THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ITALY: AN ANALYSIS AND SOME PREDICTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00608R000600170026-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 25
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 1999
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: June 1, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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BACKGROUND USE ONLY
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ITALY: AN
ANALYSIS AND SOME PREDICTIONS
June 1975
4m@EIERLT1
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
NO DISSEM ABROAD
BACKGROUND USE ONLY
PR 75-311M
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NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
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THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ITALY: AN
ANALYSIS AND SOME PREDICTIONS
"The election outcome is a clear national defeat
for those who want to keep the communists from
having a voice in government." (Communist Party
Secretary-General Enrico Berlinguer, commenting
on the communist gains scored in the June 1975
local elections.)
The results of the June 1975 local and regional Italian elections
make it probable that the communist "voice in government" will be
heard sooner rather than later. Berlinguer's statement refers to a
formal, institutionalized, voice in the national government and,
ultimately, in the administration of-the giant parastatal industrial
enterprises of Italy. The Communist Party of Italy (PCI), even before
the elections, administered -- in most cases in cJllaboration with
the Socialists -- three of the twenty regions of Italy, twelve of
the ninety-four provinces and about twenty percent of all municipal
councils. A key message of this paper is that the PCI, after thirty
years of deepening de facto collaboration with the ruling Christian
Democrat Party (DC), is already "in the government" in a major, if'
informal, way and is strongly influencing national domestic and
foreign policy. The study examines the nature of the PCI and its
present influence within the government, how this influence has been
achieved, and how Italian government policies might be affected if
the Party came to share in national governing responsibility.
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The PCI's "Conditioning" Policy
PCI influence within the government stems from long and
successful practice of a policy which PCI officials privately refer
to as condizionamento -- "conditioning" of the DC and of DC-dominated
governments to acceptame of the PCI and adoption of economic, social,
and foreign policy measures favorable to Party objectivt:,.* Although
there is much overt evidence of the manner in which condizionamento
has functioned over the years at local levels, the most striking
examples are not publicized; they come from reliable intelligence
sources and deal with the nature of the collaborative process at the
national level. There is hard information on the substance of private
meetings between Berlinguer and top DC and government officials on
critical issues such as the sort of man acceptable to the PCI as
Italy's President, the broad range of Italy's economic and political
problems, assessments of AlAarican and Yugoslav foreign policies, etc.**
* "Conditioning" in this coqtext does not carry the connotatior of
"conning" an opponent, "setting someone up for the kill", or lu7;ing
a competing party as part of a "Trojan horse" strategy. Rather it
means a policy of dialogue with the competition designed to show
that there is more agreement than fundamental differences regarcb;ng
basic philosophies of government, goals and means.
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A member of Prime Minister Moro's Cabinet is in unpublicized,
routine contact with senior PCI apparat members to request advice
on items such as bureaucratic reform and labor policy and keeping
the PCI leadership up-to-date on governmental inveutigations of
the terrorist activity of far-left extremists. PCI senior econo-
mists are always consulted by the Budget Minister before the
government budget is presented to Parliament for approval. Perhaps
even more significant is the informal, sub rosa, "liaison" which
has existed in recent years between a senior PCI official and
officers in the Ministry of Interior on the subject of anti-terrorism
and public order. All this is in addition to matter-of-fact, quiet,
working contacts between PCI officials and senior functionaries in
the Foreign Office, other government ministries, and members of
parliamentary commissions.
At the non-official level there are private sessions
between Fiat President Giovanni Agnelli and the head of the PCI-
dominated trade union confederation (CGIL), between officials of
the Party's ceti medi ("middle classes") section and chambers of
commerce and small businessmen's organizations, between the leaders
of the PCI youth organization and their other-party counterparts,
etc. The categories of substantive contact seem endless and the
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reciprocal esteem usually evidenced by the PCI and other-party
partners in such sessions seems genuine.*
How can one explain this willingness of Establishment figures
to deal substantively with the PCI? Some of the reasons go back
to the early forties and the peculiarly Italian involvement of DC
and other-party leaders with PCI figures in the Resistance, in the
writing of Italy's post-war Constitution, and -- a special case of
DC/PCI collaboration -- in seeing to it that Italy's Lateran Treaty
with the Vatican was included as an integral part of the Constitution.
Other reasons stem from increased willingness on the part of pre-
viously suspicious Establishment members to perceive the PCI as a
national party which OM: the years has seemed to practice what
successive leaders have preached regarding the necessity of an
"Italian Road to Socialism" which differs in strategy and goals
from the Soviet model. Many middle and top level political leaders
in Italy have now had extensive dealings with a PCI leadership
which has almost always been largely middle class or upper middle
* The ease, frequency, and, above all, intimacy, of day-to-day
contact between PCI officials and DC party and government func-
tionaries has no parallel in France where the French Communist
Party (PCF), despite an even longer history of representation in
Parliament than the PCI, has never seemed comfortable in its
parliamentary role. One cannot imagine Marchais meeting with
Chirac or his deputy for private and wide-ranging discussions,
and there is no evidence of working contact between the PCF
Foreign Section and the Quai d'Orsay. For a variety of historical
and other reasons the PCF adopts tactics quite different from
those of the PCI -- and in pursuit of quite different goals.
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class in origin, highly intellectual, and receptive to the problems
of all classes and regions. Increasingly, many such non-PCI officials
and businessmen believe that thirty years of active involvement in
the parliamentary system at all levels of government have conditioned
the PCI to reformist rather than revolutionary goals and methods.
The shift in attitude by many members of the Establishment is
not taking place with much enthusiasm or as the result of ideological
soul-searching; it is the result of a quite pragmatic belief among
some at top levels of industrial and governmental economic policy-
making that the PCI's contribution to stability and to the solution of
Italy's economic and social malaise is not only useful but vital.
These influential industrialists and politicians want to maximize
this contribution without, however, relinquishing any significant
control of the governmental and parastatal apparatus which is largely
under the control of the DC and its adherents. The PCI, well aware of
this dilemma, is upping the ante for the help it can give and repeatedly
states that it won't come into the government or even enter a pre-
ferential relationship with the DC unless it sees clear promise of a
major policy change leftward on the part of the DC leadership 'Y The
results of the recent elections may see that promise forthcoming as
*In May 1974 Fiat President Agnelli callearfor a "pact" among the DC,
the PCI and the Socialists as a guarantee of stability. PCI Directorate
member Giorgio Amendola responded by saying "we're not patsies for the
calls for help coming from industrialists like Agnelli, Our Party is
raady to assume responsibilities on condition that there be a change
in economic policy." Berlinguer followed a few weeks later with a
statement that the PCI didn't intend to commit suicide in ordar to
pull DC chestnuts out of the fire.
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the consequence of pressures from an electorate which is demonstrating
not only a negative reaction to tho inefficiency, fatigue, and corruption
of DC-dominated local and national administrations, but a positive
reaction to the PCI and its widespread reputation for honesty, efficiency,
and dynamism.
The Nature of the Party
An understanding of the PCI has to begin with the realization that
its ideology represents an early and substantive modification of
Soviet Marxism/Leninism which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU) has never been able to accept. Its founder, Antonio Gransci,
drew heavily on Marx, Engels, and Lenin and was also inspired by the
Bolshevik Revolution. He was also, however, very much influenced by
Benedetto Croce, the Italian humanist philosopher. A well-read
intellectual, Gramsci noted the extent to which pre-war Czarist society
and the Russian tradition of authoritarianism were conditioning factors
in CPSU ideological formulation and its program for the world communist
movement. He felt it would be a mistake to transplant CPSU organiza-
tional methods and goals to the highly articulated Italian society.
Successive leaders of the PCI have shared this conviction. The bitter
debates within the Comintern in the late twenties between Stalin and
Togliatti boiled down to whether a communist party should advoclte
socialist pluralism and/or democratic objectives except as a tactical
move in the context of a rapidly del,ioping situation where revolutionary
takeover of power by the Party was still the objective. Togliatti
felt that a traditional type of democratic government would be necessary
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in Italy in order to pave the way for the eventual establishment of
a socialist order which itself would require the collaboration of
large elements of non-communist Italian society. Attacked in vitriolic
terms by Stalin, Ulbricht, Kuusinen and Manuilsky, Togliatti finally
said -- in the Galileo tradition -- "If the Comintern says it isn't
right, we will no longer posit it (but) each of us will think these
things and no longer speak of them."
Consistent with Togliatti's understanding that no radical trans-
formation of Italian society was possible without the collaboration
of broad segments of the population in an almost totally Catholic
Italy, the PCI has been a mass party since the end of World War II;
it has about 1.7 million members today. To achieve its present
range of electoral support and local administrative power it has
opened its ranks to persons who would never have been considered by
Marx cr Lenin -- or Brezhnev -- to be candidates for Party membership
in an advanced industrial society. The sociological makeup of the
PCI eleccorate is not radically different from that of the DC. Both
run the gamut from law to high income, education, and status. (Only
half of the PCI membership comes from the industrial working class.)
At times of economic upturn and increased prosperity the PCI vote has
risen at a pace not substantially different from that shown in periods
of economic recessionI
*In the forties and fifties, Italian and other western analysts tended
to emphasize either poverty or alienation as the prime reasons why
Italians joined or voted for the PCI: i.e., the PCI vote was a "protest"
vote. Increasingly sophisticated analytical methods and polling
techniques have demonstrated the inaccuracy of this conclusion.
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As in any mass party there are left, center and right trends
within the PCI. In late 1973, when Berlinguer spelled out, in occasionally
abstruse language, the now famous compromesso storico ("historic
compromise") aiming at a power-sharing relationship with the DC, he and
the Party's leadership were aware that the base of the Party would
have to have many questions answered before understanding and
accepting it. Does the policy (which is quite consistent with
Togliatti's "Italian Road tc Socialism") mean the entry of the PCI
into a coalition government with the DC? If so, when? What happens
to PCI links with the Socialists and to those local and regional
administrations where the PCI and Socialists now share power? If
the PCI comes into a coalition and doesn't get key ministries, dLesn't this
mean that it accepts responsibilities without effective power? Does
a long period of formalized collaboration without clear PCI supremacy
mean that the Party will eventually be so compr6mised that it is no
longer communist?
Berlinguer and the leadership undertook a careful campaign before
the March 1975 XIVth Congress of the PCI to point out what the "historic
compromise" is not. It is not, he said, an offer by the PCI to save
the DC from past and present mistakes. It is not a move to enter the
government just to become part of the Establishment. It is not a
sellout of PCI principles, and it will only come about when the DC
has changed its conservative economic and social policies and its
current leadership.
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Berlinguer has always been sceptical of the applicability to
the Italian situation of any "fifty-one percent" strategy similar to
that which the French communists have followed in their "Common
Program" with the French Socialist Party. The main objection, in his
view, is chat ultimate success of such an approach would require left
DC votes in order to get a left majority in Parliament, and this would
lead to a de facto split within the DC. He has long felt that a
strong DC is essential to the stability of Italy; to force a split
would mean that a major chunk of the DC, faute de mieux, might well
make common cause with the neo-Fasicst NSI/DN Party in the interest
of survival as a political force. Moreover, he knows that center and
left-of-center DC officials such as Prime Minister Moro fear the
Ilame development.
The reaction among the base of the Party to the "historic
compromise" is difficult to gauge with precision. Soviet attempts,
since 1968, to appeal over the head of the PCI leadership to the
twenty to twenty-five percent of the base which can be considered
"Stalinist" have not met with much success. There seems to be no
orgenized "Stalinist" faction which is resisting the Berlinguer centrist
line and the strong probability is that the leadership will continue
to follow a soft line to the conservatives in its base in hopes that
the new generation of PCI members will not have the visceral affinity
of some of its elders for the CPSU as the "guiding Party" of the
international communist movement.
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The Party leadership has also had problems with the "new left"
elements and with its youth program over the past several years. Many
"new left" members at middle echelons of the PCI left or were expelled
between 1969 and 1972 to the accompaniment of harsh criticism of the
leadership for what they termed the PCI's bureaucratic stagnation and
its bourgeois reluctance to capitalize on the populist atmosphere in
Italy and Europe in 1968. These elements have been addressing violently
anti-PCI propaganda to Italian youth and the Party has been deeply
concerned. TWo aspects of the June 1975 elections give the leader-
ship cause for satisfaction: extraparliamentary left groupings which
ran candidates garnered only 1.6 percent of the vote and, probably
even more important in the long run, fifty to sixty percent of the
newly-enfranchised youth (persons eighteen to twenty-one who were
voting for the first time) voted for the PCI.
PCI Foreign Policy
The PCI's desire to maintain a maximum degree of independence
from the CPSU consistent with retention of membership in a loose
"international communist movement" causes it to join with the
Yugoslays and the Romanians in asserting the right of national
communist parties -- ruling or non-ruling -- to pursue their own
paths to socialism. The Party applauds Dubcek's "Prague Spring"
in Czechoslovakia and denounces the Warsaw Pact invasion. It cheers
the overthrow of the Caetano regime in Portugal but criticizes the
heavy-handed approach of the armed Forces Movement (MFA) and the
statements of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) on the abolition
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of "bourgeois democracy." It exploits the shock of the Italian DC
at the 1973 coup in Chile (which saw the Chilean communists and the
Chilean DC go down the drain) in order to make common cause with the
Italian Socialists and Christian Democrats in ensuring that Italy
does not recognize the Pinochet regime. Where it can, it works with,
rather than separately from, the DC in coordinating criticism of
American policy in southeast Asia cc Latin America. It finds it easier
to have a dialogue with the German Social Democrats (SPD) than with
the West German communists or French communists on common approaches
to regional solutions in Europe and is pleased to see the extent to
which this dialogue is favorably noted in Germany and Italy.
Aware that its ties to the "international communist movement"
and to the CPSU are the prime obstacles to its acceptance by the DC
as a potential coalition partner l the PCI, in its public and private
statements of policy, puts emphasis on the necessity for Italy to
initiate an Italian foreign policy which will be less subject to
domination by the US. The Party links this argument to an overall
objective of an Italy and a Europe which will not be under the
domination of either the USSR or the US.
Portugal as a Factor in PCI Foreign Policy
Long before the Spinola revolution of April 1974 the PCI had
had a jaundiced view of Cunhal, the Portuguese Communist (PCP)
*In 1974, Ciriaco Oe Mita, then Minister of Industry in the Rumor
government, said., "the only real block in the way of accepting the PCI
into the area of government is its tie to a foreign power."
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leader. A long-held PCI fear that Cunhal, if he attained a position of
power, would push for an authoritarian government on the East European
model has been amply vindicated by the events since March 1975. Berlinguer's
anger over the Portuguese government's banning of the Portuguese Christian
Democrats at the time of the PCI Congress in March 1975 was conveyed to
Lisbon through the PCP representatives at the Congress. The PCP told
Berlinguer that it understood his concern and the possible implications
for the PCI's policy of collaboration with the Italian DC but was holding
to its condemnation of the Portuguese DC as a "reactionary" party. The
recent election results indicate that the Italian DC leadership's efforts
to exploit the Portuguese situation had little impact. It appears
probable that Berlinguer's openly friendly attitude toward Mario Soares,
the Portuguese Socialist leader, and the hardened position of the PCI
toward the "anti-democratic" nature of Cunhal's ideological and
programmatic approach have tended to reassure the Italian electorate and
many DC politicians that the PCI is consistent in its advocacy of a
pluralistic society.
The PCI, however, is being put into an increasingly difficult position:
if it persists its anti-PCP line and if the Portuguese Socialists are
banned, it may be forced to an open rupture with the PCP. The PCI
certainly wishes to avoid this, but if such action were to be a condition
of its acceptance by the Italian Socialists and the Italian DC as a
partner in government it might well decide that a break is necessary. Such
a "break" would probably take the form of an open broadside condemnation
of the PCP's internal policies leaving it to the PCP whether such
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a condemnation would cause the latter to break off party-to-party
relations. The PC: would probably be able to make this decision go
down with the"StalinisVelements of its base by emphasizing that
each country develops in its own way; what the PCP does is not
applicable to Italy which has a different tradition and different
problems from tho3e of Portugal.
In March 1975, the CPSU privately indicated its displeasure
over the PCI's criticism of the PCP and is now using the French
Communist Party as a surrogate through which to make this criticism
public. Neither in the short nor the long run is this criticism
likely to cause the PCI leadership to change its mind. The Party will
refuse to be lumped into the same category as the Portuguese Party
-- if it recanted to please the CPSU and its own "Stalinists", it
would violate its ideological doctrine and torpedo its hopes of
entering the government.
A stand against Cunhal is also important for the PCI 's pan-
Europe plans. In the sixties the PCI decided that its future influence
outside Italy lay in identifying with, and participating in, pan-
European institutions and in collaborating with non-communist forces
of the European left, such as the German Social Democrats, whose
vision of the goals and structure of a more unified Europe was close
to that of the PCI. This decision has paid off in gaining the PCI a
reputation for non-polemical expertise in the European Parliament and
in membership of the PCI-dominated trade union confederation (CGIL)
in the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Within Italy this
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responsible" involvement has boosted the Party's image as a "reason-
able" group with statesmanlike positions.
The PCI's "Eurocentrism"
The CPSU is disturbed by the problem posed by the PCI's "Euro-
centrism" -- the pejorative term the Soviets use to describe efforts
by any communist parties to forge working relationships with non-
communist forces in Europe unless such relationships are dictated
and controlled by the CPSU. The warm praise accorded the PCI in
non-communist European Parliament circles, the influence which one
can expect the COIL to acquire within the ETUC, the long-standing
identity of views between the PCI leadership and Santiago Carillo
of the Spanish Communist Party are only among the most obvious aspects
of PCI behavior which bodier the CPSU. They undoubtedly lay behind
the critical references by Ponomarev to the "Eurocentrism" of
"certain fraternal parties" in his address to the conference of
European parties in Warsaw in October 1974. There is good evidence
to show that the reverse is also true: the PCI is irritated by what
it feels is a CPSU policy of using detente and sensitive Washington-
Moscow negotiations as a pretext for not discussing with the PCI "high
strategy" problems of western Europe.
The stated policy of equidistanza ("equidistance") between
the US and the USSR causes some restiveness among those "Stalinists"
in the base who are troubled by evidence of the Party's distancing
itself from the CPSU. The leadership will probably be able to contain
this dissatisfaction by its continuing emphasis on the Party's present
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and future influence in the emerging regionalism of the European left.
Within the leadership, Berlinguer adroitly removed a major focal
point of pro-CPSU pposition by his abolition of the Politburo at
the March 1975 PCI Congress. In so doing he downgraded the status
of the only PCI leader for whom the Soviets have had a kind word in
the past several years: Armando Cossutta, a Politburo member who has
been traditionally known as the CPSU's trusted confidante Berlilguer
has also removed Cossutta from the policy-making Secretariat and put
in newcomers such as Renzo Trivelli, who share his pragmatic and non-
doctrinaire approach to the Party's futwe role in Italy and Europe.
The PCI in Government; What would it mean for the US and NATO?
The following estimates of probable PCI behavior assume the
Party's having achieved a significant and formalized increase in
power at the national level -- i.e., movement from opposition status
to a share in national governing responsibility.
Internal Policy
The Party's internal policies would be moderate -- in many
instances more conservative than those of the Socialists. In the
economic field the PCI would be willing to exert its influence to
promote a more stable, less strike-ridden, more productive economy.
In return it would insist on accelerated governmental and parastatal
efforts in areas of social and economic legislation, especially in
the underdeveloped south. Among the things it would not advocate are
*Berlinguer also realized that It was in the Politburo where "old
guard" apparat members such as Pietro Secchia had been best able to
argue their pro-CPSU doctrines in the days of Togliatti.
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nationalization measures": PCI policy has long been against such
action in a country where 45 percent of industry is already nationalized.
The Party is also acutely aware of the consequences of Allende's
nationahzation actions in Chile.
It is in the parastatal field that the PCI would probably push
for the most radical change. The parastatal enterprises are already
a dominant feature of Italy's economic life and play a substantial
role in Italian foreign economic and political relations. If the
PCI succeeds in getting on the boards of ENI, Montedison, et al., one
can expect it to press for even furtbsr integration of these enter-
rises into overall Italian government policy than is now the case,
and to use whatever power it has to advance Party objectives in the
areas of social reform, technical and economic assistance to third
world countries, low-interest loans to small businesses, etc.
The Party, in power, would probably not change its moderate
policy in such sensitive areas as the police and the armed forces. It
has taken a public stand against the Socialist Party's advocacy of
unionization of the police; moreover, the PCI does not appear on
classified reports prepared by Italian security services listing the
many organizations engaged in subverting the military. The Party
would not stop working for reorganization of the security services and
an overhaul of the armed forces, however. For example, it would
*The PCI's top economist, Luciano Barca, has even stated that the
Party would probably recommend what he calls "reprivatization" of
some medium-sized businesses, particularly in the pharmaceutical field,
which have come under parastatal control in recent years.
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request that the chief of SID (the military intelligence service) be
required to submit to questioning in appropriate parliamentary
committees. It would demand that these committees have a greater
voice in the appointment of senior military officers and in determination
of budgetary allocations. It would press for abolition of the de facto
blocks now existing in the way of PCI members from attaining NCO or
officer rank. In most such cases, however, the Party would be working
with a large body of non-PCI public and parliamentary opinion which
is increasingly irritated by examples of waste, inefficiency, and
right-wing bias in the military/security sector.
Europe, the US and NATO
How would the PCI act in areas critical to the US and NATO?
Would any moderate stands be purely tactical in the sense of cloaking
a long-range policy of detaching Italy from NATO and moving Italy
into the Soviet sphere of influence? Here we are faced with two
guiding principles which play a critical role in PCI thinking and
which present enormous problems of reconciliation in the leadership's
attempts to chart a foreign policy for Italy. The first is the
conviction that NATO is dominated by a US military/industrial establish-
ment dedicated to the expansion of American hegemony -- particularly
economic hegemony -- in Europe and Italy. The second is its desire
to achieve maximum elbow room from the CPSU and to prevent any possible
MOW of Italy into the Soviet orbit. This is the basic rationale for
its defense of "Titoism" and for its close ties with the Yugoslav
Party and government. A solidly pro-CPSU Party in a post-Tito
Yugoslavia would be critically disturbing to the PCI in implementing
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its maverick brand of communism within Italy and its "Eurocentrist"
policies in Europe.
Berlinguer's dilemma on this score is illustrated by the background
of his 3 May 1975 speech on the eve of President Ford's visit to NATO
and Rome. On 2 May there was a heated discussion within the Secretariat
with some members urging Berlinguer to use strong language in attacks
on the US and Ford. Berlinguer rejected this line, stating that there
was no point in criticizing the US administration or engaging in
ad hominem attacks on Secretary Kissinger. Reliable reporting on this
meeting shows that Berlinguer wanted the 'US to have the "absolute
certainty" that the PCI, if it entered the government, would not upset
the equilibrium between the east and west blocs. His critics within
the Secretariat replied that it was nonsense to think the US government
would ever accept any PCI assurances. The speech, as delivered, was
restrained, cautioning the US not to try to exert leverage on the
upcoming local elections.
The Party would not agitate for Italian withdrawal from NATO. The
leadership would continue to emphasize publicly that its favorable
attitude on this issue is based on the defensive nature of the alliance;
privately it would hold to its present view that the blocs will not
disappear for a long time and when they do it will be the result of,
_
not a condition for, much more meaningful US/USSR detente than
presently exists. The realization that the Soviets aren't pressing
for dissolution of NATO would help the Party in its propaganda to
"Stalinists" within its ranks. However, the PCI -- and many in the DC
and other parties -- would certainly resist the establishment of more
NATO or US bases in Italy.
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The gut question here is the psychological repercussion which
PCI participation in government would be likely to have on other
memners of the alliance. Although preliminary and sparse information
on the reaction of other NATO capitals to the massive PCI gains in
the recent elections shows a relaxed attitude toward this prospect
it seems clear that the presence of the largest communist party outside
the east bloc in the governing councils of a major NATO partner would
carry serious implications. Portugal, after all, has not been involved
in sensitive deliberations of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group (MPG);
Italy has been a member of the NPG since its inception. A complicating
factor is the current worry among many DC and other-party politicians
and government officials over the extent to which Greek-Turkish
tensions have increased the importance of Italy in the minds of the
NATO command. They fear possible future pressures from the US and/or
NATO to undertake military commitments which a few years ago would
have been assigned to the Turks or Greeks. Should the PCI decide to
try to water down Italy's commitments it would have ready allies
within the DC in this attempt. Since the primary purpose of NATO is
to serve as a deterrent to Soviet aggression westward and since some
NATO allies no longer perceive this threat to be very serious, the
presence of the PCI in government would probably diminish the "will
of the alliance" to some extent.
This psychological reaction would seem to be a more critical
issue than strictly military/security considerations. The security
arrangements to guard against leaking of NATO secrets to the PCI and
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thence, perhaps, to the USSR, would pose majcr problems. These
problems already exist, however, as we have noted in covering the
extent to which the Party is de facto already involved in Italian
foreign policy, budgetary preparation and the allocation of national
resources, including defense expenditures. The security threat would
thus probably not be substantially greater than it is today unless the
PCI were to be given thc. Foreign or Defense Ministries -- something
the Party neither expects nor hopes for in the foreseeable future.
While PCI participation in government would pose serious problems
for NATO and for the privileged military position of the US in Italy
today, the argument by some US officials that it would be an important
factor in pressuring Italy to adopt a pro-Arab stand in any future
Arab-Israeli conflict begs a critical point': The Italian gowrnment,
with or without the PCI in it, is not likely to lend assistance to a
US role in helping Israel in any future conflict any more than it
was willing to do so in October 1973. Italy's pro-Arab stance goes
back to the fifties when ENI (the National Hydrocarbon Enterprise)
laid the basis for a policy which would ensure the supply of vitally-
needed Arab -- particularly Libyan -- oil.
This leads to a larger area of consideration: The PCI has put
its emphasis in foreign policy on capitalizing on those currents of
Italian popular and government opinion which parallel major Party
objectives. It gained considerable strength in its "conditioning"
*See dissenting opinion in Prospec:s for and Consequences of Increased
Communist Influence in Italian Politics, National Intelligence Estimate
NIE 24-1-74, published 18 July 1974, page 20.
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policy, for example, by joining, rather than trying to lead, other
parties in criticism of those US policies with which it disagrees.
Where the PCI, Italian government and US-NATO strategic interests
coincide, as in the case of preventing Soviet exploitation of post-
Tito developments in Yugoslavia to pull Yugoslavia into the Soviet
orbit, the PCI would have no problem in identifying with the views
of the NATO command that Soviet success in any such undertaking would
seriously -- and adversely -- affect the European power balance.
The EC and the Eur2pean Parliament
As discussed earlier, the PCI's foreign policy is "Eurocentrist"
in the sense that it looks to a strengthening of the EC and of the
European Parliament to the end that if and when thc blocs disappear
there will be a strong, more unified western Europe capable of
resisting both US and Soviet efforts toward hegemony. It will continue
to push for acceptance of its theoretical and practical arguments that
pan-European institutions be socialist in their programs and it will
use any increased influence within the Italian government and the DC
to promote this.
To sum up: The domestic policies and actions of the PCI are
pragmatic and non-doctrinaire, They give legitimate cause for concern
to the CPSU and to those Italian "Stalinists" who feel that the Party
leadership at many levels has been too much "conditioned' )y over a
generation of working within the system. With its demonstrated ability
to keep in touch with the mood of the population, the Party is a force
for internal stability in the Italy of the late seventies. In the
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international field it will continue to distance itself from those
CPSU policies which it deems outmoded and counterproductive in its
efforts to establish a European order which is pluralistic but
basically socialist. The Berlinguer leadership has succeeded in
making this the official Party line. Should Berlinguer stumble seriously
on any key issue, such as on his gamble that the Party's responsible
positions and the electorate's reaction to them will see the PCI have
a more formal say in national governing policy, he and the Party might
well feel constrained to adopt a more radical line internally and a
more militant, anti-NATO policy abroad. The Party would remain, how-
ever, a very pragmatic party with objectives and programs appealing
to a broad range of Italian society: a reflection of its realization
that it does not have -- and is unlikely to gain -- sufficient popular
support to rule alone.
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