that the swing to the Communist Party (PCI) in the 20-21 June general election is likely to be as large as in the regional elections last year, when the PCI gained an extra 2½ million votes.
The PCI will probably take the place of the Christian Democrats as the largest single party in terms of votes, and the parties of the working class together - the PCI plus the Socialist Party and the far left slate could win a majority. But the latter prospect doesn't interest the PCI. Its eyes are firmly fixed on a "government of national unity in which its major partner would be the right-wing Christian Democrats.
With this in mind, the PCI is busy meddling with the roots of the capitalist system - it is only interested in making it more efficient. The PCI's search for bourgeois respectability and the image of a serious governmental party has led it so far as to invite seven prominent Catholic intellectuals to stand on its electoral list.
COALITION These individuals in no sense identify with the aspirations of the working class. They told L. 'Unita, the paper of the PCI, that their acceptance of the party's invitation •did not imply any allegiance to Marxist ideology, or the programme or the methodology of the PCI This is just one of a series of gestures to make the right "see reason" and accept a coalition. In the pages of L 'Unita, the PCI's betrayal of the independent interests of the working class becomes dressed up in the demagogy of building a new Italy and the prospect of a democratic renaissance'.
The PCI has also made heavy use of its "law and order' campaign. It correctly attacks the corruption of the decadent Christian Democrat regime and the growth of fascist violence, but it never attacks the bourgeois institutions which lie at the root of that corruption and violence. On the contrary, one of the themes taken up at a recent meeting of the PCI's Central Committee was the importance of regaining the confidcnce or tae masses in te state institutions:
What does the Communist Party offer in policies? It promises prosperity, to cut inflation and help industry, but for the working class it offers only wordy and shallow demagogy. Commented the Daily Mirror: The Communist Party campaign leaflet reads like a Tory Party manifesto... "law and order, wage restraint, and a cut in government expenditure":
PANIC Why, then, are the international capitalists so panic-stricken at the prospect of the PCI emerging as the largest party in the elections?
The right says that the PCI will destroy parliamentary democracy, yet their chosen road lies via the institutions of bourgeois democracy. As the Morning Star recently put it: "To allay the people's fears, the Communist Party is stressing its adherence to the democratic way to socialism, with guarantees of maintaining and extending democratic freedoms." The 'freedom' of capital to exploit its workforce is something the PCI certainly intends to uphold.
NATO The right says that the PCI will endanger NATO, the Common Market, and the 'safety" of western Europe. Again the accusation is ridiculous. Not only have two other NATO countries - Iceland and Portugal had Communist ministers in their government, but the PCI has been going overboard to prove its allegiance to this reactionary military alliance and its intention to remain in the Common Market. Not only has it invited Catholic intellectuals to stand; other candidates on its list include a retired airforce general and an EEC Commissioner, Altiero Spinelli.
So why is the right scared of a PCI victory? It knows that the party leadership are sincere in their promises. Only it is not the PCI leadership that they are afraid of - it is the expectations of millions of workers if and when the PCI enters the government.
The last few years have seen a blackmail, which we must answer by stressing our position on foreign capital that we are not against the presence of multinationals in Italy as long as they don't interfere in our politics. It's rather like asking a tiger to be good and then going for a ride on its back. All the protests in the world won't do you much good when it turns to bite off your UNCERTAINTIES Nevertheless, the uncertainties of the post-Vietnam, post-Angola