RC - part 4 - a little bit of history

[Luciano Dondero <DOND001@xxxxxx>]

RC - part four - a little bit of history
When the majority of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) decided to become the
PDS (Democratic Party of the Left) in 1989-1990 (to signal to the
bourgeoisie its abandonment of its "Communist" past) two groupings broke
away, the PCI's "motion three" led by Armando Cossutta, and a chunk of
"motion two" led by Sergio Garavini.
(The majority of Occhetto-D'Alema was "motion one", while historical
left-wing leader Ingrao was a leader of "motion two" who argued to stay in,
a majority of "2-ers" did).
The Cossutta forces were a compact body, as a result of a decade-year long
battle against the party leadership of Enrico Berlinguer, then Achille
Occhetto, on a broadly pro-Soviet line (support for Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, defense of certain elements of Stalinist orthodoxy and so on).
Some of them would openly call themselves "Stalinists".
They joined forces with most of DP (Proletarian Democracy), a left-wing
"federation" of various groupings, which used to have a small presence in
the Italian Parliament as well, led by Giuseppe Vinci (a former leader of
the Trotskyist USec in Italy, then founder of Avanguardia Operaia).
These were the main elements constituing at first the Movement for Communist
Refoundation, which became, after the first National Congress in 1991, the
Party of Communist Refoundation.
Later on, another grouping came over from the PDS, led by Lucio Magri and
Luciana Castellina. They were essentially the 1970's PDUP (Party of
Proletarian Unity), which had been established around the journal, then
daily, "Manifesto", and had subsequently entered the PCI maintaining a very
strong factional affiliation.
A number of smaller groupings were also involved from the start or later on,
among them the Italian section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International, which under the name of AQI (Fourth International Society)
was a component part of DP, the Stalinist pro-Soviet (formerly pro-China and
Maoist) PCd'I m-l (Communist Party of Italy Marxist-Leninist), and LCC
(Lotta Continua for Communism, the remnants of a large 1970's grouping:
Lotta Continua). A number of individual Bordiguists and a fair amount of
people connected with the Workers Autonomy (upto and including barely
disguised supporters of the Red Brigades) also joined the new formation.
And by the way, the question of what to do about Rifondazione comunista was
a factor in the dispute within the international tendency animated by
Militant (the Comittee for a Workers International), with the Italian
grouping Falcemartello adopting the line that the split from the PDS was a
short-lived event. (Personally, I was not in Militant, nor in Italy at the
time, and I speak from what I could read in the existing documentation).
Within AQI there were two battling factions, the majority led by Franco
Turigliatto and veteran Trotskyist Livio Maitan, and the minority
(internationally known as ITO, whose section in the USA is the TL/US), led
by Franco Grisolia and Marco Ferrando. Today the minority has its own
organised tendency within RC publishing the journal Proposta. The AQI
publishes Bandiera Rossa.
At the start, there was a fair amount of discussion about whether the new
political movement should consolidate into a formal party structure or
maintain a loser organisational form. What was very firmly agreed upon were
two things: no organised groupings could formally exist within the party
(which means that DP did not join as a body but as individual members), but
nobody was going to be disciplined for maintaining and expressing in public,
including by way of a separate publication, different views from those of
the majority and the leadership.
It has to be understood that RC was created on the initiative of the
Cossutta wing of the party. They were, and to a great extent still are, the
"decisive" section of Rifondazione comunista. What they intend to do tends
to be what is done.
They wanted to have an organisation open to the contribution of people from
outside the PCI, and they have defended this openness. Cossutta's years as
an oppositionist inside the PCI also taught him something very important
about the rights of minorities, and he has consequently defended in a
systematic fashion the right of all opponents to express themselves.
They wanted to get rid of General Secretary Garavini in the Summer 1993,
when he was becoming a real obstacle to the survival of RC as a party
independent of the PDS and the "Progressive" coalition fostered by it.
Through an alliance with the center-left grouping of DP and some former
PCI-ers and with the leftist elements (Stalinists and Trotskyists alike),
this was achieved.
The defeated right-wing of the party included a chunk of the former PCI-ers,
a section of DP, and the PDUP elements. (These people kept operating as a
broad opposition to the RC leadership, until they split away from RC in
1995, over the party's hard opposition to the current Dini government, a
"technician cabinet" supported by various right-wing and center forces and
by the PDS).
For several months, until the January 1994 Congress, the party had no
General Secretary. At the 2nd Congress, Fausto Bertinotti, until recently a
leader of the left-wing opposition inside the PCI-(PDS)-led union CGIL, took
over the central leading role of RC.
(For starters, this should do.)
NB: If comrades feel there are points of general interests to be expanded
upon, or have particular queries on this or that issue, they should post
them (or perhaps a better idea is to email me directly). I might then work
on an attempt at a comprehensive summary of questions and answers, sort of a
"Rifondazione comunista FAQ"  :-)
All the best,
Luciano



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