Wed Jul 09, 2025
July 09, 2025

How the burgeoisie uses the Communist Refoundation Party


A piece of work against the workers


The new Bertinotti and Mussi project, in the name of bourgeois governability


 



In January, after giving his support to some scandalous budget estimates, Franco Giordano (Secretary General of Communist Re-foundation) spotted a “new phase” at the summit of the Union in Caserta. Thanks to the persuasion exerted by Re-foundation on the forces of the Union even Fassino was convinced to “make reforms coincide with equity” making administration “syntonize with our people”.


And with this reassurance 2to our people” to restore a pinch of grace to the press after an interview to Versan on privatisations and an article by Padoa Shippa on the magnificent virtues of rigour (for workers) that Re-foundation has proved to the bourgeoisie that they had made a good investment when – by vast majority – decided the presence of PRC in the government. Bourgeoisie knows that only thanks to the support from trade union bureaucracy and PRC is it at all possible to launch an unprecedented in the republican history attack against the working class, achieving at the same time a much fewer hours of strikes compared with the last year of the centre-right administration.


The “communist” in the office have not frightened them in the least, essentially because it was clear that – as usual whenever workers’ partied entered the chambers (or rather the ante-chambers) of power inside the capitalist system, their role was to put a brake on the struggles. With respect to how to do it, and the paradise-like perspectives after this valley of woe, they have left full freedom for the magnificent dialectics of Russo Spena (“we voted the Prodi 12 points because we are not satisfied and we want the moon”) of Gagliardi, Miglione. People who have become masters at selling bottles of watered down Lambrusco as the Barolo of the year.


The social war against workers is combined with a military war abroad, some patriotic trimmings in the service of Italian capitalism. No other government has dared to go so far before, TFR, increase in military expenditure, increase in troops and weaponry in Afghanistan.


Giordano himself, now addressing employers to timidly indicate that it is necessary to avoid indigestion) took the liberty to remind that “in the latest general estimates Cofindustria (Italian employers) has benefited more than ever before”. And that was just the starter to be followed by more tasty dishes on the menu of the “twelve points” that brought the administration out of the Parliament crisis.


 


Government stronger, PRC weaker


But the arguments used by the leading group of Re-foundation to persuade its militants sound less and less convincing for anybody with any rationality. To keep on promising imminent “time of making up for it” when the administration announces “time for sacrifice”. Neither is the bogeyman of “Berlusconi is coming back” believable any more when, thanks to the policies of the Union, centre right is thriving socially (if polls are anything to stand by) and with electoral intentions.


That is why bewilderment and dissatisfaction are expressed in protests against trade union bureaucracy and Bertinotti (defined as traitor) by the workers of Mirafiori (FIAT) first and by Roman students later on. That is also why the internal situation of Re-foundation is in an evident and increasing degradation. In spite of all the efforts of the Bertinottian majority, now accrued by the trend of Claudio Grassi and Be Communists (that is the conference of the Organisation in Carrara voted the Giordano motion removing the “anti-imperialist” and partisan” battle among hugs and general commotion), the circles (grassroots organisation of Re-foundation) keep on vanishing. The PRC is chewed and spat out by the government, the way people used to do with tobacco. Activists are more and more often replaced by social climbers. That is what Giordano has declared in Carrara appealing to the need for “new internal rules” to counteract bad habits that actually are offspring of government positioning of the party that keep it away from the struggles and crush the collective need for a change and nourish personal ambitions to make a career.


In order to legitimise themselves in the eyes of the bourgeoisie as a government force, the leaders of the Re-foundation are compelled to eat garbage and praise the chef, but the more they are acknowledged by the bourgeoisie as reliable (the press praises the elegance of the chairman of the Chamber) the further they drift from the workers and the less they will be able to control workers and movements, the lesser will their usefulness for the bourgeoisie be. They evidently do not know what to do with the speeches by Bertinotti on “the city of men” or on Kant, if he cannot guarantee social peace. This is the contradiction of RE-foundation and, in general, the curse of every social democratic force at a time marked by the historic failure of social democracy.


 


What is meant emerge from Mussi’s and Betinotti’s piece of work


In order to get out of this cull-de sac, Bertinotti is waiting for the launching of a new and bigger social-democratic party; this is the “piece of work” he is busy working at together with Mussi’s and Salvi’s left of DS (former CPI) who split away yesterday at the DS congress with D’Alema and Fassino engaged in building the “democratic party”.


The new party is expected to double of affiliates that the current Re-foundation has now (Mussi obtained 15% at the Congress, equivalent to about 38 000 votes and nearly 80 000 affiliates) but with a higher trade union insertion. The “piece of work” should, therefore, produce a stronger social democrat party, one that could act as the left leg for a liberal government whose right leg (since it lacks a body and a brain) would be the Democratic Party. Probably the references to “communism” (merely symbolic) will disappear or will be gradually reduced (as the symbol of ICP turned into that PDS). The task set for the new party would be to guarantee the political and trade union support of the workers for the government of employers.


 


Critical Left: is a return to “original betinottism” of any good?


Against this piece of work certain opposition of light parties with tough leaders or other “pieces of work” a little bit more to the left in the name of a return to an alleged original Bertinottism as Turigliatto (Mandelist leader) proposed with Critical Left and his “incompatible with the war” project. Certainly, critical or “external” support to a government of the bourgeoisie – as Tutigliatto proposed at the national assembly of the Critical Left – is of no use; what is useful is the growth of a class opposition in the streets, in the places of work and even in the bourgeois institutions,  not of a party that would occupy the space left vacant by Refoundation with a more movement-like social democracy that pretends to “sting” (these are Turigliatto’s words) the imperialist government. What we need is a new communist party, a party of militants, based on the Marxist programme, fit to support immediately the struggles that are necessary for halt the bourgeois attack and to re-launch a really alternative class project at a national and international level as part of the struggle for the construction of a world party. This is the “piece of work” that, with our modest resources but with great tenacity, the PdAC, Italian section of the International Workers’ League, is working on. This is what hundreds of workers and young people in many Italian cities are doing. This is what we propose to all the militants incompatible with capitalism and its governments and therefore incompatible with any variant of social democracy.   

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