Friday, Nov. 20, 1964
Why Communism Hangs On: The Comrades Are Middle Class
The record of Bologna's Mayor Giuseppe Dozza, 63, reads as though it came out of a good-government primer. In four successive terms, he has stood for fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget and incentives for industry. He is campaigning for a fifth term this week on a platform of lower taxes, lower living costs and better breaks for small businessmen. He has raised Bologna's credit so high that a consortium of banks recently offered the city an $18 million loan. Even his enemies concede that Dozza is both honest and efficient. In fact, the only unorthodox thing about him is that he is a Communist.
His clean, competent administration of Bologna, a city of half a million people on the edge of the Po Valley, is a classic example of why non-Communists find it so hard to break the Red grip on so many Italian cities and towns. In next week's municipal elections, 6,724 communities will vote for local officials, and sharp Communist gains could bring down the virtually paralyzed center-left coalition government of the Christian Democrats and Socialists. While Italy is beset by inflation and strikes, the coalition parties are campaigning largely on the argument that Communists are Communists, one using Khrushchev's ouster to underline the point; the Christian Democrats even put up portraits of Khrushchev, Malenkov, Stalin and Mao right in Rome's Via Veneto to recall the jungle warfare in the Red world. The Communists counter by sticking to Italian economic issues and by pointing to Mayor Dozza and the rinnovatori (modernizers) elsewhere to show that Communism has indeed changed.
Shaky Church. In Dozza's pre-election pamphlet, What We Have Done, the word Communist appears only once in 63 pages. Dozza and his comrades are called the Gruppo Due Torri (the Two Towers Group), a reference to the pair of medieval leaning towers in the city's center which are the symbol of Bologna. Red election posters in the parks and piazzas are similarly bare of the hammer and sickle, and read: VOTA DUE TORRI!
Stocky, amiable Mayor Dozza has been remarkably successful in abandoning the conventional class struggle and winning over the middle class. He had organized 3,000 shop owners and storekeepers into a merchants' federation, and helped them fight against supermarket and chain-store competition. His public officials have been well trained in Communist administration schools, and are qualified for their jobs; each is screened for personal honesty.
Dozza thrives on paradox. When Bologna's Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro ordered the shaky old church of San Giorgio torn down, it was Dozza who insisted on repairs to preserve it as an historic landmark. In 1956, when a Christian Democratic candidate for mayor tried to undercut Dozza by promising sweeping social-welfare programs, the Red mayor branded his scheme financially irresponsible, and was re-elected by a landslide.
Created Capitalists. One of Dozza's lieutenants is Guido Fanti, a 39-year-old Communist bureaucrat who boasts that "each year we help scores of Bologna workers to become small-factory owners. So you see, we are actually creating capitalists." Asked if Communism should be making capitalists, Fanti shrugs: "Marx taught us that we should aim at the transformation of society within the realities of a given situation. That's what we're doing here in Bologna. It's not the way the Russians do it, but we must be realistic."
Each neighborhood has its own Communist Casa del Populo that offers everything from a wine cellar and library to a game room. There are free courses in stenography and foreign languages, as well as clubs for everyone from bridge players to fishermen.
Amid all this benevolent ward-heeling, it is tempting to believe that Communists have really turned into democrats. But every so often, something happens to remind the forgetful that they haven't. One Red city councillor dared to criticize Mayor Dozza for acting too arbitrarily. Dozza agreed to a meeting at which the councillor would supposedly be allowed to spell out his grievances. But when the disgruntled comrade showed up, he found the atmosphere less than encouraging to free speech: the room was packed with tough, blue-collared workmen who closed threateningly around him. "All right, let's discuss," said the leader of the bully boys. But he did not even have to use strong-arm methods. The dissenter collapsed with a mild heart attack and was carried out feet first.
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