What Is Left of the (Italian) Left?

Roberto Pedretti (Milan)

oday the left finds itself in the landscape, similar to a tidal wave that has Tdangerous but extraordinary submerged almost all the political forces condition of being called to reinvent and of the 20th century, in particular the left, rethink its role, to open, and experiment both in its multifarious forms, from the with, new spaces of possibilities. As Slavoj most reformist to the most radical one.5 Zizek writes in the long introduction The outcome of the last general elections to a selection of Lenin‘s writings, this in (4 March 2018) produced a means working through past historical political landscape that confirms a events – in particular failures – to re/ process that – apart from a few exceptions produce the coordinates of the left’s – seems to be global and systemic. project of emancipation.1 This should recover from the past and adapt to he crisis of the Italian and European 6 the present the historical purpose of Tleft is partly the outcome of the the left with the aim of breaking with intellectual and political difficulty of forms of subaltern thinking that have confronting the historical changes and hindered the redefinition of the political social transformations of the last decades. space in the context of the global It has produced a subordinate position economic and social transformations. towards the hegemony of the neoliberal consensus, which has prevented the left n his last book “La lunga eclissi. from evaluating the social and cultural IPassato e presente del dramma della effects this consensus has on its traditional sinistra”,2 Achille Occhetto - the last constituency and the emerging new PCI3 secretary and first secretary of social subjects. According to Paolo Flores PDS4, a national party born after the fall d‘Arcais, the hegemony of neoliberal of the Berlin wall in 1989 - writes that thought and practices has been realised we are facing an unrecognisable political to some extent because the left betrayed

Page 65 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) What Is Left of the (Italian) Left? its mandate by accepting as inevitable the last 50 years, defines as the rise of the economic-financial paradigm imposed self-declared common man in power. by the forces of capitalism. Thus, the European left has become complicit in a ccording to Tronti, in the first years system that tolerated reformist political Aafter the end of the Second World activism only as long as it was willing War, the democratic political system, to stay within a well-defined ideological based on great mass parties like the PCI horizon with the goal of co-opting the () and the DC left’s constituencies.7 If we interpret the (Christian Democracy), was able to get 9 crisis of the left within this framework, it rid of the Uomo Qualunque movement must be read as the product of a process within a short time thanks to the ability of social and economic transformation to represent, despite strong ideological starting in the 1970s. As stated by the differences, the needs of the subaltern philosopher Massimo Cacciari, we are classes and to shape the processes of a 10 facing an epochal transition, which general modernisation of Italian society. requires re-thinking and re-reading key It was only after the fall of fascism and words such as left, democracy, people, the adoption of the new institutional and values.8 Calling things by their real system based on the 1948 Constitution, name and remodelling their meaning that a pluralist approach was adopted; is the indispensable precondition for this provided forms of decentralised articulating a new project for the left. participation through the formation of democratic political institutions at Back to the Future the regional, provincial, and municipal level, based on a stable party system and ince the birth of fascism, Italy a strictly proportional electoral system.11 Shas often been labelled a political test case, a laboratory anticipating fter the great workers‘ struggles political tendencies and transformations Acycle of the 1960s and 1970s, the elsewhere. In this perspective, we have emancipatory and modernising function to consider the birth of Forza Italia of the left seemed to decline due to its and ‘Berlusconism’ at the beginning of inability to understand the profound the 1990s, a successful political project processes of social reorganisation rhetorically based on redeeming the brought on by the transformation of power of the self-made man and taunting capitalism As Hardt and Negri underline, professional politicians. Today this in the last fifty years the primary site of anomaly reappears in the form of what production has shifted from the factory the philosopher Mario Tronti, a leading to society. Automation, information protagonist of the political debate of the technology and financialisation conjured

Page 66 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Roberto Pedretti to create new social relations and new by the crisis of the Fordist mode of subjectivities.12 The political cultures production, the gradual financialisation inspired by the communist and socialist of capital and the globalisation of the tradition – as well as the popular Catholic markets. This transformation changed one – played a diminishing role as centres the social structure of the country of ideological aggregation and identity and led to a gradual weakening of building, giving way to accentuated the cultural and social fabric on forms of individualism linked to the which the left had built its success. new forms of consumption and the transformation of the labour market.13 he inability to fully understand Tthe structural changes was evident ntil then, the strongest communist in strategic choices made by the main Uparty of the western world had party of the left, the PCI: between 1973 been the main driving force of the social and 1979 it passed from the so-called and civil transformation of the country, ‘historical compromise’ (an agreement a force which ruled in several regions of government with the DC) to the of the nation and most of the main proposal of a ‘democratic alternative’ metropolitan areas, imposing a specific (re-proposing an alliance with the form of cultural and ideological hegemony socialist area). Moreover, the attempt that distinguished it profoundly from its to imagine a ‘third way’, a nebulous brotherly parties. TheCommunist Party proposal that aimed to overcome both and its allies usually gained around 40 the European model of social democracy to 45 per cent of the votes and managed and Soviet socialism, was an additional to build a consensus that transcended supplement to this political deadlock.14 class boundaries and integrated vast Some historical events are still sectors of the middle classes and the indicative of this difficulty in grasping entrepreneurial class. The electoral peak the depth of these structural changes. of the coincided with the general elections of June 1976, when the n the midst of a long and fierce labour whole of the Italian left gathered about Idispute in FIAT, the success of the so- 46 to 47 per cent of the votes with the called ‘march of the forty thousand’, a Communist Party at about 35 per cent. public protest organised by white-collar workers and managerial cadres of the t is one of the paradoxes of history automotive industry in in October Ithat the difficulties of the Italian 1980, symbolically marked the end of left began at that very moment. The an era and the beginning of a process of left failed to understand the structural marginalisation of the workers unions. economic transformation driven At the time, few observers understood

Page 67 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) What Is Left of the (Italian) Left? the historical range of this defeat and cultural transformations determined the fact that it was the harbinger of largely by the new models of labour the profound restructuring process of market organisation were imposing their industrial and trade union relations effects on the part of society traditionally as well as the start of restructuring linked to the left. The appearance and programmes of the production apparatus spread of new models of industrial that would eventually lead to the end production and organisation of work, of the traditional Fordist factory.15 defined as ‘molecular capitalism’, ‘family capitalism’ or the ‘people of the VAT ID few years later, in 1985, a numbers’17, led to the emergence of new A referendum initiated by the PCI social subjectivities that the left failed and the CGIL, the largest workers to understand and then to intercept.18 union, against cutting the so-called ‘scala mobile’ (a state controlled he incubation of the crisis mechanism to automatically update the Tof the left exploded in all its salaries to the inflation rate), was clearly virulence in 2008 and caused what defeated, which further signalled both Tronti defines as the mutation of the the fracture within the left on this and left political élite, a mutation that other issues related to economic and is retrospectively understood and industrial policies and the unexpected explained by Massimo D‘Alema19 in a change of feeling in a large part of long critical reflection. He claims that public opinion on industrial relations 16 [...] the liberal-socialist vision has proved and development. The decline of the to be largely illusory and that reformism Italian left and its main protagonist, the has been crushed between the weight PCI, was also symbolically represented of the global economy and the markets in the dramatic death in 1984 of and the limited possibility of action of political institutions that have remained the party’s secretary general, Enrico largely national.20 Berlinguer. Suffering from a stroke at a rally in Padua during the election gain Tronti‘s reflection recalls campaign for the , Ahow the failure to grasp he died a few days later. More than one the oppressive and predatory million activists attended his public character of financial and neoliberal funeral in Rome, an event of historical capitalism made it impossible to find significance that seemed to close an era […] the [...] way that went beyond the and perhaps brought together for the great history of the labour movement, last time what had been the communist without repeating it and without people. Radical social, political and forgetting it: assuming the inheritance to invest it in a new, always alternative

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enterprise. [...] It was legitimate to think only possibility of political action.22 of a temporary middle way between capitalism and socialism but not only to The Roots of the Defeat manage the first one, rather ruling it, to use it for other purposes that gradually ince the mid-nineties the figures should overcome it.21 Sfor the electoral losses of both the n this sense the fall of the Berlin Wall European and Italian left seem indicative Inot only represented the traumatic of a relentless decline in every election. closure of the communist experience, Throughout the previous period, most it has also meant the acceleration of Western European left-wing parties the end of the social-democratic and in all their ideological articulations reformist experiment, of the thirty- (from centre-left reformism to far-left year period of the welfare state project radicalism) settled steadily at least around (at least in most of Western Europe).

rom that moment on, from the PCI’s Ftraumatic congress of dissolution of 1991, that led to a split with the party’s far-left wing and the name change to PDS, the Italian anomaly began to give birth to movements and political parties constructed around nationalist, xenophobic and populist contents. In this context, the Italian left pursued a strategy that prioritised governability with the illusion of being able to somehow control these developments. In essence, the Italian left limited itself to following the processes of globalisation and financialisation of the economy Distribution of the vote to the PCI in the from a position of complicity and 1987 political elections failed to develop a political and cultural © Thern (CC BY-SA 3.0) alternative. The underestimation of 40 per cent of the votes, in some cases even the contradictions and social costs exceeding this figure by 6 to 7 points.23 imposed by economic-financial In the Italian case, this peak was reached globalisation produced a response both in the general elections of 1976 when insufficient and suicidal in pursuing a the sum of the left-wing parties, with the technocratic management model as the overwhelming prevalence of the PCI,

Page 69 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) What Is Left of the (Italian) Left? reached about 46 per cent of the votes disappointing 7.3 million.24 According and then settled steadily at around 40 per to analysis of the electoral flows of the cent until the beginning of the Nineties. 2018 elections, the voters abandoning the PD were mainly channelled towards ince the first general elections of the 5-Star Movement and to a lesser S1948 the Italian Communist Party extent to the League or abstained, while has always scored above 20 per cent, only a residual part moved towards the reaching its highest level of votes in the other leftist parties.25 These surveys 1976 general elections (34.4 per cent). show that a conspicuous part of the After the dramatic turn determined by traditionally left-wing Italian electorate the events of 1989/91, the new political chose to support those movements and subject born from the ashes of the PCI parties labelled as „populist“ as a way (in all its declinations and acronyms, to punish the left-wing parties for their that is: PDS, DS and PD) never inability or unwillingness to address the succeeded in repeating these results electorate’s social needs and discomfort. and indeed showed a trend towards a In this respect, it is evident that we are steady decrease in the percentage of facing a problem of representation of votes it gathered at the ballot boxes. both the traditional working classes and Despite the noteworthy exception of the those social groups (temporary workers, 2014 European elections, when the PD the underemployed, youngsters and received 40 per cent of the votes (but in unemployed intellectuals), that are the the context of a very low turnout), the products of the transformation of the heir of the Communist Party mustered social relations according to the needs of only 18.8 per cent of the votes in the the globalised markets. TheDemocratic 2018 general elections – a decrease of Party lost approximately 50 per cent around 8 per cent compared to those of of its share of votes between 2008 and 2013. Further, the crisis of the Italian left 2018, decreasing from a maximum of is confirmed by the disappointing results 12 million to a minimum of 6 million of other smaller radical left-wing parties votes. As a consequence, the Democratic such as Potere al Popolo (Power to the Party and the other left-wing subjects People), LEU Liberi e Uguali (Free and risk confining themselves to those Equal), SEL Sinistra e Libertà (Left and cosmopolitan middle- and upper-class Freedom), RC Rifondazione Comunista metropolitan urban enclaves which (Party of the Communist Refoundation). showed greater dynamism and resilience From approximately 32.3 million in response to the economic crisis.26 valid votes, the sum of those cast for Again the analysis of electoral flows the Italian left-wing parties reached a underline this transformation, pointing

Page 70 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Roberto Pedretti out how the propensity to vote for the left which has failed to offer a credible increases in accordance with the growth narrative in order to grasp the anxieties of personal income.27 The difficulty of and concerns many citizens share. intercepting and representing those social groups suffering from deep social The Wings of Hope – What Is to Be insecurity is a consequence of the lack of Done? commitment to the traditional themes he contemporary conjuncture, of the left such as unemployment, job characterised by the powerful shortages, minimum wages, or welfare. T resurfacing of aggressive reactionary For these groups, the political approach thinking and spreading of isolationist of the M5S appears more credible and and nationalist politics, opens spaces less prone to the technocratic recipes and of resistance and opposition toward the politics of sacrifice that are perceived the proliferation of such new forms of as unfair and imposed by a distant cultural and ideological conservatism. European bureaucracy. In addition, the impact of the issues of globalisation n a long editorial, published in the daily and immigration, which appear key Inewspaper la Repubblica, the former factors in mobilising the Italian public editor and writer, Ezio Mauro, observes opinion and feeding public discourses, the failure to understand and interpret has been underestimated by the left, the metamorphosis and transformation

© La Cara Salma (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Page 71 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) What Is Left of the (Italian) Left? of the social body as the main reason the spread of what Fabio Vighi defines as leading to the catastrophe of the March [t]he metastatic growth of populism 2018 general elections. He writes: [...], a metastasis functional to the maintenance of the domination of The lack of a strong commitment to capital in its financial form which, change and of a visionary political through the various forms of ‘populism’, project hinders the transformation of the depoliticises the social struggles by political and cultural identity of the left. creating and nurturing the invention of The left appears unable to find the words an external enemy, be it the immigrant, to speak to a dispersed and disappointed multiculturalism, technocracies.30 people who are waiting for a political project and a leadership ready to propose an alternative to the ferocious, ccording to Vighi’s radical selfish and amateurish image of Italy the Ainterpretation, the crisis of the government in charge proposes every left can be solved only by rearticulating 28 day with its actions and decisions. the proper political dimension to the wide spectrum of social struggles, howing similar disenchanted and which are symptomatic of the inherent worried feelings, Achille Occhetto S contradictions of the current form reflects upon the narrow horizons in of capitalism. This means the radical which this debate is confined, indicating transformation of the left’s mentality the short temporal perspective as one to achieve a break with the relationship of its limitations. He underlines that of subordination to neoliberalism and we should insist on a radical reflection the policies of austerity and sacrifices, beginning with the collapse of the great and to accept the challenge posed by narratives of the 20th century and their populism and the ‘populist’ political failure if we want to identify the reasons platforms. It means addressing issues for the disillusionment and distancing that once again should become part of of a part of society that manifests itself the identity of the left, such as basic in confused and disoriented ways. income (or whatever you might call it), Occhetto insists on the need to recover labour rights, defence and improvement the abandoned and disappointed people of civil and social rights, and a renewed and to accept the challenge to build a new relationship with the European Union. idea of political involvement inviting, and Ernesto Laclau‘s thesis that all political experimenting with, different forms of discourse has a populist dimension activism, militancy and participation.29 implies that the left has to abandon a The lack of vision of the left, a narrow vision of populism and cease to political subject stubbornly obsessed consider populism as a symptom of a with good governance principles and disease to be morally condemned rather bureaucratic technicalities, has allowed

Page 72 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Roberto Pedretti than a political subject with its own the closure of each antagonistic political dimension to be fought on the space and all possibility of social political level. The ‘trap of populism’, in transformation, instead of imagining an which the left seems imprisoned, makes ‘other’ beyond the logic of capitalism. it difficult to bring back politics in its Together with the ability to imagine antagonistic dimension, reconstructing possible futures, heating the hearts and a politics of representation of the minds of its people, above all the left interests of collectivities as well as a has lost its memory, symbols and myths. different meaning of the word ‘people’. Among other things, it means rejecting riticism of the grand ideological the illusory creation of the people as a Cnarratives of the 20th century has phantasmal figure opposed to an ‘other’ fuelled the perception that left and right equally ghostly and elusive (the élite, have disappeared. In reality this is the finance, bureaucratic technocracies, result of an ideological operation leading immigrants), and a radically diverse to acceptance of the neoliberal code as the definition of people, one constructed only legitimate source of construction inside the concrete social relations and of the present. There is no doubt that affiliations. In this regard, the philosopher the crisis of the left also derives from and communist Mario Tronti states, this catastrophic cultural subordination referring to the history of the mass that paved the way to the hegemony of parties of the second half of the 20th the right-wing ideology in forms which century, that “[s]ince there were people, gave new meanings to old narratives and there was no populism. If anything, successfully reintroduced in the popular today we have populism because there the debate on nation, sovereignty, are no people.”31 This disappearance national identity and belonging. Today, coincides with the abandonment of the term ‘left’ has lost its vocation to the traditional concept of social classes convey the idea of a possible beyond, a and the lack of understanding of the vision of a world with more equal and emergence of new subjectivities whose just social and political structures. It is social composition has dramatically worth remembering the dramatic rupture changed and escaped the usual patterns that occurred between the left and the of interpretation. These subjectivities are world of labour in a phase of profound the product of the new form the capitalist and radical transformation. Maurizio relations assumed outside the traditional Landini, the Secretary-General of the 32 factory system. This mistake has been CGIL (the largest Italian trade union exacerbated by embracing the neoliberal representing over 6 million members), and individualist ideology, determining recognises in the rupture the effects of the

Page 73 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) What Is Left of the (Italian) Left? political and cultural isolation of the left of the balance of forces in favour of a and underlines the necessity to respond – conservative and reactionary hegemony thinking of new forms of representation undermining the “[...] progressive desires – to the need for participation that for a more human, just and equitable emerges from the forms of labour created world”35 we are asked to articulate by neoliberal capitalism, producing different maps of knowledge in order new subjectivities among people who to oppose the present conjuncture. The are often deprived of guarantees and word ‘left’ sounds hollow and feeble: rights.33 The political void opened by while the right imposes its political the lack of a radical transformative agenda based on a set of strong issues, project has been filled by political the left appears voiceless and unable forces that have imposed narratives to give new form to its values and which reject mediation and delegitimise tradition. If we want to understand what the function of intermediate bodies, has happened in the last decades, and offering instead forms of authoritarian renew the tools to transform the present management supported by the search and stop the spread of the right, it is for a direct relationship with the masses, necessary to begin with a semantic shift, recreating that irrational relationship ceasing to call ‘left’ what is not ‘left’. It which paved the way to fascism. means to invent a new vocabulary in order to fill this cultural and ideological f, following Nicholas DeGenova‘s void and to reopen the space of utopian Iargument, populism pretends to be the possibilities, that is to construct and give true expression and voice of the people form to the possibility of radical change. as opposed to an imagined other, then the left is called to counter such a project of redefining social antagonism because it tries to hide the real forms and sources of inequalities and injustice constitutive Bibliography of the social order.34 An ambitious left- wing political programme would start Benvenuto, Giorgio and Maglie, with the reconstruction of a collective Antonio, Il divorzio di San Valentino. horizon based on new forms of agency, Così la scala mobile divise l‘Italia, 2016, participation and organisation of public Bibliotheka Edizioni, Roma. life. In one of his most recent essays, Lawrence Grossberg suggests that in Cacciari, Massimo, Nell‘indifferenza al these hard times, characterised by anger, male finisce l‘Europa, muore la politica, fear and desperation and by the shifting in L‘Espresso, http://espresso.repubblica. it/plus/articoli/2018/06/22/news/nell-

Page 74 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Roberto Pedretti indifferenza-al-male-finisce-l-europa- Mauro, Ezio, La sinistra tentata dal muore-la-politica-1.324102 balcone, in la Repubblica, 19/12/2018.

D‘Alema, Massimo, La critica Occhetto, Achille, La lunga eclissi. (autocritica) di D‘Alema, in Passato e presente del dramma della L‘Huffington Post, https://www. sinistra, 2018 Sellerio Editore, Palermo. huffingtonpost.it/2018/10/20/la-critica- autocritica-di-dalema_a_23566643/ Revelli, Marco, Lavorare in FIAT. Da Valletta ad Agnelli a Romiti. Operai, D‘Alema Massimo, All’origine della sindacati, robot, 1989, Garzanti, Torino. crisi della sinistra, scelte che vengono da lontano, in Italianieuropei, Ginsborg, Paul, L‘Italia del tempo 2/2018. https://italianieuropei.it/it/ presente, 1998, Einaudi, Torino. italianieuropei-2-2018/item/4004- Landini, Maurizio, cit. in, La mia editoriale-2/2018.html CGIL ritornerà alle origini, interview De Genova, Nicholas, Rebordering “the by Munafò, Mauro, in L‘Espresso, People”: Notes on Theorizing Populism, 10/3/2019. in South Atlantic Quarterly, vol.117, Tronti, Mario, Il popolo perduto. Per una April, 2018. critica della sinistra, 2019, Nutrimenti, Flores d‘Arcais, Paolo, La sinistra Roma. che si è fatta destra, in Micromega Vighi, Fabio, Populist Symptoms and http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega- the Curse of the Capitalist Fetish, in online/ragionamenti-fuori-luogo- Third Text, 2019, http://doi.org/10.108 %e2%80%93-2-la-sinistra-che-si-e- 0/09528822.2018.1558652 fatta-destra/printpage=undefined Zizek, Slavoj, Lenin oggi, 2017, Ponte Grossberg, Lawrence, Pessimism of delle Grazie, Milano. the Will, Optimism of the Intellect: Endings and Beginnings, in Cultural Studies, vol.32, vol.18, 2018, Issue 6. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1 0.1080/09502386.2018.1517268

Hardt, Michael and, Negri, Antonio, Assembly, 2017, Oxford University Press, New York.

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Endnotes opportunity for the development of a real democracy in Italy see Gramsci, Antonio, Il 1 Zizek, Slavoj, Lenin oggi, 2017, Ponte delle Risorgimento, 1996, editori Riuniti, Roma Grazie, Milano, pp. 7-15. 12 Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio, 2 Occhetto, Achille, La lunga eclissi. Passato Assembly, 2017, Oxford University Press, New e presente del dramma della sinistra, 2018, Sellerio York, pp. 111-115. Editore, Palermo. 13 Ginsborg, Paul, L’Italia del tempo presente, 3 PCI (Parito Comunista Italiano – Italian 1998, Einaudi, Torino, pp. 197-201. Communist Party) 1921-1991. 14 Ginsborg, Paul, cit., pp. 293-297. 4 PDS (Partito Democratico della Sinistra – of the Left) 1991-1998. 15 Revelli, Marco, Lavorare in FIAT. Da Valletta ad Agnelli a Romiti. Operai, sindacati, robot, 5 Occhetto, Achille, cit., pp.13-15 1989, Garzanti, Torino.

6 Although problematic, the term “left” 16 Benvenuto, Giorgio and Maglie, Antonio, will be used as a metonym including all those Il divorzio di San Valentino. Così la scala mobile subjects (parties, movements, etc.) occupying a divise l’Italia, 2016, Bibliotheka Edizioni, Roma. vast and unstable ideological spectrum, from the reformist right-wing social democrats to the far-left 17 The last 30 years witnessed a huge increase communist traditions. Moreover, it will be used as in the number of the work force made up of a way to describe a cultural tradition rooted in a professionals and self-employed. These workers myriad of historical experiences. partly substitute the traditional forms of workforce and escape the national collective agreements. This 7 Flores d’Arcais, Paolo, http://temi. results in the growth of job insecurity and the loss repubblica.it/micromega-online/ragionamenti- of labour and welfare rights. fuori-luogo-%e2%80%93-2-la-sinistra-che-si- e-fatta-destra/printpage=undefined. Last access 18 Bonomi, Aldo, Il capitalismo molecolare, 25/2/2019. 1997, Einaudi, Torino.

8 Cacciari, Massimo, http://espresso. 19 An outstanding protagonist of the post-war repubblica.it/plus/articoli/2018/06/22/news/nell- history of the left, he was part of the leadership indifferenza-al-male-finisce-l-europa-muore-la- of the PCI and the PDS. He was the first post- politica-1.324102 Last access 26/2/2019. communist to serve in the office of Italian Prime Minister in 1998. 9 The Fronte dell’Uomo Qualunque (Front of the Common Man) was founded by the 20 D’Alema, Massimo, La critica (autocritica) journalist and writer Guglielmo Giannini in 1946. di D’Alema, in L’Huffington Post, https:// It won a big success in the 1946 election before www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/10/20/la-critica- it disappeared after two years. The Front sentt autocritica-di-dalema_a_23566643/. Last access 30 representatives to the Assemblea Costituente 13/03/2019 (my translation) (Constituent Assembly), the first democratic political body elected after the end of fascism. 21 Tronti, Mario, cit., pp. 82-83. (my translation) 10 Tronti, Mario, Il popolo perduto. Per una critica della sinistra, 2019, Nutrimenti, Roma, p. 22 See D’Alema Massimo, All’origine della 12. crisi della sinistra, scelte che vengono da lontano, in Italianieuropei, 2/2018. https://italianieuropei. 11 On the Risorgimento as a missed it/it/italianieuropei-2-2018/item/4004-

Page 76 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Roberto Pedretti editoriale-2/2018.html. Last access 18/3/2019. 35 Grossberg, Lawrence, Pessimism of the Will, Optimism of the Intellect: Endings and 23 See http://www.parlgov.org/explore/ita/ Beginnings, p. 863. election/. Last access 18/3/2019

24 See: http://www.cattaneo.org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/03/Analisi-Istituto-Cattaneo- Elezioni-Politiche-2018-Chi-ha-vinto-chi-ha- perso-5-marzo-2018-2.pdf. Last access 18/3/2019

25 See: http://www.cattaneo.org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/03/Analisi-Istituto-Cattaneo- Elezioni-Politiche-2018-Flussi-elettorali-5- marzo-2018.pdf. Last access 18/3/2019

26 For these reasons the PD has been labelled “partito dei centri storici” (party of the urban historic centres) by researchers and the media. The most affluent, dynamic urban areas (homes of the metropolitan élite) of the country seem less preoccupied with the effect of the economic crisis, while showing more concerns over the issue of civil rights (gender policies, ius soli, gay marriage, etc.).

27 See: http://open.luiss.it/2018/09/17/la- crisi-della-sinistra-italiana-spiegata-con-10-grafici/. Last access 19/3/2019.

28 Mauro, Ezio, La sinistra tentata dal balcone, in la Repubblica, 19/12/2018, p.1 and p.35.

29 Occhetto, Achille, cit., pp. 207-210.

30 Vighi, Fabio, Populist Symptoms and the Curse of the Capitalist Fetish, in Third Text, 2019, http://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2018.1558652

31 Tronti, Mario, cit., pag.98. (my translation)

32 CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro). The strongest left-wing Italian union.

33 Landini, Maurizio, cit. in, La mia CGIL ritornerà alle origini, interview by Munafò, Mauro, in L’Espresso, 10/3/2019, pp. 20-28.

34 De Genova, Nicholas, Rebordering “the People”: Notes on Theorizing Populism, inSouth Atlantic Quarterly, vol.117, April, 2018, pp.362- 365.

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