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Workers Power Global, Rome
Two million took to the streets of Rome on Saturday 23rd March to protest against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconiâs plans to slash workersâ legal rights. The demonstration, called by the main union confederation, the CGIL, was the biggest ever staged in Italy.
As well as a powerful answer to Berlusconi, however, this was also the best possible rebuff to those who carried out the assassination of the economist and labour lawyer, Professor Marco Biagi just five days earlier.
Biagi wasn't just any university professor. He was the author of the notorious "White Book" which formed the basis of the governmentâs proposals for "reforming" the labour market to the advantage of Italyâs employersâ federation. He was also heavily involved in the government attempt to modify Article 18 of the Workers' Statute which protects workers against unfair dismissal.
In short, Biagi's ideas were rotten to the core. They were the bosses' ideas wrapped up in the pink ribbons of bourgeois academia and the phoney language of liberal "moderation" and "compromise".
But, for all that, his assassination has to be condemned. Biagiâs pro-boss arguments and his attempts to present his policies as simply "objectively necessary" were no match for the militancy of Italian workers and his exploitation of his academic status would not have withstood a concerted campaign to remove him. His murder can play no role in advancing the working classâ campaign against Berlusconi - but neither was it meant to.
Politically, what was in the gunmanâs sights was the mass movement that has grown rapidly since the murder of Carlo Giuliani in Genoa last July. In the short term, the target was Saturdayâs demonstration. Whoever killed Biagi wanted to detract from the importance of the mass movement, possibly even to prevent the demonstration from taking place.
According to a document published at www.caserta24ore.it, the killing was the work of the "Red Brigades for the Construction of the Combatant Communist Party". Despite the name and the frequent use of "Marxist" vocabulary in their 26 page communiquŽ, this is a group whose whole political strategy is deeply anti-working class. Although the latest diatribe makes little reference to Biagi, it does make clear that the "Brigades" still believe that the workers are dormant and impermeable to revolutionary ideas. This, in their analysis, makes necessary their own "revolutionary" intervention.
Coming at a time when the supposedly dormant workersâ movement is increasingly dynamic, this suggests that the assassination was an attempt by the Brigades to force reality back into line with their theory.
Or the communiquŽ was issued by a unit of the secret services dressed up as non-existent Red Brigades. The vacuous language traditionally used by the Brigades would not be difficult to reproduce for even the dumbest of state agents. Nor should it be forgotten that, despite a recent report, published in the Italian press, that Biagi's life was in danger, his armed escort, removed last year, was not given back to him. Certainly, such agents have been implicated in terrorist activities in the past and the state had a clear interest in trying to derail preparations for Saturdayâs demonstration.
What effect, then, did the killing of Biagi have? On the one hand, the unions recognised that the murder of Biagi was an attack on them and on their struggle against the modifications to Article 18. Rather than pull back from fear of further rocking the boat, the CGIL trade union bureaucracy quite rightly condemned the killing and then confirmed the demonstration of 23 March. They also confirmed the general strike called for April.
However, by broadening the aim of the demonstration into a denunciation of terror and defence of democracy, the union leaders have, in effect, blunted the campaign against Berlusconi and this is dangerous. It stands in great contrast to the failure of the same union leaders to defend the democratic rights of the demonstrators in Genoa against the terror tactics of the carabinieri. In reality, the CGIL leaders have been more inclined to seek negotiations with the government than to lead mass mobilisations. It was mounting pressure from below that forced the calling of Saturdayâs demonstration.
Revolutionaries and activists from the workersâ movement and the anti-capitalist movement, which have grown together since Genoa, will have to fight to ensure that the CGIL does not now dilute, or even demobilise, Aprilâs general strike. The social forums which have sprung up in city after city across Italy must become the organising centres of the general strike, drawing in delegates from workplaces, unions, and political organisations to make sure the strike is the beginning of the end for Berlusconi Ð and Biagiâs "White Book".
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