Just when you thought the news from Italy was bad enough unreconstructed fascist Gianni Alemanno won 53.6% of the vote to get himself elected as mayor of Rome. The slogan at one of the demonstrations leading up to the election had been “we’ll stop the fascists” and the article referred to above describes how in his youth Alemanno used to wear the Celtic cross favoured by Italian fascists in the 70’s and 80’s.

Well, “neither laugh nor cry but understand” is the motto here. What follows is a very abridged version of what Sinistra Critica has to say on the present situation in Italy following the meeting of their national leadership. It’s not a verbatim translation due to differences in political terminology and I’ve fleshed out some allusions to make them more meaningful. The master plan, in as much as there is one for this site, is to provide regular updates from the Italian left because it is one of the European countries where the process of building a left of social democracy party showed initial promise and then went into meltdown. As the comrades themselves say they are rebuilding from Year Zero. If anyone want to translate the bit I’ve omitted feel free and I’ll insert them.

April’s elections mark the end of a cycle of the left and an opening to the right. The alliance of right wing forces led by Berlusconi have won numerically. They have consolidated both a social bloc and a backward looking, individualist and intolerant cultural grip on the country. This is a way of responding to the economic crisis and globalisation. The real winners in this election were the Lega Nord. They represent a “mass radical” response to the crisis, to the compromising choices of the Partito Democratico (PD – the neo liberal left electoral formation – Liam) and are a parochial and xenophobic solution which is getting us ready for a new war against the poor.

The PD, like the left, is defeated and now “splendidly isolated.” Veltroni has seen the left wiped out but it is a pyrrhic victory. The relationships he built up with the Italian bourgeoisie have been made difficult by the opposition and the trade union front that supported him is going into crisis. On the political level he has little margin for action either on his right – the UDC has lost votes and is in Berlusconi’s orbit – or on his left due to the wiping out of the Rainbow Left.

It’s a catastrophe on the left. Not just Bertinotti – but the left’s entire leadership was defeated. A cycle has ended. Refounding communism is exhausted as a strategy. The historic group adhering to the legacy of Togliatti (dominant figure in post-war Italian PC – Liam) has been repudiated at the ballot boxes along with the idea of being in government with sections of the Italian bourgeoisie. For more than fifteen years the left had experienced electoral growth but without putting down social roots. Now the accounts are being settled and a whole bureaucracy has been sent home leaving behind only ruins.

Rebuilding is essential from today but none of the leaderships responsible for the catastrophe can suggest what to do and none of the perspectives seem worthy of attention. Neither the “identity politics” solution offered by Diliberto nor the renewal of Rifondazione.

Sinistra Critica has come out of this with about 200 000 votes and this makes it an active subject on the political scene. We intend to build a perspective and a stable organisation to which we can recruit people who don’t intend to resign themselves to passivity. We’ll soon publish our document “ten ideas to build a new left” but in the immediate future we will launch a series of initiatives:

• A recruitment and subscription campaign to acquire a national office.
• A national wages campaign and a mass initiative for a legal minimum wage of 1300 euro and for a social wage.
• The European meeting in Paris on the 1st and 2nd June for the European anti-capitalist left.
• The first national Sinistra Critica festival.

Rebuilding a class struggle, anti-capitalist left has to happen through social conflict and organising resistance. The main problem today is not abstract unity but what sort of opposition to organise to the Berlusconi government. The central thing therefore is to build a “united forum of struggles and movements” which attaches real value to the alliances which have come together and that broadens and empowers them. We have to start with the ones that already exist. We will get involved with and seek to build:

• On April 25th wherever possible the first response to to xenophobia of the Lega Nord and the other right wing parties.
• Mayday in Milan. Unity of migrants and Italian workers is a central theme.
• The demonstration against the Mafia on May 9th.
• The demonstration for Palestine in Turin on May 10th.
• The national meeting of Patto di Mutuo Soccorso on 24/5 May

Sinistra Critica got 0.5% of the vote and 170 000 votes and we feel satisfied with this result. We couldn’t halt the disaster which was caused by the leadership of the official left but we exist and that was our aim in standing in these elections. We defended our ideas in the election campaign and before that in the internal struggles in Rifondazione. We have some plans for what we want to do and the convictions that we are useful in the rebuilding of a class struggle left. That is why we think it is important that Sinistra Critica exists.

After fifteen years the “alternative” left was defeated by its almost total lack of social roots. The fact that it did not foresee the scale of the defeat shows that it does not know what its base is and what it represents in society. The left is now in Year Zero.