WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FdCA: Learning from defeats (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The defeat that arose with the referendum of 8/9 May is not only evident

but also complete. In fact, it goes beyond the purely trade union level
to take on an evidently political significance, precisely because it is
configured as a victory of the class enemy in its multifaceted economic,
social, political and institutional configurations. It is a defeat
destined to cause serious consequences both in terms of a recrudescence
of the employers' and government's offensive against the living
conditions of the subaltern classes and against civil rights and
freedom, and in terms of trade union organization and its strategic
role, in one of the most complex and dramatic phases experienced since
the Second World War.
It has become clear that if trade union action shifts to the political,
party and institutional terrain, leaving aside the uncompromising
defense of the living conditions of the subaltern classes, if trade
union action is replaced by the intertwining with parliamentarism as
happened during the referendum campaign, defeat is certain.

By choosing the instrument of the referendum, Landini and the CGIL
leadership group had first and foremost the heavy responsibility of
having left the fate of millions of workers in the hands of the class
enemy and of having let the success of the November general strike
deflate in recent months without building passages of struggle that
would mobilize workers at least until the referendum.
The CGIL, which had promoted four of the five referendums, therefore
emerges weakened by the entire referendum affair that has been
intertwined with the maneuvers of the "broad field", that is, with those
parties that in previous center-left governments have distinguished
themselves by adopting policies that have unloaded the costs of the
crisis entirely onto our class. Such an alliance has evidently
influenced the will and ability of the CGIL to face the unprecedented
attack of the bourgeoisie on the minimum vital needs of workers, so
articulating a significant opposition to the government and the
employers will be even more difficult from now on.
It seems that the defeat of the 1984 referendum on the sliding scale,
promoted by the PCI following the disastrous conclusion of the FIAT
dispute in 1980, did not give rise to any serious reflection. The
employers and their government, that of the socialist Craxi, emerged
victorious, marking a point of no return in the affirmation of
neoliberal and anti-worker policies. Further confirmation of the vacuity
of the referendum strategy was the 2003 referendum on the extension of
Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, proposed by Rifondazione Comunista
with the then secretary Fausto Bertinotti, which also saw a disastrous
defeat, reaching only 25% of the votes. On that occasion, the
center-right government, led by Silvio Berlusconi on behalf of
Confindustria, after an initial position against it, supported the
reasons for abstention. Abstention also supported by the moderates of
the center-left (Francesco Rutelli's Margherita, with a role similar to
that of Renzi and Calenda at present) and, much more seriously, with
only a few internal defections, by the Democrats of the Left, then led
by Piero Fassino assisted by Sergio Cofferati himself, who had recently
left the leadership of the CGIL itself.

In the face of such precedents, the criticism aimed at stigmatizing the
indication of abstention by the government forces as a "betrayal of the
constitutional principles that establish voting as a civic duty", moved
both by the leadership of the CGIL and by the Democratic Party, appears
vacuous and completely inadequate.
This further defeat will certainly favor the more concertative sectors
that, still well present in the CGIL, look with extreme interest at the
neo-corporatist turn of the CISL and the more moderate components of the
Democratic Party, which objectively emerge strengthened by the
referendum affair.
We are not interested in dwelling on the analysis of the various
boycotts orchestrated by economic, governmental and political power, nor
in the meanders of that part of the center-left that now claims 30% of
the votes to minimize the defeat. We believe that this is the
consequence of a real institutional drift of the union that has
consciously placed itself as an alternative to the social and class
conflict by means of the referendum shortcut.
On the other hand, once again, history expresses those who interpret it.
Thus the neo-corporatist leadership group of the CISL has also moved its
action to the institutional level, promoting a collection of signatures
for a popular bill for "participation in work" from which last May 14,
with the full support of the entire government majority, the new law
Provisions for the participation of workers in the management, capital
and profits of companies emerged. In the face of this, the CGIL
leadership group, flaunting a somewhat improvised activism (in apparent
contrast only with its historical concertative attitude and
subordination to the capitalist framework), has committed itself to the
referendum choice, weakening the social conflict and thus maturing a
burning defeat.

Despite the fact that even within the CGIL the referendum choice has
been considered by many to be inadequate, improbable and in any case a
substitute for the social conflict and despite the fact that these
critical evaluations have also found confirmation in numerous other
political organizations and grassroots trade unionism, the opposition to
the institutional drift has not taken off, has remained largely a
minority and the social conflict has not generalized to broader
contexts. And now, after the defeat, it will be much more difficult to
propose it again and carry it forward in a unitary context. Furthermore,
the defeat is not only of the CGIL leadership group, but also and above
all of its entire militant fabric that has generously spent itself in
the referendum choice.
These considerations refer not so much to the search for
responsibilities that certainly reside in the leadership groups of
confederal unionism, responsibilities that it is however necessary to
identify with objectivity and historical contextualization, but above
all to the real capacity to influence the entire class opposition, which
has not been and still is not able to generalize the social conflict,
overcoming the self-referential logics to effectively counter the
concertative, institutional, bureaucratic and neo-corporatist tendencies
of confederal unionism.

"As workers and as vanguards, outside of any paternalistic approach, we
have the duty to question ourselves first of all on the subjective
condition of the masses and on the fact, confirmed by the ballot boxes,
of a working class that is dispersed, disillusioned, ensnared by
bourgeois models, largely indifferent and little aware of its own
situation of exploitation, little available for conflict even in the
face of a virulent and pervasive bourgeois offensive that carries out a
thorough attack on its living conditions"

As workers and as vanguards, outside of any paternalistic approach, we
have the duty to question ourselves first of all on the subjective
condition of the masses and on the fact, confirmed by the ballot boxes,
of a working class that is dispersed, disillusioned, ensnared by
bourgeois models, largely indifferent and little aware of its own
situation of exploitation, little available for conflict even in the
face of a virulent and pervasive bourgeois offensive that carries out a
thorough attack on its living conditions.
What has been missing and is still missing is a militant fabric rooted
in the productive realities and mass movements, capable of expressing
and building unitary instances in defense of the interests of the
subaltern classes and the weakest and least protected social sectors.
Its construction must be pursued in a non-occasional manner, but with a
real strategic awareness that knows how to safeguard the unity and
autonomy of the entire class movement even and above all in the most
difficult moments, in which defeat is affirmed as is happening in this
specific phase. It is an increasingly necessary work that starts from
the awareness derived from the defeats suffered by our class that have
now overshadowed its significant victories, thus determining the basis
for the current crisis situation of the social conflict that is
increasingly turning in favor of capital. It is a necessary, urgent and
no longer postponable work.

Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA

https://alternativalibertaria.org/imparare-dalle-sconfitte/
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