What Future?

The Communists are fretful

It has been a rough month for Enrico Berlinguer and his Italian Communist Party. Losing ground for the first time since World War II, the P.C.I, saw its popular vote slip by 4% in the June 3 general elections; a week later the party dropped another 750,000 votes in elections for the new European Parliament. The downward trend continued last week in Berlinguer's native Sardinia, where the party polled less than 30% in a regional election. Stunned by these setbacks, the Communists are entering a phase of soul searching and reappraisal.

The main reason for the Communist decline seems clear: the rank and file are unhappy over Berlinguer's strategy of sharing power with the Christian Democrats in the so-called historic compromise. By pledging parliamentary support to the Christian Democrat-led coalition, the party had to share the blame for the government's failure to deal effectively with such problems as inflation and unemployment. As a result, working-class support for the Communists has fallen off, especially in the big cities.

Berlinguer's power-sharing policy also led to disenchantment among younger voters, who gave their support to far-left radicals. In Palermo, an analysis of the June 3 vote showed that the Communists' heaviest losses came in districts with large numbers of young voters. By linking up with the Christian Democrats, concluded Massimo D'Alema, head of the party's youth federation, "we lost credibility for the P.C.I, as the party of freedom. We managed to look at the same time both impotent and Jacobin."

The search for causes of the electoral decline has resulted in recriminations aimed at the party's leadership. Citing "errors at the top," the party's peppery elder statesman, Giancarlo Pajetta, warned: "Someone with responsibility will have to pay." That someone might be Berlinguer. Although he has not been publicly attacked by his fellow Communists, Berlinguer's authority is being seriously questioned for the first time since he took over the party in 1972.

The most significant open act of defiance so far has come from Pietro Ingrao, 64. Against Berlinguer's wishes, Ingrao announced two weeks ago that he would not stand for re-election as president of the Chamber of Deputies. He was replaced by 52-year-old Nilde Jotti, a

P.C.I, deputy and longtime companion of legendary Communist Leader Palmiro Togliatti; she thus became the first woman president of a parliamentary assembly in Italy's history. By giving up his lofty parliamentary post, Ingrao would be better able to descend into the arena of party politics and head an anti-Berlinguer faction. Considered one of the party's deepest thinkers, Ingrao is at the center of a "cerebral" faction that advocates a thorough overhaul of Communist strategy based on a careful re-examination of the party's strengths and objectives. Ingrao and his followers seek to reunify the left by forging new links with the Socialists.

Another threat to Berlinguer's supremacy comes from such hard-liners as Armando Cossutta, 59, who bitterly assailed the present leadership at last April's party congress. Cossutta and his allies want the P.C.I, to return to militant opposition, which would mean the use of strikes and labor unrest to bend the government to their will. Should the Communists decide to break with the Christian Democrats and go into permanent opposition, the hard-liners stand to gain power within the party.

Berlinguer's policies, however, still enjoy support among party moderates, who feel that the historic compromise has not yet been given a fair trial and that a total rupture with the Christian Democrats would destroy the party's only chance of whining real political power through the democratic process. Berlinguer himself has suggested a re-evaluation of the historic compromise, but it remains central to his strategy, and he will ultimately have to answer for it before the party's Central Committee. The committee meets later this month to conduct its own investigation of the elections and fill several vacant posts. While it seems unlikely that he would be ousted as party leader, there is a strong possibility that his opponents will increase their influence on the committee, thereby limiting Berlinguer's room for maneuvering.

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