Italy: Social forums lack direction
8 February 2004

Over the weekend of the 7-8 of February more than a thousand representatives of the Italian social forums met in Bologna to chart a way forward for the network. They met in an occupied building in the city in part because the Bologna social forum has been one of the most active and involved in social struggles during the past year.

Italy is experiencing a serious bout of inflation (in part masked by rigged official figures) at the same time that many workers have had no new wage deals and rises for three years or more. This inflation is hitting the petit bourgeoisie too, giving the whole social situation a palpable feeling of an approaching explosion.

The forums met against the background of a series of one-day wildcat strikes in the public services, including militant protests against Berlusconi&Mac226;s attempts to "reform" the public school system by parents and school students. These latter demonstrations were heavily and obtrusively policed and Berlusconi has threatened a new law to make it illegal for "children" to go on political demonstrations.

Issuing dire warnings against terrorism and communism Berlusconi is seeking to intimidate the working class movement – or at any rate its official leaders. With these leaders he is having some success. The leaders of the main union federations, the Cgil, Cisl etc. have repeatedly abandoned the transport workers, seeking to reach rotten deals with the local, regional and national employers.

These cowardly actions have provoked the wildcat strikes, a number of splits away from the main union federations. In Turin, Milan and Brescia strikers massively called for all-out indefinite action though they did not have the confidence to organise it themselves. Even Cobas which has actively supported the one-day wildcats has suffered a split.

Yet Italy is clearly on the verge of another wave of nationwide social revolt, with potential to turn into a strike wave against the Berlusconi government. Unfortunately the official leaderships both political and trade union are doing all they can to obstruct or defuse the situation.

Even more unfortunate is that the social forums, which attract some of the most radical forces from the anticapitalist and workers&Mac226; movement seem to have no idea how to take forward and give political focus to the incredible militancy of rank and file workers.

Not a single clear call for a national, indefinite general strike was issued by any of the speakers, nor any call to make the social forums the organising centres for the wildcat strikers themselves as well as for solidarity with them. Of course, there were many calls for the latter, including recognition that the social forums had failed to do this sufficiently over the past period.

There was clearly a left and a right wing within the conference. The left consisted of Cobas, the Disobedienti and the left wing of Rifondazione Comunista (RC) represented by Piero Benocchi, Luca Casarini and Franco Grisolia. Grisolia of Proposta Comunista did indeed, correctly criticise the official leadership, including that of Rifondazione itself for letting down the strikers and being obsessed with their electoral manoeuvres. He even raised the question of the general strike, but as something that needs to be discussed rather than as a clarion call to action.

Indeed the whole debate lacked any sense of urgency, no sense that it was the duty to the left to offer workers a way forward. Here again the spontaneism and libertarianism of the Italian left – "we cannot tell the masses what to do" – only complements and reinforces the bureaucratic stranglehold of the official leadership. Repeatedly, when faced with the betrayals of the bureaucrats and parliamentarians this left retreats into radical phrasemongering.

And there was plenty of that on display from Bernocchi and Casarini. After Genoa 2001 they had proclaimed a full-scale retreat from confrontation and street militancy. Now once again they were zig-zagging back to their former positions, denouncing pacifism and quietism and calling for militant actions, civil disobedience etc, once more. Casarini roundly condemned Fausto Bertinotti, leader of RC, for his pacifism, condemnations of "terrorism" etc. in recent articles in the press.

As against the left the right (Attac and others) – led by Vittorio Agnoletto - sharply criticised such "ultra-leftism" and defended the union leaderships ad the parties, calling for "practical" (i.e. electoral) policies not the encouragement of social revolt with all its unpredictable and fearful consequences. The full-scale cowardice of reformism was on show.

The same debate erupted over the 20 March day of action against war, called for by the ESF and WSF assemblies of social movements in Paris and Mumbai. The left correctly called for the immediate withdrawal of all the armed forces of the USA and its allies (including the Italians) and for solidarity with the resistance of Iraqis to the occupation. Attac and the Cgil made it clear that they would not go beyond calling for withdrawal of the forces.

There is a real danger that thanks to the cowardice of the right there will be separate demonstrations: huge reformist ones and more militant but much smaller ones by the left. Sensible tactics by the left would be to infiltrate the mass demonstrations and turn them into militant anti-imperialist ones solidarising with the Iraqi resistance, But the tactical ineptness of the left, its tendency to sectarianism faced with reformism, may contribute to a split in the antiwar movement.

Indeed at the meeting and afterwards a number of representatives acknowledged a real crisis in the Italian social forum movement, a failure to give a focus to the wildcat strikes and social movements against Berluconi&Mac226;s neoliberal reforms (pensions, schools).

What the militant and organised Italian movement lacks is a political force, arguing for clear tactics to bring the workers&Mac226; strikes and the struggles of the social movement to a head.

For an archive of all articles on the ESF since Florence 2002 see here>>