A-Infos (en) Italy, FdCA, IL CANTIERE #39 - " There are days that weigh like boulders"... - Libertarian Alternative/FdCA (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The systematic genocide of the Palestinian civilian population by the 
Israeli government and the IDF is being carried out amid the almost 
total subservience of European Union governments to the non-negotiable 
demands of US imperialism. The United States is, in fact, the main 
supporter of the Israeli government, its expansionist ambitions, and its 
resulting crimes in one of the most heated regions on the planet. These 
bloody imperialist attempts at domination have so far not met with mass 
opposition as has been demonstrated in recent days in Europe, the world, 
and even in our country, where initially episodic mobilizations have 
taken on unprecedented proportions in terms of the quantity, quality, 
and spread of the protests.

    In our country, the litmus test of these mobilizations was the 
three general strikes that occurred in just two weeks: the first was 
hastily called by the CGIL for September 19th, without considering 
whether it would coincide with the one already called by some grassroots 
union organizations for the following September 22nd. However, the 
CGIL's decision to move independently proved inappropriate, and, given 
the limitations imposed by Law 146/90, many CGIL members converged on 
the strike on the 22nd, thus marking an undeniable success for that 
mobilization, in addition to significant demonstrations in numerous 
squares across Italy.

    Finally, the strike of October 3rd saw the renewed participation of 
grassroots unions as well as that of the CGIL, which this time could not 
ignore the strong internal desire for unity that had emerged from the 
strike of the 22nd. This gave rise to a mobilization unlike anything 
seen in decades, characterized above all by a large and widespread 
presence of younger generations, students, and, more generally, the 
world of education. This mobilization was confirmed in all its vast 
scope the following day by the national unity demonstration on October 
4th in Rome.

" Full squares, empty ballot boxes"

    This famous statement by Pietro Nenni, an authoritative leader of 
the PSI (Italian Socialist Party), pronounced in the aftermath of the 
defeat of the "Popular Front" in the political elections of April 1948, 
has been cloyingly recalled by many on the occasion of the recent 
mobilizations against the genocide carried out in Palestine by the 
Netanyahu government. These mobilizations were distinguished by an 
extremely high and unprecedented turnout, especially among young people, 
which is artfully countered by the growing "fleeing from the polls" , as 
the recent rounds of regional elections have demonstrated, most recently 
also in Tuscany, where 47.73% of eligible voters cast their ballots.

    Nenni's statement was the consequence of a historic defeat, not 
only electoral but above all political, where disappointment, 
disillusionment, and discouragement prevailed over the contexts in which 
this defeat occurred, instead focusing only on appearances, in 
accordance with the most genuine and omissive reformist practice. 
Indeed, while the full streets in the April 1948 general elections were 
undoubtedly those of the "Popular Front," formed by the PSI and PCI 
(Italian Communist Party) unity-a highly controversial coalition, the 
ballot boxes of the time could hardly be considered empty, given that 
92.19% of eligible voters cast their ballots in those same elections, 
and the DC (Christian Democracy) alone obtained a near absolute majority 
of the vote.

    So Nenni's quote, although "effective", remained strongly 
influenced by a sort of "justificationism" precisely because the 
relevant problem was certainly not "abstentionism" in itself, but the 
fact that "people" at the time continued to vote en masse for the DC.

The current anti-war movement and the flight from the polls

    We've made this a bit long-winded because, more than 77 years after 
the events mentioned above, there are still those who evidently employ 
ancient and evocative expedients to counter the emergence of a new 
social and mass movement, which is once again expressing, in Italy and 
in numerous other countries, avowedly and intelligently subversive 
political content, something not seen for decades. But, conversely, 
there are also those who believe they want to channel these social and, 
why not, even class-based pressures into central and peripheral state 
institutions to serve as their spokesperson, complaining that the very 
lack of an authoritative political voice active within the institutions 
has contributed to the flight from the polls, to the crisis of 
representation and democracy, in a superficial assessment of the 
"abstentionist" phenomenon as a social phenomenon, which homogenizes 
parliamentary political alignments. The lack of electoral support also 
expresses and limits the strategy implemented by countless organizations 
and political components of the new left, even its most radical 
historical components, aimed at reestablishing a presence, especially in 
the parliament of the Republic, where they have been absent since 2008. 
We therefore believe it is time to overcome what we consider a 
paralyzing institutional drift by initiating an objective political 
reflection, even among those who support it electorally. To do so, it is 
necessary to start at the root of the problem, avoiding blaming its 
historical failures on abstentionism.

    The crisis of bourgeois democracy and its institutions is an 
international phenomenon, closely linked to the major processes of 
productive restructuring undertaken in recent decades by capital in the 
context of the emergence of new powers, which have intensified 
imperialist competition for control of the world market. Wars, more than 
50 across the planet, are the expression of a global conflict fought 
piecemeal and are increasingly becoming widespread, intertwined with 
trade conflicts between powers that have entered an acute and now 
admittedly endemic phase, where military power relations are 
increasingly asserting themselves, tattering international law: NATO has 
more authority than the UN; the International Criminal Court has been 
rendered impotent by US sanctions. The European Union sees its 
disjointed imperialist components playing out worn-out "national" games 
, where the strongest, like Germany, asserts itself by believing it can 
address its economic crisis by reviving rearmament policies, even at the 
expense of other EU components which, like Italy, are worse off than it. 
In any case, all of them find themselves forced into economic and 
political subordination to the United States, which intends to address 
its own irreversible decline at the expense of the EU and its divided 
and impotent diplomacy, united only by the need to avoid further 
irritating the US interlocutor, accepting its non-negotiable conditions 
regarding arms and energy purchases, tariffs, and other protectionist 
measures aimed at defending the US economy. This is done to justify 
rearmament policies conducted in the interests of European and, above 
all, American arms producers.

    In other, simpler words: the EU will therefore have to think about 
Russia at its own expense, that is, by offloading the costs of 
rearmament onto public spending, precisely to allow the US to deal with 
China. All these dynamics of capital and its economic, political, and 
institutional structures have been countered in Italy by a systematic 
and widespread agitation that has produced a renewed and widespread 
awareness of the extermination of the civilian population in Palestine, 
the rearmament policies conducted at the expense of the lower classes, 
and, more generally, opposition to imperialist wars, and the resulting 
militarism that is taking hold throughout society and, above all, in the 
education system at all levels. But this mass movement has involved not 
only indiscriminate segments of the population but also workers and 
significant sectors of the student and youth movement.

    A mass movement that, despite inevitable contradictions, is 
demonstrating growth, albeit in a minority, among some of its more 
conscious components: there is a growing awareness and urgency to oppose 
capitalism and its employer and government policies, linking them to the 
defense of class interests. Hence the need to articulate joint proposals 
for struggle, consistently involving the labor force and certain 
categories, such as schools of all levels, which have distinguished 
themselves, in all their components, by participating in recent 
mobilizations. If this widespread participation expresses minority but 
no longer irrelevant social and class strata, which shun institutions 
and electoral choices, then it is essential to grasp the message these 
components express: strengthening, coordinating, and organizing the 
awareness that is spreading within the anti-war movement to broaden the 
social conflict, uniting the defense of the material interests of the 
subaltern classes against the bourgeoisie of their own country, in order 
to regain victory. There is still much work to be done in this 
direction, but only in this way can we concretely reconcile the 
immediate interests of the subaltern classes with the historical 
interests of the world proletariat, in an internationalist struggle to 
overcome the capitalist system, against all wars induced by imperialism, 
for peace and the liberation of humanity and the environment that 
surrounds it.

" Free Palestine from the River to the Sea"

      It is perhaps the most frequently shouted slogan at recent 
demonstrations by large groups of young people, and it expresses a 
sincere yearning for freedom. The same concept also holds true with 
respect to the war in Ukraine and all the conflicts resulting from the 
capitalist system of production's dominance across the planet, precisely 
because war is its inevitable consequence. But slogans must be "taken" 
for what they are, as they certainly cannot serve as complete political 
analyses. We cannot and should not expect throngs of adolescents 
entering politics for the first time, instead of shouting their anger at 
a genocide and the economic, political, and institutional system that 
knowingly triggers it, to first research the issue, perhaps from the 
very sources that apologise for it, which, at least at this stage, are 
overwhelmed by widespread mass opposition.

    But what resistance and what freedom realistically lie ahead for 
Palestine? What for Ukraine, Libya, or Sudan, and for all the countries 
devastated by wars fought within the imperialist framework of the clash 
between powers? What historical precedents can we draw upon? A freedom 
that asserts itself in that "unity of the people," as it was defined in 
the decolonization processes that unfolded since the Second World War, 
from Asia to Africa to Latin America?

    And what were the hegemonic social forces that seized power in 
those transitions, building regimes that, freeing themselves from US 
imperialism, fell under the domination of the imperialism of the then 
USSR or of territorial powers that, like China, were evolving toward a 
still fragile and incomplete capitalism? A modest editorial certainly 
cannot provide exhaustive answers to such complex questions: we 
reiterate that imperialism does not only employ armaments and armies to 
export, extend, and guarantee its capitalist investments in their 
respective areas of interest: imperialism also exports the structures of 
its institutional domination.

    It is important to recall, as a contribution to the reflection on 
Palestine, the entire story of the decolonization of Vietnam. Here, to 
put it simply, the components of a vibrant national bourgeoisie that 
placed itself at the helm of the Vietnamese people asserted themselves, 
thanks to the support of the USSR, in a social reality shattered by a 
twenty-year, victorious struggle against the colonizing powers, giving 
rise to a regime that, freed from US imperialism, adopted the tenets of 
"real socialism," a configuration of a new model of capitalist 
exploitation of the subaltern classes, which perpetuated its domination 
through the dictatorship of a single party based on the Soviet model.

    Even in that historical case, the concept of the people masked the 
harsh but realistic reality of the balance of power between the social 
classes, which saw the Vietnamese bourgeoisie as the ruling class that 
would assume power in institutional forms different from the previous 
ones, which nevertheless perpetuated capitalist exploitation even under 
the cloak of false socialism.

    The entire Vietnam affair saw, until the mid-1970s of the last 
century, a powerful opposition to US aggression which involved a huge 
participation, even among young people, which undoubtedly contributed to 
ending the war.

But this victory did not provide the answers that this powerful movement 
expressed in a perspective of liberation: in that case too, the premises 
were lacking and the balance of power between the classes prevailed, 
which saw the emergence of a new capitalist regime.

A conclusion: before answering, let's ask the right questions.

    It might be said that "contexts vary," and we certainly agree: but 
even in Palestine, the balance of power among the classes within the 
Palestinian people tends toward the hegemony of bourgeois factions, 
divided into nationalist components, which oscillate between secularism 
and reactionary, oppressive, and obscurantist fundamentalism, while 
still exercising their contradictory dominion over a subaltern class 
defeated by an ancient, bloody war and, above all, totally devoid of 
political and trade union representation. So, in this situation, what 
freedom lies ahead for Palestine? Even before the answers needed, the 
formulation of the questions is important. As we approach the conclusion 
of this editorial, we affirm that we are not interested in a polarized 
debate between one or two states, in an alternative that would in any 
case not allow for the defense of the interests of the Palestinian 
proletariat (we continue to use this definition because we consider it 
highly relevant), in a perspective of emancipation from capitalism that, 
while remaining somewhat unrealistic given the current context, does not 
erase its inevitable internationalist scope.

    We continue to believe and propose that the unity of the 
proletariat and its emancipation is against national and nationalist 
barriers and that, although the internationalist proposal for the unity 
of workers from all over the world is the only one capable of averting 
war, it is a process of construction that must be urgently and 
realistically begun, especially to involve the younger generations.

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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