A-Infos (en) Italy, FdCA: Learning from defeats (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The defeat that arose with the referendum of 8/9 May is not only evident 
but also complete. In fact, it goes beyond the purely trade union level 
to take on an evidently political significance, precisely because it is 
configured as a victory of the class enemy in its multifaceted economic, 
social, political and institutional configurations. It is a defeat 
destined to cause serious consequences both in terms of a recrudescence 
of the employers' and government's offensive against the living 
conditions of the subaltern classes and against civil rights and 
freedom, and in terms of trade union organization and its strategic 
role, in one of the most complex and dramatic phases experienced since 
the Second World War.
It has become clear that if trade union action shifts to the political, 
party and institutional terrain, leaving aside the uncompromising 
defense of the living conditions of the subaltern classes, if trade 
union action is replaced by the intertwining with parliamentarism as 
happened during the referendum campaign, defeat is certain.

By choosing the instrument of the referendum, Landini and the CGIL 
leadership group had first and foremost the heavy responsibility of 
having left the fate of millions of workers in the hands of the class 
enemy and of having let the success of the November general strike 
deflate in recent months without building passages of struggle that 
would mobilize workers at least until the referendum.
The CGIL, which had promoted four of the five referendums, therefore 
emerges weakened by the entire referendum affair that has been 
intertwined with the maneuvers of the "broad field", that is, with those 
parties that in previous center-left governments have distinguished 
themselves by adopting policies that have unloaded the costs of the 
crisis entirely onto our class. Such an alliance has evidently 
influenced the will and ability of the CGIL to face the unprecedented 
attack of the bourgeoisie on the minimum vital needs of workers, so 
articulating a significant opposition to the government and the 
employers will be even more difficult from now on.
It seems that the defeat of the 1984 referendum on the sliding scale, 
promoted by the PCI following the disastrous conclusion of the FIAT 
dispute in 1980, did not give rise to any serious reflection. The 
employers and their government, that of the socialist Craxi, emerged 
victorious, marking a point of no return in the affirmation of 
neoliberal and anti-worker policies. Further confirmation of the vacuity 
of the referendum strategy was the 2003 referendum on the extension of 
Article 18 of the Workers' Statute, proposed by Rifondazione Comunista 
with the then secretary Fausto Bertinotti, which also saw a disastrous 
defeat, reaching only 25% of the votes. On that occasion, the 
center-right government, led by Silvio Berlusconi on behalf of 
Confindustria, after an initial position against it, supported the 
reasons for abstention. Abstention also supported by the moderates of 
the center-left (Francesco Rutelli's Margherita, with a role similar to 
that of Renzi and Calenda at present) and, much more seriously, with 
only a few internal defections, by the Democrats of the Left, then led 
by Piero Fassino assisted by Sergio Cofferati himself, who had recently 
left the leadership of the CGIL itself.

In the face of such precedents, the criticism aimed at stigmatizing the 
indication of abstention by the government forces as a "betrayal of the 
constitutional principles that establish voting as a civic duty", moved 
both by the leadership of the CGIL and by the Democratic Party, appears 
vacuous and completely inadequate.
This further defeat will certainly favor the more concertative sectors 
that, still well present in the CGIL, look with extreme interest at the 
neo-corporatist turn of the CISL and the more moderate components of the 
Democratic Party, which objectively emerge strengthened by the 
referendum affair.
We are not interested in dwelling on the analysis of the various 
boycotts orchestrated by economic, governmental and political power, nor 
in the meanders of that part of the center-left that now claims 30% of 
the votes to minimize the defeat. We believe that this is the 
consequence of a real institutional drift of the union that has 
consciously placed itself as an alternative to the social and class 
conflict by means of the referendum shortcut.
On the other hand, once again, history expresses those who interpret it. 
Thus the neo-corporatist leadership group of the CISL has also moved its 
action to the institutional level, promoting a collection of signatures 
for a popular bill for "participation in work" from which last May 14, 
with the full support of the entire government majority, the new law 
Provisions for the participation of workers in the management, capital 
and profits of companies emerged. In the face of this, the CGIL 
leadership group, flaunting a somewhat improvised activism (in apparent 
contrast only with its historical concertative attitude and 
subordination to the capitalist framework), has committed itself to the 
referendum choice, weakening the social conflict and thus maturing a 
burning defeat.

Despite the fact that even within the CGIL the referendum choice has 
been considered by many to be inadequate, improbable and in any case a 
substitute for the social conflict and despite the fact that these 
critical evaluations have also found confirmation in numerous other 
political organizations and grassroots trade unionism, the opposition to 
the institutional drift has not taken off, has remained largely a 
minority and the social conflict has not generalized to broader 
contexts. And now, after the defeat, it will be much more difficult to 
propose it again and carry it forward in a unitary context. Furthermore, 
the defeat is not only of the CGIL leadership group, but also and above 
all of its entire militant fabric that has generously spent itself in 
the referendum choice.
These considerations refer not so much to the search for 
responsibilities that certainly reside in the leadership groups of 
confederal unionism, responsibilities that it is however necessary to 
identify with objectivity and historical contextualization, but above 
all to the real capacity to influence the entire class opposition, which 
has not been and still is not able to generalize the social conflict, 
overcoming the self-referential logics to effectively counter the 
concertative, institutional, bureaucratic and neo-corporatist tendencies 
of confederal unionism.

"As workers and as vanguards, outside of any paternalistic approach, we 
have the duty to question ourselves first of all on the subjective 
condition of the masses and on the fact, confirmed by the ballot boxes, 
of a working class that is dispersed, disillusioned, ensnared by 
bourgeois models, largely indifferent and little aware of its own 
situation of exploitation, little available for conflict even in the 
face of a virulent and pervasive bourgeois offensive that carries out a 
thorough attack on its living conditions"

As workers and as vanguards, outside of any paternalistic approach, we 
have the duty to question ourselves first of all on the subjective 
condition of the masses and on the fact, confirmed by the ballot boxes, 
of a working class that is dispersed, disillusioned, ensnared by 
bourgeois models, largely indifferent and little aware of its own 
situation of exploitation, little available for conflict even in the 
face of a virulent and pervasive bourgeois offensive that carries out a 
thorough attack on its living conditions.
What has been missing and is still missing is a militant fabric rooted 
in the productive realities and mass movements, capable of expressing 
and building unitary instances in defense of the interests of the 
subaltern classes and the weakest and least protected social sectors. 
Its construction must be pursued in a non-occasional manner, but with a 
real strategic awareness that knows how to safeguard the unity and 
autonomy of the entire class movement even and above all in the most 
difficult moments, in which defeat is affirmed as is happening in this 
specific phase. It is an increasingly necessary work that starts from 
the awareness derived from the defeats suffered by our class that have 
now overshadowed its significant victories, thus determining the basis 
for the current crisis situation of the social conflict that is 
increasingly turning in favor of capital. It is a necessary, urgent and 
no longer postponable work.

Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA

https://alternativalibertaria.org/imparare-dalle-sconfitte/
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