The outcome of the referendum on judicial reform had sparked hopes in many quarters that the government would soon resign. A widespread assessment was that the polls had halted the fascist right's authoritarian project; this, combined with the "No Kings" demonstration on March 28 in Rome, could provide the basis for reviving the mass movement to bring down the Meloni government and restore the gains of the class movement usurped in recent decades.
Beyond the referendum result, there were the first economic and financial signs of a deepening crisis within the government, discontent within Confindustria, and tensions within the majority.In reality, rather than the eve of April 25th, it feels like 1924, the day after the Matteotti assassination, with the opposition retreating to the Aventine Hill awaiting a move by the head of state to dismiss Mussolini's government.
Today, the opposition has not withdrawn from the chambers of parliament, but, as then, it seems to wait for the Prime Minister's corpse to be carried by the changing currents of parliamentary politics. During the Aventine era, that policy brought Italy twenty years of dictatorship and the destruction and tragedy of a lost war of aggression.
Faced with the passivity of the parliamentary opposition, faced with the deception of the ballot box, today as yesterday, it is up to the exploited classes to demonstrate their strength, giving life to a new April 25th.
Giorgia Meloni's January 3
On January 3, 1925, Benito Mussolini gave a speech before the Chamber of Deputies in which he assumed full responsibility for the violence committed by the fascists, before and after the Matteotti assassination. "If fascism is a criminal organization," said Mussolini, "I am its leader."
Mussolini managed to overcome the political crisis because the opposition political forces were afraid to appeal to the streets, to that popular mobilization that had been the target of fascist violence.
Today, as in the past, the crisis is the main ally of this government, which presents itself to the privileged classes and the political forces that represent them as the only barrier to the explosion of popular anger; a government that also presents itself as the only entity capable of allocating the scarce public resources available to guaranteeing corporate profits, rather than meeting the needs of the community.
This emerged clearly from Giorgia Meloni's statement to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Prime Minister reiterated an authoritarian vision of politics: her speech, in fact, overshadows the role of Parliament and assigns to the executive the task of making laws and constitutional reforms themselves. This is a very delicate step, because, as Mussolini did before her, the formal shell of the constitution is left intact, but it is being distorted through daily practice. While the referendum vote rejected a reform, it did not change the government's view on the abuse of its prerogatives, and therein lies the danger.
An important passage in the speech was when Giorgia Meloni asserted her role as a traveling salesman, engaged in purchasing hydrocarbons from Algeria and the Gulf monarchies. The prime minister clearly does not realize how much this statement undermines the narrative on globalization and the free market. In Meloni's reconstruction, it is the government that is concerned with finding resources deemed indispensable for Italy, even though it has a state-owned company, ENI, that should fulfill this very role. It is clear that ENI, like any capitalist enterprise, is too focused on maximizing profit to concern itself with the needs of the community.
The prime minister finally asserted the majority's commitment to due process, addressing the resignations of some government members. This guaranteeism, however, disappears when it calls for a naval blockade against shipwrecked passengers or the preventive detention of protesters: measures that hark back to a totalitarian conception of the state, unmistakably fascist in nature.
An Uphill Road
In reality, there is no alternative majority in Parliament, and the opposition forces themselves are targeting elections next year. The "No Kings" meeting on March 28th itself had the feel of a test run for a joint list led by the CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) ahead of the upcoming elections. And even the political forces that are not in Parliament, but would like to be there, are gauging their street protests against the prospect of elections.
Fascists have never been afraid of ballot papers: they demonstrated it in the aftermath of the Socialist electoral victory in 1921, and they demonstrate it today by ignoring the referendum result.
Those who maintain that an electoral victory paves the way for popular mobilization have another opportunity to reconsider. If we want the exploited classes to regain their prominence and block the path to fascism, we cannot delude them into thinking that simply casting a ballot in the ballot box is enough.
History, after all, demonstrates this: eighty-one years ago, on April 25, 1945, the fascist regime was overthrown thanks to a popular uprising, and some of the forces that had participated in the Aventine Hill also took part in that popular uprising. That popular uprising was undoubtedly united, as the fight against fascism must be united. Historical experience, however, teaches us that if the fight against fascism is not accompanied by the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of class divisions in society, the privileged classes will return to supporting an authoritarian, militaristic, and racist solution, as they do today. Unity, then, but on the basis of class, on the basis of self-organization, on the basis of direct action.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/liberiamoci-dal-fascismo/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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