On March 27, the Italian right-wing Freedom Alliance, led by billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, won a big majority in the country's parliament. LUCIANA CASTELLINA, a member of the European parliament for the Italian Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), described to 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly why the right wing won and what will happen now.
Television played a tremendous role in the victory of the Freedom Alliance. Until recently there were three state TV networks plus only local private TV stations. Berlusconi, however, managed to get a licence to operate three national private TV networks, and these now have a lot more viewers than the state networks.
Since Berlusconi owned these stations, he was able to get enormous publicity for his Forza Italia [Go Italy, a popular football slogan] party and the Freedom Alliance as a whole. This was a scandal, especially as Berlusconi only got these licences through the corruption of the former Socialist government.
The media's role was reinforced by the new electoral system. Political parties were forced to play an enormous role under the old electoral system of proportional representation with its party-list system. Every party was forced to have publicity, an electoral platform, a program.
Now, with the British-style "first past the post" system where you vote for a candidate, not a party, the role of political parties is sharply diminished and the role of individual politicians enhanced. Thus politics easily becomes simply a matter of "image".
It would be wrong to say that the right-wing alliance which won the elections is fascist in its totality. Only one of three parties of the Freedom Alliance is fascist — the National Alliance. For the moment, Berlusconi's alliance is very right wing and authoritarian, but not fascist.
Berlusconi won a lot of support from unemployed and marginalised youth and workers. His appeal was that from humble origins, he became a "self-made" rich businessman. People thought perhaps Berlusconi could manage Italy like his firm — and then everyone would become rich!
The right-wing alliance is not very stable, especially since Umberto Bossi's Northern League, strong in the big northern cities, is a kind of protest movement against the corruption of the old system. It is difficult to see how the League can agree with Berlusconi, who is part of the corrupt old regime that made him rich.
Moreover, the alliance between the Northern League and the National Alliance was very strange, as the League had previously said it could never make an alliance with the fascists, given the strength of anti-fascist feeling in the north.
The different right-wing parties represent different social interests. In the north the League represents small and medium entrepreneurs — people who oppose state intervention in the economy, people who oppose paying taxes and the centralised state. In the south many people who voted for the fascists are economically dependent on state subsidies and social security.
But I am afraid, as the crisis develops, the right-wing parties will try to stick together against the left; and even try to cover their differences with repressive and authoritarian politics.
The alliance of the left, the Pact for Progress, was very necessary to fight the right wing, but there were disputes within it.
For example, the Party of Communist Refoundation worked very well with the Greens and the anti-fascist Rete network. However, it was difficult to mobilise our supporters to vote for candidates of the PDS (Party of the Democratic Left), the right wing of the old Communist Party, or for the remnants of the Socialist Party.
This was especially because the PDS and Socialists had supported the 1992-94 Ciampi government, which attacked social security and workers' wages, while the PRC, the Greens and la Rete were in opposition to the government, not supporting it.
But in this year's campaign, the PDS were saying that if the left won it would be a good thing to have Ciampi back as prime minister!
So if you tell the people that we are fighting for a left-wing alternative and then the prime minister is going to be the same as before, people say, "Why should we fight for that?"
The PDS said that we "shouldn't frighten the people" by being too radical. Ochetto, the leader of the PDS, even made speeches to the financiers in the City of London telling them not to fear a PDS-led government.
This produced tensions in the left alliance. But also it didn't give the impression the alliance was going to do something new if we won, that we had a really radical program. The PDS didn't see that the right was picking up support by coming across as having radical solutions to the crisis, which we did not. That's why the right wing picked up so much support among the young unemployed.
Despite these differences, the left alliance is very important for the future; we will need it to effectively combat the right wing. Now the situation will be easier, as everyone, including the PDS, is in the opposition. This clarifies things a lot. If the right wing had lost, probably the PDS would have constructed a "centre-left" government, and then the left alliance would certainly have collapsed.
I think there will be real changes within the alliance. The Green Party is small, but it's important. It is divided between a left and a right. The Rete, which was electorally defeated in its Sicilian bastion [the Mafia heartland], has to do a lot of rethinking. And the PDS itself is a very divided party.
Although many of the poor and dispossessed voted for the right wing, this was not true for most industrial workers. They predominantly voted for the left, as always.
Today you cannot say unemployment will be solved simply by waiting for the economy to recover. Today it's no longer true that economic growth leads to an increase in employment. With technological innovation and relocation of industry to countries where labour is cheaper, economic growth and investment can lead to a decrease in employment. The left has to put forward a program of decreasing the hours of work, so the work is shared. This means a program of socialising the advantages of technological innovation, rather than giving them all to the bosses.
The second point is to develop new sectors of employment. This must include projects to defend and protect the environment, which can create lots of jobs, but which won't be immediately "profitable" in capitalist terms. But the capitalist market doesn't develop these sectors spontaneously.
What is the future of communism in Italy? In Italy the Communist Party was the main historical force which fought fascism, including the 1943-5 armed resistance, and after the war the main force fighting for democracy and progress. In Italy it is "socialist" which is discredited as a word and not "communist" — because the Socialists governed with the Christian Democrats in a right-wing government and were a corrupted party.
The democratic legitimacy of the Communist Party existed for a long time, and the Communists were very independent from the Soviet Union. Much of this was due to the influence of Gramsci's thinking.
Communism is a very moral concept. Maybe it could not be understood in the past. But if you look at the "new" contradictions of gender and the environment, and even if you look at the old contradictions of capital and labour, it is obvious that these problems can't be solved within the framework of the capitalist system. The Marxist critique of capitalism is more up-to-date and timely than ever before.