The moral question
Enrico Berlinguer - Republic, 1981
Interview with Enrico Berlinguer
"The parties are now machines of power '
" The parties are no longer political, "says Enrico Berlinguer.
"The parties have degenerated and that is the source of the ills of Italy."
Eugenio Scalfari
*
Passion is over?
We share a passion has not ended. But for others? I do not want to give opinions and put their foot in the house of another, but the facts are there and are there for all to see. The parties of today are mainly machinery and power score: poor or mystified knowledge of life and the problems of society and people, ideas, ideals, programs, or just vague feelings and civic passion, zero. Operating interest, the most diverse, the most contradictory, sometimes sinister, however, no relation to the emerging needs and human needs, or distort them, without seeking the common good. Their organizational structure is now aligned on this model, and organizers are no longer of the people who promote the formation and maturation civil initiative federations are quite current, cliques, each with a "boss" and "sub-boss." The geopolitical map of the parties is made up of names and places. For DC: Bisaglia in Veneto, Gava in Campania, Puglia Lattanzio, Andreotti in Lazio, Avellino De Mita, Gaspari in Abruzzo, Marche Forlani and so on. But for the Socialists, more or less the same and even worse for the Social Democrats ...
She said earlier that the degeneration of parties is the essential point of the Italian crisis.
That's what I think.
Why?
parties have occupied the state and all its institutions, from government. They occupied the local authorities, security agencies, banks, public enterprises, cultural institutions, hospitals, universities, Rai TV, some major newspapers. For example, today there is a danger that the major Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, fall into the hands of this or that party or its current, but we prevent a large-Courier newspaper as a face so ugly end. Everything has already been divided up and score or you would like to carve up and share. And the result is dramatic. All of the "operations" that the various institutions and their current leaders are called upon to perform are seen mainly in the interests of the Current or party or clan to which the charge. A bank loan is granted if it is useful for this purpose if it confers benefits and customer relations, administrative authorization is given, a contract is awarded, is assigned a chair, laboratory equipment is financed, if the beneficiaries do act loyalty to the party that provides these benefits, even when it is only due recognition.
you make a picture of reality from make Italian creepy.
in your opinion is not the case?
I must admit, Mr. Secretary, much of which is a realistic picture. But I would ask you to bear this state if the Italians of things is a sign that they accept it or you do not realize it. Otherwise you would have won the leadership of the country for some time.
The question is complex. I will answer neatly. First: many Italians, I think, is well aware of the illicit trade that is made by the State of oppression, favoritism, discrimination. But most of them under blackmail. Received benefits (perhaps due, but obtained only through the channels of political parties and their currents) or hope to receive, or fear of not receiving more. He wants a confirmation of what I say? Compare the wish that the Italians have given during the referendum and the normal and local elections. The vote in the referendum does not favor, does not involve relations of patronage, not at stake and no candidates and mobilizes private interests or a group or part. It is a completely free vote by these kinds of conditions. Well, both in '74 for divorce, and, even more, 81 for abortion, the Italians have given the image of being a free and modern, have given a vote of progress. To the north and south, in cities as in rural, middle-class neighborhoods like those in workers and proletarians. And local elections in the picture changes, even after a few weeks. We are
my other question, if it helps, Mr. Secretary, you should have won by a piece, if things are as she describes.
In a sense, by contrast, may seem extraordinary that even a party like ours, which goes so much against the current bad habit, retains many consents and even enhances them. But I think I know what you think, because we declare a party to be "different" from others, do you think that Italians have this fear of diversity.
That's right, I think this your overt diversity. Sometimes they speak as if you were the Martians or of the missionaries in the land of unbelievers and people warning. He wants to explain clearly to what is your diversity? It is to be afraid?
Someone, yes, has reason to fear them, and you understand immediately who I mean. For a clear answer to your question, I will list for very simple point in our being that is different, so I hope there will be no misunderstanding margin. So: first, we want the parties cease to occupy the state. The parties must, as we stated in our Constitution, in the formation of the political will of the nation, and what they can do it does not take larger chunks of state, more and more centers of power in every field, but interpreting the great currents of opinion, organizing the aspirations of the people, democratically controlling the operation of institutions. Here's the first reason for our diversity. Do you think Italians should inspire such fear?
We come to the second diversity.
We believe that the privilege should be fought and destroyed wherever they nest, the poor and the marginalized, the disadvantaged, should be defended, and should be given a voice and real chance of counting in the decisions and change their own conditions, that certain social needs and humans today should be ignored met in priority to others, that the professionalism and merit should be rewarded, that the participation of every citizen and every citizen in public affairs must be ensured.
Mr Berlinguer, say all these things.
Yeah, but none of the parties, the government does. We Communists have sixty of history and to strive for and we showed them seriously. In jail with the workers there was us, the mountains with the partisans there was us, in the settlements with the unemployed there was us, with the women, the marginalized working class, with young people there was us, the direction of some municipalities in some regions, which are administered honestly, there was us.
not only you.
is true, but we especially. And we pass to the third point of difference. We think that the kind of capitalist economic and social development is causing serious distortions of the immense costs and social inequality, the enormous waste of wealth. We do not want to follow the models of socialism that have been made to date, reject a rigid, centralized economic planning, we think the market can maintain an essential function, that individual initiative is irreplaceable, that private enterprise has its own space and retains its important role. But we believe that all these realities in the capitalist forms-and especially, today, under the hood of leaded system based on the DC no longer work, and therefore can and must discuss how to overcome capitalism understood as mechanism, as the system since it now is creating a growing mass of unemployed, marginalized, exploited. He's here, at bottom, not only because of the economic crisis, but the phenomena of barbarism, the spread of drug abuse, rejection of work, lack of confidence, boredom and despair. It is a crime to have these ideas?
not find significant differences compared to what might think a strong European social democrat. But she seems an insult to be compared to a Social Democrat.
Well, there is a substantial difference. Social democracy (I mean that seriously, of course) has always been very concerned about the workers, unionized workers organized and little or nothing about the marginalized, the underclass, women. In fact, now that you have exhausted the ancient margins of a capitalist development that allowed a social democratic policy, now that the problems that I mentioned earlier erupted throughout the capitalist West, there are also signs of crisis in the German Social Democracy and British Labour, because the social democratic parties are facing a reality for them previously unknown or ignored by them.
So, you are a serious socialist party ...
... in the sense that we are serious about building socialism ...
mind, the concern that the PSI launches signals to middle-class strata of society?
No, I'm not worried. Middle class, bourgeoisie productive layers are important in the country and their political and economic interests when they are legitimate, must be adequately defended and represented. Even we do. If these groups move some of their votes to the secular parties and to the PSI, abandoning the traditional protection Democrat, you need only be satisfied, but on one condition. The condition is that, with these new ratings, the PSI and the secular parties to be able to demonstrate a policy and implement a program that really can provide real and deep change compared to the past than at present. But if it were simply a transfer of patronage to consolidate, under new labels, old and current relationship between political parties and State, Party and government, political parties and society, with the deleterious ways of governing and administering the consequent, then I see what we can be satisfied with us and the country.
According to her, this change of methods and policy there or not?
Frankly, no. Perhaps you saw him? The people notice? Go around Sicily, for example, will see that in most there was a transfer of the client. I do not want to say that always and everywhere so. But I say that the Socialists and Social Democrats have so far given no sign of wanting to start the reform of the relationship between parties and institutions, which then is nothing but a correct restoration of the constitutional provisions, without which it can begin any renovation, and without which the moral issue remains totally unresolved.
You said several times that the moral issue today is at the heart of the Italian question. Why?
The moral issue is not limited by the fact that, there being thieves, corrupt, extortioner in the upper echelons of politics and administration, we must find them, you must report them and put them in jail. The moral question, in Italy today, is one with the employment status by the parties and their current government, is one with the gang war, is one with the concept of politics and the methods of government of them, ranging semmplicemente abandoned and outdated. That's why I say that the moral issue is the center of the Italian problem. That's because the other parties may be profire forces of renewal only if serious attack in the middle of the moral issue going to his political causes. [...] What is really interesting is the fate of the country. If you continue in this way, democracy in Italy is likely to shrink, not expand and develop, is likely to choke in a swamp.
Mr. Secretary, in the western world it is agreed that the main enemy right now is to beat inflation, and indeed the economic policies of all industrialized countries to "achieve that goal. She is also the same opinion?
answer the Mitterand in the same way: the main ailments of Western society is unemployment. The two evils should not be seen separately. Inflation-if we- the other side of the coin. We must work hard against one and against another. Woe to dissociate this battle, trouble thinking, for example, that even to tame inflation will have to pay the price of a recession and massive unemployment, as is already happening to a large extent. We all find ourselves in the midst of a social catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.
The PCI, in early 1977, launched the line of 'austerity'. I do not think that his appeal has been welcomed by the working class, workers, activists from the same party ...
We hold that the individual consumer exasperated not only produces dissipation of wealth and production distortions, but also dissatisfaction loss, and that unhappiness, however, the economic situation of countries industializzati-The increasing gap in each country between developed areas and backward areas, and in front of the revival and advancement of the peoples of ex-colonial countries and independence-is no longer possible to ensure an economic and social development while preserving the "consumer society" with all faults, even moral, that are intrinsic to it. The spread of drugs, for example, among young people is one of the most serious signs of this and no one really gives load. But we said austerity. We were the only ones to emphasize the need to combat waste, increase savings, reduce consumption private obsolete, slow the perverse dynamic of public spending, make new resources and new sources of employment. We said that the workers should contribute their share to this effort of righting the economy, but that all the sacrifices had to be done by applying a principle of strict fairness and that he should have the objective to trigger to a different type of development and different ways of life (more thrifty, but also more human). This was our way of posing the problem of austerity and simultaneously fighting inflation and recession, that unemployment. Specified and developed these positions to our XV Congress of March 1979 we were not heard.
And the cost of labor? The theme seems to be forgotten?
Labor costs must also be addressed and, overall, content, working primarily on the face of rising productivity. But I tell you quite frankly that when we ask for sacrifices to the country and begins to ask-as usual-workers, while the back has a question as the P2, it is very difficult to get play and be credible. When you ask people who work at the sacrifices it takes a broad consensus, a great political credibility and the ability to hit exorbitant and intolerable privileges. If these elements are not, the operation may fail.
La Repubblica, July 28, 1981
