Every worker, every militant who has ever participated in negotiations with the bosses, from the grievance level all the way up to industry-wide bargaining, knows that certain compromises with the employers are sometimes not only necessary but inevitable. The broad membership of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), where Lenin's classic on this subject of compromises with the bourgeoisie (Left-Wing Communism) is probably more widely known than anywhere else in Western Europe, scarcely needs an introduction on the matter.
What the Italian CP leaders, however, have been preaching for a considerable period now is not just another compromise on one or two specific measures with the ruling Christian Democrats. In the view of the PCI leaders, they have presented a wholly new historical concept called the "historical compromise."
PCI view of 'historical compromise'
This view holds that it is possible to achieve a compromise between the two basic contending classes in Italy on the deepest social, political, and economic issues which face the deteriorating social system there.
What is involved is not just another of the many compromises between the PCI and the Christian Democrats. It's a compromise between the working class and the bourgeoisie which, if effected, would result in a coalition government between the PCI and the Christian Democrats on a lasting basis.
The ruling class here is violently opposed to it, or so it says, and so is the Italian bourgeoisie. The bark may be louder than the bite, but let's first examine the nature of the historical compromise. There could be a false and utterly disruptive compromise which would lead the proletariat down the road to frustration and defeat. It is also conceivable however that there could be a different compromise, a compromise which might be historically viable.
Real compromises between antagonistic social classes are not unknown in history, and are particularly striking in West European history. The PCI leaders must of necessity, in bringing this question to the fore, have thought of it. The reason for it is due entirely to the fact that they have sensed that Italy is slowly and gradually approaching a pre-revolutionary situation.
The pressure from the working class on the one hand and the bourgeoisie breathing down their neck on the other have sent them scurrying for "new approaches." Yes, indeed, there can be a historical compromise between the antagonistic classes in Italy — the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. But the question of historical compromises must first of all be put in proper historical context and on a class basis.
What the PCI is proposing and what the bourgeois press seems to be so violently opposed to is not a true historical compromise. What they are proposing to the bourgeoisie is not a sharing of power — real power — but at best a sharing of offices within the framework of the bourgeois system of capitalist exploitation.
There is absolutely nothing new in this concept whatever.
Cabinet posts are not the power
Socialists and communists have held cabinet posts in bourgeois governments for decades. It has always served to screen the exploitation of the oppressed masses because the power the ownership of the means of production, and the state apparatus have remained exclusively in the hands of the ruling class. Communists as well as socialists, even in the highest cabinet posts, have merely served as administrators of the bourgeois state.
This is not a historical compromise with the bourgeoisie. This is not a sharing of power, it is merely getting some crumbs and privileges for the officialdom of the party and some of their allies. It does nothing to ameliorate the rapidly deteriorating conditions of the broad masses of people.
A real historical compromise
However, there can be a historical compromise between the basic social classes in Italy. The PCI leaders, in discussing it with the bourgeoisie, should say this:
"Yes, we want a historical compromise with you. But what you have in mind is a compromise on the basis of the existing social system, your social system in which you hold all the levers of power and we are given the role of mere officials obliged to put fires out wherever the general anger of the masses rises into explosive proportions.
"We propose a compromise on the foundations of a new social system, our system; on the basis of the ownership and control of the means of production in our hands, in the hands of the workers. This will permit us to begin a planned socialist economy.
"You must hand over to us the levers of political power and authority and permit us to erect new forms of political organization and state structure. We must have the controlling and dominating factors of economic and political life in our hands.
"We will then make concessions to you. We can permit the existence of small-scale industry, small-scale commodity production. If you will not obstruct the transition to an orderly, truly socialist transformation of society, you will avoid violence and civil strife in which you will surely go down to an ignominious death. You say you want a peaceful, orderly transition to a social order which avoids civil war. This is the road.
"You must also promise to renounce your alliance with the big imperialist powers, especially the U.S., and especially renounce the use of illegal methods and abide by socialist legality the way you forced us to abide by bourgeois legality.
"Now then, such historical compromises are not new to you, the bourgeoisie. The British bourgeoisie compromised with the feudal lords, but on the basis of the bourgeois order, on the basis of capitalist exploitation as against feudalism. Of course, you know that happened in Italy, too. Admittedly there is advantage for us Communists in such a transition to power. We also want to avoid a violent and ruthless civil war which will become inevitable if peaceful methods of transition to workers' power are obstructed. Every new social order that starts after a long and violent struggle of necessity starts at a lower tempo of industrial development as a result of the chaos, disruption, and violence brought on by the resistance of the ruling class. We would like to avoid it, if possible.
"So you see, it is possible to speak of a historical compromise, but it must now be on the basis of a new social foundation, a new social order, and we will make the necessary concessions to enable you to exist — not forever, of course. Even the Church does not believe that the bourgeoisie is an eternal category. You upholders of the faith must agree to that!"
But instead of presenting a real historical compromise to the bourgeoisie, one which the leaders of the PCI have unquestionably been thinking about more and more as Italy approaches a prerevolutionary crisis, they have in fact presented a masked form of the crassest class collaboration.
What the rulers fear
Why then is the bourgeoisie, especially in the U.S., so violently opposed to it? It is not because, as has been drummed into the heads of the American people, the Communist leaders "cannot be trusted." The reality of the situation is that the PCI leaders have collaborated with the Christian Democrats and the bourgeoisie generally for decades.
It is not the leaders that the ruling class fears.
What they fear, and this is the most important element in the resistance of the State Department here and of the Italian bourgeoisie to allowing a coalition government which would include the PCI, is that it would inevitably heighten the revolutionary insurgence of the masses and serve as a tremendous impetus in the struggle against the ruling class.
What the bourgeoisie see as a result of a coalition government with PCI participation, and what the PCI leaders themselves see and fear, almost equally to the bourgeoisie, is that the coalition government would result in spontaneous revolutionary intervention of the masses — that they would begin to take things in their own hands as they have frequently done: in France in the 1930s, in Spain, more recently in Portugal, and earlier in Italy itself in pre-Mussolini days. An electoral victory for the PCI and its inclusion in a coalition government would bring about the familiar phenomenon of plant managers being ousted from their offices, workers occupying the plants, peasants taking over the land, and the virtual beginning of workers' control and real dual power.
All this explains the hesitancy of the PCI in joining the coalition and their lack of enthusiasm for an early election. For the very idea of a general election obliges the PCI even against its will to open the attack against the bourgeoisie — to "incite the masses" — even if the propaganda of the PCI is of the mildest character. Such is the internal logic of the developing social crisis in Italy.
Attitude of the revolutionary left
What should be the attitude of the revolutionary left in Italy in the face of such unabashed, unashamed revisionism of the PCI? The worst thing would be if they resort exclusively to violent revolutionary polemic, or otherwise engage in activity which would alienate them from the broad masses of the communist workers and the communist electorate generally.
There is every evidence that the progressive and most viable sections of society — the working class, the peasantry, especially the poor and landless ones, and the lower petty-bourgeoisie — are gravitating in the direction of the PCI and look with hope, if not enthusiasm, to the pending election.
The task of the revolutionary left is to facilitate an electoral triumph of the PCI.
The sooner they get into it, the swifter will be the experience of the masses under the new historical compromise.
It is impossible to win away the bulk of the masses, especially the revolutionary sectors, from the PCI without them first going through their own experience in this. It seems almost indispensable under present conditions. The sooner the PCI gets into office, the easier it will be to expose it to the masses in a revolutionary way. Agitation and propaganda at the present time must be directed to the masses in such a way that they understand that criticism of the PCI's historical compromise goes hand in hand with helping the masses go through the electoral experience, not obstructing it.
The necessity of the masses going through the electoral experience of the historical compromise should be all the more understandable to genuine revolutionary elements in Italy precisely because the presentation of the historical compromise concept does not represent a sudden and violent breach by the PCI leaders from the past. Reformism has been the day-to-day practice of the PCI for decades and bourgeois parliamentarism with the aid of the PCI has sunk deep roots in the masses.
It is not a situation where the leadership of a revolutionary working-class party has suddenly breached the revolutionary platform of the party.
But the ascendancy of the PCI to official positions in a governing coalition with the bourgeoisie would accelerate the consciousness of the masses and quickly make it possible for them to judge, through their own experience, the sharp contrast between the promise and the performance of the PCI leaders in an increasingly aggravated social and political crisis.
Of course, where working class revolutionary independents can make a race of it in specified localities, in such a way as to avoid causing the PCI to be defeated by a reactionary candidate because of revolutionary electoral intervention, it should be done.
There is no question that a new chapter in the history of the embattled Italian proletariat is about to open. Italian monopoly capitalism, which has long avoided the formidable power of the workers, is not likely to escape a showdown this time.
Index
Chapters 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Last updated: 13 May 2018