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Italy – Split looms for Rifondazione Comunista

It seems a cast iron certainty that the left is going to walk out of Rifondazione Comunista this autumn. Here’s something I knocked out for the next SR. “The left that is in goverment has completely broken its relationship with the social movements”. That is the verdict of Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) parliamentarian Salvatore…

Liam
1–2 minutes

It seems a cast iron certainty that the left is going to walk out of Rifondazione Comunista this autumn. Here’s something I knocked out for the next SR.

“The left that is in goverment has completely broken its relationship with the social movements”. That is the verdict of Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) parliamentarian Salvatore Cannavò. Cannavò is a member of Sinistra Critica and a PRC deputy in the Italian parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.
Speaking about the events of “No Bush Day” on June 9th, when George W. was in Rome to meet Prime Minister Romano Prodi and the Pope, he pointed out that the march of 80 000 showed that there is now an opposition on the left of Italian politics. Cannavò argues that Rifondazione has failed as an organisation because its leaders are inadequate and their project of being in Prodi’s government is wrong. While Cannavò headed the demonstration opposing Bush Rifondazione leaders were almost alone at a party-organised demonstration in Piazza Del Popolo.

Prodi now heads a coalition that reaches from Rifondazione Comunista to the right wing Partito Democratico, a pro-capitalist party explicitly based on the US Democrats. The government’s programme includes the retention of Italian troops in Afghanistan and a package of neo-liberal reforms. Rifondazione is playing an impossible game by trying to be both part of the government and the electoral voice of opposition to the government’s agenda.

Sinistra Critica had fought to prevent Rifondazione from being part of this alliance.
Cannavò has already made up his mind, saying that he has stopped paying his dues and that as far as he’s concerned his relationship with the PRC is over – but that the issue needs to be discussed more fully in Sinistra Critica. The tightly organised left current has agreed to have a special conference in September. It is almost certain that they will decide to leave the party en masse and establish an organisation that will continue the fight against the war and Prodi’s neo-liberalism.

8 responses to “Italy – Split looms for Rifondazione Comunista”

  1. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Good grief. Isn’t bringing Prodi down once enough for them? If Sinistra Critica are the means of bringing Berlusconi back, Italians (including Rifondazione voters) won’t forgive them.And “the right-wing Partito Democratico, a pro-capitalist party explicitly based on the US Democrats” – that’d be the PD that includes the majority of the DS, son of PDS, son of PCI?If PRC were outside the Prodi government I wouldn’t suggest they should join it. But if PRC were outside, there wouldn’t be a Prodi government – and I think keeping Berlusconi, Fini and Bossi out of government justifies a lot.

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  2. AN Avatar
    AN

    I think this is a potentially disastrous development.Firtsly – I am not clear whether or not the Sinistra Critica leaving the PRC will change the arithmetic in parliament to bring down Prodi, can you clarify that?But i see no justification for the left splitting from the PRC at this stage. Weakening the Prodi coalition will at the very least stengthen the influence of the Berlusconi opposition, and the SC are in no position to build a counterweight to that outside the PRC.

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  3. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    The Unione has no majority at all in the Senate; Turigliatto (of Sinistra Critica) was expelled from the PRC group for breaking ranks over Afghanistan & nearly bringing the government down. I don’t know if there are any other SC senators, though – if there aren’t, this wouldn’t make any difference to the arithmetic. Still a dangerous game, though.

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  4. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    This post takes a rather narrow view of the PRC left, focused primarily on the grouping which Liam’s own organisation supports. In fact the PRC left is and has been quite a bit more complex than that.For years the situation inside the PRC was quite stable. The reformist right of the party was the majority faction, around Bertinotti and including as a minor player the USFI group. The biggest opposition grouping, clearly situated to the left of the Bertinotti faction, was the more traditional Stalinist Ernesto group. The other big group on the left was the faction around Progetto Comunista, a Trotskyist organisation. There was a smaller left group, Falce Martello (Alan Woods followers). After that there were a bundle of very small groups.The dramatic shift to the right by Bertinotti has resulted in a number of changes to that set up. The USFI and some of its close allies, after years as solid supporters of the party right, found themselves moving to the left just by standing still. Of the two existing big oppositional groupings, the majority of Ernesto was sucked to the right with Bertinotti. The other big section of the party left, Progetto Comunista also split with most of it quickly leaving the PRC. Falce Martello have stayed where they were.So now the line up to the left of Bertinotti consists of the minority of the Ernesto group, the USFI and its allies, a minority of the Progetto Comunista, Falce Martello and some smaller groups. Part of the PRC left has already left the party, the part involving the USFI is clearly on its way out, much of the rest is inclined to stay and fight.From my own perspective I think that the role played by the leadership of what is now Sinistra Critica has been very confused. For years they backed the PRC right. Then they opposed it, on Afghanistan in particular, but refused to vote against war funding. Then they did vote against war funding. Then they announced a strategy of neither splitting from the PRC nor trying to wage a battle inside it, a strategy which I can only describe as sulking in their bedrooms. And now, it appears that they are to split after all.My view is that they should right from the start have been trying to build a left opposition within the party. Even now they should be trying to carry out a fight within the PRC and should only split if that fight is conclusively lost, taking as much of the PRC with them as possible. As it is they are leaving without a fight, which will limit what they can take with them while simultaneously hamstringing those who do want to carry on a fight.

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  5. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    Reading back over my post above it looks as if I am being particularly harsh on the Sinistra Critica grouping. To be clear: I’m not singling them out, I think that all of the significant forces to the left of Bertinotti have managed to botch the task of responding to the party’s rightward shift.The majority of Ernesto buckled under pressure from the party right to back Prodi at all costs and is now effectively part of a reconstituted Bertinotti faction. The bulk of Progetto Comunista split from the PRC far too early and failed to bring wider forces with them. They also managed to split themselves into a whole number of seperate factions.So in comparison to the groups which previously made up most of the PRC left, Sinistra Critica look fairly sensible. Looking good in that company however is not the same as getting things right and as I outlined above, I think that the most notable feature of their response has been incoherence.FalceMartello are a lot smaller than any of the groups above, but in this case their relative ideological rigidity has served them quite well. They’ve essentially stayed where they were, arguing for a fight within the PRC. Unfortunately their hostility to everybody else and that same rigidity make them very poor candidates for a left focus within the party. Also, they did embarrass themselves greatly by abstaining on the vote on the party leadership to discipline Turigliatto.

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  6. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    Mark’s right. The post was very narrowly focussed and his comments add a great deal to the picture. I had very strong reservations about Turigliatto’s vote for funding the Italian troops in Afghanistan. But the process of splits and regroupments is an inevitable part of the evolution of these broad left coalitions and there comes a point when there’s a very valid debate about when to stay and when to walk. That’s what we are seeing.Since there is such an interest I’ll try and keep a closer eye on the situation and report on it.

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  7. AN Avatar
    AN

    Incidently, does anyone know whatehr there is any move for Comunisti Italiani to rejoin the PRC?Since thir original reason for splitting was the refual of thrPRC to participate in a Pprodi coalistion, and not PRC are, there seems no principled reason for there to be different organisations.

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  8. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Andy – good point. I’m overdue for a post about this, probably on the reformist liberal objectively anti-socialist group blog the Sharpener. So look out for that (but don’t hold your breath).Anyway, in response to the centre-left merger which formed the Partito Democratico, PRC and PDCI are actively talking about remerging; they’ll be joined by some left DS people who couldn’t stomach actually merging with former Christian Democrats. Various former ‘Socialists’ and ‘Social Democrats’ are also regrouping, on the basis of (a) not being religious and (b) not being Communist. I suppose all this merger activity does prompt the idea of a Left anti-government alliance, but bringing down the government in order to build it seems like a high-risk strategy.

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