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Ventotene
I
Ventotene
II |
III - Postwar duties. Reform of
society
A free and united Europe
is the necessary premise to the strengthening of modern civilization as
regards which the totalitarian era is only a temporary setback. As soon
as this era ends the historical process of struggle against social inequalities
and privileges will be restored in full. All the old conservative institutions
that have hindered this process will either have collapsed or will be teetering
on the verge of collapse. The crisis in these institutions must be boldly
and decisively exploited.
In order to respond
to our needs, the Europen revolution must be socialist, i.e. its goal must
be the emancipation of the working classes and the creation of more humane
conditions for them. The guiding light in determining what steps need to
be taken, however, cannot simply be the utterly doctrinaire principle whereby
private ownership of the material means of production must in principle
be abolished and only temporarily tolerated when dispensing with it entirely.
Wholesale nationalization of the economy under State control was the first,
utopian form taken by the working classes' concept of their freedom from
the yoke of capitalism. But when this State control is achieved, it does
not produce the desired results but leads to a regime where the entire
population is subservient to a restricted class of bureaucrats who run
the economy.
The truly fundamental
principle of socialism, vis-à-vis which general collectivization
was no more than a hurried and erroneous inference, is the principle which
states that, far from dominating man, economic forces, like the forces
of nature, should be subject to man, guided and controlled by him in the
most rational way, so that the broadest strata of the population will not
become their victims. The huge forces of progress that spring from individual
interests, must not be extinguished by the grey dullness of routine. Otherwise,
the same insoluble problem will arise: how to stimulate the spirit of initiative
using salary differentials and other provisions of the same kind. The forces
of progress must be extolled and extended, by giving them increasing opportunities
for development and employment. At the same time, the tracks guiding these
forces towards objectives of greatest benefit for all society must be strengthened
and perfected.
Private property must
be abolished, limited, corrected, or extended according to the circumstances
and not according to any dogmatic principle. This guiding principle is
a natural feature in the process of forming a European economic life freed
from the nightmares of militarism or national bureaucratism. Rational solutions
must replace irrational ones, even in the working class consciousness.
With a view to indicating the content of this principle in greater detail,
we emphasize the following points while stressing the need to assess the
appropriateness of every point in the programme and means of achieving
them in relationship to the indispensable premise of European unity:
a) Enterprises
with a necessarily monopolistic activity, and in a position to exploit
consumers, cannot be left in the hands of private ownership: for example,
electricity companies or industries of vital interest to the community
which require protective duties, subsidies, preferential orders etc. if
they are to survive (the most visible example of this kind of industry
so far in Italy is the steel industry); and enterprises which, owing to
the amount of capital invested, the number of workers employed, and the
significance of the sector involved can blackmail various State bodies,
forcing them to adopt the policies most beneficial to themselves (for example,
the mining industries, large banks, large weapons manufacturers). In this
field, nationalization must certainly be introduced on a vast scale, without
regard for acquired rights.
b) Private property
and inheritance legislation in the past was so drawn up as to permit the
accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, privileged members of society.
In a revolutionary crisis this wealth must be distributed in an egalitarian
way thereby eliminating the parassitic classes and giving the workers the
means of production they need to improve their economic standing and achieve
greater independence. We are thus proposing an agrarian reform which will
increase the number of owners enormously by giving land to those who actually
farm it and an industrial reform which will extend workers' ownership in
non-nationalized sectors, through co-operative adventures, employee profit-sharing,
and so on.
c) The young need
to be assisted with all the measures needed to reduce the gap between the
starting positions in the struggle to survive to a minimum. In particular,
State schools ought to provide a real chance for those who deserve it to
continue their studies to the highest level, instead of restricting these
oportunities to wealthy students. In each branch of study leading to training
in different crafts and the various liberal and scientific professions,
State schools should train the number of students which corresponds to
the market requirements, so that average salaries will be roughly equal
for all the professional categories, regardless of the differing rates
of remuneration within each category according to individual skills.
d) The almost
unlimited potential of modern technology to mass produce essential goods
guarantees, with relatively low social costs, that everyone can have food,
lodging, clothing and the minimum of comfort needed to preserve a sense
of human dignity. Human solidarity towards those who fall in the economic
struggle ought not, therefore, to be manifested with humiliating forms
of charity that produce the very same evils they seek to remedy but ought
to consist in a series of measures which unconditionally, and regardless
of whether a person is able to work or not, guarantee a decent standard
of living for all without lessening the stimulus to work and save. In this
way, no-one will be forced any longer to accept enslaving work contracts
because of their poverty.
e) Working class
freedom can only be achieved when the conditions described have been fulfilled.
The working classes must not be left to the mercy of the economic policies
of monopolistic trade unions who simply apply the overpowering methods
characteristic, above all, of great capital to the shopfloor. The workers
must once again be free to choose their own trusted representatives when
collectively establishing the conditions under which they will agree to
work, and the State must give them the legal means to guarantee the proper
implementation of the terms agreed to. But all monopolistic tendencies
can be fought effectively once these social changes have been fulfilled.
These are the changes
needed both to create very broad-based support around the new instututional
system from a large number of citizens willing to defend its survival and
to stamp freedom and a strong sense of social solidarity onto political
life in a very marked way. Political freedom with these foundations will
not just have a formal meaning but a real meaning for all since citizens
will be independent, and will be sufficiently informed as to be able to
exert continuous and effective control over the ruling class.
It would be superfluous
to dwell at length on constitutional institutions, not knowing at this
stage, or being able to foresee, the circumstances under which they will
be drawn up and will have to operate. We can do no more than repeat what
everyone knows regarding the need for representative bodies, the process
of developing legislation, the independence of the courts (which will replace
the present system) safeguarding impartial application of legislation and
the freedom of the press and right of assembly guaranteeing informed public
opinion and the possibility for all citizens to participate effectively
in the State's life. Only two issues require further and deeper definition
because of their particular significance for our country at this moment:
the relationship between Church and State and the nature of political representation.
a) The Treaty
which concluded the Vatican's alliance with Fascism in Italy must be abolished
so that the purely lay character of the State can be asserted and so that
the supremacy of the State in civil matters can be unequivocably established.
All religious faiths are to be equally respected, but the State must no
longer have earmark funds for religion.
b) The house
of cards that Fascism built with its corporativism will collapse together
with the other aspects of the totalitarian State. There are those who believe
that material for the new constitutional order can be salvaged from this
wreck. We disagree. In totalitarian States, the corporative chambers are
the crowning hoax of police control over the workers. Even if the corporative
chambers were a sincere expression of the will of the various categories
of producers, the representative bodies of the various professional categories
could never be qualified to handle questions of general policy. In more
specifically economic matters, they would become bodies for the accumulation
of power and privilege among the categories with the strongest trade union
representation. The unions will have broad collaborative functions with
State bodies which are appointed to resolve problems directly involving
these unions, but they should have absolutely no legislative power, since
this would create a kind of feudal anarchy in the economic life of the
country, leading to renewed political despotism. Many of those who were
ingenuously attracted by the myth of corporativism, can and should be attracted
by the job of renewing structures. But they must realize the absurdity
of the solution they vaguely desire. Corporativism can only be concretely
expressed in the form it was given by totalitarian States regimenting the
workers beneath officials who monitored everything they did in the interests
of the ruling class The revolutionary party cannot be amateurishly improvised
at the decisive moment, but must begin to be formed at least as regards
its central political attitude, its upper echelons, the basic directives
for action. It must not be a heterogeneous mass of tendencies, united merely
negatively and temporarily, i.e. united by their anti-Fascist past and
the mere expectation of the fall of the totalitarian regime, in which all
and sundry are ready to go their own separate ways once this goal has been
reached. The revolutionary party, on the contrary, knows that only at this
stage will it its real work begin. It must therefore be made up of men
who agree on the main issues for the future.
Its methodical propaganda
must penetrate everywhere there are people oppressed by the present regime.
Taking as its starting point the problem which is the source of greatest
suffering to individuals and classes, it must show how this problem is
linked to other problems, and what the real solution will be. But from
this gradually increasing circle of sympathizers, it must pick out and
recruit into the organisation only those who have identified and accepted
the European revolution as the main goal in their lives, who carry out
the necessary work with strict discipline day in day out, carefully checking
up on its continuous and effective safety, even in the most dangerously
illegal situations. These recruits will be the solid network that will
give consistency to the more ephemeral sphere of the sympathizers.
While overlooking no
occasion or sector in which to spread its cause, it must be active first
and foremost in those environments which are most significant as centres
for the circulation of ideas and recruiting of combative men. It must be
particularly active vis-à-vis the working class and intellectuals,
the two social groups most sensitive, in the present situation, and most
decisive for tomorrow's world. The first group is the one which least gave
in to the totalitarian rod and which will the quickest to reorganize its
ranks. The intellectuals, particularly the younger intellectuals, are the
group which feels most spiritually suffocated and disgusted with the current
despotism. Bit by bit other social groups will gradually be drawn into
the general movement.
Any movement which fails
in its duty to ally these forces, is condemned to sterility. Because if
the movement is made up of intellectuals alone, it will lack the strength
to crush reactionary resistence, and it will distrust and be distrusted
by the working class and even though inspired by democratic sentiment,
when faced with difficulties it will be liable to shift its position, as
regard the mobilisation of other classes, against the workers, and thus
restoring Fascism. If, instead, the movement is backed only by the proletariat,
it will be deprived of the clarity of thought which only intellectuals
can give and which is so vital in identifying new paths and new duties:
the movement would be a prisoner of the old class structure, looking on
everyone as a potential enemy, and will slither towards the doctrinaire
Communist solution.
During the revolutionary
crisis, this movement will have the task of organizing and guiding progressive
forces, using all the popular bodies which form spontaneously, incandescent
melting pots in which the revolutionary masses are mixed, not for the creation
of plebiscites, but rather waiting to be guided. It derives its vision
and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge that it represents
the deepest needs of modern society and not from any previous recognition
by popular will, as yet inexistant. In this way it issues the basic guidelines
of the new order, the first social discipline directed to the unformed
masses. By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will
be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow.
There are no grounds
for fearing that such a revolutionary regime will develop into renewed
despotism. This arises only when the tendency has been to shape a servile
society. But if the revolutionary party continues resolutely from the very
outset to create the conditions required for individual freedom whereby
every citizen can really participate in the State's life, which will evolve,
despite secondary political crises, towards increasing understanding and
acceptance of the new order by all - hence towards an increasing possibility
of working effectively and creating free political institutions.
The time has now come
to get rid of these old cumbersome burdens and to be ready for whatever
turns up, usually so different from what was expected, to get rid of the
inept among the old and create new energies among the young. Today, in
an effort to begin shaping the outlines of the future, those who have understood
the reasons for the current crisis in European civilization, and who have
therefore inherited the ideals of movements dedicated to raising the dignity
humanity, which were shipwrecked either on their inability to understand
the goal to be pursued or on the means by which to achieve it have begun
to meet and seek each other.The
road to pursue is neither easy nor certain. But it must be followed and
it will be!
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