Weekly Worker 567 Thursday March 10 2005

Rifondazione Comunista congress 2005

From anti-capitalism to serving capitalism

The 6th Congress of Rifondazione Comunista, held in Venice from March 3-6, was a strange affair, report Tina Becker and Mark Fischer. The appalling decision to join with Romano Prodi’s Olive Tree coalition and (assuming victory in the 2006 general election) follow him into government had already been made at branch and regional level. Still, there were some very heated debates at congress, with a sizeable minority of comrades strongly critical of this turn, which has gone hand in hand with an attempt to squeeze the democratic space open to the party opposition. Clearly, this centrist organisation is moving to the right. This is not just bad news for the Italian working class - the European left will suffer too

When the general secretary of Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) enters the congress hall on the Venetian island of Lido, all delegates stand up and applaud. Even the opposition cheers. They give him a standing ovation when he has finished his 140-minute opening speech. As soon as he appears, excited crowds form around him, making it difficult to actually pick him out as he makes his way through the hall.

Fausto Bertinotti enjoys an incredible level of personal support from his membership - though almost half of them disagree with him over his turn towards accepting governmental posts. Even those who have put forward oppositional motions treat him like a celebrity. The international delegations are not immune either: When he arrives for one of the many evening receptions, foreign delegates have their picture taken with their arm around the man, some even asking for autographs.

Of course, given the history of our movement, there is something in this that should make communists feel uncomfortable. It has a positive side, however. There are some very passionate moments at congress, a welcome contrast to the generally insipid, grey sect culture of the British left which generally only rises above the boring to achieve the brittle false enthusiasm of the Socialist Workers Party.

When congress learned about the release in Iraq of Giuliana Sgrena, Italian hostage and journalist on the leftwing daily Il Manifesto, a huge damn of tension broke and congress exploded into cheers, singing, hugs and tears. Similarly, the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism and fascism was celebrated with a moving speech of a communist partisan and the reading out of letters from Italian freedom fighters killed by the Nazis. Often, congress would spontaneously strike up the ‘Internationale’, ‘Bandiera rossa’ or ‘Bella ciao’, honouring many speakers with enthusiastic standing ovations. Certainly, the comrades - while rejecting Stalinism - have no problem in honouring the symbols, heroes and cultural icons of our movement.

Despite the 40% internal opposition to the governmental turn, comrade Bertinotti is still one of these heroes for many PRC comrades. Whether this endures when the dirty business of day-to-day participation in a capitalist government starts, we shall see. There is no denying, however, that since he took over the leadership of the party in 1998, Bertinotti has succeeded in transforming Rifondazione into a serious player in Italian (and European left) politics and Rifondazione members are very aware of this achievement.

He has healed many of the wounds inflicted on the party by the disastrous two-year period in which they supported the minority Prodi government without being part of the coalition (1996-98). For example, the parliamentary faction voted for the infamous ‘Neapolitan laws’, which led to the setting up of temporary detention centres and an immigration policy by quota. Now, all sections of the party (including Bertinotti) criticise themselves for this “massive mistake” and vow to overturn the law once they are in government.

By allowing the open functioning of factions, Bertinotti has created a relatively healthy party regime that has attracted up to 100,000 members in recent years (there has also been a high turnover). Although he has announced that this was “the last congress I will address as general secretary of Rifondazione” (he is expected to concentrate more on his position of general secretary of the European Left Party and has denied that he will take up a ministerial post himself), he will remain the most influential figure in the party. So, the formal rejection of Stalinism notwithstanding, there is a personality cult around the man - as one opposition leader was brave enough to point out in his speech.

Bad move(ments)

It was comrade Bertinotti who urged, and organised, Rifondazione’s turn to the social movements after the anti-capitalist protests in Genoa 2001. His strategy of creating the ‘movement of movements’ has possibly won a higher prestige for Rifondazione in Italian society - but it certainly did not produce many new members. Quite the opposite: a membership count in August 2004 showed just over 40,000 paying members (over the last six months, however, official figures have shown a sudden surge to a shade under 100,000).
Supporters of the Bertinotti faction explain August’s low count as due to the slow feedback from local branches when the centre has asked for returns. Opposition forces reply that in reality the rapid rise in the party membership in the last few months is down to an orchestrated campaign to persuade friends and family members of the Bertinotti faction to join the party - simply in order to cast their vote in favour of what is now the majority position. One young comrade from the Ferrando faction received long applause from about half the congress when she complained that “over 20,000 paper members were added at the last minute”.

Not surprisingly, the uncritical turn to the ‘movements’ and the party’s subordination to the fluid social forums produced a ‘softer’ organisation, with many Rifondazione activists merging to a large extent with the ‘anti-capitalist’ or peace milieu they worked in and not renewing their party membership. This is not unusual, of course. Our history is full of unprincipled attempts to latch on to ephemeral ‘movements’- and the dumping of all that cumbersome communist baggage. In Britain in the 1970s, the Eurocommunists masterminded the uncritical turn of the CPGB to the youth, black, gay and women’s movements - this produced many feminists, gay activists and black sectionalists, but very few communists of any description.

At the heart of the PRC’s form of centrism is the denial of the importance of programme - try finding it on the organisation’s website. A number of Rifondazione comrades we asked were not even sure if the party even had one. Certainly, whatever form it exists in, it is interpreted very loosely. In his opening speech, Bertinotti was keen to stress that there should be “no dogmas” and “no certain truths”. The comrade emphasised that “we are all communists here”, rejecting claims by the opposition that the party was giving up on Marxism. But clearly, without actually defining what communism is and how our forces can reach this goal, his assurances sound pretty hollow - PRC comrades should not for a moment accept Bertinotti’s claim that somehow a principled strategy simply coalesces spontaneously out of the daily practice of sincere communists. This is actually a recipe for opportunism, not Marxism.

In the few short years since its turn to the ‘movements’, Rifondazione has lost much of its distinctiveness. Clearly, the leadership around Bertinotti was all too aware of the dangers of this kind of slow-motion liquidationism. But the desire to join the government of what is called the ‘Grand Democratic Alliance’ (l’Union), currently consisting of seven different parties, is just the flip side of this opportunism - while also trying to exploit the undoubtedly better relationship the party now enjoys with sections of the trade union movement, peace organisations, etc.

The majority faction hopes that ‘the movements’ will keep them on their toes and hold back the rightism that government participation inevitably brings. Bertinotti was also keen to show that there will be “huge differences” with the first Prodi experience: “In 1996, there was a massive centre-left influence in the world, with Clinton in power and Europe ruled mainly by social democratic governments. There was a feeling that history was over, capitalism unchallengeable. Italy was a country without much social conflict. Can’t you see how things have changed now? The movements have become a truly democratic political force in society, the unions have moved to the left. There are now more strikes in Italy than there have been for a long time.”

Undoubtedly, most communist and socialist parties which have taken part in bourgeois governments have had similar illusions, if often heartfelt. In Venice, many comrades made highly passionate and emotive speeches in favour of defeating Silvio Berlusconi at the 2006 general elections - “Society demands it of us” was a phrase often heard from supporters of the first motion. “How can we seriously turn down the opportunity to defeat this man? People would not forgive us,” said another speaker. Sections of the Olive Tree still accuse Rifondazione of being responsible for Berlusconi’s victory, precipitated when the PRC withdrew support from the coalition.

In an attempt to reverse this, comrade Bertinotti is today pursuing the policy of wholehearted, uncritical and unconditional affiliation to l’Union of Romano Prodi - and a similarly unconditional participation in the government after the elections. There is talk of a ‘programme’ being worked out with the various coalition forces - but many Rifondazione members fear that as the small partner (5% of the vote at the 2003 general election), the party will have little leverage compared to bigger political forces.

Party democracy

In the CPGB, party conferences and aggregates are our highest decision-making bodies. We take this heritage from the Bolshevik Party very seriously (though we currently do not hold two-week conferences): if there are disagreements, the various positions are fully discussed beforehand within party structures, including in the Weekly Worker. But the conference is a fully democratic affair, where members have the possibility of openly discussing and debating the contending positions - and where the minority has the chance to become the majority.

Not so at Rifondazione’s congress. “Had you agreed with my original 15 theses from September 2004, there would have been no need for this difficult congress,” comrade Bertinotti reproached his members. But four factions had begged to differ and produced alternative motions. The five different positions (see below) were sent to every member at the end of November 2004. After some debate at a local and regional level, the comrades were asked to cast their vote by December 20 - in local branch meetings. So the decision had already been made long before the 600-plus delegates and 300 visitors arrived in the cinema centre on the snow-covered island of Lido (in the summer, the ‘Golden Lion’ of the Venice film festival is awarded here).

Strangely, even most of the opposition speakers defended this set-up when we questioned them, citing the large number of Rifondazione members as the main reason. While, of course, it is essential that the whole membership is drawn into debate, taking national decisions at a local level is not more democratic - it atomises the party and makes it more susceptible to bureaucratic manoeuvres (possibly witnessed in the miraculous recent growth). Our communist tradition is for congresses to represent the whole over the part, but the PRC’s decision-making process is mere referendism, ie, pseudo-democratic.

Interestingly, only just over half of all members took part in the vote, reflecting the unhappiness many comrades felt with what was largely perceived as a foregone conclusion (or perhaps telling us something about the reality of those membership figures, of course). Bertinotti had already signed an agreement with Prodi and the other parties back in October, before the internal discussion had even started (soon after that, he unilaterally dropped the party’s position for unconditional and immediate withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq in favour of a far more ambiguous position, apparently after pressure from Prodi).

Just over 59% of the votes cast supported Bertinotti’s motion, with the rest dividing four ways. The largest opposition faction (the ‘official communists’ around Claudio Grassi) advocate that government participation is acceptable provided certain programmatic points are adhered to.

In reality, only 15% of the votes cast (or 8% of the membership) are against participation in capitalist governments on principle. And this hard opposition is itself split into three, pretty orthodox, Trotskyist factions. Despite the fact that their positions are very close, all of them told us that they could not possibly work with the others. For example, the Usec faction accuses the Ferrandoites and Grantites of not having thrown themselves into the ‘movements’ - they cheered loudly when Bertinotti made exactly that accusation (given the economistic nature of these trends, there is an element of truth here, of course).

None of the opposition forces want to leave the party after this defeat. They know quite well that they would be consigned to the wilderness - whereas now they still have the opportunity to openly state their disagreements inside Rifondazione (though this window is now perhaps slowly closing).

Sidelining the opposition

Despite the fact that the decision to join l’Union had already been made, many speakers criticised the turn: “I thought we were an anti-capitalist organisation. You can’t defeat capitalism by forming an alliance with sections of capital,” said comrade Salvatore Cannavò (deputy editor of Rifondazione’s daily Liberazione) when moving the Usec motion. But, as there was no structured discussion on the new turn, many comrades had to voice their criticisms in a series of sessions simply entitled ‘Debate’. Contributions criticising this terrible decision were thus mixed up with flamboyant speeches on animal rights (complete with edible props) and rather painful ‘journeys into my inner self’-style speeches.

Thus, the debate lacked real coherence and flow. Despite this, the opposition certainly had the better arguments - the majority, Bertinotti included, tended to bluster and talk in vague terms about the dangers of “irrelevance”. Clearly, not only is participation in a bourgeois government wrong in itself, but Romano Prodi specifically (who was present on the opening day, sitting patiently through Bertinotti’s two-and-a-half-hour speech) has already proved himself to be no leftwinger. He is in favour of pre-emptive imperialist military intervention for ‘humanitarian’ purposes. He is a keen supporter of the EU constitution. Under the leadership of Prodi, the EU commission produced the much-criticised ‘Bolkestein directive’, which lays down that essential sectors in all EU countries (such as culture, education, healthcare and all services relating to social welfare systems) are to be exposed to the same forms of economic competition and commodification as commercial goods. And the list goes on.

A young comrade got lengthy applause from half the congress when she said: “Either you are with Prodi, or you are with the workers on the picket line. You simply cannot support both. Unfortunately, Rifondazione has decided to support Prodi and vote against the workers.”

Bertinotti did not intervene in the debate, but held his fire for his closing speech (a mere two hours this time). In an unprecedented attack on the opposition, he spent about half his contribution condemning the “venom and slander” of some of the speakers. He particularly had it in for the supporters of motion 2 (whose leading comrades were the only ones who did not get a hug or handshake from Bertinotti after their speeches).

He did not spend much time criticising their politics, but instead concentrated on the style: “The aggressiveness and provocation of some of the speeches were beyond what is acceptable. I can take it, but it will have alienated many people from the party who are more sensitive. This kind of language needs to be rooted out - military language that negates other points of view and tries to push them out. Myself, on the other hand, I feel the need for more tenderness in our party.”

Quite a tough form of tenderness, actually. In reality, the attack on the opposition was not only verbal. Comrades from all four factions were united in their attempt to vote down amendments to the party’s statues which, according to one speaker, “are a disaster for our party’s internal democracy”. The 60% majority again prevailed, however.

A new leadership body was created (the national executive), which, the opposition fears, will contain only supporters of the majority. This body will not e elected, but made up of representatives from various party sections - for example, big regional organisations or the parliamentary faction - and will take over many of the functions that have so far been carried out by the 40-strong national leadership. This latter body, just like the 200-strong national committee, is made up proportionally, according to factional support.

Many fear that the new national executive will exclude the opposition - just like the eight-person party secretariat. Bertinotti himself seemed to confirm this fear in his closing speech: “It is bizarre to think that our top leadership should be set up proportionally. In the last three years, all the main bodies of our organisation were proportional [because, of course, the supporters of motion 4 agreed with Bertinotti at the 2001 congress and were rewarded with leadership positions]. We hoped that this would help us to diffuse our differences. But this hope was fatally wounded by the fact that the number of factions has increased.” Therefore, the top two leadership layers should only contain members from the same trend.
This bureaucratic manoeuvre was attacked by many comrades: “You criticise Stalinism, but you are abandoning the pluralism of your own organisation. In reality, you are practising a personality cult,” fumed a supporter of motion 2 - to sustained applause.

Gandhi’s revenge

The turn to the ‘movements’ has produced at least one feature the majority (as well as some of the smaller Trotskyist factions) wants to keep: the insistence that the party is explicitly “pacifist” and “rejects violence in any form”. Speakers again and again stressed the need for “unilateral disarmament”. By this they not only mean that the European Union should have no army (scaled-down national versions will do) - they are referring to the forces of the working class (many condemning the “violence in the way we talk to each other”), as well as oppressed people across the world.

In his closing speech, comrade Bertinotti not only praised Gandhi’s ‘turn the other cheek’ non-violence, but went as far as to compare himself to the Indian fakir: “Gandhi said, ‘I don’t condemn those who have taken up weapons to defend themselves. But I feel it is my mistake that we don’t live in a society where peace prevails.’ I too feel guilty. We do not question our solidarity with the Palestinians and the Iraqi people. But how dare you shout at Sharon and at the same time not praise those that are negotiating between the Israeli and Palestinians. These people are the real heroes.”

Clearly, communists must distinguish between forms and forces of resistance (something that the SWP-led Stop the War Coalition has considerable trouble with). Unless our forces are armed (to the teeth), we are leading our class to disaster. The fact that Britain withdrew from India had little to with Gandhi’s principle of non-violence. Britain simply calculated that it could no longer hold the sub-continent. Britain preferred a negotiated hand over of power to the bourgeois nationalists - mainly organised in the Indian National Congress - rather than face a revolutionary explosion.

Europe suffers

Clearly, the comrades have made a terrible decision in declaring their readiness to join a Prodi government and take up ministerial posts. The organisation is going down a suicidal road. Some opposition forces hope that between now and the election the factional balance will change and the decision can be overturned. Or that the programme of l’Union might turn out to be so disgusting that even Bertinotti would be forced to abandon it. But this seems unlikely - the majority seems set so firmly on a course to the right.

This turn is not just bad for the Italian working class. It was the PRC which gave the whole European left something beyond the narrow nationalism of social democracy and ‘official communism’. The PRC took the lead in setting up of the European Social Forum and the formation the European Left Party. While we criticise both formations for falling well short of the kind of working class unity we need to challenge the Europe of the bosses, the positive role that Rifondazione has played over the last few years is undeniable. It is one of the very few organisations across the continent that has a positive approach to fighting for a social Europe from below and has recognised the need for increased cooperation amongst our forces.

At this congress, however, the PRC moved sharply to the right and therefore to national reformism. The CPGB will do its utmost to convince Rifondazione members to change track - before it is too late.

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