Snouts in the trough

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ITALY'S prime minister Giovanni Spadolini is trying to put together a new government following the collapse of his previous administration on August 6.

The administration had lasted 13 months, _above average for post-war Italian governments. Although Spadolini is a member of the tiny. Republican Party, his ministers came mainly from the Christian Democracy (CD), Italy's biggest bourgeois party, and the Socialist Party (SP).

The fall of the government was provoked by the SP. A law proposed by the minister of finance against tax evasion in the oil industry was rejected in a Parliamentary secret ballot. The SP said it was because of CD members connected with the tax evaders voting against their own party line under cover of secrecy, and the SP ministers resigned from the government.

The SP is the only major party that wants early elections. Under the leadership of Bettino Craxi, the SP has developed a very right wing profile. With the CD hit by repeated scandals, the SP has posed as a stable, moderate alternative to it as bourgeois governing party. It has tried (successfully) to win middle class votes from the CD.

Some bosses also want an election. De Benedetti of Olivetti wants an immediate election, Agnelli of Fiat wants one in the spring.

The Communist Party, however, is keen to keep CP leader Berlinguer Spadolini in - for its main aim, as for many years past, is to break the bourgeoisie's veto on CP participation in the government. This veto -putting one of Italy's biggest parties permanently in opposition - is (in combination with the electoral system) what makes Italian governments so unstable.

Some sections of the bourgeoisie are therefore becoming less hostile to CP participation - and Spadolini represents those sections. The SP, in contrast, is very hostile to the CP.

The CP has therefore pledged support to a new Spadolini government on condition that it is made up. of non-party 'technocrats' The Italian working class finds both the parties based on it following lines based on naked bourgeois careerism. ment which they are opposed to.

We believe that is the ultimate form of resistance when people refuse to cooperate with the government. Even though it isn't very visible, I believe that this will affect the situation in Poland in the long run much more than street demonstrations.

Do you have any impression of how strong Solidarnose is in Poland today?* To be honest, no. It is something different when you have a mass organisation, and Solidarity was really ten million people. We counted almost every solidarity march earlier this rear

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Socialist Organiser, 19 August 1982 Page