A Communist by Any Other Name
What with Western Europe's glowing prosperity and the corresponding disarray behind the Iron Curtain, the U.S.
has come to count heavily on the idea that there is no future for Communist parties in the free world. But once again, Italy proved that higher wages and additional creature comforts do not necessarily ensure a Red rout. The country's municipal elections resulted in a small but significant increase of Communist strength and another decline in the fortunes of the ruling center-left coalition.
Complicated Failure. It was to avoid just such a result, and to "isolate" the Communists, that former Premier Amintore Fanfani created the apertura a sinistra, or opening to the left, in 1962. Fanfani reasoned that by forming a coalition government between his Christian Democrats and the left-wing Socialists of Pietro Nenni, he would 1) rob the Communists of their strongest allies, and 2) give himself room to press for domestic reforms without foot-dragging by conservative parties.
It was a complicated maneuver, and it failed. It was Nenni's Socialists who were isolated, not the Communists. At the first national elections after the apertura, in 1963, the Communists gained a formidable million votes. Then it was argued that the coalition experiment had not yet had time to prove itself. By now it has been given plenty of time--and has accomplished little or nothing. In the municipal elections, all the tides were supposed to be running against the Reds: Italy's longtime Red Boss Palmiro Togliatti was dead; Khrushchev was out; and for the first time since the death of Pope John, Italy's Roman Catholic bishops were actively antiCommunist.
The Reds serenely and successfully campaigned under the guise of middle-class reformers (TiME, Nov. 20), and as usual many Italians voted for them simply as a form of protest against various troubles, from high prices to bad schools. While not gaining nearly so much as in 1963, the Reds did increase their majority .04% over their total in last year's parliamentary elections. They gained in central Italy, tightened their hold on the "Red belt" of Tuscany, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna, became the biggest party in Florence. The Christian Democrats were off more than 1% from last year, 3% from 1960, and lost 59 provincial council seats throughout the country. The Nenni Socialists slipped badly. Of the minor parties, only the conservative Liberals continued to grow. The party position for the past few years:
Christian Proletarian Unity Democrats Socialists 14.4 5.8 1960 14.2 6.3 1963 11.3 6.6 2.9 1964 Republicans Communists 40.4 4.0 5.9 1.3 38.3 7.0 5.0 1.3 5.0 1.2 37.4 7.9 Nenni Monarchists Socialists 24.3 2.9 1.7 25.6 26.0 0.9 Others Liberals 1.0 0.7 0.8 Social Democrats
Neo-Fascists
Balance of Power. The Christian Democratic leadership still clung to the apertura that had failed, while the Reds were elated. "Splendid success!" trumpeted the Communist newspaper L'Unita. And the Communists promptly offered to help the center-left coalition form ruling bodies in local and municipal councils. Italy's new Red boss, Luigi Longo, launched a campaign for an Italian Workers Movement open to members of all parties; he even offered to drop the name "Communist" from his party and to merge with the others. When one of the Red faithful demurred at dropping the party name, he was loftily told it would "open up a new highway to Socialism."
Longo's siren song may find its listeners. Even so staunch an anti-Communist as Social Democratic Foreign Minister
Giuseppe Saragat has hinted that he could accept Communist cooperation on some issues. But then Saragat has his eye on the presidency, now occupied by long-ailing President Antonio Segni, who will probably announce his resignation next month, requiring presidential elections. Saragat's chief rivals will probably be Naples Jurist Giovanni Leone and former Premier Fanfani. In that contest, the Communists may well hold the balance of power.
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