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Report from Rome by Leonardo Servadio Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 17, Number 14, March 30, 1990 Report from Rome by Leonardo Servadio Communist Party, the new 'thing'? Gorbachov in February 1989. They The PCI wants radical plastic surgery on its Achilles' heel-70 discussed that the PCI should change, become a new "thing," and build new years of close association to Bolshevism. alliances, especially with the Greenies and the Socialists. Cooperation be­ tween PCI and Brandt's SPD (the Ger­ man Social Democracy) has been up­ T he "thing" (cosa) was the interim the PCI is now trying to acquire the graded. Next, Occhetto went to New name chosen by Italian Communist look of a "pluralistic" and "democrat­ York-the first time for a PCI secre­ Party (PCI) general secretary Achille ic" party. One of the internal opposi­ tary-where he met establishment Occhetto in November, when he an­ tion leaders, Tortorella, has been figures like Edgar Bronfman and Da­ nounced he wanted to change the par­ named party president, as a way of vid Rockefeller and lectured at the ty and generate out of it a totally new signaling how pluralistic the once mo­ New York Times and the Council on "thing" capable of ruling Italy, in alli­ nolithic "thing" has become. Foreign Relations. Then he was feted ance with other left forces. While Oc­ But is it really changing? Two ele­ at Washington parties with CIA and chetto searches for a new name, wick­ ments are important: 1) Among the State Department representatives. ed tongues have referred to it as "Cosa final resolutions of the congress was Out of the Moscow and U. S. vis­ Nostra." the statement that the new unifiedGer­ its, the new "thing" was generated. It On March 8-11 the PCI held an many should stay out of NATO. 2) was clear that the PCI would become extraordinary party congress in its In an about-face, Socialist Party (PSI) in Italy the party of the "New Yalta," stronghold, Bologna, to discuss the leader Bettino Craxi greeted Oc­ just as the German SPD has this role proposal. With 67% of the delegates chetto's "change," announcing that in Germany. Occhetto wants a neutral on his side, Occhetto won the day. finally the "unity of the left" could be Germany, which can be better con­ The new PCI will emerge at an "ordi­ achieved. In short, Craxi said that trolled by Moscow in agreement with nary congress" a few months hence. with the Occhetto line he might aban­ the Anglo-American establishment. Against Occhetto's proposal was a don the ruling alliance with the DC to After all, the first recent leader to de­ "conservative" group, led by Aldo join in a new government with the mand a "neutralized" Germany was Tortorella and former party secretary PCI. The prospect is not immediate, not Gorbachov, but the SPD's Egon Alessandro Natta, who wanted to but in two years could become reali­ Babr. At a congress held in Rome in keep the status quo, and a small group ty-more or less the time frame set February, under the title "The Left, around Armando Cossutta, who has a by Socialist International boss Willy Security and Europe," PSI sociologist "Brezhnev-like" pro-Soviet bent. Brandt, at the SI's meeting in Geneva Tamburrano said: "Gorbachov and In his keynote, Occhetto called last November. Reagan, by taking away the missiles, for a total overhaul: statute, political Brandt, who is also at the center have brought the parties on the left orientation, name, and tradition of the process of recycling the Eastern closer to each other. " (Communists are good not only at European Communist Parties into so­ Craxi's PSI in the recent years has changing current strategy, but also at cial democratic parties, worked out a been totally Washington-oriented, transforming the past). Occhetto plan for the PCI to join the Socialist while the PCI has always been Mos­ more or less embraced the "free mar­ International within two years. In Bo­ cow-oriented. With the "New Yalta," ket," and this led to an burst of glee logna, Occhetto for the first time de­ the two parties are to bury the hatchet in those business layers, epitomized clared that the PCI wants to join the of their 1970s-80s quarrels, and join by De Benedetti of Olivetti, who hope Socialist International. At that point, in an alliance pivoted on the green, to see a new political constellation nothing stands in the way of the PCI, ecologist, anti-industrial policy. That formed around the PCI, as an "alter­ or whatever the "thing" will be called, is the instrument by which the two su­ native" to the Christian Democracy building a government with the PSI. perpowers want to control the world (DC), which has dominated Italy How did it come about that the in the 1990s. In other words, the PCI since World War II ended. PCI, which in the 1970s decided to has not changed, but has remained pri­ With the recognition of different be pro-NATO, is now taking an anti­ marily an instrument of foreign influ­ currents of opinion within the party NATO stand on the Germany issue? ence in Italy. It is the same old (a majority and two minority groups), Occhetto went to Moscow and met "thing." EIR March 30, 1990 International 55 © 1990 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited..
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