RESPONSE PIERPAOLO LEONARDI response Marco Ferrando (spokesman for the PCL) to the letter of Paul Leonardi published yesterday in the "Manifesto."
(September 9, 2008)
Dear Pierre, the answer to your letter is not only due, but is appreciated. Why I hope will help to "dispel the fog" and confusion on matters of objective, both on real political differences that imply or reveal your text.
In essence, if I understood, you tend to "oppose" in some way the action of strikes and demonstrations planned for October 17 possible event that we have proposed for October 11. And you do not so much because of the proximity of dates (so much so that you yourself acknowledge that "the demonstration of 11 will not affect much on the participation of workers and working on what will take place on 17 "), but a political assessment: since you believe that a 11 manifestation of" negative self-reference all political "and that of 17 real action of war. Finally, some ask questions challenge the choice of reference on the choice of auditors or "conflict or cooperation" (which, incidentally, I understand if they are addressed to PRC and PDCI, but grotesque if addressed to the PCL, since the timing and the reasons for our birth).
in Provo give you an answer clarification and perhaps lead me in my turn, a few questions.
1) As you know, the CLP gives full and active support for the action of general strike promoted to October 17 (plus having participated with our enrolled members of different unions under the National Assembly of May 17 which promoted the initiative and having publicly hailed the positive). It also gave full and active support in recent years in all activities of general strike promoted by the unions against those financial base of the Prodi government voted on by the PRC, or PDCI (in 2006) from Left Critique, with public ownership of our fellow members and leaders in CGIL, sometimes paying the price with shameful attempts at retaliation bureaucratic apparatus CGIL (you know the case of our fellow Debetto in Turin). At the same time, as in the past and even more so today, we believe that the attack is conducted against the world of work, because of its gravity, is not exclusively dealt with individual protest actions of grassroots unions (though of course positive especially when proclaimed by a united front of it), but requires the preparation of a dispute in world of work, based on a unifying platform of struggle and activity, that aims to develop the real movement, a real impact on power and pull results. In this sense, we have proposed and we represent the joint convocation of a national assembly of interbranch single delegates seated because that can help you expand, on a democratic basis, the promoter in front of a general case, bypassing the barriers that exist today dividers between various forms of trade unionism class (both basic and inside the CGIL), and promoting a higher level of mobilization. Do you wonder why you continue to give a blanket silence in our proposal? We do not want this silence (a substantial rejection) was determined by the privilege of self-preservation and image of their unions to the detriment of the real movement. But we would be happy - in the public interest - if we were denied by your answer on the merits.
2) The contrast between the trend that you operate on 17 and strike a political demonstration of the left for 11 is deeply flawed. For several additional reasons.
First, let an account General: the trade union movement does not exhaust the life and expressions of the labor movement (political, organizational, community, cultural). We remain of the incurable Leninism against all forms of pansindacalismo (trade union action that sees the entire political class), as well as against all claims of this or that force the Left to give a "your union" as its belt transmission (with a reduction in cost-effectiveness of its intervention policy to the detriment of the real movement). As PCL, we reverse exactly this approach. Just as we are for the free and full deployment of the union with the development of class struggle and against all logic self-preservation, so we try to develop in every movement and throughout society, a political battle more general part which brings any claim (trade union, social, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, feminist, anti-clerical, environmental) to the prospect of the overthrow of capitalism and the power workers. The CLP does not consider his own party as a "fine", but as an organizational instrument of this battle. And this battle, by its nature, takes place not only on the ground of auditors, but invest the entire policy framework: from opposition to the overall policy of the government. E 'can remove the complexity and scale of the battle communist policy to only one dimension Association and, most importantly, the single action of grassroots unions? E 'legitimate approach, of course. Simply is not only ours, but it is an approach that clearly violates.
Secondly, the third Berlusconi government for its reactionary, underlines once more the need for an opposition to the political class and not only on the strictly trade union. Citing the balance of power far more favorable than in the past, the government developed a frontal attack not just political to social rights in the workplace, but in more general spaces and democratic achievements, focusing on a re-articulation of the State apparatus based on boosting its power Command: tend to the militarization of the administration of certain conflicts in the territory, drawing against federal workers and the southern masses, attempt to cancel left-wing parties even by the European Parliament with the introduction of anti-democratic electoral barriers, attack the very existence of Newspaper reference left denial of voting rights to immigrants even on the ground of administrative immunity from prosecution of "the highest offices of state" (Alfano); institutional marriage with the Vatican hierarchy, authoritarian turn against students in schools and against youth behavior and freedom more generally. Not to mention, of course, the well-known campaign xenophobic, its reflections sull'involuzione of law, it provides legitimacy to the action creeping fascist thug or the territory, against the most marginalized and vulnerable sectors of the oppressed masses. And all this occurs, as you know, with no real parliamentary opposition, and indeed thanks to the relationship partners of government with vast areas of the PD and material interests with the block on which the banks and Confindustria PD rests. Well. Do you think the strike of the platform 17 can encompass the bulk of these issues? It 'obvious that no, it is rightly a strike of mainly trade union. Do you think you can avoid or postpone a political response to mobilize against this reactionary drift, once again leaving the field open to the populism of Peter or the bourgeois liberalism of Veltroni? I think (and hope) that you answer in the negative. Behold: the proposal that we have launched a joint demonstration of the left against the Berlusconi government to respond to this need elemental create political opposition to the labor movement to the most reactionary government that Italy has known since the time of Tambroni (1960 ). Where is it then, dear Pierre, the 'self'? In those who try to meet this need real political or removed to protect the people (none of the attack) the union's shell?
Thirdly, the need for political mobilization is also linked to the exceptional nature of the political-institutional scenario. For the first time in the entire history of the postwar period, the Parliament was fully manned by bourgeois parties organically (reactionaries, liberals, populists). For the first time an important part of working life and the people of the left feels deprived of its own specific representation. We know the cause of this political context: on one hand the responsibility of the suicide left the government of the Italian bourgeoisie and its social policies of plunder and war, in the past, and the presence of other reactionary electoral laws. But the fact remains that this context is bad for the labor movement. Is because, for oggi, concorre ad accentuare senso di impotenza e smarrimento in settori popolari. Sia soprattutto perché favorisce e rafforza il progetto di "americanizzazione" della politica italiana, cioè il tentativo del liberalismo borghese di incorporare il mondo del lavoro in un gioco bipolare sempre più bipartitico: annullando la sinistra come presenza politica distinta, e rafforzando le tendenze anticomuniste di tipo maccartista. Dubito che un simile scenario sarebbe più favorevole, oltretutto, all'azione sindacale e di lotta del movimento operaio, come l'esperienza USA insegna. Impedire che il popolo della sinistra antiberlusconiano venga totalmente incorporato dalle manifestazioni del PD e di Di Pietro – in assenza di ogni segno visibile di vita of independent left-wing opposition - therefore meets a need that objective. Even here our proposal for a political demonstration against the government aimed at all sinister italiane.Va saying that our proposal unified mobilization against Berlusconi turned to its main components (not just PRC and PDCI, as well as SC and SD) did not means neither ignore, nor diplomatizzare our opinion on the irreversible nature of the parties who participated in the Prodi government, their elites, their crucial responsibility in the disaster happened. And indeed, precisely because of those statements, the PCL work even more relevant today to the independent construction, alternatively with the parties and demystifying the their "left turns". But this struggle for hegemony is not inconsistent with an alternative proposal for a joint mobilization against the government, and with a relationship of dialogue with militants, members, supporters of those parties, who are now living understandably a pervasive sense of disorientation. A proposal for a joint event is also a form of relationship with that world.
3) We wonder why we have proposed ("coincidentally" you write) the date of 11 October. It 's simple: because we do not decide the timing of Italian politics. That proposal is given in relation to an elementary political reasoning. Primarily addresses the need to anticipate the manifestation of PD of October 25: Why is the quite clear that failure to do so to give away Veltroni (given in July after Di Pietro) an area of \u200b\u200bvery large capitalization on the left. Secondly, it serves to reaffirm the need to avoid a direct overlap with the strike action on 17 October. I stress the fact that even since the days of preparation, the best date for the demonstration of the left would have been Oct. 18, but we discarded the date to respect the autonomy of their union and to minimize the risk of negative impacts its success (risks that today it yourself recognize essentially irrelevant). Thirdly, the need to avoid duplication with other relevant date as possible, in advance, which is that of October 4, because that date is scheduled for a long time a specific anti-racism national event, sponsored primarily by revolutionary socialism and the Humanist Party, which adheres to the PCL (a demonstration that we always decide in according to the goodness of actions and not our political assessment of the driving forces) and which may also involve a lot of movement today really engaged in an important sector (by the way, why do not you join?). As you can see, the proposed date of 11 is not based on any calculations perverse, but the priority of the political battle in the general labor movement. With regard to the proximity date of 11 and 17, is not the first time and will not be the last to fall into different mobilizations close moments. It 'also happened in recent years, at the vicinity of industrial action and international events, without anything special to happen. So it is today. Unless some of the promoters of the strike of 17 will begin fashioning a successful campaign against the disease on October 11th. Yes that would be a disastrous test of sectarianism that we would not hesitate to counter. But we are confident that this will not avvenga.Infine in this connection I remind you that we are still waiting for your response to our letter on the initiative of the September 9 meeting which we have wished to exclude, without any justification and the price of some "forcing" in the recent past, so who was absent two years ago and opposed to the first action against the Prodi government and this seems to have been summoned together to us that you disappear into thin air.
Dear Pierre, I hope with these lines have contributed to the clarification about the issues that you asked (which is also clarification of discrepancies). I hope we can find in any case is set on Oct. 17 that on 11 October.
Greetings Communists
For PCL Executive
Marco Ferrando
