EURO-COMMUNISM
35
where it has had power for a very long peri od of time, whi ch I think
is one of the sig nifi cant things to look at. And severa l things strike
me tha t woul d be int eres tin g to have o ther peopl e ta lk about. One is
the fact th at fo r people in a country like Ita ly, where the
idi om
is so
to ta ll y politi ca l, the networks o f the pa rty control p racti call y every
aspect of life.
If
you would like credit for a business, fo r a coopera ti ve farm , fo r
any economi c aspect of your life, you need politi cal connection s.
And in a sense the Communi st pa rty in Ita ly represents a vote as
much as a pa rty, and a vo te amo ng peopl e who were di senfranchi sed
in a sense, who had no networks, no pa tron s, no one to represent
them. In a sense, and I think that thi s is one of the most important
facts abo ut the Pa rty in Ita ly and in Spa in , the Party is very much
synonymous with its membershi p. In France, the Party is a very
specifi c secti on of th e popul a ti on . In Ita ly, the Pa rty represents
where you go if you do not belong to the o ther side.
T he youn g peopl e from the Ita li an sixti es who go back to their
vill ages jo in a party to get an ything accomp li shed . They jo in the
Communi st pa rt y if they have been on th e Left and they do it
faute de
mieux
because there is no o ther network fo r them to es tablish
themselves th ro ugh. And in a sense, the fault of the res t of the Left in
Italy was in no t concentra ting on the rea lities of Ita li an life. Wha t
seems
to
be
happenin g in Ita ly now on a loca l leve l is tha t wh en iss ue
po liti cs are in vo lved-politi cs of eco logy, po litics of the women 's
movement , po liti cs of the bomb-people leave the Pa rty to get wha t
,
they wa nl accompli shed . T he eco logists in France could n o t wo rk
within the Party. The femini sts in Ita ly could no t wo rk within the
Party.
William Ph lllips:
Have the femini sts in Ita ly broken with the Pa rty?
With the Communi sts?
Jane Kramer:
No, but the women in the Pa rty, o r a lo t of them in the
Part y, have th e fee ling tha t the Pa rty sold them out on the abo rti on
reform bill in Ita ly. Wha t struck me in the vill age I wo rked in was
that the o ld-lin e Communi sts had eno rmo us control because their
networks were the o ldest and the mos t es ta bli shed .
T he younger Communi sts we re much grea ter in numbers in
these situa ti ons. Yet, they were fl oundering. They were o ut o f Pa rty
council s to a grea t degree. I worked with a very ea rl y cell , whi ch now
meets to pl ay card s once a week beca use the Party is no t interested in
its cell s any mo re. On the o th er hand , th e Party in Ita ly, because it is
the onl y alterna ti ve in the country fo r an yone who wants an y kind of
