Italy Today: An attempted analysis

In a recent time of its own republican history, Italy has been hit by a series of events that have left a sign, unfortunately, dangerously almost indelible. I say "almost" because inside me I still get the hope that the mechanism can still be reversed and that our beloved Country abandon the dangerous slope. Otherwise, it will inevitably lead Italy to be first a non-State and then a prey to be shared among those European powers, but not only European, that the naive, the stupid, the sold and the traitors here still insist on considering as friends and allies.

To try to shed light on this situation and on its possible solutions, I interviewed professor Gianfranco La Grassa, for a long time ordinary of political economy in the two prestigious universities of Pisa and Venice and among the managers of the site of geopolitical analysis "Conflicts and Strategies".

Q) Thank you for being here with us, professor. As a first question, can you explain why a blog like Conflicts and Strategies?

A) The site is a continuation of one called "Rethinking Marx", created by two young people from Puglia in January 2006. They immediately asked me to collaborate and I accepted. Three or four years later, we decided to change the name because the framework of interests had widened immediately. There was still an interest in reformulating appropriately the thought of Marx, profoundly altered and misunderstood by the overwhelming majority of the movements and scholars who referred to them. However, from the coherent formulation of that thought (about which I wrote many books and one, "On the way to a new era", it is soon to come out) our interests had expanded to the analysis of the current historical-political phase and also to the contingent events occurring in all these years.

Q) You has never made any secret of considering the 1992 Clean Hands Inquiry as a coup d'état against Italy. A color revolution in judicial style. Why?

A) A comprehensive answer would require some pages to place the event in its proper perspective. From the beginning, I grasped the intention to bring down the "first Republic", founded on the long period of government of the "5 parties" and especially of Christin Democracy and Italian Socialist Party, its main protagonists at least starting from the Aldo Moro's government of December 1963. From the end in the 1960s, but especially since the beginning of the 1970s, took inadvertent by the most (or rather by the entire population) the field shift of the Italian Communist Party (led by Berlinguer) towards Atlantism. A lot of contacts contacts between this party and American "environments" culminated in the "cultural" journey of Napolitano in the USA (1978) during the abduction of Aldo Moro [by the communist terrorist of Red Brigades], which ended as is well known. On this event, I invite you to read the interview with Pasquale Squitieri on the "il Fatto Quotidiano" of September 17, 2016, which I do not think has ever been denied. In any case, skipping many things to say, I note that, after the "collapse of the wall" (1989) and the dissolution of the USSR (1991), the field movement of the ICP was finally completed. After a debate lasting some years (and especially from the turning point of the Bolognina in the 1989) it arrived in 1991 to change name in the Democratic Party of the Left (then, gradually, became Democratic Left and finally Democratic Party). The change in the field of the ICP - perfected only when the "socialist camp" and the USSR finally disappeared - is fundamental to understand the real motives of the judicial operation. It replaced a clearer and sharper political confrontation, rather dangerous for the various protagonists since it would have better understood how much Italy has been a fundamental (and well servile) pawn in US politics. And it continues to be more and more driven.

Q) Yet many of the accusations ascribed to the parties left destroyed from the old First Republic were true....

A) For some time, it was known of corruption and bribe payments, but it never went on until the bipolar system existed and it was dangerous to create instability in Italy. Precisely for this reason, sometimes CD and ISP allowed shared decisions not quite liked by the United States. Think about some contacts with the Palestinians and also with Eastern European Countries, etc. Besides, was corruption later a minor one? Today, how are we put? "Clean hands" effectively liquidated the decisive part of CD and in practice the entire ISP, saving ICP and the "CD left", which I do not think were less guilty. I remember the bribe of a billion by Raul Gardini, followed up to Botteghe Oscure [headquarters of ICP], but then the investigation ran aground because it was not found who had materially taken that money. I remember that the magistrate Tiziana Parenti, who was investigating the bribes to the ICP, was in fact hindered in her duties (see, among other things, her interesting interview with the "Avanti!" on 30/8/2012). Now, it is impossible here to report a certain number of news, from which I could conclude that the judicial operation had served to a regime change, in order to have an Italian leadership much better aligned to the US. As later noted, with special evidence, in 1999 when, with D'Alema in the government, Italy was particularly servile in the aggression against Serbia following Bill Clinton. In short, to make it short, I immediately directed myself to those who wanted that judicial operation, which replaced a more open political battle "of change". Since then, on many occasions the intervention of the judiciary has been replaced to the political clash, loud and clear. This was not the only reason for the decadence of the political framework that is truly impressive; but it certainly contributed to this.

Q) Can you describe the current situation in Italy? What has changed since then?

A) Frankly, it is impossible to answer this question in a few words. I invite only to understand how the Italian situation is today, even more than yesterday, very influenced, I would say almost bound, to the international one. The end of the bipolar system (US-USSR) has determined the end of the "first Republic" and has even more restricted the margins of autonomy of Italy to the predominant Country in the "western" field. Even within Europe - and especially after the birth of the EU - we are strongly conditioned by the two main Countries, Germany and France, which conduct "the dances", although they are in close connection with the US leaders. Today, we are in a phase of accentuation of multipolarism, especially because of merit (because for me it is a merit) of Russia and China. In my opinion, contrary to what many think, Russia will again be the main antagonist of the US. Currently - and the election of Trump has been the index - a contrast is developing in the USA, much stronger than those already occurred in the past. There is a certain decline of that Country, a trend of its foreign policy only apparently firm, in reality characterized by some uncertainty about what to do, which has become increasingly evident since the beginning of this century. I cannot spread on this, but different strategies have been implemented during the presidencies of Bush Jr. and Obama. Today, with Trump, uncertainty and undeveloped trend increase, as a result of the escalation of the conflict between different orientations. The EU summit was also hit by this clash; it tends to be still deployed mainly with the establishment of the previous US presidency, which is always in attack of the new. Our Country suffer of all this, in particular. In reality, there would be prospects of disengagement from excessive dependence on both the US and EU leaders. However, it does not seem to me that there are still the forces capable of exploiting certain occasions. The so-called "winners" in the last elections seem to move in a different way from the DP (and also from Berlusconi who submitted to Obama at the G8 in Deauville in the spring of 2011), but they appear very uncertain and compromising.

Q) Let's talk about the 4 March political elections ... why did not you go to vote?

A) I have not gone to vote since 1979 (I made an exception only to the 1999 Europeans for reasons that it is not important to spread here). Never believed the goodness of the self-styled "democracy" based on the parade at the polls. For me it has nothing to do with the vaunted "government of the sovereign people". The people are an improper concept of a non-existent reality. There are populations variously stratified in social classes with a different standard of living, which is reflected in the various ways of thinking and evaluating one's own interests. Even in a horizontal sense - for the same levels of income and ways of life - there are different social groups with their specific intentions. In the historical phases of relative tranquility and stability - as it was for Western Europe and also for Italy (apart from particular turbulences especially in the economic boom of 1958-62 and then in the '70s for reasons that can not be here to spread) the period of the bipolar system (1945-1991) - this type of "democracy" is equivalent to the surveys that are made on the preferences of consumers in relation to various brands of a given product. Consumers, in all evidence, do not know anything about that product and with which specific procedures this is obtained from each of the various manufacturers. Simply, they tend to prefer those companies that are able to prevail in advertising and various marketing techniques. Likewise it is for the various parties. And even more when the ideologies of which these organizations were carriers dissolve. When it comes to the current situation of increasingly fierce clashes between various Countries (multipolarism) - and we are at the beginning of such a phase - the appeal to the polls is gradually more unsuitable to solve the serious problems that go producing within these Countries, due to ongoing shocks. We need other systems, which are exorcised by groups in power for a long time, and therefore deeply reactionary, such as "populist" tendencies, "dictatorship" and other similar lies.

Q) We are now in early April and we do not have a government yet. What do you think of the election results? Is there any hope?

A) In my opinion the vote was the expression, by a good majority of those who went to the polls, of a decided "f***...". The discontent is remarkable, but far from aware of what it would take (it's clear that not even I know it well, I do not pretend to know much). I doubt, however, that the two winning forces really know what is mostly needed for the Country and, consequently, they are screwed up in continuous compromises that they take for "high politics". The 5 Stars do not grasp that a clear shift of alliances in the international field is necessary (I repeat that the policy implemented in this horizon should also guide the intentions of the internal one) and have done everything possible to reassure the "predominant" (USA in head, and even NATO, the EU, etc.). Northern League would like to represent small-businessmen and professional classes (and VAT). Intention in good part right, but that should not be privileged compared to a policy aimed at moving (certainly gradual and taking into account the NATO bases, i.e. American, etc.) of alliances "eastward". Ultimately, towards Russia, looking also to the regional sub-powers we have in the south, Turkey and, above all, Iran. Inside, it is necessary to beat the trends in "small is beautiful", "made in Italy", "tourism" and so on. We need to strengthen strategic sectors. We continue to lose ground in the energy sector, in the telecommunications sector, and let's not talk about electronics or aerospace and so on. Obviously, in order to defend these sectors, there is also a need for a specific policy of alliances with other forces in some European Countries, forces that stand in the same vein as ours and contrast the various "Merkel & Macron" and look to "east". As for the government in particular, it seems to me that the contortions in progress (and the inability to liquidate definitively the forces that, led by Berlusconi, subtly continue to plot with the DP of Matteo Renzi) will not lead to positive solutions, but to new deception. However, 60% of parliamentarians are newly elected: they will do everything possible not to go to new elections.

Q) Italian diplomacy is practically absent from the international political scene. Is it the price to pay to be always helpful to the wishes of others?

A) In fact, we are absent. Perhaps someone, in the winning election parties, thinks about some change. But there is a lot to do to restructure Intelligence, apparatus and army commands (integrated in NATO with those in the US), police forces (but there is no discontent, I do not know, maybe there is some possibility, but I do not say in a clear and sure way). No prospect of getting out of the accommodating attitude without a policy, I repeat it strongly, able to project itself out of NATO and the EU. However, at the moment, actually new forces seem to be still absent both in Italy and in some European Countries. It is evident the necessity that not only Italy is interested in the development of new coherently autonomist political orientations. No need for them to develop themselves in all the Countries of the now uneven "European Union". Simply in a certain number of them, capable of forging strong connections between them and to look to Russia as a very useful balancing element with respect to the arrogant arrogance of the United States.

Q) In your opinion what are the main differences between Italy and Russia?

A) Question which is not easy to answer; certainly not in a nutshell. In any case, the two Countries are certainly very different in size, history, resources and power. I do not know what meaning to attribute to that "principle". Italy, however, has always belonged to the capitalist system, even during the well-known twenty years of Fascism. Russia has in its past, for three quarters of the twentieth century, the USSR. It is the experience born with the "October Revolution" (1917), which was led by the Communist Party and started the belief that still lasts, of the "construction of socialism", which then, with the Second World War and subsequently, a large group of Countries joined. The two fields (capitalist and socialist) gave life to the so-called bipolar world, which characterized the second half of the last century. As for me, for a long time now I am critical of what, in substance, we still think. In the meantime, the concept of capitalism has to be revisited because the concept born from the first industrial revolution in England is very different from that established with the development of US social formation. As for the alleged socialism, there is even more to say, but certainly not here. It would be necessary to set up a serious study group (theoretical and historical) that I cannot put up with. I've been telling you for some time, but we're still only two in the end. I conclude, saying only that today's Russia, in my opinion, owes much to the USSR, which was supposed to have dissolved. In a certain sense it has been, but with many legacies "inherited" (and I do not think so much negative) to the current Country, although reduced in size. But not in its social and economic area, essentially. Russia, in my opinion, will once again become the main antagonist of the United States, albeit with due time. However, this antagonism must be - at least I think it should be wished - only one of the factors of the general rethinking of the transformations to be pursued in an era, which is noticeably different from that experienced so far by many generations. Better to end here.

Q) And between Italy and North Korea? Or with the Syria of the Assad?

A) I would simply say that we are carrying out a foreign policy that does not follow the US and the EU summits at least in terms of hostile behavior towards North Korea and Assad's Syria. However, I did not lose too much to imagine who knows what interventions in those areas. Only a sharp lack of ability to implement aggressive policies and defamatory propaganda campaigns against the North Korean and Syrian so-called "dictators". Someone, from time to time, would like to refer the second to the International Tribunal for crimes against humanity. Such intentions are ridiculous, as well as the "convulsions" about the poisoning of the former Russian spy and other maneuvers that only demonstrate the decay of this "West". It is decisively refused any request for sanctions against Russia, the expulsion of its diplomats and other provocations carried out by those who no longer know how to regain their dominance in the face of advanced multipolarism. I am not thinking of any servant passage from the US to Russia. However, within ten years or so, we would have to regain full autonomy and establish extremely positive contacts with the Russians, even if we would be annoying the "Yankees" if necessary. In fact, only this attitude could lead to a new balance of forces and hinder those who aspire to a definitive war confrontations.

Q) What is your solution to get out of this crisis of identity and self-love?

A) I seem to have already answered in the course of what has been said up to now. I can not have absolutely clear ideas. I have no Intelligence, military, diplomatic, and so on. More I can not say. We will continue to follow the evolution of the situation and it will be said, from time to time, what seems necessary or at least more useful to accomplish.

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Costantino Ceoldo - Pravda freelance

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