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and the nation . There is a Communist state in eastern Germany : efficient,
philistine, and repressive. There is a small Communist movement in the west.
There is a large Social Democratic left, and an amorphous series of sectarian
revolutionary groupings. Worse yet, there is also a lunatic group of terrorists
and kidnappers. The public-not without help from presslords like Springer
and politicians like Straus-frequently confounds all of these tendencies. The
Social Democrats have panicked . They have introduced decrees and laws
to
keep "radicals" (not very precisely defined) out of the public service. The
democratic student generation from which Habermas hoped for so much can
hardly get into the society's institutions, much less change them. The atmos–
phere reminded me of our own country in the days ofJoe McCarthy . It would
be absurd to portray Germany as unredeemably reactionary , right to fear that
it contains an ideological vacuum into which almost anything could flow. The
old German problem is there again, the separation between spirit and society .
The Social Democrats might be more realistic by being somewhat less ob–
viously so.
I took the train from Bremen to Rome . It wasn ' t only the weather that
changed on the other side of the Alps. The electoral victory of the left in the
municipal and regional elections had reinvigorated the country. There was
hope that something could change. Most of the left 's success was due to a
I'
Communist advance of six percentage points : every third Italian voter chose
CommuniSt candidates-frequently as a protest. The Socialists emerged with
twelve percent, and in a large state of disarray. Their coalition with the
Christian Democrats in the government had clearly cost them much over
recent years, and their campaign repudiated their own recent past. Now,
however, they have to find a way to ally themselves with the Communists and
retain their distinctiveness-not an easy problem for a party inconspicuous for
drive or resourcefulness. The Christian Democrats with some thirty-six per-
cent of the vote remain the largest party . Their loss of ground and a catastro-
phic crisis of leadership and morale suggest that their decline will continue.
The left's victory has deeper causes than the corruption, clientelism, and
cretinous inefficiency of the Christian Democrats. Relative prosperity and
education have altered Italy . When in 1974 the electorate inflicted a severe
defeat upon the right by voting to retain the law on divorce,
La
Stampa
of
Turin (which belongs to Fiat and represents the liberal bourgeoisie of Pie–
monte) had as a headline: "Italy has become a modern country. " The Italian
left, and in particular the Communists, has been able to present itself as the
party of modernity. After the election, the Christian Democratic Party secre–
tary-an unsavory ex-fascist named Fanfani, liked by both the American and
Soviet embassies-responded by denouncing the Church . The Church , he
declaimed, failed to see that only the Christian Democrats guaranteed salva–
tion-and had tolerated when it had not encouraged left Catholicism.
