The upcoming regional elections will be a testing ground not only for the national and regional governing forces, but above all for the attempt by the center-left to electorally articulate the so-called “broad field,” that is, the stable electoral alliance ranging from the Democratic Party to the Greens-Left Alliance, including the Five Star Movement.
Beyond this immediate political contingency, it should be remembered that in today’s Italian constitutional framework, which grants extensive legislative powers to the regions, regional elections are never merely a “local” affair and cannot be treated as such. From this perspective, a communist force today must confront the issue within the framework of its broader political strategy.
The forthcoming elections in Marche (September 28–29), Calabria (October 5–6), and Tuscany (October 12–13) already see the polarization of center-right and center-left alliances, respectively around the candidacies of Francesco Acquaroli and Matteo Ricci in Marche, Roberto Occhiuto and Pasquale Tridico in Calabria, and Carlo Giraldi and Eugenio Giani in Tuscany. Negotiations for the elections in Campania, Veneto, and Puglia, scheduled for November, are moving in the same direction.
With the sole exception of the Aosta Valley, where other local dynamics prevail, in all regions affected by the vote the alliance between the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, and the Greens-Left Alliance is confirmed.
Faced with this scenario, we are convinced that communists must assert and defend their refusal to participate in the so-called “left-wing” governments, in the “progressive” coalitions of social-democratic inspiration that, in the name of rhetoric about “opposing the right,” are built without any class principles or the protagonism of workers.
The experience of the past decades has shown that these forces, both in national and regional governments, can sometimes do worse than the right. Not because they are “bad,” but simply because they do not position themselves as a truly alternative force to the right, representing at most the “left prop” of the everyday administration of capitalism and its injustices, promoting the illusion that this system can be governed and administered in favor of workers and popular strata without questioning its foundations and limits.
The old argument that not voting for the center-left plays into the hands of the right dates back to the years of Berlusconi’s rule. Its outcome has been “left-wing” governments that voted for the Treu package, the reform of Title V, school autonomy, NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia, and the re-funding of military missions such as the one in Afghanistan. It is a poisoned pill that Italian workers have already swallowed.
Regional governments make no difference. Among many examples, it is enough to mention the responsibilities of center-left administrations in the sell-off of the port of Gioia Tauro or the Ilva case in Taranto. All the forces running in both coalitions share deep responsibilities in managing or participating in regional policies of dismantling public healthcare, student rights, and the sell-off of industrial assets in the name of defending capitalist profits.
We are neither indifferent nor unaware that today the operation of rebuilding electoral consensus around the “broad field,” in addition to the general call to arms against the right, also includes attempts by the M5S and the Greens-Left Alliance to intercept, on the one hand, dissatisfaction regarding social and labor issues, and on the other, the widespread popular sentiment against imperialist war, presenting themselves as “pro-peace” forces. We also know very well that there is a huge contradiction between words and deeds, or between what is shouted in the squares and what is written in programs or voted on. It is enough to consider that both the M5S and the Greens-Left Alliance support a European common army and Italy’s continued membership in NATO, but these details are conveniently omitted from the reasons why they express “opposition” to the European Commission’s €800 billion “Rearm EU” plan.
The fact that illusions about the center-left are widespread today, even in sectors close to us, does not authorize us to think that one can support these forces “from the left” or fuel these illusions in search of immediate electoral returns. We consider the choice of the PRC, which, in line with the position that emerged victorious from its last congress, is presenting lists within the center-left coalition in some regions or expressing support for candidates on that coalition’s lists, grave and unjustifiable. This choice, whose immediate consequence is the association of the hammer and sickle with the Democratic Party and its allies, will neither strengthen communists, nor advance a communist perspective in society, nor “shift the center-left to the left.” The only choice that can pay off in the long term is that of consistency.
A different matter concerns the lists that, in some regions, are organizing “to the left” of the broad field, as is happening in Tuscany or Puglia, by groups that draw on the communist tradition or the so-called “class-based left.” As is known, there are political and strategic divergences between us and these forces, and also among these forces themselves in relation to each other. It could not be otherwise; otherwise, we would all be in the same party. But this is not the point we want to highlight.
Opening a serious discussion on the idea of tactical flexibility in electoral matters could have its legitimacy if based on a clear strategy and without compromising fundamental principles. However, it seems to us that the electoral coalitions being set up are not an expression of genuine worker-popular protagonism, but rather the mere aggregation of political sectors, without any connection to the masses, for purposes that go no further than mere survival and self-representation.
The experience of recent decades, in which efforts — even by ourselves — to present a hammer and sickle on the ballot have mainly highlighted the political marginality of communists in Italy, should prompt serious collective reflection on whether it is appropriate to jump from one electoral appointment to another in the absence of a real strategy to address, in practical terms rather than merely electoral appearances, the problem of rebuilding a major communist force in Italy.
The voting recommendation we consider appropriate in this instance is abstention in all electoral rounds. Being fully aware of the Leninist lesson on the duties of communists even in the electoral arena, and far from the abstentionism of extremist sectors, we acknowledge all the limits of this recommendation. We will not carry out a mass campaign for abstention, because we do not consider it useful for fostering real progress in the consciousness of the working class and popular sectors.
We are convinced that today there is an urgent need to rebuild a credible communist force, to emerge from irrelevance, to build a serious, modern, organized communist party recognizable and acknowledged, capable of meeting the challenges of our time. This struggle, under current conditions, is not played out on the electoral field and does not start from it. Prioritizing exaggerated tactical maneuvers and electoral alchemy devoid of real perspective over strategic reflection on what to do, and on how to truly build an avant-garde party, is a mistake we are not willing to make. There is so much work to do, and there will still be much to do even after these regional elections, from which, at present, no political alternative for workers and popular strata can emerge. What communists must do today is, as Gramsci once said, “calmly get back to work, starting again from the beginning.”
Political Bureau — Communist Front of Italy (FC)
National Secretariat — Communist Youth Front (FGC)
