info/2021/01/10/le-gall ... ashington/

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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:12 pm

Italian Communist Party - 100 years
01/21/2021
A history of ups and downs

The Italian Communist Party (ICP), once the largest and most influential Communist Party in the capitalist world , will celebrate its centenary on January 21, 2021 . And the next day, the Italian communists will celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of this party, comrade Antonio Gramsci (1891 - 1937). Continuous holidays!

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But the anniversary is not only an occasion for a feast. This is also a convenient moment to critically assess the path traveled and discuss plans for the future.

In January 1921 , the congress of the Italian Socialist Party took place in the city of Livorno . This congress showed that the reformist and revolutionary wings of the ISP are unlikely to find a common language with each other. And the best way out of the situation is the withdrawal of the revolutionary wing from the ISP and the formation of the Communist Party. This was announced by some of the delegates to the congress on January 21.

In order to understand the prerequisites and consequences of such a decision, one should probably make a short historical excursion.

In the early stages of its history, the nascent Italian labor movement was closely associated with the struggle to liberate Italy from the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1872 (after the independence of Italy) the Italian section of the First International was created. Its leader was Andrea Costa (1851 - 1910), elected in 1882 as a member of the Italian Parliament, where he made very oppositional speeches.

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Andrea Costa (1851-1910)
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Filipo Turati (1857 - 1932)

The Italian Workers' Party (later renamed the Italian Socialist Party) was created in 1892 as a result of the amalgamation of several leftist organizations. Among its founders were the liberal politician Filipo Turati (1857-1932), who stood on centrist positions, the right wing of the party, for which national values ​​were an important priority, were represented by Leonid Bissolati (1857-1920) and Ivanoe Bonomi (1873-1951). To the moderately left wing belonged the professor-criminologist, one of the closest followers of Cesare Lombroso (1835 - 1909) Enrico Ferri (1856 - 1929). Later, Giacinto Serrati became the leader of the center-left wing.(1872 - 1926), at the end of his life joined the Communist Party. And finally, on the left flank of the party was the syndicalist Arturo Labriola (1873-1959) (who should not be confused with his famous namesake, the outstanding Italian Marxist philosopher comrade Antonio Labriola (1843-1904)). Unfortunately, in the future, the political positions of E. Ferry and A. Labriola shifted strongly to the right (up to cooperation with the fascist regime).

In 1898 , after the violently suppressed workers' protests in Milan , the Socialist Party was persecuted. But, fortunately, not too long.

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On the streets of Milan, 1898

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new bright star appears in the Italian Socialist Party. This is Benito Mussolini (1883 - 1945), a talented writer, publicist, orator and organizer. Heading the newspaper ISP "Avanti" , Mussolini managed to increase its circulation by 4 times.

With all this, Mussolini was not liked in the party for the ambition and ambition. And, as subsequent history has shown, not in vain!

For the time being, Mussolini adhered to anti-war positions. But in 1914 he published his article in Avanti supporting the imperialist war. For which he was removed from the post of editor-in-chief, and then expelled from the party.

At the beginning of World War I, the socialist movement almost throughout the world was swept by a wave of chauvinism and a desire to fight to the victorious end for the interests of the capitalists of their country. In almost all countries, the socialists voted unanimously for military budgets.

Learning about this, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 - 1924) told his comrade-in-arms: "From this day on, I cease to be a social democrat and become a communist."

We must pay tribute to the Italian socialists: they turned out to be hardly susceptible to chauvinistic infection and opposed the imperialist war. This is the undoubted merit of Giacinto Serrati , who became one of the most influential leaders of the party in the pre-war years. And supporters of the war for the interests of the capitalists were expelled from the party. Back in 1911 , L. Bissolatii , I. Bonomi were expelled from the party , and in 1914 - and Mussolini.

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Giacinto Menotti Serrati (1872 (or 1876) - 1926

Italy fought on the side of the Entente and became one of the victor countries. But this did not bring her prosperity. The country's economic situation deteriorated. And, at the same time, the labor movement grew. In August 1917, a powerful anti-war protest by workers took place in Turin . And in 1919 , a mass seizure of factories and factories by workers began and the establishment of workers' self-government (something similar to the Russian soviets). The bourgeoisie also organizes itself. In January 1919 , the Christian Democratic Party was created (originally it had a different name), and in March of the same year, Benito Mussolini created the Union of Struggle - the embryo of the future fascist party.

The confrontation between reformists and revolutionaries in the Italian Socialist Party was not as sharp as in other countries. The leader of the socialists, J. Serrati, seriously considered the idea of ​​ISP joining the Comintern . However, the "21 conditions" formulated by the Comintern for joining the Comintern, in particular, the requirement to remove reformists from leading party posts, forced the IS leadership to refrain from this step. This eventually led to a split in the IP and the formation of the Communist Party. Later, shortly before his death, J. Serrati left ISP and joined the Italian Communist Party .

Among the leaders of the newly formed ICP were four very bright personalities.

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Amadeo Bordiga (1889 - 1970)

The main organizational engine of the Communist Party was Amadeo Bordiga (1889 - 1970), who held the post of General Secretary of the IKP Central Committee. Like many communists of his time, he suffered from a "childish disease of leftism in communism", denied parliamentary activity, but he was very good at organizing trade union, as well as not entirely legal activities. Unfortunately, later Bordiga moved to positions close to Trotskyism, for which he was expelled from the party in 1930 . After World War II, Bordiga led a small left-wing party that did not enjoy any significant influence.

Comrade Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) became the chief theoretician of the IKP . He was the son of a petty civil servant who had spent several years in prison for some kind of violation. From childhood, he was distinguished by exceptional curiosity. On a charitable scholarship, he managed to graduate from the University of Turin, then worked as a journalist in leftist newspapers and became the informal leader of one of the most militant ISP organizations in Turin. Apparently, it was A. Gramsci who proposed the idea of ​​the seizure of factories and factories by workers and the establishment of workers' self-government, which became the main form of the class struggle in 1919-1920. On May 1, 1919 , the first issue created by Antonio Gramsci, Palmiro Togliatti (1893 - 1964), and Umberto Terracini was released (1895 - 1983) the weekly magazine El Ordine Nuovo, which became the de facto organ of the communist wing of the ISP.

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Antonio Gramsci (1891 - 1937)

Antonio Gramsci was not only an outstanding writer, but also an outstanding theoretician of the communist movement and a sociological thinker who formulated a number of important ideas. Among them is the idea of ​​hegemony. Its essence lies in the fact that the power of the ruling class or the ruling social group is determined not only by violence, but also by the predominance of the views of this group in the culture and worldview of the broad masses. The people obey when they are psychologically ready and to a certain extent even wants to obey.

The hegemony of the views of the ruling social group in society is historically formed. At the same time, it can collapse. And one of the most important tasks of the communists is to destroy the hegemony of the bourgeoisie and help the working class see the face of an alternative world.

In 1926 , Antonio Gramsci was arrested by the fascist regime and spent 10 years in prison . Behind bars, he worked hard on his theoretical works, later called "Prison Notebooks". The total volume of "Prison Notebooks" is about 3 thousand pages. Comrade Gramsci's health was severely undermined by the prison, and soon after his release he died.

The third major leader of the Italian Communist Party was Comrade Palmiro Togliatti (1893 - 1964), who took the post of General Secretary of the IKP Central Committee in 1926 and remained in this post until the end of his life.

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Palmiro Togliatti (1893 - 1964)

Hitler's rise to power forced the Soviet leadership to abandon conflicts with the Social Democrats and begin to create anti-fascist Popular Fronts. This decision was made at the VII Congress of the Comintern, which took place in the summer of 1935 in Moscow. It formed the new leadership of the Communist International, headed by Comrade Georgy Dimitrov (1882 - 1949). Palmiro Togliatti became the right hand of Georgy Dimitrov on the Comintern.

In the late 1950s , Palmiro Togliatti tried to normalize relations between the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and China .

In the summer of 1964 , while vacationing in the USSR, Palmiro Togliatti visited the Artek pioneer camp on the Black Sea coast. Here he suffered a stroke, and on August 21, 1964, comrade Togliatti died.

In memory of Palmiro Togliatti, his name was given to the city of Stavropol on the Volga , where the Kuibyshev hydroelectric station is located . Later, the Italian firm Fiat built the AvtoVAZ plant in this city .

Palmiro Togliatti was characterized by an extremely democratic style of behavior. Party comrades addressed him exclusively on "you". It is said that when a Soviet journalist addressed Palmiro Togliatti to "you", the leader of the Italian Communist Party tactfully replied that the Italian communists refer to "you" only to class enemies and waiters.

The fourth prominent leader of the Italian communists was the lawyer Umberto Teracini (1895 - 1983). During the fascist dictatorship, he spent over 10 years in prison. After World War II, he became President of the Constituent Assembly, which adopted the new Italian Constitution.

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Umberto Teracini (1895 - 1983)

Comrade Terracini's position did not always coincide with the line of the ICP leadership. Thus, he condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), at the end of his life he criticized the General Secretary of the Party, Enrico Berlinguer (1922 - 1984) for cooperation with Christian Democrats. This did not prevent him from actively working in the leading party structures.

On October 27-29, 1922 , Benito Mussolini organizes a campaign of his "Black Shirts" against Rome. The state had enough strength to suppress the putsch, but the authorities decided not to. B. Mussolini was offered the post of prime minister, which he accepted. A fascist dictatorship was established in the country.

Having come to power, the fascists began repressions against the communists. In 1922 , Amadeo Bordiga was arrested ; after a while he was released, but in 1926 he was arrested again. In 1926, Antonio Gramsci was arrested. He was released only in 1937 , already seriously ill. And after his release he did not live long. After 1926, the Communist Party was headed by Palmiro Togliatti.

The activities of the Communist Party under Mussolini's regime were naturally prohibited. However, the Party did not lay down its arms and continued to work underground and abroad. In 1934 (even before the VII Congress of the Comintern) the ICP concluded a pact of Unity of Action with the Italian Socialist Party, which was headed by Pietro Nenni (1891 - 1980).

Many Italian Communists in the composition of the International Brigades participated in the Civil War in Spain . One of the leaders of the Interbrigades was the Italian communist Luigi Longo (1900 - 1980) (after the death of Palmiro Togliatti, he would head the Italian Communist Party).

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Luigi Longo (left) and Pietro Nenni (right)

Unfortunately, among the influential figures of the fascist regime there were also individual defectors from the Italian Communist Party. For example, Nicolo Bombacci (1879 - 1945), shot by partisans together with Mussolini on April 28, 1945.

Embroiled in World War II, the fascist regime in Italy rolled uncontrollably towards its inglorious end. On July 10, 1943 , Anglo-American troops landed in Sicily , and on September 3, on the Apennine Peninsula. In this situation, the ruling circles of Italy decided to get rid of Mussolini and the most odious figures of the fascist regime. On July 25, 1943 , a coup d'état took place in the country, Mussolini was removed from all posts and arrested, the new government was headed by an elderly retired Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871 - 1956). The Badoglio government began peace talks with the United States and Great Britain . On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Germany.

In September 1943, German troops occupied Northern Italy. On its territory, the so-called. Republic of Salo . The German special forces managed to free Mussolini, who led the Republic.

On the territory of the Republic of Salo, anti-fascists began a partisan struggle. Various political forces took part in it, the most active of which were the communists. As a result of the April Uprising in 1945, the fascist regime in Italy finally collapsed.

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Italian partisans

After the defeat of fascism, the situation in Italy was somewhat similar to the situation in neighboring Greece . And there, and there the communists faced an alternative: either to fight for coming to power by force of arms, or to temporarily reconcile with the bourgeois-democratic regime. Comrade Togliatti understood that after World War II Italy found itself in the zone of influence of the United States and Great Britain, whose forces were many times superior to the forces of the communist partisans. Therefore, the prospect of conquering power through the Civil War was more than ephemeral. It was wiser to temporarily come to terms with bourgeois democracy and act within its framework. This formed the basis of the strategy of the Italian Communist Party.
( Editor’s note . At present, discussions are continuing among the communists of the planet regarding the correctness of the reformist and armed methods of struggle in such specific conditions as Italy and Greece found themselves in after World War II. The revolutionary wing of the modern communist movement as a whole has a negative attitude towards the post-war tactics of the CPI.)
At the same time, there were supporters of the Greek scenario in the leadership of the Italian Communist Party; for example, Pietro Secchia (1903 - 1973).

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Palmiro Togliatti and Pietro Secchia

One way or another, but in the post-war years, the Italian Communist Party, with over 2 million members, has become a very powerful political force.

Italian communists took an active part in the preparation of the new Italian Constitution. This constitution was, of course, bourgeois, but, nevertheless, included some very advanced articles for their time. Thus, the Italian Constitution recorded the right to work (which, of course, was not always observed), limitation of the working day and the right to annual paid leave, the right to health care with free medical care for poor citizens, the right to eight-year schooling for all citizens. and the right to government aid for talented but disadvantaged students. The Italian Constitution also allowed the expropriation of private property, however, not free of charge, but for a ransom.

The constitution was reviewed several times and was finally adopted on December 22, 1947 .

In 1945 , a government was formed in Italy, headed by the Christian Democrat Alcido De Gasperi (1881 - 1954), which also included the Communists. Palmiro Togliatti received the post of Deputy Prime Minister. In the 1946 parliamentary elections , the communists received 19% of the vote and 104 seats in parliament.

However, then the offensive of the right forces began. It was facilitated by the active economic assistance provided to Italy by the United States of America. At the same time, it was unobtrusively explained that if the Communists came to power, this assistance would stop. In 1947 , the communist ministers headed by Togliatti were removed from the government. Later (until the liquidation of the IKP in 1991 , the Italian communists were not included in the government).
( From the editorial board. And this offensive by the right-wing forces was quite natural. Anyone who follows the bourgeoisie's lead will end up being its victim.)
In the 1948 parliamentary elections , two political forces competed: the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), supported by the United States and the Vatican, and the People's Democratic Front, jointly created by the ICP and ISP. The CDA won a convincing victory ( 13 million votes against 8 million ). The single bloc of anti-fascist parties that previously ruled Italy has come to an end.

On July 14, 1948, a mentally inadequate young man (who apparently did not have any political forces behind him) fired several shots at Palmiro Togliatti. Comrade Togliatti was seriously injured. The response to the assassination attempt was a General Strike that lasted several days.

In 1956 , the VIII Congress of the ICP took place, which formulated the course of the struggle for socialism on the basis of creating a broad bloc of working people.

The Italian Communist Party supported the criticism of J.V. Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU , but considered the analysis carried out at the Congress to be insufficiently deep.

In October-November 1956 , the Soviet Union suppressed the anti-communist uprising in Hungary by force .
( From the editorial board. The author gives a not entirely correct assessment of the fascist rebellion of 1956 , which was suppressed by the joint efforts of the vanguard of the Hungarian workers and Soviet troops.)
Most of the leaders of the ICP, led by Palmiro Togliatti, supported the actions of the USSR, but some of the party leaders, including the head of the General Italian Confederation of Labor and the World Federation of Trade Unions, Giuseppe di Vittorio (1892 - 1957), condemned the introduction of Soviet troops into Hungary. After the Hungarian events, some of the party members left its ranks; relations with the Italian Socialist Party were also spoiled.

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Giuseppe di Vittorio (1892 - 1957)

In the mid -1950s , the Italian Communist Party reached 2 million people, making it the largest and most influential Communist Party in the capitalist world. Many prominent figures in science and culture were members of the Italian Communist Party. Such as the outstanding theoretical physicist Tullio Reggi (1931 - 2014), the great aircraft designer Roberto Bartini (1897 - 1974), the historian and philosopher Paolo Alatri (1918 - 1995), the writers Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 - 1968), Carlo Levi (1902 - 1975), Gianni Rodari (1920 - 1980), Dario Fo (1926 - 2016), artist Renato Guttuso(1911 - 1987), theater director Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976), film director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922 - 1975), film actor Gian Maria Volonte (1933 - 1994), author of numerous songs Gino Paole (born 1934). The ideology of the ICP had a significant impact on the brilliant rise of Italian realistic cinema in the 1950s, which was called "neorealism."

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Roberto Bartini (1897 - 1974)
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Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922 - 1975)

The influence of the IKP grew continuously: in the parliamentary elections of 1963 it collected over 25% of the vote, in the elections in 1968 - 26.9% , and in the elections in 1972 - 27.2% .

At the end of the 1960s , a new trend began to take shape in the world communist movement - Eurocommunism. Its leader and main ideologist was Santiago Carrillo (1915 - 2012), who in 1960 became the leader of the Spanish Communist Party. The parties that followed the path of Eurocommunism, on a number of issues opposed themselves to the policy of the CPSU and became closer to the Social Democratic parties. Eurocommunism, as an independent political trend, was finally formed at the meeting of representatives of the Communist Parties of Spain, Italy and France in Madrid in 1977 .

The most important thing in Eurocommunism was the implicit rejection of the project of withdrawing society beyond capitalism.

The Communists, unlike the Social Democrats, are not fighting to improve capitalism and turn it into a system acceptable to the working people. They fight against capitalism as such and set as their strategic goal its replacement by a new socio-economic formation.

However, the rapid scientific and technological progress in the post-war years led to the fact that the position of the working people has noticeably improved within the framework of capitalist society (to a large extent due to the exploitation of the population of the Third World). At the same time, the USSR was unable to provide the same high standard of living as in the West.
( Editor’s note. The author forgets to mention that high Western European living standards were not available to everyone: both in Western Europe and in the United States there were and remain millions of beggars, homeless people, unemployed people. This phenomenon did not exist in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Now there is .)
All this led to disappointment in the project and the growing popularity of the idea of ​​turning communists into respectable social democrats.

Later, the rejection of the communist project was interpreted by Western social thought in the form of the concept of the “end of history” by Francis Fukuyama (born 1952).

The Eurocommunists ceased to unconditionally support the foreign policy of the USSR, which, naturally, caused discontent among the Soviet leadership and, apparently, was the main reason for criticism of Eurocommunism by the CPSU.

In the Italian Communist Party, which already enjoyed great political influence under capitalism, the Euro-communist wing was quite strong. In 1972 , its leader Enrico Berlinguer (1922 - 1984) was elected General Secretary of the IKP Central Committee.

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Enrico Berlinguer (1922 - 1984)

Already in 1969 , at a meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, E. Berliguer, who headed the delegation of the Italian Communist Party, harshly criticized the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia . In 1973 , Berlinguer published a series of articles in which he outlined his vision of the political landscape in Italy and the tasks of the communists. In his opinion, the communists and the Christian Democratic Party should form a single bloc, preventing the ultra-right forces from coming to power. In the wake of political terrorism that unfolded in the 1970s, Berlinguer considered the possibility of ultra-right forces coming to power quite real. Although this scenario looked very doubtful.

The CDP appreciated this step by the Communist leader and began to discuss the possibility of ICP representatives joining the government (for the first time since 1947). In the end, however, the CDP dispensed with the communist ministers.

E. Berlinguer's position drew criticism from many communists, especially the older generation. In particular, the veteran of the Party, the closest ally of Palmiro Togliatti, comrade Umberto Terracini (1895 - 1983), decisively opposed it.

In 1980 , the IKP opposed the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan .

In the late 1980s, the ICP had about one and a half million members. Nevertheless, after the fall of the Soviet system in the USSR, it was not possible to save the party.

By the end of the 1980s, several political forces emerged in the party, representing its future in different ways. The leader of the right wing was George Napolitano (born 1925). Representatives of this wing believed that the word "communism" was outdated and should be removed from the name of the party. The party, in the opinion of these forces, should become generally left-wing and advocate for all that is good.

The pro-Soviet wing of the party was headed by its chief financier Armando Kossutta (1926 - 2015). He was critical of Eurocommunism.

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George Napolitano (born 1925)
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Armando Cossutta (1926 - 2015)

The third group was headed by Pietro Ingrao (1915 - 2015). He was also critical of Eurocommunism, but at the same time did not see the Soviet Union as an ideal to follow. And sometimes he sharply criticized the USSR. Pietro Ingrao was an active supporter of close cooperation with the "new left" and their involvement in the ranks of the Communist Party.

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Pietro Ingrao (1915 - 2015)

In 1988 , Achille Ochetto (born 1936) was elected General Secretary of the IKP , who quickly found a common language with the right wing of the party.

In early 1991 , the 20th Congress of the Italian Communist Party took place. On February 4, the congress decided to dissolve the party and transform it into the Democratic Party of the Left (DPLS). The main idea of ​​the new party was, naturally, the rejection of the communist project. After a series of subsequent transformations, the DPLS turned into the Democratic Party, which has several hundred thousand members and is quite influential. The leader of the Democratic Party was at one time head of the Italian government.

Armando Cossuta's supporters did not join the DPLS and formed the Communist Renaissance Party. Later in Italy, numerous small communist and near-communist organizations were created, united and disintegrated, but they failed to create anything even remotely comparable to the IKP of the 1950s-1980s.

The Italian bourgeoisie generously rewarded the right-wing leaders of the ICP for destroying the party. The way to the highest posts in the state was opened for them. In 2006 , George Napolitano was elected President of Italy and remained in this post until 2015. In 1998 , former communist Massimo d'Alema (born 1949) became Prime Minister of Italy (1998 - 2000). He became famous for his support for the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO aircraft . And was it worth it for the sake of this, the politician declaring his leftist views to become the head of the government !? A right-wing politician looks much more natural in this capacity.

The left political flank of modern Italy, formed from the fragments of the ICP, is represented today by a large number of one-day parties that do not have a long-term strategy and serious prospects for a long existence.

The experience of the Italian and other Communist parties that have adopted the position of Eurocommunism allows us to draw an important conclusion: the rejection of communist ideas inevitably leads to the suicide of the Communist Party. In the presence of real Social Democrats, social democrats of the second grade from yesterday's communists are not needed by anyone. The strength of the communists lies in principled anti-capitalism and in reliance on the communist project, the details of which, however, may vary depending on the conditions of a particular country. After 1991, the powerful Communist Parties of Italy and France turned into small marginal organizations, while the Communists, who remained communists and are proud of it (Greece, Chile), only strengthened.

Image
Rally at the Piraeus stadium organized by the Communist Party of Greece, 2016

Despite the decline of the communist movement, everyday life in Italy and other capitalist countries generates a natural interest among workers in the left, including in communist ideas. There can hardly be any doubt that these ideas and the communist movement inspired by these ideas have a great future. And in Italy, and not only in Italy.

S.V. Bagotsky

Reprinted in abbreviation

https://www.rotfront.su/italyanskoj-kom ... oj-partii/

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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:11 pm

17/02/2021ALBERTO FERRETTI
The aggression against workers' rights and the trade union question: an Italy-France confrontation

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by Editorial staff

After the collapse of the socialist camp and the end of the Cold War which had, to a minimum extent, kept at bay the most voracious appetites of the capitalists for workers' rights, from the beginning of the 1990s onwards it began again in a rush the systematic attack on the living conditions of the working class. From that time onwards, measures of wage compression, privatizations, discounts to businesses, delocalizations and the precariousness of the labor market were the main weapons with which the Italian bourgeoisie tried to stop the fall in profits. It would be superfluous to list the obvious lies and disprove the platitudes with which the ruling class has tried to embellish and justify all these processes (from the search for lost productivity, the fantastic advantages of ultra-flexible work), so we will focus on one of the most serious aspects of the general aggression against workers in recent decades: the growing establishment of forms of precarious work. In addition we will try to outline some important issues such as the trade union question comparing the situation of our country with the experiences of neighboring countries such as France.

The legislation on insecurity in Italy and their numbers
Although precariat in certain sectors has been a constant in the history of our country, with the end of the Second World War and especially with the season of the so-called economic boom and workers' struggles, the conditions of workers experienced an effective improvement in terms of rights. and stability culminating in the conquest of the Workers' Statute and other guarantees of a social and civil nature. With the removal of the first attacks which, as early as '92, also in deference to Maastricht , the Italian governments were undertaking against the popular masses, with the blocking of wage and pension indexation, the first significant interventions triggered by the explosion of precariat were implemented L. 196/1997better known as the "Treu Package". With this real counter-reform, new ways of part-time work were introduced , apprenticeships (a contract from 18 months to 4 years for the under 26), the so-called internships of up to one year, internships, and above all temporary work, that is to say, an outsourcing of work that would have allowed a company (temporary agency or cooperative), a "labor supplier", to contract out the workforce of its "employees" to third parties in an ultra-flexible manner. In doing so, for the most part, the public placement system regime was removed from the state by outsourcing it to private individuals.

The further driving force towards job insecurity was introduced with the Biagi Law of 2003, which further fragmented the mosaic of the labor market by introducing a whole series of contractual types. Among these we find the project collaboration contract ( co.co.pro ), a type of work freed from any bargaining constraint, which is not the duration of the "project", and which leaves the worker almost entirely at the mercy of the boss, naturally devoid of all the rights and guarantees typical of any other employee (thirteenth, severance pay, etc..). Other forms introduced were: the intermittent or on-call work contract, a particularly hateful and partially mitigated form by subsequent "reforms"; the accessory employment contract, such as for seasonal workers; and the administration of work, which replaced temporary work without substantially changing the approach, that fundamentally, of a real legalized hiring. The results of this turning back of the wheel of history by the sorcerer's apprentices of the bourgeoisie were not long in coming. The reduction of the bargaining power of workers, who could be blackmailed and ready to accept worse conditions and lower wages, did not only affect fixed-term contracts and precarious workers in general, but also all those stable jobs,[1] .

In a report presented in 2016 to the Senate by the "Ca 'Foscari" University of Venice, which analyzed data on the impact of the labor market reforms from 2000 to 2015, it is reported that in this period of time in several European countries, among which Italy, the growth of precarious work has affected an increasing percentage of workers, settling on average around 10% and sometimes even more. Furthermore, in our country the diffusion of precarious work is generally more widespread among women, affecting 30% of female workers, against 10% of men: between 2000 and 2015 precarious workers increased by 50%, as well as those forced, by choice or by force, to part-time, they even increased by 69%. It is also noted, as it is obvious, that young peopleunder 30 are the slice of workers where insecurity has spread the most [2] . In 2015, of the total contracts signed involving 6 million workers (compared to terminations for 5.7 million), as many as 65.5% were precarious, a figure that proved to be in line with previous years [3] .

In this context, with the excuse of "abolishing precariat" and the rhetoric of removing the "privilege of the guaranteed" (ie stable workers), the latest invention of the bourgeoisie was that of the Jobs Act. The latter, contemplating the ' abolition of the rights for permanent workers and favoring the possibility of dismissal for companies (abolition of art. 18 of the Workers' Statute), tried, with the game of the three cards of "increasing protections", to manipulate the statistics in order to continue to attack the working class by imposing a masked precariat. Furthermore, the Renzian reform always aggravated another form of hateful precariat: that of the use of vouchers.(or good job). This contractual form conceived at the beginning of the '00s for seasonal workers and workers in some sectors (e.g. agriculture) was, from Monti onwards, cleared through customs for many other types of jobs, and with the Renzi government further favored: it went from 15 million of vouchers used in 2011 to 115 in 2015 and 145 (historical high) in 2016, and affecting, for example in 2015, almost one and a half million workers [4] . The vouchers , for the record, were abolished in 2017 by the Gentiloni government to avoid a referendum carried out by the CGIL, demonstrating that even timid contrasts by the ultra-prone confederal unions can bring some results, small, yes, but important .

After the inglorious end of the Renzi government and the alternation of the so-called yellow-green government (Lega and Movimento 5 Stelle), precariousness has seen a very slight countertrend compared to the counter-reformist process. The so-called "Dignity Decree" has set up a series of measures aimed at curbing the worrying trend towards job insecurity, such as lowering the extensions of the precarious contract from 5 to 4 and the maximum limit to 12 months, or increasing the allowances to be paid in the event of unlawful dismissal (in any case not restoring art. 18, that is, reinstatement in the event of illegitimacy in the licencement). However, even these mild palliatives have not particularly affected the precariousness, in fact in 2018 of the 11.4 million activated employment relationships (relating to 6.4 million workers) as many as 69, 5% concerned precarious contracts, to which 1.9 million leasing contracts are added. On the other hand, however, compared to previous years, contractual transformations from precarious to stable increased by 86% in 2018, compared to -34% in 2016, the result ofWild deregulation of the Jobs Act [5] .

To date, according to the data for 2020 [6] and net of the Covid crisis - which has already shown the first signs on employment (from February 2020 to date 426,000 jobs have been lost, despite the blocking of layoffs; numbers which mainly concern young people, women and precarious workers) but which after the release scheduled for 31 March will show the real tragedy [7] - precarious contracts continue to remain the privileged instrument: 68% of all new contracts signed, with , a not very exciting increase in those turned into stable.

To summarize and disentangle historical numbers and statistics, we can say that, although a very slight brake has been placed on precarization since 2018, it remains the favorite blackmail tool that the capitalists, thanks to their lackeys in successive governments, have imposed and continue to to impose on the working class and on the new generations. Which leads us, therefore, to consider that 3.2 million of the 19 million salaried workers in Italy represent the most exploited and weak part of society: the precarious [8] . To understand the importance of precarious numbers, which represent 17% of workers, compared to the entire working class, it is very useful to take a look at the following graph which shows us a general photograph of the class composition in Italy.

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From the table of the active population (approximately 25 million pensioners, students and minors are excluded) it can be seen that the total number of private and public employees, with permanent contracts, amounts to approximately 12 and a half million and 3.1 million respectively. of workers among which, both public and private, middle managers and executives were, as of 2015, 1.1 million and about 400 thousand respectively [9] . To complete the picture of the wage-earners, and in a position of heavier exploitation, there are the 3.3 million precarious workers and the same number, according to recent estimates, of illegal workers [10] . The quota of about half a million workers so-called fake VAT numbers can also be included in the category of over-exploited persons [11], formally independent workers but in reality in a position of strong subordination and lack of any guarantees and rights. To these are added the official unemployed (i.e. enrolled in the employment lists), about two million, and an army of over 6 million inactive, of which a large part are proletarians, young people, women, unemployed, who for various reasons are unable to enter the world of work. The capitalists (1.4 million), traders who exploit wage labor and small traders, professionals, artisans and other self-employed workers who do not exploit wage labor (3.3 million), represent the other classes and have been detailed in our previous article .

Faced with these data, which photograph a reality of the composite proletariat where there are different levels of exploitation, there is no doubt that the main trend is that of a generalized impoverishment of workers in terms of wages and rights and an increasingly increasing exploitation especially among less protected sections of the population. The bourgeoisie and its sycophants of the press, politics and even among the intelligentsiaacademic, they have always tried to bring conflict to horizontal levels, trying to pit the different categories of workers against each other and defuse class conflict. Typical of this attitude is, for example, the rhetoric against "guaranteed" public sector workers that has often accompanied the Counter-Reformation process, especially the Jobs Act , and which even in times of pandemic has reached grotesque levels such as for for example the attacks against treacherous janitors with guaranteed jobs or smart working workers who “steal” food vouchers from the community.

Given this situation, the need to win back that slice of workers to the class struggle and bring them closer to the instances that will only allow them to get out of capitalist barbarism becomes an urgent imperative. However, in the face of the state of affairs, the response of the Italian trade unions has been somewhat lacking in recent years. If there is a strong activism among the most combative components of basic unionism, which however suffers from a fragmentation and a discontinuous rooting among all categories of workers, the confederal unions - (CGIL, CISL and UIL) which together in numbers should collect nothing fewer than about 11 million subscribers - in recent years they have witnessed helplessly, when they have not become accomplices, in the attacks on workers by the capitalists. In the last 20 years, the greatest season of general strikes called by the confederates was the one against the Berlusconi government in the early 2000s, including the general strike against the abolition of art. 18 (abolition passed in silence 15 years later!) Of April 2002[12] . The latest jolts, it is appropriate to say, were those against the "Fornero reform" of 2011.

Since then, with the exception of sectoral strikes, the major union forces have failed to mobilize workers against the growing counter-reforms experienced in recent years. However, the suspicion arises, especially when looking at neighboring France, that not so much the opportunity was missing - as well as certainly the fact that the millions of members are much more on paper than in reality - as political will. This demonstrates once again, if there was a need for further proof, the level of collusion and organicity of the confederates to the desiredof the employers. A context of severe crisis, of continuous aggression and counter-reforms against workers' rights should have had a much more assertive response from the major trade unions: the French example, in this sense, should be the school. On a humus of contradictions and attacks on workers' rights that are not very dissimilar, a much smaller trade union such as the CGT (653,000 members in 2017) managed to interpret a season of struggle as it was not seen in France, and throughout Europe, since the end of the 60s of the last century.

In order to get a clearer picture of what happened in France on the trade union front, it is therefore good to investigate the state of the French trade union struggle in recent years.

The struggles of workers and the trade union question in France in recent years
France has maintained a stronger level of social, trade union and political mobilization than in Italy. The living conditions of workers, although worsening, were defended with greater combativeness and awareness. Not that the bosses' offensive is less intense than in Italy, on the contrary. The start of hostilities was given by the proposed reform of the labor code - the “ El Khomri Law ”, named after the Minister in charge - put forward in March 2016 under the presidency of the socialist Hollande. A reform that responded to the capitalist needs to liberalize the labor market (in the wake of the Jobs Actpassed without major disputes the year before in Italy) providing, among other things, the facilitation of economic layoffs and the relaxation of the 35-hour weekly regime [13] . A fierce opposition arose against this project, structured around a social movement, later known as the movement against the Loi Travail . The joint appeal of the CGT ( Confédération générale du travail, counterpart of the CGIL and the first trade union in the country), of the student movement (Union of students, UNEF), of the FSU (union of the civil service and of teachers) and of the base union SUD-Solidaires. These organizations formed the nucleus of the inter-union, an informal coordination organization that led the struggles from that moment, to which Force Ouvrière, the third trade union in the country, was later added in a healthy way.

Encouraged by the large participation in the first demonstrations, the opponents continued to pursue the government at the rate of one or two massive strike days and weekly marches - up to striking actions such as blockades of fuel depots - for at least three months, to the point that the law had to be approved in August with recourse to the infamous article 49-3 (a sort of trust, which allows government measures to enter into force without a parliamentary vote [14] ). In fact, the Hollande government found itself without a solid parliamentary majority willing to vote with a light heart for a project that had inflamed the streets to such an extent and which was paying for the persistent hostility of public opinion.

The rejection of the counter-reform and the anti-capitalist sensibilities that had animated the movement were also expressed in the presidential elections in April 2017 where the candidate of the radical left ( France Insoumise and the Communist Party), Jean Luc Mélenchon, collected 7 million votes, touching the second turn. More than the electoral contigence, what counts is that these consents came mainly from the popular and precarious sectors - Mélenchon was the most voted by the unemployed and young people, and the second among the workers (34% of whom voted for Le Pen, the 24% Mélanchon, 16% Macron, 6% Hamon, PS candidate [15]) - and on a social democratic program that is certainly reformist but very advanced in the current context of European capitalism. This reconnection of the political left to the popular classes broke for the first time in years the monopoly that the Front National had established over a section of the working class, victims of disindustrialisation, particularly in the northern regions, abandoned by the post-'89 reformist left. In doing so, she had stolen from the far right part of the social base thanks to which Le Pen thought she was catapulted to the head in the first round. This was only possible thanks to the class struggle that had swept the country and lit the fuse of social conflict, clearly delineating the lines of class conflict.

Not for this the movement (nor Melenchon), sided with the other candidate of the bourgeoisie, the centrist Macron, former Minister under Hollande, pushed by the monopoly media and the Parisian business circles to give life to their own personal movement, as a pseudo bulwark against Le Pen, after the Socialist Party had destroyed and discredited itself. Immediately after his election, Macron decided, without surprise, to deepen the work begun in the previous legislature by proposing a new series of counter-reform decrees of the labor code. The anti Loi Travail movementhe raised his head, again at the appeal of the CGT-led inter-union, in the same way as two weekly national meetings of general strike and parades. This formula had proved capable of involving hundreds of thousands of demonstrators and strikers across the country each time, effectively federating collectives, associations, trade unions and parties in a common action, with a clear agenda and shared slogans. . Having also lost the battle of public opinion, overwhelmingly in favor of the reasons for the protest, after that of the squares always full and brutally repressed, the government won on the only table in which its power was indisputable, that of the Presidency which approved the measures by decree, in mid-2018.

If it is true, therefore, that the protests did not prevent the promulgation of the laws, they nevertheless revealed the authoritarian, violent and anti-democratic methods which liberal democracy does not hesitate to use to impose measures in favor of capital. The police repression, moreover, has shown the substantial unity of purpose between right, pseudo-left and middle-class media when it comes to targeting work. On the other hand, they have consolidated a current of struggle that structurally runs through French society, which has its voice in the national debate and makes the interests of workers weigh daily in companies and workplaces against the arrogance of the Medef(the French Confindustria). In short, they have constituted a good school for social and political conflict and a precious accumulation of energy.

Of course, it cannot be said that following this defeat the movement did not feel the blow, in particular the leadership of the struggle unions found themselves suddenly short of strategies. It is in this period that the witness of the protest passes to a new actor suddenly appeared on the scene, the Gilet Jaunes . Born from the anger triggered by the increase in fuel prices - seen by many as yet another unsustainable tax that aggravated the cost of living, in particular for that peripheral France of small autonomous professions, of PME employees and of the "forgotten" of the province - the Gilet Jaunes movement was pouring into the squares and streets of France screaming its categorical rejection of Macron. From theNovember 2018 in mid-2019, the movement raged in the French streets and squares with unprecedented impetuosity, which caused the government to tremble considerably, deeply marking the collective conscience and the French political-social framework.

Initially, the union leaders looked with suspicion at this certainly popular but multiform and heterogeneous movement, which appeared spontaneously and disconnected from traditional political and union affiliations, which made neither an understandable nor "reliable" referent. Similarly, most of those who awakened to political life and struggle for the first time thanks to the Gilet Jaunesthey were prejudiced against trade unions seen as “part of the system”. Later, however, in the course of the struggles, and above all thanks to the increasingly frequent joint initiatives among the CGT trade unionists (many cadres and militants, especially from the communist and radical socialist area, are extremely critical, it must be said, with the moderation of some parts of the confederal directions) and the GJ groups on the territory, the two subjects learned to know and respect each other, and to find a common ground of encounter, in the context of daily mobilizations against Macron. This will lead the CGT secretary to state, on the occasion of the traditional demonstration of May 1, 2019 [16], that the CGT and the GJs “find themselves having many common social demands such as wage increases, asset restoration, fiscal justice, defense and revitalization of public services”. A de facto unity of action that continues to this day, although the Vest Jaunes have lost much of their initial strength.

The anti Loi Travail movement then re-emerges, in all its strength, between December 2019 and February 2020 on the occasion of the presentation by the government of a new counter-reform on pensions . The project is seen as a vital threat to the solidarity system of the French welfare state and the welfare of workers (between decreasing amounts and opening up to private funds) and meets, to the surprise of the government, even more massive opposition, if possible, of the one against Loi Travail [17]. The strikes, the largest in France and Europe since 1968, have literally paralyzed the country for more than two months, with public transport workers leading the protest, to which other distressed sectors have joined, many of them already present in the previous anti- Loi Travail movement . In particular, dockers and refinery workers, school, health and post office workers, workers from the state electricity company, representatives (minority, we will see shortly why) of metalworkers and private manufacturing.

Suspended in mid-March in the context of the pandemic, after being adopted at first reading by the National Assembly again thanks to the infamous 49-3, - confirming a government deaf to the claims of the vast majority of the population - the fate of the bill on pensions remains uncertain today. What is certain is that if without the all-out strikes, with the enormous media coverage and popular support they have aroused, the reform would already be in effect in silence. And today, after months of catastrophic management of the pandemic, new mobilizations are underway in the sectors of public education, health, energy, against the closure of construction sites, for better wages and for 32 hours a week, until the first general strike of the season. made last February 4th.[18] .

In short, it can be said, at the conclusion of this quick and certainly not exhaustive report, that part of French society has been mobilized for 5 years without interruption against the liberal course set by the various governments in office.

Conflict: a question not (only) of quantity, but of quality
Of course not all that glitters is gold: the struggle takes place in conditions of power relations that are profoundly unfavorable to the workers, given that capital can count on the unfailing support of the parties (with the exception of a handful of deputies from France Insoumise and the PCF) and the absolute loyalty of the media (in France as elsewhere they are held by a handful of oligarchs [19] ) to the neoliberal hegemony of which the EU is one of the international bulwarks.

Certainly, the restructuring of international capitalism since the 1970s and the labor laws in question have also contributed to disrupting the working class in France. According to the most recent statistics, there are about three and a half million precarious workers out of 24 million employees [20] , an important percentage, although lower than the Italian one. Furthermore, in France there is no plethora of contractual types typical of the Italian situation; there are essentially two, fixed-term and interim contracts, demonstrating how Italian legislators are absolutely at the forefront in serving bosses and bosses. Precarization, and in this the union struggles certainly have a deterrent effect, does not tend to generalize as the bosses certainly would like and to which the government offensive of recent years is trying to remedy.

Yet, although less intense than in Italy, this precariousness threshold already contributes to making difficult the work of recomposing and organizing struggles, especially in the private sector which is most targeted by deregulation. This was paradoxically evident during the most successful of the movements, the one against the pension reform. We could not express it better than the words of a communist-area CGT trade unionist interviewed on the issue:

"What we have also seen in this mobilization is [...] in part the decline of the labor movement organized in several large private companies [...] This is linked to various factors, to the precariousness and fragmentation of companies between subcontractors and parent companies, and also within the different structures, including permanent contracts, temporary contracts, fixed-term contracts ... All this means that the working groups are structurally weakened by the employer policies of recent years which make it rather difficult for workers to organize, collective organization with stable structures. This situation can be seen very concretely in the industrial areas […] even in the places where there are CGT militants of good will, but who have to face these objective obstacles.

The only certain thing we can say is that we all have collective strength, but only a few are aware of it. If we stop all working together, especially in the private sector, the whole economic machine crashes. This is the balance of power. But what awaits us in the years to come is obviously the reconstruction of the labor movement in the private sector. This is one of the main problems and the entire CGT has to appropriate it . " [21]


This is one of the main French problems, which in theory should not concern Italy, where the trade union, for example the CGIL which has more than 5 million members, has an excellent penetration both in the public and in the private sector, Fiom alone counts about 350,000 members, and the USB, the first basic union no less than 250,000. In general, the overall unionization rate in Italy stands at more than 30%, while in France the CGT, as the first trade union (together with the CFDT reformers), does not reach 700,000 members. The same organizations that are part of the inter-union, except Force Ouvrière, which however has no more than half a million members, are "small" organizations of one hundred thousand members each. France is in fact, counterintuitively to the account of the struggles we have just provided,

“ The percentage of workers enrolled in a trade union is particularly low in France: around 8%. This is the lowest rate among all industrialized countries, even lower than that of the United States, Korea and Turkey. However, this does not mean the absence of trade union representation, which on the contrary is high in France, especially in the public sector and in large companies " [22]

Yet these organizations have been and still are the backbone of a national struggle movement, a catalyst for social and democratic conflicts. The main problem is therefore not quantity, the problem lies in quality: that given by a conflictual line combined with effective rooting and representation in strategic companies, and the ability-will of unity of action between organizations. The trade unionism that was supposed to be a struggle in Italy has instead given itself the role of firefighter, with a CGIL that keeps huge masses of workers frozen on the one hand, for its strategy of concertation and respect for "national" and confindustrial interests, and madly fragmented into basic micro organizations that do not communicate with each other, despite being in certain contexts very combative in carrying out the struggle.

Although there are differences between the French and Italian trade union situation, the model of French mobilizations could and should therefore represent an important example for the organization of struggles in Italy today.

[1] Marta and Simone Fana, Enough starvation wages! , pp. 50

[2] https://www.senato.it/application/xmana ... andard.pdf

[3] From the Annual Report on mandatory communications (2016) - Ministry of Labor

[4] https://www.repubblica.it/ricoltura/201 ... 139896362/

[5] From the Annual Report on mandatory communications (2018) - Ministry of Labor

[6] From the Annual Report on mandatory communications (2020) - Ministry of Labor

[7] https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/giovani ... o-ADo21wGB

[8] https://www.open.online/2020/01/30/lavo ... ati-istat/

[9] https://dirigentindustria.it/lavoro/dir ... rigenti%20(privati,riduzione%20del% 203% 2C3% 25) .

[10] https://www.agi.it/igianato/news/2020-0 ... i%20dicono , lend% 20 their% 20% 20 activities% C3% A0% 20 at work.

[11] https://www.money.it/Partite-Iva-fittiz ... gio-di-chi

[12] http : // Archivi.rassegna.it/2002/lavoro/articoli/flessibilita/16aprile/prima.htm

[13] https://it.euronews.com/2016/03/09/jobs ... aordinari- Meno-cari-e-licenziamenti-piu-facili

[14] https://it.euronews.com/2016/07/17/49-c ... di-governo

[15] https://pcimarche.wordpress.com/2017/05 ... -popolare/

[16] Philippe Martinez: The CGT "a beaucoup de revendications sociales communes" avec les gilets jaunes - Vidéo Dailymotion

[17] https://pcimarche.wordpress.com/2020/01 ... -francese/

[18] https://www.dinamopress.it/news/la-fran ... sicurezza/

[19] https://www.bastamag.net/Le-pouvoir-d-i ... -la-presse

[20] 3.7 million de salariés précaires en France (inegalites.fr)

[21] Entretien avec le responsable CGT Cheminot de Trappes: "Tout est encore possible, l'enjeu c'est d'arriver à généraliser le movement" - Unité CGT (unitecgt.fr)

[22] http://www.amblav.it/Download/Lavoro_INCA_CGIL.pdf

https://ottobre.info/2021/02/17/laggres ... e-francia/

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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 11, 2022 2:55 pm

Police raid on USB union headquarters in Italy sparks outrage
The union has been at the forefront of the working class struggles against the anti-people policies of the Mario Draghi government in Italy. Progressive groups have extended solidarity with the USB and denounced the raid as a ploy to discredit and villainize the union.

April 06, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

Image
Italian Carabinieri raided the headquarters of the USB union and claimed to find a weapon in their toilet. Photo: USB

On April 6, Wednesday, soldiers from the national gendarmerie of Italy, the Carabinieri, raided the national headquarters of Unione Sindacale di Base (USB Italia), allegedly to carry out a raid in search of weapons. They claimed that they received a tip by an anonymous telephone call.

According to reports, Carabinieri “found” a gun wrapped in cellophane and immersed in water from the flush tank of a toilet in the office. The USB as well as other trade unions and left groups have denounced the raid and ‘uncovering’ of the gun as a staged event by the authorities to villainize and discredit the radical trade union which has been in the forefront of struggles against the neoliberal, anti-people policies of the Mario Draghi led government in Italy.


Last month, USB led major protests in the port of Genoa and at the Pisa airport against the use of Italian airstrips and seaports for the transit of arms destined to imperialist wars. The union has also resolved for a greater participation in national mobilization of Italian workers on April 22 in Rome against the anti-worker policies of the Mario Draghi government.

An attack on one is an attack on all

Following the raid on Wednesday, USB Italia released a statement in which they denounced the raid as a staged one to discredit the organization and the multitudes of workers, unemployed, precarious, homeless who support it. “The premises of Via dell’Aeroporto are daily open to the public, like all USB offices. Certainly the last place to hide something, let alone weapons. The only weapons that USB uses are strikes, demands, demonstrations, struggles. We leave the guns to those who love them, starting with the compact majority that fuels the war in Ukraine”, said the USB Union.

Potere al Popolo has stated that the raid on USB headquarters is an unprecedented provocation in the history of the republic, which takes into account the intimidating climate created by the Draghi Government to repress today’s social struggles.

The Communist Youth Front (FGC) has expressed solidarity with the USB union and stated that “the climate in which this provocation occurs is that of an Italy in which unionists are killed during strikes and in work places, anti-union violence increases, the exploitation of workers and the repression of those who raise their heads. In this context, the law enforcement in the headquarters of a union is not a formality but an intimidation of a State that has chosen whom to join.”

In his statement on Wednesday, Maurizio Acerbo, national secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) denounced the raid and asked “Have we reached the intimidation of social opposition while the parliament is almost unanimous in supporting the Draghi government and war? While the government and parliament are increasing military expenses and trade of weapons, the Carabinieri are looking for weapons in the headquarters of a union that has opposed this.”

Last year in October, far-right fringes also unleashed an attack on the headquarters of the office of the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) in Rome.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/04/06/ ... s-outrage/

Looks like the long arm of the (US made) rule of law...

Those cops proly out of practice 'planting' guns since the pogrom against revolutionary communists.

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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 23, 2022 1:19 pm

Protests break out in Italy against persecution of trade unionists
On July 19, eight trade unionists were apprehended by the police on the orders of the Piacenza Prosecutor’s Office for organizing strikes and unionizing

July 22, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

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(Photo: via FGC)

Working class sections in Italy have registered strong protest against the state-led persecution of trade unionists. On Wednesday, July 20, trade unions including Si Cobas, ADL and USB organized a national strike at logistics warehouses across Italy protesting the arrest of eight trade unionists. Aldo Milani, the national coordinator of SI Cobas, was among those arrested on July 19. Progressive political groups like Potere al Popolo (Power to the People), Communist Youth Front (FGC), Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), Young Communists (GC), Italian Communist Party (PCI), and others denounced the arrests and participated in the protest. Major mobilizations were organized in Milan, Turin, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Piacenza, Genoa, and other cities. Protesters have demanded the immediate release of the arrested trade unionists.

According to reports, on the morning of July 19, eight trade unionists were put under house arrest on the orders of the Piacenza Prosecutor’s Office. They are accused of organizing strikes and disrupting work at warehouses of multinational logistics companies. Earlier, trade unionists and workers were subjected to police repression for protesting against poor working conditions in logistics warehouses.

Workers in the logistics sector have been organizing dynamic mobilizations in defense of jobs and workers’ rights in various warehouses and units of logistics giants like Amazon, Nippon Express, Fedex TNT, and others in Piacenza under the leadership of Si Cobas and USB. In April this year, the national gendarmerie of Italy, the Carabinieri, raided the national headquarters of USB, allegedly in search of weapons. The raid took place in the aftermath of protests organized by USB against the use of Italian ports and airstrips to dispatch arms and ammunition to be used in imperialist wars.

In response to the police action on July 19, Si Cobas stated, “it’s a very heavy assault on the freedom of union and the right to strike, brought on by a sector of the judiciary that has already distinguished itself over the years for its anti-union [action] with complaints, arrests and residence bans. With accusations of “violence” and “extortion” they want to suppress workers’ struggles against exploitation and for wages, at a time when Italian and international owners and speculators are robbing wages, while prices have increased 8% (10% for low income families) and more. A generalized fight to defend the purchasing power …is urgent.”

Potere al Popolo said, “what do the prosecutors really want to punish the unionists for? For having defended workers’ rights, for having created organizational tools and, above all, for winning. Thanks to basic union struggles the lives of many workers, often treated as slaves, have improved.”

The FGC said, “The message is clear..organizing in a union to improve one’s own living and working conditions, is not a crime.”

The unions have called for a protest mobilization at Piacenza on July 23.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/07/22/ ... unionists/
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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 28, 2022 1:50 pm

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Massive rally in Piacenza against the persecution of trade unionists
Originally published: In Defense of Communism on July 25, 2022 by Nikos Mottas (more by In Defense of Communism) | (Posted Jul 28, 2022)

With a massive demonstration held in Piacenza, in Italy’s northern region of Emilia Romagna, thousands of workers, men and women, people of every age, demanded the release of the eight trade unionists of Si Cobas and USB who remain under house arrest.

The trade unionists were placed under house arrest and searched on July 19th, based on a 350-page indictment of the Piacenza Public Prosecutor’s Office against USB and Si Cobas unions.

They are accused of instigating and organizing strikes and mobilizations at warehouses of multinational logistic monopolies, including Amazon, FedEx-TNT, Nippon Express and others. A few months earlier, in April, police officers raided the national headquarters of USB under the pretext of searching for weapons. The police raid took place after protests organized by USB against the use of Italian ports, such as the one of Genova, to dispatch ammunition and arms to be used in the imperialist war in Ukraine.

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Banner of the Front of Communist Youth (FGC) in Piacenza rally.

In a joint communique issued on July 20th, Si Cobas, USB and other trade unions point out that they “are facing a large-scale political attack aimed at outlawing strikes and bargaining in companies, thus definitively eliminating the class and conflict union from the workplace”. They add that “the advance of the capitalist crisis and the growing social malaise following the war economy and the high cost of living, produce an ever more stringent offensive against the workers, and in particular against the trade union and social avant-gardes of struggle”.

Front of Communist Youth (FGC)

The Front of Communist Youth (Fronte della Gioventu Comunista, FGC) has expressed its full solidarity with the trade unionists and participated in the Piacenza protest.

In a statement published in social media, FGC points out:

Thousands demonstrated in Piacenza to give a clear answer to those who want to suppress the workers’ struggle. Free the imprisoned union activists: Union struggle is not a crime! The criminal organization is the corporate bosses and their governments.

We are ready to respond swiftly to any attack. This should only be the first step in building a great united general strike of all class and combat forces.The repression will not prevail–the class struggle will crush it!.


KKE MEPs: Question on the unacceptable persecution of trade unionists in Italy

The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) submitted a question to the European Commission denouncing the persecution of trade unionists of USB and SI Cobas in Italy, who are demanding an improvement in their working conditions.

Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos, MEP of the KKE, submitted the following question to the European Commission:

What is the Commission’s position:

On the demand for the workers’ immediate acquittal from all accusations, as well as the release of the 8 trade unionists under house arrest?

On the fact that the Italian authorities have criminalized trade union activity, which is an inalienable right of workers, the struggles of workers to improve their working conditions, and the right of workers to decide, based on their internal trade union procedures, the organization of actions (general assemblies, protests, pickets, strikes) to inform and coordinate the struggle of workers to improve their working conditions?.


WFTU condemnation statement on the unacceptable attacks against militant trade unionists in Italy

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PAME denounces the attempts to criminalise trade union action in Italy

The World Federation of Trade Unions unequivocally condemns the new unacceptable attack against militant trade unionists in Italy. A few months after the provocative police raid on the USB office, a new attack against militant trade unionists is escalating since yesterday, with trade unionists to be placed under house arrest and searched, based on a 350-page indictment of the Piagenza Public Prosecutor’s Office against USB and Si Cobas unions.

It is obvious that the militant struggles of the class-oriented trade unions bother the bourgeois class, its state, and its political representatives who blatantly violate any notion and concept of trade union and democratic rights and freedoms. The trade unions and trade unionists are being persecuted for organizing strikes, protests, and demonstrations in the logistics sector. They are openly and unashamedly being persecuted because they are defending their own class interests and fighting for dignified working and living conditions.

This new attack must not remain unanswered by the class-oriented trade union movement and all those who are opposing the authoritarian practices that are increasingly imposing all over the world.

The World Federation of Trade Unions calls upon its affiliates to stand beside the trade unionists in Italy and condemn the new attacks with a protest to the embassies and consulars of Italy in their countries, sending the clear message that the workers in Italy are not alone and the attempts to subordinate the militant unions are in vain. They cannot stop the class struggle, they never could!

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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 27, 2022 2:11 pm

Italy: Fascism Returns to Europe’s Centerstage
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

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The troika leading the far-right coalition that won Italy’s election: Giorgia Meloni (R), Silvio Berlusconi (C) and Matteo Salvini (L)

The stunning victory of a far-right coalition in Italy’s parliamentary election on Sunday is largely seen from the distinct prospect of Giorgia Meloni becoming the country’s next prime minister, whose hardline views on immigration and the preservation of the “Christian family” are rooted in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded after World War II by the nostalgic former members of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship.

Meloni insists that she isn’t a fascist herself, yet her party’s flag includes the symbol of the old pro-Fascist party— the tricolor flame. Two of Mussolini’s descendants, his granddaughter Rachele and his great-grandson Caio Giulio Cesare, have run under the banner of the party Meloni leads, Brothers of Italy. Meloni insists she isn’t a fascist herself, but her take on Mussolini is: “Everything he did, he did for Italy.”

All this makes the meteoric rise of this politician with a working class background a combustible mix at a juncture when the future of European politics itself seems dark and uncertain, reeling under the economic crisis. Leon Trotsky’s famous passage on the rise of fascism helps understand what is happening. He wrote: “The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.”

The three pillars of Meloni’s politics are zero-tolerance for illegal immigration, extreme social conservatism and, until recently, belligerent Euro-scepticism. Guardian newspaper wrote: “From Italy to Sweden, Hungary to France, the far right is once again a force to be reckoned with. Its hostility towards immigrants encourages xenophobes everywhere, including in India.”

In European politics, Italy traditionally played the role of an eager junior partner to the heavyweights that drive decision-making, France and Germany. That is almost certain to change under Meloni. The “known unknown” is as to which route she goes down — a populist such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, intent on exerting ever more control; a pugilist such as Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki; or, a more familiar conservative voice such as Liz Truss? Or, even something entirely different?

Any whichever way she goes, it matters like hell, because Italy is one of the world’s most wealthy and influential nations — a G7 member and the third biggest economy in the European Union (EU), and a NATO power. That is why the outcome of Sunday’s vote was watched nervously in European capitals and on financial markets. Simply put, the Brothers of Italy, does not inspire confidence that Rome will reclaim its role as a steady European partner — although the manifesto of the incoming centre-right coalition sought to reassure EU neighbours and NATO partners.

Indeed, Meloni may have to temper — initially, at least — as Italy is the largest beneficiary of NextGenerationEU funds and its economic difficulties are best handled with the EU’s helping hand. That said, there is an important distinction to be made when Maloni’s coalition speaks of “national interest.” Traditionally, Italian leaders pursued national interest by being friends with countries with similar values and interests. Thus, pro-Europeanism and Atlanticism became unquestioned tenets of Italian policy.

But when Meloni uses the term “national interest”, it has an altogether different connotation linked to the fascist idea of an ethnic concept of nationhood, of glorifying the Roman Empire — somewhat similar to what is happening in India or Turkey today.

It will come as no surprise if Meloni puts the European Commission bureaucrats in their place and clips the EU’s wings. She candidly said recently, “What will happen is that the gravy train will come to an end.” It is not only that she thinks Brussels is useless, but is also hostile. Citing the EU’s attempts to punish Poland and Hungary for democratic backsliding, she said, “We are facing the most powerful and violent attack against governments of sovereign nations opposing the dictatorship of politically correct ideology.”

Significantly, Meloni is not alone on this path. Apart from closeness to Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orban, she also happens to be the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a pan-European umbrella party that includes Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party as well as increasingly influential parties in countries like Spain and Sweden. Meloni may have the means to tip the balance in the European Parliament in 2024 and influence the allocation of top jobs, including whether to give European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen another term.

Suffice to say, Italy may not anymore be a docile camp follower of France and Germany, but Meloni may have a gang of her own with conservative, authoritarian figures. It will almost certainly mean the weakening of ties with the likes of Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron. Meloni’s approach to the US veers toward the Trumpian right

The million dollar question is where the new Italian government is going stand on the Ukraine question. Brothers of Italy has been critics of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. But its coalition partner the Lega party retains strong links to Moscow, and Meloni will heavily rely on its support. Lega’s leader Matteo Salvini has called for a rethink of EU sanctions against Russia. Salvini draws his voter support heavily from business owners, who have expressed fears that Italy’s economy could be too heavily hit by repercussions from Western sanctions against Russia.

Besides, Meloni will also have to reckon with another of her coalition partners, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is still the showman of Italian politics and a close friend of President Putin. Berlusconi’s support to the right-wing coalition is indispensable to ensure it has a majority of seats, and as such the controversial ex-premier could still exert significant influence. Meloni’s party has no experience in government, so she will need full support from Berlusconi and Salvini. Suffice to say, in this new matrix, at the very least, Italy’s support for Ukraine could weaken.

What often goes unnoticed is that Moscow has historically had extensive personal relationships with Italian politicians. It goes back to the 1960s when Italy was home to the largest communist party in Europe. Like in Germany, governments of all stripes in Rome continued to promote economic and energy ties with Russia. From such a perspective, the shift in Italian politics is tectonic, coinciding with the transformation of the war in Ukraine from a slow burning grind to a full-fledged war. It comes amidst stirrings that the EU itself may be going through a profound rethink, as foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s latest remarks with accent on “diplomatic efforts” would suggest.

Italian elections in the past have often triggered similar trends elsewhere in Europe. Mussolini’s rise in 1920s came ahead of the Nazis in Germany. In a dramatic shift, right-wing nationalists just won in Sweden. The risk to Europe may well not be Giorgia Meloni herself, but how her influence spreads. As a veteran German commentator put it, this is also where “the biggest danger lies — That the EU tries to push her around or isolate her, and that she will resist, with the Italian electorate on her side.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... nterstage/

Mussolini’s Heirs Take Over in Italy as Neo-Fascist Revival Spreads
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
C.J. Atkins

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Brothers of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni attends the center-right coalition closing rally in Rome, Sept. 22, 2022. | Gregorio Borgia / AP

Tally another victory for the neo-fascist, anti-immigrant right wing in Europe. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party—the successor to the post-World War II Italian Social Movement—is set to be the next prime minister of that country following Sunday’s national election.

Almost exactly a hundred years after fascist leader Benito Mussolini made himself dictator of Italy with his notorious October 1922 “March on Rome,” his political heirs are marching back into power. Meloni will be the nation’s first far-right leader since Il Duce was overthrown and executed by Communist partisans in 1945.

Her right-wing bloc won a decisive 44% plurality in the country’s multi-party elections, with the Brothers of Italy alone taking more than a quarter of the vote. The center-left coalition led by the Democratic Party, successor to the old Italian Communist Party, scored only 26%.

Speaking at a rally early Monday morning, Meloni hailed her party’s win as the expression of the will of the Italian people. “If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it…. Italy chose us. We will not betray it.”

While the result clearly represents a dramatic shift to the right, it is not necessarily a signal that voters are swinging in line behind the neo-fascists. Overall turnout was only 64%, a historic low by Italian standards.

Some poll results suggested droves of voters simply stayed home in protest, expressing their dissatisfaction with the anti-democratic backroom deals that put the previous three governments into office—including the outgoing administration of Premier Mario Draghi.

Sunday’s vote was a snap election forced by the sudden fall of Draghi’s “technocratic” government. His cabinet lost the support of parliament because of a number of contentious stances, chief among them Draghi’s vigorous support for NATO weapons shipments to Ukraine.

The outgoing premier also remained slavishly committed to the European Union’s strict fiscal austerity measures, which would require extensive and unpopular cuts to social spending in exchange for COVID recovery funds.

Financial blackmail and failing capitalism

A €200 billion ($192.5 billion USD) bailout for Italy from the EU Commission hangs in the balance right now, as rising global interest rates threaten economic crisis for the country, which holds a public debt that currently stands at 135% of GDP. EU officials say that in order to get the money, Italy’s government must balance the books and slash spending.

While Europe’s leaders remain tight-fisted when it comes to COVID recovery cash, Italy’s real problem may not be reckless government spending, but rather Italian capitalism’s persistent failure to compete with the powerful economies of Germany and France.

Following WWII, Italy enjoyed a competitive advantage relative to some other Western European countries because of its low wages and heavy infusions of U.S. credit. This provided the basis for a short-term postwar boom, but eventually, the corruption and oligarchical nature of Italian capital became obvious. This led to a decline in foreign investment; the energy crisis of the 1970s exacerbated the problem further.

Productivity growth steadily declined over the decades that followed, with only a slight recovery when neoliberal reforms in the 1980s squeezed more labor out of workers. But even this was not enough, and productivity turned negative once Italy joined the euro currency bloc.

Since the adoption of the common currency in 1999, annual per capita economic growth has been stuck at zero. Even when accounting for the generally slower productivity growth of late capitalist economies and the recessions of recent years, competitors like Spain, France, and Germany still managed to notch growth rates of 1% or higher.

Years and years of no growth mean Italy is also trapped in a never-ending crisis of unemployment. The current youth jobless rate hovers around 25%, while nearly half of young people without work are classified as “long-term unemployed.”

This productivity and job growth collapse is the direct result of stagnant investment by Italian capital, which remains well below the levels seen before the Great Recession of 2008-09. The disadvantages of being crammed into an economic union with big German and French capital and the damage from the global financial collapse have meant that the profit payoff isn’t enough to entice Italian capitalists to invest in growth.

The historic divide between the industrialized north of Italy and the more agricultural south also meant these economic problems worsened the challenge of national disunity, which shows up in election results. The right’s support grew fastest in areas of the underdeveloped south.

Authoritarian alternative?

When she takes over, Meloni will inherit all these challenges. A look at the history of her party and its constituency provides some clues as to how she may govern.

The Brothers of Italy traces its roots directly to the Italian Social Movement (MSI) party, founded in 1946 by members of Mussolini’s then-outlawed National Fascist Party. Allied with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime during the 1930s and ’40s, Italy’s fascists fought alongside Germany in WWII and instituted their own anti-Jewish laws and policies forbidding independent trade unions and progressive political groups.

Following the defeat of Italy and Germany by the Allied powers, the neo-fascists of the MSI reorganized themselves, but only managed to poll in the single digits from the 1950s to the 1980s. But its survival kept the nationalist and authoritarian alternative on the table for the lower middle class, the economically discontented, and big business—if it ever felt compelled to call on it again.

As Italy’s economic fortunes worsened, the MSI saw an uptick in its support, almost winning the mayor’s office in Rome in 1993. To shed some of its most blatant fascist baggage, the party was renamed the National Alliance.

Meloni, raised in a working-class Rome neighborhood by a single mom, joined the movement around this time, eventually becoming head of the party’s youth league. She helped found the Brothers of Italy in 2012, merging together a number of like-minded neo-fascist and right-wing groups.

Meloni says the Brothers of Italy is “a new party for an old tradition.” And like previous MSI and National Alliance leaders, some of her kind words for the former dictator and his “old tradition” have come back to haunt her.

She’s tried to publicly disavow the brutality of the fascist period, but also walks a tightrope trying to appeal to the voting base that yearns for a return to the days of Mussolini. Meloni declares the Italian right has left fascism behind in the history books and condemns the old regime and its “suppression of democracy” and “ignominious anti-Jewish laws.”

But at the same time, she rails against immigrants, LGBTQ people, and “Islamic violence.” And in an unmistakable signal to the movement’s old-timers, she has kept the MSI’s original fascist red-white-green flame logo on the Brothers party flag.

Regardless of all the history acrobatics, it was probably Meloni’s repeated condemnation of EU officials and their fiscal warfare on Italian workers that gained her the most support.

Staking out clear opposition to the financial blackmail of the EU and the continent’s big banks provided a stark contrast to the weak and ambiguous positions taken by social democratic and center-left politicians. The inaction of the left provided an opening for the extreme right, which Meloni seized.

As with right-wing leaders around the world who say they’re for the workers when running for office but then govern for the bosses after winning, Meloni has already begun to make moves that go in the direction opposite her populist pledges. As voting day neared, she toned down her anti-EU rhetoric, portending a turn once she assumes power.

Meloni’s shift toward fiscal austerity will probably mean little will change in economic policy; she will likely follow the dictates of the EU’s financial masters and even throw in extra anti-labor policies for good measure.

No changes should be expected in Italy’s foreign policy either, despite the anti-war and pro-Putin positions taken by some of her coalition allies, like former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

Meloni is the strongest figure in the alliance, and she is in lock-step with NATO when it comes to continued weapons shipments to Ukraine. The same position may have cost Draghi support, but Meloni is almost guaranteed to stick to his policies when it comes to the war.

Friends of fascism

The Brothers of Italy victory is the latest and most dramatic in a string of right-wing gains in Europe.

Just days ago, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, made their governmental debut in Scandinavia. Marine Le Pen, daughter of Holocaust denier Marie Le Pen, took her party to second place in France’s presidential election in April. And right-wing authoritarians Viktor Orban and Andrzej Duda already rule in Hungary and Poland, respectively. In other countries, parties with similar ideologies also continue to gain ground.

Setting aside any differences of degree they might have with Meloni and the Brothers of Italy, these right-wing leaders and others on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to offer her congratulations.

A spokesperson in Orban’s office told the press, “In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision.” Le Pen praised Meloni for “resisting the threats of an…arrogant European Union.” And Santiago Abascal, head of the far-right Vox party in Spain, said that Meloni has shown “the way for a proud and free Europe of sovereign nations.”

A member of the European Parliament representing the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party, Gunnar Beck, declared, “Something is definitely happening. From France and Italy, major European powers, to Sweden…a rejection of the manifestly failing pan-European orthodoxy is taking hold among our citizens.”

In the United States, some of the leading figures of the Trump wing of the Republican Party expressed their glee over Meloni’s win.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., hailed Meloni and posted a link to a video of a 2019 speech where the Italian complained of attacks on “national identity” and “religious identity,” vowing to defend “God, country, and family.”

Pointing to both Italy and Sweden, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tweeted, “The entire world is beginning to understand that the Woke Left does nothing but destroy.” Calling on GOP supporters to turn out in the mid-term elections, the Trump loyalist added, “The USA will fix our House and Senate!”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called Meloni’s win “spectacular,” while Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise said that Europe is “leading the way in throwing out socialists.” He added, “We need to bring that kind of conservatism to the United States.”

Meloni is a well-known figure in the Republican Party and was already a hero of the fascist-leaning wing of the U.S. right. She has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference, was a guest of honor at the anti-LGBTQ evangelical World Congress of Families, and held strategy meetings with Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

In 2018, he described the Brothers of Italy as “one of the old fascist parties,” in a moment of honesty, but then said that if “you put a reasonable face on right-wing populism, you can get elected.”

Meloni’s international friends may be excited, but the Italian people should temper any expectations of improvement.

Marxist economist Michael Roberts predicts “none of Italian capital’s failures will be dealt with by the new right-wing government.” He believes it will do “no better than previous center-left, center-right, or ‘technocratic’ governments.” Rather, they are likely to make things worse, by continuing to follow the EU’s dictates while adopting their own “reactionary and anti-labor policies to sustain their coalition.”

The election results—and the international reaction to them by right-wing politicians—reflect the growing danger of fascist and fascist-influenced parties threatening democracy and relying on racism and economic deception to gain popular support.

The next electoral referendum on such politics will be the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 8.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... l-spreads/
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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 07, 2022 1:39 pm

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Global ruling classes welcome fascist-led government in Italy
Originally published: Red Flag on October 2, 2022 by Luca Tavan (more by Red Flag) | (Posted Oct 06, 2022)

The Italian general election was a historic win for the far right. A coalition of the three major parties won 44 percent of the vote, enough in Italy’s byzantine electoral system to form a clear majority in both houses of parliament. Most importantly, it was driven by the meteoric rise of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party rooted in the post-Mussolini fascist tradition, which secured 26 percent of the vote, making it the single largest party in parliament.

For many, the ascension to power of a fascist party in the centre of Europe seemed unthinkable. But decades of grinding economic crisis, state-sponsored racism and the discrediting of parties of the neoliberal centre have created a dangerous situation of far-right advance. With Europe on the brink of yet another recession, the prospect of further descent into authoritarianism and barbarism is alarming.

If you listen to the capitalist press and politicians, however, you would think that there’s nothing to worry about. A headline in the Australian exhorts: “Relax, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers aren’t fascist”. The Australian Financial Review carried the line, “Victory to Italian right is no lurch into extremism”. This is despite Meloni’s pledge to institute a naval blockade to stop refugee ships, roll back abortion and LGBTI rights and dismantle social welfare.

Speaking to an Italian journalist at the Venice Film Festival, U.S. former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even praised Meloni: “The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing”. It’s remarkable to speak of “breaking with the past” as Mussolini-nostalgists return to power in the birthplace of fascism.

A statement from Lorenzo Codogno, a former director-general of the Italian Treasury, reveals the real reason for establishment nonchalance in the face of fascism. “They want to be perceived as a party that you can do business with and can govern the country.” Business has taken a look at this coalition of far-right racists and fascists, and decided it’s a government they can deal with, potentially making a great deal of money.

Aided by a wave of apologetics from the media, Meloni has attempted to sanitise her image to present a respectable face. During the election campaign, she reassured voters that her party had “handed fascism over to history for decades now”. But Meloni has maintained a commitment to fascist politics throughout her life. At the age of 15, she joined MSI (Italian Social Movement), the party founded by leading fascists who survived the fall of Mussolini’s regime in 1943 and wanted to work for its return. Along with a series of other former MSI leaders, Meloni founded Fratelli d’Italia in 2012 as the latest iteration of this project.

In her autobiography, I am Giorgia, she espouses the “great replacement theory”, claiming that the left is attempting to destroy Western civilisation by flooding the continent with African and Middle Eastern migrants and undermining traditional family structures. In local government, Brothers politicians have passed legislation making it harder for migrants to access social housing, and proposed laws that would make it compulsory to bury aborted fetuses in cemeteries.

Meloni will rule in coalition with the Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, who as interior minister in a previous government blocked the entry of NGO ships carrying rescued refugees to Italian shores, and Silvio Berlusconi, the infamously corrupt and venal media magnate whose Forza Italia was once the leading light of the populist right.

While the far right has been advancing in Europe since the 2008 global financial crisis, Meloni’s victory is a significant milestone. It’s the first time a party with neo-fascist roots has led a government in a major European economy. This gives a boost to the rising tide of far-right politics internationally.

Meloni’s victory comes in the immediate aftermath of the major win for the far-right Sweden Democrats. She has been a vocal supporter of the Spanish Vox Party and Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government in Hungary. Both Meloni and Orbán were guests of honour at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the most important gathering of the American right.

Meloni’s victory was assured by the craven support that every party of the political mainstream gives to unpopular and brutal neoliberal policies, which have created massive poverty and youth unemployment and savaged living standards. The 25 September election was triggered by the collapse of the Draghi government, an unelected technocratic cabinet headed by a former European Central Bank president to oversee further cuts to social spending.

Every major party from the centrist Democratic Party to the Lega participated in this “national unity” government. Meloni’s group was the only significant force that remained outside of the coalition. As the government slowly but inevitably collapsed, the Brothers gained credibility.

The high level of abstention in the election was another important factor in Meloni’s success. The rise of the right can be put down to widespread revulsion at the political mainstream, rather than a popular endorsement of Meloni’s program. Fewer than 64 percent of the eligible population voted, the lowest turnout in history and down from an average of 90 percent in the post-WWII period. Meloni increased her vote largely by winning voters from the other right-wing parties.

Despite a history of shallow anti-establishment rhetoric, a hallmark of the far right, Meloni will likely continue Draghi’s economic agenda. Meloni has also reassured the capitalist class that her government will support NATO. Internal divisions could emerge within the coalition over the war in Ukraine—Salvini’s Lega has ties to Italian capitalists with heavy investments in Russia, and he has questioned the continuation of sanctions. Meloni will have to balance the fragile and conflicting interests of her coalition partners with her desire to remain a reliable ally of European capital at large.

What is certain is that the new right-wing coalition will intensify attacks on workers and oppressed people. It can’t be ruled out that they will attempt to curb civil and democratic rights. The Brothers have already signalled their desire for legislation to ban what they term “totalitarian” or “extremist” ideologies, by which they mean communism and Islam.

The far right’s victory is a harbinger of things to come. A recent opinion piece by Edward Luce in the Financial Times noted: “Western liberalism is still skating on thin ice”, with war and looming recession in Europe, a protracted energy crisis and far-right electoral advances making for destabilising factors in world politics.

The capitalists realise that in a crisis-ridden and polarised world, far-right governments may increasingly be an option for defending their power and privilege. They think that they are playing a clever game by normalising the new government in Italy. They believe that they can keep the fascists under their thumb, use them to absorb discontent at unpopular austerity measures and advance their economic agenda.

History tells us that fascists like Meloni, who are inspired by the monstrous dictatorships of the 1920s and ’30s, may harbour even darker aspirations for the future.

https://mronline.org/2022/10/06/global- ... -in-italy/
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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:12 pm

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From Churchill to NATO: How the West built and empowered Italian fascism
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on October 18, 2022 by Mihalis Panayiotakis (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Oct 19, 2022)

If I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been whole-heartedly with you in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism… (Italy) has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism. Winston Churchill, 1927

This year is the centenary of the March on Rome, the coup that brought Mussolini’s fascist party to power in Italy in 1922. It is ironic that this anniversary coincides with the election for the first time of a government led by the direct descendants of the Italian Fascist Party. Ironic, but also indicative of Europe’s historical anachronism, as far-right parties and ideologies are elected to power and strengthened one after the other.

Meloni’s rise has been met with some media confusion and surprise outside of Italy, as the descendants of the fascist party have aligned themselves with NATO in Ukraine and elsewhere, rather than with Putin’s Russia, which the entire European far-right is assumed to support. But, for those familiar with Italian fascism’s close relationship with Britain, and, after the war, the U.S. and NATO, Meloni’s support for NATO should not be surprising.

Britain’s assistance to Mussolini

Approaching this grim October anniversary, then (the invasion of Greece took place on the day of the 18th anniversary of the March on Rome), a book by historian Mario José Cereghino, and journalist Giovanni Fasanella, Nero di Londra (The Black of London) published a few days ago, examines Britain’s complicity in the creation and consolidation of the fascist current in Italy, by examining declassified files in the British archives. The evidence is fascinating and overturns much of what is widely supposed about the rise of fascism in Italy between the two world wars.

It has been a matter of public knowledge for over a decade that Benito Mussolini—then a journalist—was recruited by the British MI5 to help—through his articles and his thugs—to suppress the anti-war movement against the First World War in Italy. In fact, it was not really news at the time, but a confirmation of what Il Duce’s recruiter, Lord Templeton, confessed in his memoirs in 1954. The amount Mussolini received at the time (£100 a week—about 6,000 euros today) was quite substantial. The British, as the authors told the London Times, masterminded the March on Rome. They advised and supported Mussolini—code name “the Count”—at every stage of his rise—even funding the founding of the fascist party. Why did the British choose this path? Prior to the end of World War I, to ensure that Italy remained a belligerent and to suppress the working-class mobilization that most European governments saw as a common threat.

Following the war, they combined their desire for a manageable government, with an anti-communist government in Italy.

Sir Samuel Hoare—later Lord Templeton—was a key player in the creation in Britain of the “Anti-Socialist Union“, a gang organized by the Conservative Party, which harassed trade union actions and mobilizations. The ASU was a model of fascist violence against workers’ struggles. In short, as Careghino told the Times:

Mussolini’s career between 1917 and 1922 would not have taken the path we know without the influence of the British conservative establishment.[/i

In 1943, a book titled “The Trial of Mussolini. Being a verbatim Report of the First Great Trial for War Criminals held in London sometime in 1944 or 1945” was published in the UK. It was a work of political fiction written by an unknown author going only by the name “Cassius,” and it was released not long after the Allied invasion of Italy in September of that year. The book speculated what might occur if Mussolini were captured by the Allies and tried for war crimes in London, given the support the British had given him for so long. The book was reviewed in an article by George Orwell who, after summing up the British government’s systematic support, approval and complicity with the fascist regime until shortly before the invasion of Greece—the only thing an English court could convict him of, according to Orwell—concluded, in a diatribe against political Machiavellianism, that the British ruling class had little to reproach Mussolini for:

When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years, the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that the dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from the house-tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettos, massacres and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity. By 1937 or thereabouts it was not possible to be in doubt about the nature of the Fascist régimes. But the lords of property had decided that Fascism was on their side and they were willing to swallow the most stinking evils so long as their property remained secure. In their clumsy way they were playing the game of Machiavelli, of ‘political realism’, of ‘anything is right which advances the cause of the Party’–the Party in this case, of course, being the Conservative Party.

After the War: the crutch of fascism

The Allied invasion of Italy brought the country back into the orbit of Anglo-Saxon—this time American—influence. The U.S. and Britain supported the “continuity” of the Italian state, Which meant impunity and the continuing clout of blood-soaked fascists or even war criminals who had operated in Greece, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia and Libya. The veil of state oblivion and the blatant support of former black-shirted anti-communists was preserved because of the “communist danger” that the mass, anti-fascist CPI represented.




But beyond the tacit legitimation of fascist cadres, impunity and oblivion allowed the development of the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano—MSI), of Giorgio Almirante, a successor to the Fascist party, although officially distancing itself from the Mussolini regime, which actually began to play a major role in Italian politics by the late 1950s—a time when the word ‘fascism’ was still a heavy stigma throughout Europe. But if these were the predictable consequences of American strategy on an institutional level, a parallel mechanism was helping to build up the radical, armed, terrorist right—whose cadres were recruited from the violent fringe of the MSI and Mussolini loyalists. Operation Gladio—ostensibly a NATO plan to maintain secret armies which would be called upon to act in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe—involved the entire European continent, but Italy was one of its critical loci.

The CIA, thus, recruited and armed far-right groups in Italy as part of the Gladio operation. These groups were instrumental during the “years of lead” in actualizing the fascist strategy of tension of the 1960s and 1970s. It is speculated that one such group was behind the 1969 Piazza Fontana massacre, a crime—as Mario Prodi’s government revealed in 2000—known in advance by the CIA, which failed to inform the Italian government. Mario Draghi had announced last summer the disclosure of secret documents relating to the Bologna station massacre in 1980, the worst mass murder in Europe until the Madrid bombings in 2004. It was believed that the documents would reveal Gladio’s connection to the neo-fascist groups that were the perpetrators of the bombing (beyond the already known involvement of the Italian state). Nothing of significance has been published to date.




(Indicative of U.S. involvement in Italy’s internal affairs was the funding provided by the U.S. State Department to protagonists of the failed/cancelled Borghese fascist coup in 1974—in fact independently of the CIA).

Thus, the historical debt of Italian fascism to the Anglo-Saxons and NATO would not have permitted Meloni’s party to “lean” towards Russia . Italian fascism was boosted by Britain at its birth and flourished “explosively” under the auspices of NATO, and the policy of amnesia for the crimes of fascism that the U.S.—in the name of the cold war and the war on the PCI—imposed…

https://mronline.org/2022/10/19/from-churchill-to-nato/
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Re: Italy

Post by blindpig » Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:38 pm

Progressives intensify protests as far-right leader Meloni assumes premiership in Italy

Progressive groups, trade unions, and leftist parties staged a mobilization in Bologna highlighting a number of issues, including the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, persecution of workers, imperialist wars, rise in fascism, and unscientific development

October 25, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

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Mobilization in Bologna. (Photo: via Communist Refoundation Party)

On Saturday, October 22, progressive sections carried out a massive mobilization in the Italian city of Bologna highlighting a number of issues, including the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, persecution of workers, imperialist wars, rise in fascism, and unscientific development. The call for the march was supported by groups like GKN Factory Collective, Fridays for Future, Assembly No Passante Bologna, and Emilia-Romagna Food Sovereignty Network. Activists from trade unions like Si Cobas, members of leftist parties such as Potere al Popolo, the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), and Italian Communist Party (PCI), as well as youth groups like the Communist Youth Front of Italy (FGCI), Young Communists (GC), and Communist Youth Front (FGC), participated in the march. On October 21, student groups had protested in Rome against the cost of living crisis and the rise of the far-right in the country.

On Sunday, October 23, far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as the prime minister of Italy. In the general elections held on September 25, the right-wing coalition led by her party, Brothers of Italy (FdI), won a massive victory while every other mainstream political party crumbled. Disenchantment with the prevailing austerity policies, warmongering, and political instability, are among the factors listed by analysts as the reason for the fall of the mainstream political parties.

The policies of the erstwhile Mario Draghi-led government had provoked widespread anger among the working classes, youth, and other sections who regularly staged protests against his government. Now, with the ascent of a far-right government to power, working class sections have decided to intensify their struggles against austerity, depravity, warmongering and persecution.

Following the mobilization in Bologna on Saturday, Potere al Popolo stated, “We have to stop the government from unscientific development and focus our collective efforts on public transport, non-fossil mobility, ecological re-planning of cities, and in the service of a new balance between humans and nature. To do this, we have to…[combat] the lobby of oil tankers, warmongers, and speculators, which is well represented both in the Draghi government and the new Meloni government. The future is at hand, we just have to go and get it.”

Giuliano Granato from Potere al Popolo told Peoples Dispatch on October 24, “Giorgia Meloni will move in the path of Polish government: perfectly aligned with Washington and NATO (in line with Draghi government) in foreign affairs and strongly pro-business in economic field – that means a possible stop to the necessary ecological transition. At the same time, the new names of Ministries and newly appointed Ministers point in the direction of the attempt of construction of a right-wing hegemony in Italian society: national interest instead of popular interests; a crusade against the rights of women, LGBTQIA+, immigrants; historical revisionism in order to clear fascist names and values, attacking whatever smells like ‘leftist’.”

Maurizio Acerbo from the leadership of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) stated, “The protest in Bologna – ‘for rights, the environment, health, public and common spaces, a beautiful life and for peace’ – marks a further and positive stage in the convergence of movements, from the factory collective of #GKN to #FridaysForFuture. We at the Communist Refoundation and the Popular Union find ourselves in the appeal that convened the demonstration ‘Converge to Rise’ and we are convinced that only from the bottom up a real opposition to this government can be built.”

“The ruling classes of this country, from the far-right to the Democratic Party (PD), are unable to question a model of destructive development that produces land consumption, pollution, inequality and exploitation,” added Acerbo.

The Communist Youth Front (FGC) has called for a national mobilization of students on November 18 against the problems in schools, the cost of living crisis, rise of fascism, and warmongering.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/10/25/ ... -in-italy/
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