the italian communists and the politics of austerity

MICHAEL J . SODARO

The Italian Communists and the Politics of Austerity*

The parliamentary elections of June 3 and 4, 1979, represented a sharp setback for the Italian Communist Party (PCI). For the first time in the postwar period, the PCI had actually lost ground in national elections, dipping from a peak of 34.4 percent in 1976 to 30.4 percent of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies. Although a variety of factors influenced the PCI's decision in January 1979 to withdraw from the majority parliamentary alliance, thereby helping to precipitate the June elections, the present study focuses on economic issues and their political implications for the Party. More specifically, it concentrates on the important revisions in the PCI's economic policies which, over the last several years, the Party leadership has undertaken in the name of "austeri ty."

The PCI's austerity policy has developed into an integral element of its "historic compromise" strategy. As such, it has become a virtual bellwether of the extent to which the PCI has been willing to modify formerly held positions in order to achieve the ultimate aim of the historic compromise, that of full participation in a national coalition government with the Christian Democrats and (perhaps) other Italian parties. Since the historic compromise strategy by its very

*Research for this article was conducted in Italy, under a grant from the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, George Washington University. I also wish to thank the Istituto Affari lnternazionali, Rome, for its helpful assistance.

STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM VOL. Xlll, NOS. 2 & 3, SUMMER/AUTUMN 1980, 220-249

THE PCI AND THE POLITICS OF AUSTERITY 221

nature has required the PCI to alter at least some of the policies it has espoused during nearly three decades in the opposition, it offers a strikingly vivid example of the deradicalization of a major Marxist party. As the economic aspect of the PCI's new strategy, the Party's austerity policy may also be analyzed as a case study of deradicalization.

The best-known framework for examining the phenomenon of deradicalization is the one proposed by Robert Tucker.l In essence, Tucker argues that the diminution of radical fervor is "the eventual fate of all radical movements." As such, it reflects an inherent tendency toward the degeneration of revolutionary commitments and adaptation to surrounding circumstances. In Tucker's words, "It]he phrase 'coming to terms with the existing order' best indicates what deradicalization means."2 The two most prominent examples of this process he cites are the U.S.S.R. in the post-Stalin period and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) at the turn of this century.

In the case of the SPD, whose presence in a system of competing "bourgeois" parties bears striking resemblances to the PCI's position in Italian politics, Tucker points to the Party's "worldly success" as one of the principal catalysts of its deradicalization:

Radical m o v e m e n t s that remain small sectarian groups on the fr inges o f society are relatively imperv ious to deradical izat ion . . . But when a radical m o v e m e n t grows large and s t rong, acquires a big organizat ional s tructure, a mass social cons t i tuency , and a recognized place in society, this very worldly success fosters deradical izat ion. The acquisi t ion o f a mas s m e m b e r s h i p inevitably dilutes the m o v e m e n t ' s radical ism, and the inf luence o f the relatively less radical rank-and-f i le will make itself felt in var ious ways at the leadership level. 3

Quite correctly, Tucker places particular emphasis on the "decidedly unradical trade-union movement" which flanked the SPD in this period, a movement" whose tendency was to work toward piecemeal economic reform" rather than revolution?

Furthermore, Tucker observes that deradicalization invariably tends to be a dialectical process, engendering tensions between proponents of further revisionism and diehards wedded to the dream of

1. Robert C. Tucker, "The Deradicalization of Marxist Movements," American Political Science Review, Vol. 61, No. 2 (June 1967). A slightly revised version of this article appeared in Tucker's book, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New York: Norton, 1969). All references here are to the latter.

2. Ibid., pp. 200, 186, 3. Ibid., p. 187. 4. Ibid., p. 189.

222 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

revolutionary transformation. Ultimately, the leadership seeks to dampen these internal conflicts by intensifying its commitment to revolution on the plane of theory. This renewed revolutionary zeal is largely rhetorical in nature and is aimed primarily at maintaining the unity of the movement. As a consequence, radical theory inevitably diverges from reformist practice, and short-term reforms increasingly take precedence over long-term ambitions for maximum change.

To what extent are Tucker's deradicalization hypotheses verified by the recent experience of West European Communist Parties? Scholars who have posed this question have concluded that, at least in the case of the French and Italian Communist Parties, deradicalization has been a more complex process than Tucker's ideas suggest. Robert Putman, for example, used survey data gathered in 1968 and 1970 to show that Italian Communist politicians tend to accept key elements of Italy's constitutional order while remaining committed to radical transformations in the socioeconomic realm. 5 Sue Ellen Charlton's study of the French Communist Party (PCF) indicates that its deradicalization has involved international and domestic factors quite different from the forces impinging on the SPD's evolution as analyzed by Tucker. 6 The present analysis suggests that, while deradicalization is a continuing tendency in the Italian Communist Party, it is neither a linear process inherent in the Party's development, nor an unambiguous phenomenon that permits one to draw clear distinctions between mere rhetoric and genuine desires for profound systemic change. On the contrary, recent deradicalization measures in the PCI's economic policies, in particular, have evoked considerable resistance not only within the Party's elite, but in the Party's mass base as well. Moreover, efforts to moderate the Party's position on certain economic issues have not precluded frequent reaffirmations of the PCI's commitment to major structural transformations of Italian society. Furthermore, as we shall see, the conditions affecting the PCI's deradicalization are in some respects very different from the two cases examined by Tucker, and differ also from important aspects of the deradicalization of the PCF.

On the other hand, tendencies toward further deradicalization continue to characterize important PCI policies. This is particularly true of the Party's positions on economic issues. Under the rubric of austerity, the PCI since 1976 has made substantial modifications in its

5. Robert Putnam, "The Italian Communist Politician" in Donald L.M. Blackmer and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Communism in Italy andFrance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).

6. Sue Ellen M. Charlton, "Deradicalization and the French Communist Party," The Review of Politics, Vol. 41, No. l (January 1979).


views on such questions as inflation, public spending, the cost of labor, and the economic role of the state. In the process, influential members of the PCI elite have acted to modify the Party's former rigidity in socioeconomic matters, thereby softening the hardline attitudes on these issues reported earlier by Putman. Once adopted, these new positions may be difficult for the Party leadership to repudiate. Hence it is quite possible that the PCI's austerity policies may be more than simply a transitory or tactical element of the historic compromise strategy, and may actually prove to be an irreversible shift in the Party's basic orientation toward Italy's economic system.

The brief study that follows seeks to explain the PCI's austerity policy. More broadly, it also seeks to clarify some of the factors that affect the Party's deradicalization process. It does not aim, however, at providing a comprehensive reformulation of the deradicalization thesis, not even with respect to the case of the PCI. To fulfill that larger ambition it would be necessary to consider a host of political, organizational, and other factors that together may act upon the PCI's further deradicalization. Instead, this paper is more modestly aimed at investigating the special role that the austerity issue has come to play in the Party's continuing adaptation to existing circumstances, with a view to deriving from this limited problem area a few conclusions which may be useful in a future reconstruction of the deradicalization idea.

Deradicalization and the Historic Compromise

The deradicalization of the Italian Communist Party actually began long before the advent of the historic compromise strategy. Ever since Gramsci first spelled out the PCI's basic political orientation, the PCI has adopted an avowedly gradualist approach to the transformation of Italy into a socialist society. This preference for a long-term "war of position," to be waged by gaining increasing influence over cultural spheres of activity rather than through a head-on revolutionary confrontation, was confirmed and amplified by Togliatti, who sought to build a mass Party and a large participatory role for the PCI within the framework of Italy's democratic order. In addition, the Party has aimed at expanding its social base of support beyond the traditional working class, adopting a frequently successful multiclass electoral strategy.

As far as economic policy was concerned, the Party began altering the stance of categorical hostility to capitalism normally expected of a Marxist party decades ago. The PCI's position on nationalization, for example, began shifting in the late 1940s, as the Party dropped its


earlier demands for a fully state-controlled industrial sector. While the state was enjoined to take over most large industries and banks, the Party increasingly made allowances for the existence of private enterprise, and actively encouraged a vigorous private sector among small and medium-sized industries and farms. Furthermore, while the PCI has consistently endorsed the establishment of a national planning system, it has tended to favor a relatively flexible form of "programming" (programmazione) rather than the more stringently controlled variant of state planning to be found in the U.S.S.R. and other socialist states. 7

Despite these long-standing restraints in its approach to transforming Italian society, however, the PCI has stood out in the'postwar period as a Party committed to change on a greater scale than almost any other major Italian political party. It is in this relativist sense, in relation to other Italian parties, that the PCI may be considered an advocate of radical change in Italy. Moreover, the PCI incorporates elements of what Tucker has described as the chief attributes of the "radical mind," viz., (1) an intense feeling of negation toward the existing order; (2) a visionary image of an alternative society ("socialism"); and (3) an energetic activism that strives to transform the prevailing order of things. 8

In order to clarify further the meaning of the terms "radical" and "deradicalization" as they apply here, it may be useful to specify a number of traits associated with each of these tendencies. Within what may be called the radical cluster of attributes, the prevailing general attitude toward the political and economic order is one of opposition. In the PCI's case, this opposition is directed primarily at the domination of the political and economic system by the Christian Democratic Party (DC), and at such structural features of this power system as clientelism, clericalism, state-assisted capitalism, and the like. Inevitably, this attitude of opposition may at times be directed at other Italian political parties, to the extent that they are seen to share in the Christian Democrats' system of power. The oppositionist orientation of the PCI is further enhanced to the degree that other major parties seek to isolate the PCI as an "illegitimate," "anti- system" Party. It should be noted, however, that this attitude of opposition is tempered by the PCI's proclaimed acceptance of Italy's constitution and of the fundamental "rules of the game" of the

7. For documentary surveys of PCI economic policies, see La politica economica italiana, 1945 - 1975. Orientamenti dei comunisti (N. p.: Sezione Centrale Scuola di Partito de I P.C.l., n.d.), and Luciano Barca, Franco Botta, and Alberto Zevi, I comunist i e I 'economia italiana, 1 9 4 4 - 1 9 7 4 (Bark De Donato, 1975).

8. Tucker, pp. 181 - 184.


democratic order. Connected with this general stance of opposition is a pervading attitude of militancy directed against the system's leading power centers. Confrontation and class conflict are the hallmarks of this affective orientation, confirming the Party's image as a "Party of struggle" (partito di lotta). With respect to the degree of change sought by the Party in its more radical posture, the emphasis is on broad systemic transformation. The aim is to create the bases for a socialist society in Italy, a goal which remains the Party's ultimate raison d'6tre, no matter how elusive the precise definition of socialism may be, and no matter how long it may take to achieve. Whatever its final form, however, socialism as conceived by the PCI unques- tionably involves a basic restructuring of political power relations in Italy in favor of the PCI and its allies (characterized as "the hegemony of the working class"), and the implementation of some "new type" of economic system other than capitalism in its present form. In the economic sphere, the radically-oriented analysis of the economic system tends to place the blame for the bulk of the economy's ills on the prevailing authorities in government and private enterprise. Together these groups are stigmatized as the capitalist "ruling class," while the workers, the unemployed, and other PCI target groups are presented merely as the victims of an inherently discriminatory system. In keeping with this view, the chief economic strategy of the radical tendency consists of a strict defense of the self-interests of the Party's supporters, especially those in the working class and the more disadvantaged strata. Finally, the radical orientation tends to be somewhat vague regarding the actual details of economic policy, focusing on the ends of policy rather than on the means required to achieve them. This vagueness often permits the Party to overlook or play down conflicts of economic interest that may arise within the ranks of its own electorate.

The pole of deradicalization comprises a quite different mix of characteristics. Instead of categorical opposition, the basic political orientation of deradicalization is one of compromise, the aim being that of increasing the Party's participation in governmental organs as a coalition partner of those with whom it had earlier hostile relations. This willingness to reach agreement on at least short-term programs with political rivals in turn requires the Party to cultivate an image of responsibility and reasonableness. Rather than act as a "Party of struggle," the PCI is now constrained to emphasize its character as a "Party of government" (partito di governo). Consequently, it has to offer assurances of its acceptance, for an indefinite period, of certain basic features of the existing political and economic system, and content itself with working for their piecemeal reform rather than for


their wholesale transformation. In order to reflect this sense of shared responsibility and limited objectives, the Party is under pressure to approach its analysis of pressing economic problems with as much realism and objectivity as possible, even if this means seeking an accommodation with the existing neocapitalist system and assuming its own share of the "b lame" for economic dislocations. In terms of economic strategy, such an outlook may require the Party to ask at least a portion of its own constituency to relax its rigid posture of economic self-defense and to make certain sacrifices in the interests of the general community. In addition, the commitment to join with other parties in a coalition government imposes the obligation of specificity and explicitness in the formulation of policy, thus confronting the Party with the need to make hard choices that may risk alienating some of its supporters.

It must be strongly emphasized that these two sets of characteristics (outlined in the table below) are not fixed attitudes which may be attributed in toto to any particular individual or group in the PCI.

Area Radical Tendency Deradicalization Tenden~3'

General political Opposition; orientation isolation

Compromise; participation in coalition governments

Affective Militancy; Responsibility; orientation partito di lotta partito di governo

Degree of change Transformation; Reform; emphasis on sought emphasis on long term short term

Economic Blame "ruling classes," Accommodation; shared analysis capitalism responsibility

Economic Defense of constituents' Sacrifices required of strategy self-interests some constituents

Economic policy Vagueness; emphasis Specificity; emphasis details on ends on means

Rather they represent, in the form of ideal types, certain tendencies toward which Party members may gravitate at various times. Al- though they may be viewed abstractly as polar extremes, in actual fact there is nothing to prevent certain aspects of both clusters from coexisting in the Party's position at any time. Indeed, the strategy of the historic compromise may itself be best understood as combining elements of both the radical and the deradicalization tendencies. For, while the PCI has been moving away from its posture of opposition in order to claim a share of governmental responsibility at the national


level, it has also endeavored to preserve its ethos as a militant movement dedicated to transforming Italian society and defending the economic interests of its supporters. It was in this spirit that the Party described itself in a slogan adopted in 1976 as a "Party of struggle and of government." Inevitably, the tensions, not to say contradictions, inherent in this dual purpose are in constant jeopardy of being exposed. At times some Party members will tend more toward the pole of deradicalization, while others will lean more toward the pole of radicalism. This can occur even though both sides may agree on the desirability of achieving the "historic compromise." The result is a dialectical process in which certain elements of the Party leadership have sought to pursue a middle position that incorporates aspects of both tendencies in an uneasy effort to bridge the extremes. Perhaps the strains pressing on this delicate balance are nowhere more transparent than in the Party's handling of the austerity issue.

The Austerity Debate Among the PCI Elite

The emergence of the PCI's austerity concept postdates the initia- tion of the Party's historic compromise strategy by nearly three years. The objective of building a national coalition government with the DC was first proposed by PCI General Secretary Enrico Berlinguer in September 1973. Although there had been some discussion among certain Party leaders earlier that year about the need to combat inflation by reducing the trade unions' wage demands, austerity did not emerge as a vital issue for the Party until the summer of 1976. Its "off icial" formulation, as advanced by Berlinguer after several months of debate, did not follow until January 1977. The timing of the austerity line's appearance was significant. It surfaced in the months following the PCI's stunning electoral performance of June 20, 1976, during a period in which the Italian Communists were effectively thwarted in their bid to gain entry into a "government of national emergency." Although the PCI decided to abstain from voting against the new single-party Christian Democratic government, this decision represented for many Communists a disappoint- ing substitute for real governmental participation, and demands for the Party's admission into a coalition government continued to be pressed in the months ahead. Meanwhile, the Italian economy in 1976 had plunged into a renewed crisis. By year's end, inflation was soaring at rates well over 20 percent, and a mounting balance of payments deficit contributed to the devaluation of the lira by more than 20 percent against the dollar.

It was in these circumstances that Giorgio Amendola, a leader of


the PCI's moderate wing, launched the austerity discussion by calling for major sacrifices on the part of the PCI's working class supporters in an effort to fight inflation. In an article appearing in Politica ed economia, the organ of the PCI's Center for the Study of Economic Policy (CESPE), Amendola commented that the Italian working class had not yet taken sufficient cognizance of the gravity of the current economic situation. 9 Focusing squarely on the need to curb inflation and reduce the balance of payments deficit, Amendola scored the "conservative resistance" manifested by many workers who were more interested in defending their corporative interests than in the larger problem of saving Italy from financial collapse. Accordingly, he insisted on the necessity of sacrifices by the working class commensurate with the severity of the crisis. These were to include such measures as restricting the wage indexation system, more extensive taxation of the more highly paid working class families, and other efforts aimed at reducing production costs and raising productivity. Amendola pointedly criticized both the trade unions and the Party for failing to offer concrete measures to alleviate the crisis.

Perhaps just as controversial as Amendola's economic prescrip- tions were his political pronouncements. While confirming that the formation of a national unity government with full PCI participation remained the Party's objective, Amendola maintained that the PCI should not advocate austerity measures simply as a means to gain entry into the government. Sacrifices on the part of the working class, he argued, were necessary in themselves to prevent a national economic disaster; they should not be used solely as a quid pro quo (contropartita) in exchange for major institutional changes or governmental power. Such a trade-off, it was assumed, might involve months of delicate negotiations, whereas emergency measures in the economy were required at once.

Amendola's observations in Politica ed economia, which he sub- sequently characterized as "therapeutic shocks," jolted members of the PCI elite into sharp reactions. Writing in the PCI daily, l' Unith, on October 10, former Party chief Luigi Longo took issue with Amendola's views regarding the quid pro quo. While admitting that "serious sacrifices" were required of the working class, Longo asserted that "a political quid pro quo must be offered and guaran- teed, because otherwise the call for sacrifices risks remaining a dead letter."~° Longo continued his attack on Amendola's position at the Central Committee plenum held in mid-October. Calling once again

9. "Coerenza e severith," Politica ed economia, 4/1976. 10. "II Pci e il problema del governo," rUnith, October 10, 1976.


for a "guarantee" that major economic and social transformations would come about in return for sacrifices, Longo dismissed the notion that the economic crisis necessitated an immediate response before the political question was addressed. In his argument, Longo explicitly ~opted for safeguarding the Party's "prestige among the masses" rather than for special efforts to prove its "national responsibility." ~t

While Amendola defended his views at the October plenum, 12 his position drew fire from a number of Central Committee colleagues. One speaker (Terracini) accused him of wishing to apply the laws of traditional capitalism in resolving the economic crisis, while another (Petruccioli) warned that his views risked falling into the error of "economism." 13

With the extremes of the debate thus marked out, Berlinguer adopted a careful middle position at the October plenum. While repeating Amendola's warning that the working class had not granted sufficient attention to inflation, Berlinguer was more emphatic than Amendola in affirming that sacrifices would be acceptable only if major economic and social renovations ensued. He did not, however, specify a precise timetable for the accomplishment of these changes, nor did he insist on immediate entry into the government as a quid pro quo. Counseling against "precipitate moves" in this direction, Berlinguer departed from Longo's more impatient approach, and argued that no "guarantee" of a fully equitable austerity policy could ever be obtained, not even if the PCI were in the government. 14

Berlinguer's speech before the Central Committee set the stage for a lengthy address on the subject of austerity on January 15, 1977.15 Speaking before a conference of intellectuals organized by the PCI, Berlinguer laid down what was to be the Party's general line on austerity. Once again, it was a "centrist" position that avoided both Amendola's appeals for immediate sacrifices and Longo's demand for an immediate quid pro quo. In essence, Berlinguer adopted a dualistic approach to austerity. Sacrifices on the part of the working class, he argued, were necessary in the face of Italy's economic situation, but austerity must also usher in " a profound transformation

I1. L'Unit~, October 20, 1976. 12. Loc. cit. 13. L'Unitgt, October 21, 1976. 14. See Berlinguer's speech in r Unit~, October 19, 1976. Berlinguer reinforced his position

at this time by securing the removal of several critics from the PCI secretariat. See I'Unith, October 21, 1976.

15. For the text, seeL'austerith-occasionepertrasformarerltalia (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977).


of the make-up of society." So conceived, Berlinguer's concept of austerity contained a "renunciatory" as well as a "transformative" element. The notion that austerity must involve a "new order" (nuovo assetto) for Italian society, and must not be just a means of eliciting working-class support for measures to combat inflation, was thus built into the PCI's austerity concept. The very title of Ber l inguer ' s address ref lected this emphasis on change: "Austerity--Occasion To Transform Italy." Indeed, Berlinguer's speech placed greater emphasis on the transformative aspects of austerity than on the renunciatory. Far from constituting a concession to Italian capitalism, he declared, austerity was to permit the "sur- mounting of a system which has entered a structural and fundamental crisis," and was therefore a "weapon of struggle against the de- fenders of the existing social and economic order." Berlinguer also proclaimed that a whole new "culture of austerity" was needed, an idea which he defined essentially as a new value system aimed at combating waste, "unbridled individualism," and "the most insane consumerism," all of which he condemned as distinctive features of capitalism.

Later in the month, Berlinguer balanced these exhortations to transform Italian society with a somewhat greater emphasis than before on the need for sacrifices on the part of the Italian working class. In a speech before an assembly of Communist workers, ~6 the General Secretary warned that the workers would have to be "ma- ture" enough to make their own contribution to the country's economic recovery, noting that the inflation problem had now assumed "dramatic urgency." Along much these same lines, Berlinguer stated in a subsequent speech that the requirements of the "culture of austerity" were also valid for the working class, and not just for Italy's privileged capitalists. J7 On both of these occasions, however, Berlinguer renewed his admonition that austerity must bring about major changes in Italian society if it was to gain the support of the country's workers. Above all, he described as the central priority of austerity the urgency of stimulating economic growth in the south of Italy, the Mezzogiorno. It was here that the country's highest levels of unemployment and poverty were concentrated, and where the PCI had made some of its greatest electoral advances in 1976.

As the arguments advanced in the PCI's first austerity debate indicate, the range of opinions expressed by the Party elite conformed

16. The text appears in ibid.. 17. See Berlinguer's speech in Naples in March 1978 in VII Conferenza operaia del Pci

(Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1978), pp. 239-240.


roughly to the three broad tendencies outlined above. Although there was general support for pursuing the historic compromise with the DC, the justifications offered for this policy tended to differ. Amendola's views, stressing the "sacrifices" required by such a move, corresponded in the main to the chief characteristics of the deradicalization tendency. Longo, with his emphasis on the "transformations" to be outlined in an agreement with the Christian Democrats, was more representative of the pole of radicalism. Be- tween these contrasting positions, Berlinguer endeavored to steer a middle course.

The question now arises as to the extent to which the "official" austerity line put forward by Berlinguer constituted a genuine mani- festation of further deradicalization. Tucker's analysis of the phenomenon suggests that, as a movement deradicalizes, the leadership will act to maintain Party unity by masking its increasingly reformist practice with an intensified devotion to revolutionary theory. He also contends, however, that, for a large party crowned with "worldly success," the march toward further deradicalization is virtually irre- sistible. The Party leadership, for its part, is at pains to hold the organization together by justifying its reformist actions as short-term tactical operations while reassuring radical zealots that revolution remains the long-term goal.

In some respects, Berlinguer's dualistic formulation of the austerity concept confirms Tucker's propositions. The PCI chief in his January 15 address did in fact call for the elaboration of a "medium term" program to guide a prospective coalition government. More- over, he remained quite vague about how far the "profound transformations" he spoke about were intended to go. Certainly there was no equation drawn between the "new order" he called for and full-scale socialism. In this sense, Berlinguer's rhetoric appeared to outstrip the Party's actual policy intentions. ~8

On the other hand, Berlinguer's austerity line also betrayed a sensitivity to deep-seated resistance inside the PCI against straying too far in the direction of further deradicalization. For one thing, there appeared to be considerable support for the view that even the short-term economic "transformations" would have to be fairly substantial, involving not just a greater transfer of money resources to certain PCI supporters, but also significant structural modifications in

18. This impression was confirmed in interviews conducted in 1978 with PCI figures responsible for economic policy. When asked to specify what the Party meant by "profound transformations," the response would invariably emphasize such "reformist" priorities as reducing inflation and unemployment, fighting tax evasion, and the like.


the economic system itself (such as more comprehensive planning and the other so-called "elements of socialism"). Furthermore, the resistance inside the PCI to further deradicalization involved more than just the question of transformation. It also encompassed such additional components of the radical cluster of attributes as the maintenance of militancy, the defense of the economic interests of PCI supporters, the affirmation of the responsibility of "capitalism" for Italy's economic crisis, and the like. On all these issues, there was sufficient disagreement in emphasis within the PCI to make for considerable controversy over the questions of how far, under what conditions, and at what price the Party should proceed along the path of greater der.adicalization. In short, the austerity debate revealed far more than just a simple divergence between radical theory and reformist practice, as Tucker uses these terms. It revealed a more complex interplay of contending views of theory and practice, both for the short term and, quite possibly, for the long term as well.

Austerity and Economic Revisionism

Despite the political ambiguities reflected in Berlinguer's austerity formula, the PCI elite proceeded to make a number of substantial revisions in economic policies as part of the austerity program. These revisions were perhaps most visible in the Party's positions on inflation, the cost of labor, and public spending. In each case, the PCI made significant departures from past policies, while at the same time attaching limits or conditions to the eventual implementation of these revised policies. Once again, both the magnitude and the boundaries of the Party's deradicalization process may be discerned in these policy areas.

Inflation. Amendola's critique of prevailing attitudes on inflation among Italian Communists was the first major statement by a responsible PCI figure that emphasized the burdens to be shouldered by Party followers in dealing with the inflationary danger. In the past, inflation and related phenomena, such as currency fluctuations and balance of payments deficits, had normally been ascribed solely to the structural inadequacies of capitalism. Party policy therefore concentrated on defending working class interests against these hazards by fighting for periodic wage increases, indexation, and the like. This was still the case several years after the introduction of the historic compromise strategy.~9 Thus the PCI's guiding economic priorities

19. As late as 1975, the Party's economic program assigned its chief priorities to defending workers' incomes and stimulating internal demand. See La politica economica italiana, pp. 305 ,317-321 .


before the first austerity debate were more likely to maintain (or even promote) inflation than to reduce it.

Once the Party adopted its austerity line in early 1977, however, appeals for greater contributions by the working class to cut inflation began to be raised more often by Party leaders. CESPE organized a conference on inflation in January 1977, at which several prominent PCI economists underscored the urgency of combating inflation and exchange rate devaluation, even if this meant deferring hopes for full employment and required the PCI to espouse policies once advocated by the "entrepreneurial bourgeoisie."2° Warnings by Party leaders that internal demand would have to be dampened represented an additional departure from past policy. 2~ Finally, Party spokesmen reflected a growing awareness of the impact of international conditions on Italy's inflation, and tried to impress upon Party members that Italian capitalists were not alone responsible for the inflationary spiral. 22 Of course, statements of this kind were invariably counterbalanced by asssertions that Italian capitalism was in the main responsible for the inflation, and that such measures as programmazione and austerity for the wealthier classes were indispensable to bringing it under control.

The Cost of Labor. Rapid increases in labor costs in recent years have been among the leading contributors to Italy's inflation as well as to its difficulties in maintaining competitiveness in international markets. 23 Until the late 1960s, however, industrial wages in Italy were low in relation to most other developed OECD countries, and this was one of the factors that led to the outburst of labor unrest that culminated in the "hot autumn" of strike activity in 1969. Initially the PCI appeared to be caught off guard by this sudden eruption of labor militancy, but it soon joined in the demands for higher wages and greater protection against inflation. In 1975 the labor movement, supported by the PCI, won a major victory in the latter area when Italy's wage indexation system, the scala mobile ("escalator") was extended to cover nearly 100 percent of all price increases over the

20. See, for example, the views expressed at the conference by Barca in A the punto i, la Iotta all' inflazione (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977), pp. 37-39 .

21. See the report to the Central Committee by Napolitano, rUnith, October 27, 1977. 22. See, for example, Berlinguer's austerity speech of January 15, 1977, in L'austerith. pp.

16-17. 23. The rise in unit labor costs in Italian manufacturing was 4.2 percent for 1965-70, 12.2

percent for 1971-74, and 20.3 percent in 1975-77. The last figure was the highest for all major OECD countries. See the OECD annual report, Italy (Paris: OECD, 1979), p. 21. On Italy's soaring labor costs, see Raymond Lubitz, "The Italian Economic Crises of the 1970's" (U.S. Federal Reserve System, International Finance Discussion Papers," No. 120, June 1978), pp. 5 - 6 .


next two years. By 1977, wage increases in the affected categories were running ahead of, and contributing to, the inflation rate. 24

When the PCI began formulating its austerity policy, however, Party figures increasingly acknowledged the necessity of reducing labor cost increases to levels equivalent to those of other major European countries. 25 To this end, suggestions were advanced for cutting back future salary increases among workers and reducing indexation increments for working class incomes above certain levels .26 To be sure, proposals such as these inevitably touched on the most sensitive bread-and-butter issues for hundreds of thousands of PCI supporters, and Party leaders exercised caution in outlining their proposals in this area. They repeatedly stressed that other ways could be found to cut unit production costs than the reduction of workers' incomes, and consistently resisted the requests for deep cuts in the indexation system advanced by Italian government and business leaders, as well as by officials of the International Monetary Fund. 27

Public Spending. In view of the enormous drain of public resources upon the Italian economy, 28 the PCI's austerity concept advocated stringent limits on future public spending. This represented a significant shift in the Party's position, especially with respect to the question of saving bankrupt firms with public funds. Previously, the PCI had insisted on safeguarding virtually every industrial job even if it required massive doses of state monies to shore up unproductive enterprises. Now, however, PCI spokesmen admitted the futility of such action, and preferred to allow unsalvageable firms to be liquid- ated. As a consequence, the Party also changed its views on labor mobility. Mobility from one job to another was henceforth to be permitted rather than discouraged. 29 Moreover, the austerity line attacked the very idea of the state as the grand provider of financial assistance to all supplicants ("lo stato assistenziale' '), and urged the acceptance of new attitudes toward the state more in keeping with its real limitations. In return, Party officials insisted on effective plan-

24. OECD annual report, Italy, 1979, p. 20. 25. See Peggio's report to a CESPE conference on the Italian economy held in March 1976,

in Crisi econornica e condizionamenti internazionali dell' Italia (Rome: Editori Riuniti, n.d.), p. 38.

26. For typical examples, see the statements in Ache punto, by Pedone (pp. 26-29) and Barca (pp. 48-50) .

27. See Peggio's remarks in ibid., pp. 10 ft. 28. In February 1977 the PCI sponsored a conference on public spending. See L. Barca and

G. Carandini (eds.), La spesa pubblica (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977). Fully half of Italy's GNP is accounted for by the public sector. The current accounts deficit of the Italian public administration grew from 869 billion lira in 1971 to 8,389 billion by 1977. See Lubitz, p. 3.

29. Regarding labor mobility, see Barca's remarks in Ache punto, p. 43.


ning measures to guide state spending, as well as on greater parliamentary supervision to help reduce inefficiency and corruption in the administrative apparatus.

Many of these modifications in PCI economic policy, together with the demands for structural changes in the Italian economy which accompanied them, were outlined in the Party's draft proposal for a "medium term program. ''3° This document, released in July 1977, was designed to stimulate a national debate on Italy's economic policy for the next five years, and to seek points of convergence on economic issues between the PCI and other political parties. While it was evident that the PCI had taken major strides in the direction of such a convergence, the draft suffered from a lack of specifics regarding the manner in which its proposals were to be implemented, and was therefore criticized by various political figures. 3~

Nevertheless, the PCI's willingness to support austerity measures was not confined only to proposals. During its period of parliamentary abstention, the PCI gave tacit, and at times explicit, approval to many of the Andreotti government's deflationary policies. The extent of the Party's commitment to austerity was further revealed in the summer of 1977, when a "programmatic accord" was negotiated by representatives of the PCI and five other major parties, including the Christian Democrats. 32 The agreement assigned top priority to reducing inflation and drastically curbing public spending. It also reaffirmed emphatically the autonomy of private firms in making their own investment and pricing decisions, and stressed the imperative- ness of reducing labor costs. For the PCI, these "concessions" were offset by pledges on the part of the other parties to elaborate sectoral plans in key industries and to draft laws on industrial reconversion, rent control, and other projects promoted by the PCI. Even in many of these areas, however, the PCI came away with considerably less than it had wished.

Ultimately, of course, the PCI expected to obtain a greater share of governmental power in return for these signs of flexibility. When these hopes remained unfulfilled at the end of 1977, however, the Party precipitated a new government crisis, which was finally re- solved in March 1978 with the agreement permitting the PCI's entry into the parliamentary majority. The circumstances surrounding this

30. Proposta di progetto a medio termine (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1977). 31. Fora discussion of the PCI's "medium term program" and related economic policies at

this time, seeRinascita. August 5, 1977; Critica marxista, 4/5, 1977; and Giorgio Napolitano, "'The Italian Crisis: An Italian Perspective," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 56, No. 4 (July 1978).

32. For the text, with a PC! evaluation, see G. Chiaromonte, L'aceordo programmatico e l'azione dei eomunisti (Rome: Editori Riuniti. 1977).


crisis illustrated the dilemmas that the PCI was now facing in the conduct of its austerity policy. In December 1977, the militant metalworkers' trade union federation (FLM) staged a series of strikes and demonstrations to dramatize their demands for higher wages and other benefits. Caught between the double necessities of discouraging excessive wage demands and retaining the workers' confidence, the PCI provided only token support for the FLM, while intensifying its appeals for a "government of national emergency." The massive display of militancy among Communist workers, however, provided a clear sign that the PCI's austerity policy was running into difficulty among the rank and file.

Austerity and the PCF

Ironically, just as the Italian Communists were elaborating their positions on austerity in 1977, the French Communist Party was moving in precisely the opposite direction. The PCF had already committed itself, in the Common Program concluded with the French Socialist Party (PS) in 1972, to an economic policy almost totally at variance with the renunciatory aspects of the PCI's subsequent views on austerity. Sizable increases in the minimum wage, vast extensions of social welfare benefits, and a pledge to nationalize nine of France's largest corporations were integral to the joint platform of the Union of the Left. 33 Although there were tensions and disagreements from the start between the two main partners on these and other issues, essentially the leftist orientation of both the PCF and the PS permitted a substantial convergence on at least the basic orientation of their economic policies. In short, the PCF's alliance strategy, focusing on a partnership with France's other leading left-wing party, permitted it to preserve its traditional "socialist" economic outlook, which in some respects had deviated from the PCI's slightly more flexible approach for decades (especially on the question of nationalization). Unlike the historic compromise strategy, the Union of the Left in France offered few incentives for pursuing a less combative an- ticapitalist course. For the PCF, "austerity" meant nothing less than the economic policies of the Giscard-Barre regime.

As the date for the March 1978 parliamentary elections ap- proached, the PCF became increasingly uncomfortable with the economic views of its chief partner in the alliance. In June 1977, at the PCF's urging, discussions were initiated with the PS for the purpose of "updating" the Common Program. Although in all likelihood the

33. Programme Commun de Gouvernement (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1972).


Communists used the alleged outdatedness of the Common Program as a pretext for breaking their alliance with the PS--an action whose motivations were primarily political--the new demands raised by the PCF included enormous alterations in the Left's economic program. In particular, the Communists proposed nationalizing the subsidiary organizations of the original nine firms, thereby raising the number of prospective nationalized enterprises to well over 700. In addition, the PCF insisted on raising the minimum wage to F 2,400, a figure which Francois Mitterand reluctantly accepted in January 1978, over the objections of key PS leaders.34 The PCF also put forward demands for taxes on real capital and real wealth, and for still higher budgetary spending on social welfare, ideas which the majority of PS leaders did not share.

By the end of 1977 it was evident that the PCF leadership was bent on rupturing the coalition of the Left, and for this reason was proposing radical changes in the Common Program which it knew the PS would find unacceptable. Far from emulating the PCI's deradicalization on economic matters, the French Communist Party in 1977 and 1978 reverted increasingly to its role as a "tr ibune" of the working class, and put up a strict defense of narrowly-defined working class interests. To no small extent, this strategy reflected a rivalry with the socialists for working class support. Indeed, as the elections loomed nearer, French Communist spokesmen explicitly branded the PS as a party more interested in preserving the "bourgeois" order than in helping the workers. Georges Marchais himself drew this connection at the PCF conference held in January 1978:

If the policy advocated by the PS were implemented, not only would there be no change, but the right condition would be created for the big bourgeoisie to intensify its policy of austerity and inequality with greater ease. 35

In the crossfire of vitriolic accusations that the PCF and the PS leveled at each other following their defeat at the polls, Marchais and other PCF leaders kept up this line of attack, insisting that, if elected, "the PS intended to continue the austerity policy. ''36

Thus, the PCF refused to run the risk--courted by the PCI- -of alienating working class support by proposing austerity measures. To a considerable degree, this variation in approach mirrored one of the

34. Michel Rocard, for example, objected that raising the minimum wage to F2,400 would result in 300,000 to 400,000 bankruptcies. Cited in L'Humanit~, January 5, 1978, p. 1.

35. For the text of the Marchais speech, see L'Humanit~, January 9, 1978, pp. 3-6. 36. L'Humanit~, June 22, 1978, pp. 5-6.


principal long-standing differences between the two parties, namely, the PCF's ouvribriste orientation and the PCI's more open, multiclass outlook. Whereas the PCF has generally preferred to encapsulate itself within a segment of the French working class, the PCI has sought engagement ("presenza") in all sectors of Italian political life. These deeply rooted differences were reflected in the two parties' dissimilar alliance strategies in the 1970s, and, ultimately, in their contradictory views on austerity.

Resistance to Austerity at the Base

In his analysis of the SPD at the turn of the century, Tucker notes that the German trade union movement constituted a prime source of reformist sentiment that pushed the Party toward deradicalization. While this was certainly the case in Germany, in contemporary Italy the trade union membership most closely affiliated with the Italian Communist Party has acted to oppose, rather than encourage, the Party's further deradicalization in matters of economic policy.

Significantly, much of this resistance to the PCI's austerity policy was centered at the base of the CGIL trade union federation rather than among the leadership. In fact, the Communist General Secretary of the CGIL, Luciano Lama, developed into a more outspoken advocate of austerity than many Party officials. In a newspaper interview in January 1978, Lama made the extraordinary admission that many of the policies pursued by the trade union movement in recent years had only aggravated Italy's economic situation. Describ- ing as "nonsense" the notion that salary and employment levels constituted "independent variables" which could not be diminished even in periods of declining growth, Lama asserted that workers' salary levels were too high relative to productivity. He consequently called for "substantial" sacrifices on the part of the working class, and coupled his denunciation of the "egot ism" of many workers with the assurance that capitalism, at least for the medium term, was capable of "intense phases of development. ''37 Lama's remarks coincided with a major shift in the attitude of all three Italian trade union federations on such issues as salaries, mobility, and the like. In February 1978, the joint executive body of the CGIL and the two non-Communist federations (the CISL and the UIL) drafted a common platform that called specifically for the "containment" of wage demands and other sacrifices by the labor movement in an effort to cut

37. La Repubblica. January 24, 1978. Lama repeated a number of these views in an interview in La Stampa. May 27, 1978.


inflation and divert resources to combating unemployment. 38 Curi- ously, however, the document did not champion the slogan of "austerity." While the policies it advocated conformed in many respects with the renunciatory elements of the PCI's austerity policy, it was evident that the leaders of the CISL and the UIL did not wish to be identified with a label that was increasingly unpalatable to many workers. Rather, they allowed the CGIL to bear the brunt of working class hostility toward the notion of austerity, thus confirming the views of many that the Communist-led trade union federation had moved to the right of its two non-Communist r iva l s . 39

Throughout 1977 and 1978, evidence of such hostility mounted. In October 1977, members of the PCI Central Committee explicitly referred to disaffection in the workers' ranks over the austerity issue, pointing to a lack of clarity in the Party's position and the prevalence of little more than passive acceptance of the austerity line among the rank and file. 4° Several months later, in March 1978, Communist workers and their representatives had the chance to express their dissatisfaction openly at the VIIth Communist Workers' Conference held in Naples. Speaker after speaker confirmed the presence of "incomprehension" and "confusion" among many workers regarding austerity, and those who defended the concept at all stressed its transformative component as opposed to its renunciatory aspect. These comments contrasted sharply with the views of Giorgio Napolitano, the PCI's leading economic spokesman, whose address to the conference emphasized the sacrifices required of the working class, a theme seconded by Berlinguer. 4~ Similarly divergent opinions emerged at the PCI Central Committee plenum held in July.

38. The joint platform became known as the "EUR" agreement, after the name of the assembly hall at which it was adopted. For the text and related documents, see Stefano Bevacqua and Giuseppe Turani, La svolta del' 78 (Rome: Feltrinelli, 1978). For an analysis of the EUR accords, see K. Robert Nilsson, "The EUR Accords and the Historic Compromise: Italian Labor and Eurocommunism" (unpublished paper, prepared for delivery at the North- eastern Political Science Asscociation's Annual Meeting, Tarrytown, N.Y., November 9-11, 1978).

39. Several weeks after the EUR agreement, the CISL and the UIL accused the CGIL of allowing its policy to be determined by the PCI. See Giulio Mazzocchi, "La Cisl attacca la politica di Lama," La Repubblica. March 8, 1978, and "'La polemica Uil si sposta sul Pci" La Repubblica, March 14, 1978. See also Nilsson, p. 26. In recent years, the CGIL has been trying to loosen its ties with the PCI with a view to seeking greater unity of action with the CISL and the UIL. See Peter Weitz, "The CGIL and the PCI: From Subordination to Independent Political Force" in Blackmer and Tarrow, Communism.

40. See the statements by Libenini, Stefanini, Marrucci, and La Torre in I'Uniti*, October 27, 1977.

41. For the texts, see VII Conferenza.


Some Party officials insisted that the austerity policy was not getting through to the workers, and urged a greater effort in realizing its transformative elements. Others, while not denying the resistance the policy was encountering at the base, warned against allowing the Party's austerity line to be excessively influenced by this attitude of the working class. 42

Indications of growing discontent at the Party's working class base took on more measurable proportions toward the end of 1978 and early 1979. The CGIL reported a small but alarming decline in membership in Piedmont and Lombardy, two ot its most important strongholds in northern Italy. 43 Just as disturbing were the returns from various factory council elections. In Lombardy as a whole, elections to 428 factory councils in 1978 and early 1979 revealed an overall decline of 1.8 percent for the CGIL. Spokesmen for the organization pointed to its "moderate" stance on vital wage and related issues as one of the chief reasons for the decline. 44 In the public sector enterprises of Milan, the CGIL dropped 19.56 percent from its previous share of factory council seats .45 Another important indication of the CGIL's diminishing popularity were the results of elections at Italy's two large Alfa-Romeo plants, long a center of CGIL strength. In the northern plant near Milan, the CGIL fell from a total of 49.11 percent of the factory council seats (the result of the 1975 election) to 42.04 percent. In the southern plant, the CGIL's share of the seats fell from 57.17 percent (1975) to 50.24 percent. 46 Meanwhile, a survey of Italian Communist workers revealed large areas of dissatisfaction with PCI and CGIL action, especially with respect to the problems of unemployment and the Mezzogiorno. 47

While these losses were counterbalanced by modest CGIL gains elsewhere in Italy, they were regarded as serious by CGIL (and PCI) officials. Although they were in part symptomatic of a growing malaise felt by workers of various political persuasions, they were also clear manifestations of increasing hostility to the PCI's austerity policy, and were so interpreted by Party and CGIL spokesmen.

42. See the statements by Libertini, Petruccioli, and Rodano for examples of the "transformative" emphasis, and those by Olivi, Luporini, and Cappelloni emphasizing a more cautious approach, in I'Unith, July 26, 1978.

43. L'Unith, December 30, 1978. 44. In these elections, the CISL registered a slight gain of 0.1 percent while the UIL declined

by 0. I percent. Significantly, there was a gain of 2.1 percent for so-called "unitary" candidates not connected with the established federations. See I'UnitgT, January 14, 1974.

45. II Giorno, February I0, 1979. 46. Conquiste del Lavoro, November 20, 1978; II Mattino, March 28, 1979. 47. R. Mannheimer, M. Rodriguez, and C. Sebastiani, Gli operai comunisti (Rome: Editori

Riuniti, 1979), pp. 97 ft., 146-147.


The difficulties that the PCI's austerity line was experiencing reflected serious splits in the Party's social base. For one thing, many northern industrial workers appeared unwilling to reduce their wage and other demands, even though Party and CGIL leaders considered such adjustments indispensable to providing more resources to the poverty-stricken south. For these workers, it was the "ruling class" which was at fault for Italy's economic crisis, and which therefore must bear the burden of austerity. 48 In addition, tensions arose between many better-paid workers and those in the lower salary categories, as Party and union officials urged sacrifices on the part of the former to help raise the incomes of the latter. 49 Party leaders also warned that the austerity line was evoking negative reactions among the PCI's middle class supporters, many of whom felt that the austerity policy was being directed against their own interests. 5° Finally, in addition to exacerbating these contrasting economic interests within the PCI's constituency through its appeals for sacrifices, the austerity policy appeared to many Communist supporters to be delivering on precious few of its hoped-for "transformations." This was especially the case with respect to the Mezzogiorno, where the PCI had an enormous political investment at stake in its pledges to reduce unemployment and effect structural changes in the economy. Having thus alienated or disappointed key elements of its electorate, the Party's austerity policy was in serious trouble by the end of 1978.

The XVth Congress and its Aftermath

The problems confronting the PCI's austerity policy were in fact aspects of a broader sense of frustration which dispirited both the Party leadership and the PCI voters in the latter half of 1978. Since I cannot explore here the many factors that contributed to this feeling, 5~ it suffices to note that one of its principal determinants was the widely shared belief that the PCI had failed to bring about perceptible improvements in Italy's political and economic situation in the two

48. The demands put forward in 1978 and 1979 by the FLM, one of the more militant unions. exemplified these attitudes. They were confirmed in interviews with factory council members from several northern factories conducted in the summer of 1978.

49. See the letter to the editors of Rinascita by a Communist worker who reported "strong criticism" of this idea by the better paid workers, who insisted that "we must continue to request raises for everybody" while at the same time "seeking to give more to those who make less." Rinascita. February 3, 1979.

50. See the statements to this effect at the July 1978 Central Committee plenum by Cappelloni and Olivi in I'Unitg~, July 26, 1978.

51. See Stephen Hellman, "The Italian CP: Stumbling on the Threshold?," Problems of Communism, XVII, 6 (November-December 1978).


years since the 1976 elections. As a consequence, pressures for a return to the opposition intensified within Party ranks and reached a peak at the end of the year when the DC government unveiled a number of policy initiatives unacceptable to the PCI. The most important of these was a new three-year recovery plan whose targets in such crucial areas as unemployment were considered wholly inad- equate by the PCI leadership. 52 Shortly after these decisions were announced, the PCI withdrew from the parliamentary majority, thus launching the government crisis that led to the elections of June 1979.

Several weeks before the elections were held, the PCI convened its XVth Party Congress. Statements made on this occasion, and during the weeks of pre-Congress debate, indicated a decided mellowing of enthusiasm for austerity among Party leaders. In the " theses" issued by the Party to orient discussion at the Congress, the section on austerity was relegated to the 54th item, and it concentrated almost entirely on the transformative side of the issue. 53 At the Congress itself, even such erstwhile proponents of austerity as Amendola, Lama, and Barca were either noticeably restrained or totally silent on the subject. 54

Nevertheless, the debate at the XVth Congress revealed continuing signs of tension and ambiguity in the Party's complementary strategy of austerity and the historic compromise. Support for the renunciatory element of austerity had appreciably slackened, and there was some sharp criticism of precisely this feature of the Party's policy. One delegate, identified as a worker, referred to "ill-feeling" at the Party's base owing to the Party leadership's excessive concern with sacrifices and insufficient regard for transformations. He urged the Party to make a clear-cut choice between entering the government and going into the opposition, and to push for "transformations" in either case. 55

But it was precisely such an all-or-nothing choice that the Party leadership seemed determined to avoid. Berlinguer's main speech to the Congress was a carefully constructed balancing act that blended criticism of the Christian Democrats and demands for transformations with renewed appeals for a coalition government. In his remarks, the PCI chief distinctly reaffirmed the desirability of certain renunciations on the part of the working class. Once again, Berlinguer sought to occupy a middle ground between all-out oppo-

52. For the PCI's view of the plan and related economic issues, see L. Barca, "'Un difficile 1979" l'Unit&, December 31, 1978.

53. Progetto di tesi per il XV Congresso nazionale del Pci, p. 8. 54. L'Unit~, April I and 2, 1978. 55. See the remarks by Edoardo Caroccia, FUn#h, April 2, 1979.


sition and unrequited concessions. In doing so, he avoided the extremes of the radical and the deradicalization tendencies, while trying to reconcile elements of both. 56

Soon after the elections, austerity emerged once again as a central issue of Party discussions. At the Central Committee meetings held in July to assess the reasons for the PCI's electoral backslide, there were numerous criticisms of the Party's inability to provide the transformations promised by its austerity policy. This failure was seen as largely responsible for the PCI's devastating losses among young voters as well as among voters in the Mezzogiorno and in certain working class districts of the north. Assuming his own share of the blame for these shortcomings, Berlinguer joined in the general as- sault on the austerity policy's failure to realize its transformative potential. In his second speech before the Central Committee, Berlinguer asserted that the Party now required explicit political and economic "guarantees" and "quid pro quo ' s" before it could count on broad support for further sacrifices by its constituents. Accord- ingly, the Party chief announced that the PCI had decided to return to the opposition. 57

While these statements sounded remarkably similar to the anti- austerity comments expressed by Longo in 1976, Berlinguer nevertheless continued to pursue a moderate course that left the door open to renewed attempts at establishing a governing coalition with the Christian Democrats at some future point. At the same time, he reaffirmed that the policy of austerity remained one of the principal features of PCI policy.

As the Italian Communists found themselves relegated once again to their familiar role as an opposition party, however, elements of the radical cluster of attributes increasingly asserted themselves. Not surprisingly, this shift was especially visible in the Party's debate on austerity, which exploded anew in the final half of the year. Berlinguer himself signaled the new tendency in an editorial pub- lis.hed in Rinascita in late August. 58 The PCI chief substantially toughened the emphasis on "guarantees" which he had highlighted in his speech before the Central Committee in July, and now appealed specifically for "new instruments" which would allow the working class an "autonomous and direct" control over at least a part of

56. For Berlinguer's speech, see I'Unit~. March 31, 1979. 57. For Berlinguer's speeches and the Central Committee debate, see rUnitfl July 4, 5, 6,

and 7, 1979. Once again, Berlinguer succeeded in confirming his position as General Secretary, and managed to oust opponents of his policies from key positions in the secretariat. For the new leadership grouping, see rUnit~, July 12, 1979.

58. "I1 compromesso nella fase attuale," Rinascita. August 24. 1979.


Italy's investment resources. While Berlinguer did not stipulate precisely what these mechanisms should be, his argument staunchly reinforced the conviction that austerity measures would not be acceptable even in the short run unless accompanied by "qualitative" changes in the economic order.

Berlinguer's hardening position would probably have met with quiet acceptance by the bulk of the Party leadership had it not been for a new salvo in favor of austerity launched by Amendola in Novem- ber. In an article destined to provoke as much controversy as his August 1976 essay, 59 Amendola took sharp aim at both the trade unions and the Party for failing to take effective action against many of the problems plaguing the country. Taking as his point of departure the labor agitation that had followed Fiat's decision to fire 61 workers, Amendola declared that the recent strike wave was only aggravating Italy's economic plight. He therefore urged the unions themselves to institute measures establishing the "self-regulation of the right to strike." Focusing once more on the gravity of the inflationary spiral, Amendola blasted the "uncontrolled" spurt of wage demands that had developed during the fall. The " E U R " line, he averred, was not being properly applied; consequently, instead of cutting back on their demands for the sake of the general interest, workers and their representatives were issuing new--and potentially disruptive--appeals for greater social welfare benefits, more public spending to save bankrupt enterprises, and an extension of the trimestrial scala mobile to cover virtually all job categories. At the same time, Amendola wrote, absenteeism, waste, and parasitism among workers were reaching "scandalous" proportions. Perhaps the most damaging accusation of all was Amendola's assertion that neither the unions nor the Party was adequately combating terrorism. Finally, as if to underscore his condemnation of recent tendencies in the labor movement, Amendola rebuked trade union leaders for engaging in "demagoguery" and for slipping to the left. Such actions, he insisted, prevented them from telling the workers "the whole truth" about the dangers, as well as the opportunities, inherent in the present situation.

Predictably, Amendola's diatribe unleashed a storm of reactions by PCI leaders. In the prevailing atmosphere of "re-radicalization" occasioned by the PCI's return to the opposition, most of them were critical of Amendola's views. The issue was joined directly less than a week after the controversial article appeared, as the PCI Central Committee met for its first plenary session since July. Significantly,

59. "Interrogative sul 'caso" Fiat" Rinascita, November 9, 1979.


it was Berlinguer who lashed out at Amendola's positions most forcefully. 6° Above all, the PCI chief explicitly reproached Amendola for regarding the reduction of inflation by means of sacrifices and renunciations by the working class as an end in itself. What was needed, Berlinguer asserted, were "new equilibria" in Italian society. Probing to what he termed the heart of Amendola's position, Berlinguer stated that Amendola falsely assumed that Italy's capitalist system could be revived through efforts to reduce costs and augment productivity. In fact, the Party leader maintained, the system itself was "broken" by the failings of international and domestic capitalism. Furthermore, this collapse was to be welcomed as a "posi t ive" step opening the way to substantial transformations and to a greater political role for the Italian Communist Party.

Berlinguer's retort was laced throughout with clear manifestations of the radical cluster of attitudes outlined above. Most importantly, the General Secretary gave special weight to the absolute necessity of solidifying the Party's links with the masses. He therefore sided in a general way with worker demands for higher salaries and for a reopening of discussions concerning the extension of the scala mobile. Unless the PCI took such stands in favor of the interests of its working class base, Berlinguer declared, it would soon find itself the target of hostile demonstrations. If that happened, "What function could we ever have then?" he asked. The question itself was a frank admission that mass resistance to the renunciatory aspects of the Party's austerity policy had placed severe limits on the PCI's ability to persuade workers of the need for sacrifices. In the event, a retreat to oppositionist tendencies and labor militancy proved practically ines- capable.

The themes broached by Berlinguer in his speech were repeated by other speakers at the plenum, many of whom rejected Amendola's approach as "one-sided" or ill-conceived. 6t For his part, Amendola offered a brave defense of his views, and warned his critics that "you can't build socialism on the ruins of the country."62

Nevertheless, neither Berlinguer nor the other speakers at the November plenum renounced the necessity of fighting inflation or of discouraging excessive working class demands. Even Berlinguer acknowledged the propriety of certain of Amendola's ideas (including the "self-regulation" of the right to strike). Thus the shift to

60. L'Unith, November 17, 1979. 61. See, for example, the interventions by Bufalini, Natta, Marucci, and Barbieri inl'Unitb,

November 16, 1979, and those by Quercini, Barca, Minucci, Terzi, Vaccher, et al., I'Unith, November 17.

62. L'Unith, November 16, 1979.


radical tendencies in 1979 did not represent a complete repudiation of the attributes of deradicalization. Rather, it constituted a change in emphasis and in political practice which may yet prove to be tempo- rary. Indeed, the PCI is still on record as favoring participation in a national coalition government, given the proper "guarantees."

By the end of the 1970s, therefore, the Italian Communist Party was poised between the contrasting tendencies of radicalism and deradicalization, committed fully to neither while endeavoring to reconcile both.

Meanwhile, the French Communist Party appeared to be digging in for a long-term retrenchment to more dogmatic positions. The PCF's differences with the PCI assumed particularly clear dimensions at the start of the new decade, as the two parties adopted diametrically opposed views on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Marchais was additionally affronted by Berlinguer's decision to meet with Mitterrand in March at Strasbourg, a meeting which the PCF leader had sought for years to prevent. Within days, Marchais issued sting- ing critiques of what he called the "Euro-lef t ," a scarcely veiled euphemism for the PCI and the PS. Among the misbegotten policies that the PCF leader identified as characterizing this group, "austerity" headed the list. 63

Conclusions

The foregoing examination of the PCI's austerity policy indicates that the Party's deradicalization is a continuing phenomenon, but that there are powerful forces present within the Party that can impede or set limits to this process. This suggests that several of Tucker's hypotheses need to be modified.

With respect to his analysis of the SPD, it must be recognized that the German trade union movement had strong economic incentives to encourage the Party's deradicalization. The period of the SPD's most intensive deradicalization, from 1895 to 1914, was a time of sustained economic growth in Germany. As the working class increasingly came to perceive a material improvement in its living standards, as a result, its willingness to gamble on revolution evaporated and its readiness to accommodate itself to the existing order correspondingly increased. The more recent Italian case, however, demonstrates that, in a period of economic stagnation or decline, such incentives dimin- ish. In these circumstances, the working class base of an erstwhile

63. See, for example, the statement by Marchais in L'Humanit~, March 26, 1980, p. 5. Earlier, in his speech at the XXIII Party Congress of the PCF, Marchais had criticized the PCI's austerity concept directly. See L'Humanit& May 10, 1978.


radical party may provide little, if any, stimulus for further deradicalization. Indeed, if deradicalization is perceived as requiring a price ("sacrifices' ') that exceeds the rewards, the affected base may actually impede the Party's efforts to accommodate itself more fully than before to the existing order. The impact of the Party's base on deradicalization, in short, is by no means uniformly positive, and is in large measure economically conditioned.

Of course, much depends on the extent to which the sacrifices requested by the Party leadership of its members are seen to bring beneficial results. Here the PCI's austerity policy has run into several difficulties. In addition to the reluctance of many workers to make the necessary renunciations presented above, the PCI's inability to "del iver" the promised benefits to key constituents establishes additional barriers to deradicalization. In Tucker's view, one of the principal causes of a party's deradicalization i s " worldly success." It should be noted, however, that although the PCI had enjoyed considerable electoral success prior to 1979, it has come to be viewed as providing insufficient success in implementing its program since the 1976 elections. This lack of what may be called programmatic success has in turn increased pressures for attenuating, or even abandoning, the present course of deradicalization in the economic area.

In part, this failure to "del iver" has been due to the unwillingness of the Christian Democrats to share governmental power with the PCI. But it is also due to broader economic forces, above all to the special nature of Italy's post-1973 economic crisis. Conditioned substantially by such international factors as high petroleum prices, the recent crisis has made Italy considerably more susceptible to volatile inflation than in the past, thus heightening the impact of domestically-rooted inflation and unemployment. 64 Unfortunately for the PCI, this situation is not likely to change even if the Party were to obtain a large share of governmental authority. Indeed, despite much goal-oriented talk about "programmazione" and a "new type of development," the PCI has been notoriously unspecific about how it would go about reducing both inflation and unemployment, and by how much. 65

Nevertheless, the Party's austerity line itself testifies to the fact that

64. For an analysis, see Lubitz, pp. 21 ft. 65. The 1979 OECD report for Italy regarded a reduction of unemployment in Italy as

"improbable for the near future," largely because of insufficient output or sustained investment. See p. 61. Moreover, the three year plan's proposal to reduce inflation to 8 percent by 1981 turned out to be highly unrealistic, in part due to OPEC oil price hikes introduced after the plan was announced. By the end of 1979, inflation in Italy was running close to 20 percent.


key elements of the PCI elite have come to recognize the complexities of the current economic situation. 66 By establishing the reduction of inflation, labor costs, and public spending as priorities of PCI economic policy, the Party leadership appears to have acknowledged that the inflationary policies it advocated in the past can no longer be pursued without grave economic consequences for Party supporters as well as for the country as a whole. This new outlook may well constitute, at least for the duration of the period of economic difficulties, an irreversible alteration in the Party's economic policy and in its accommodation to Italy's neocapitalist system.

In any event, it seems clear that the Italian Communists' decision to seek a coalition with the Christian Democrats has increased the pressures for changes in the PCI's economic policies commensurate with such an accommodation. As a consequence, the PCI stands under a different order of pressures for change in this area from the PCF. During the period of their fragile marriage with the French Socialist Party leading up to the 1978 elections, the French Commu- nists were under considerably less pressure than the PCI to espouse essentially conservative economic policies. Indeed, the PCF haugh- tily rejected any talk of "austeri ty" as inimical to the interests of the working class, and remained committed to a policy of nationalizing private enterprises and other "socialist" measures, as befitted a leftist coalition strategy. Ultimately the PCF chose to seek far more nationalizations than the PS was willing to tolerate, and this contributed to the coalition's disarray both before and after the elections. Through these policy choices, the PCF has avoided the type of confrontation with its working class base over economic issues that the PCI has experienced. In general, however, it appears that the nature of the coalition strategy pursued by a Western Communist Party exerts a significant impact on the directions its economic policies will take, thus perceptibly affecting its deradicalization process in this domain.

As far as the PCI is concerned, the economic realities just outlined pose a nearly intractable dilemma. The more the Party leadership is committed to the historic compromise and austerity, the more it risks engendering opposition to these very policies within its own constituency. On the other hand, the more the leadership responds to pressures from the base for a more aggressive posture, the more it jeopardizes its chances of being accepted as a responsible, "legiti- mate" governing party. Thus the Italian Communist Party remains

66. For statements by Central Committee members acknowledging the novel nature of the OPEC-induced economic crisis and the need for new policies to deal with it, see the comments by lngrao, Chiaromonte. and Badaloni at the July 1979 plenum in rUnith, July 6, 1979.


squeezed between contending pressures for further deradicalization and a measure of re-radicalization.

As for the concept of deradicalization itself, it remains a useful idea, valid also for contemporary West European Communist Parties. It must, however, be reformulated to include factors which are either absent from, or in conflict with, Tucker's original hypothesis. It has not been my intention to attempt such a reformulation here. But, as the results of the foregoing analysis indicate, any future reconstruction of the deradicalization thesis must at the very least take into account the impact of economic processes and the type of alliance strategy which the party in question chooses to pursue.

the italian communists and the politics of austerity

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