Interview: Giorgio Napolitano with Michael M. Harrison

INTERVIEW: GIORGIO NAPOLITANO WITH MICHAEL M. HARRISON Giorgio Napolitano, a leadingfigure in the Italian Communist party (pci), is a member of the pci Directorate and President of the Italian Communist Group in the Chamber of Deputies. Mr. Napolitano was interviewed in Rome by Michael M. Harrison, Associate Professor ofEuropean Studies at SAIS. Francine Lamoriello, an M.A. candidate at SAIS, translated Mr. Napolitano's responses. HARRISON: Although we want to concentrate onforeign policy and security issues, let's begin on a problem concerning domestic Italian affairs. Specifically, I would like to have your assessment of the "historic compromise" period of pci collaboration with the government between 1976 and 1979. What positive and negative conclusions do you draw from this period in terms of the overall postwar evolution in the domestic role of the pci? Do you believe that the experience ofpartial collaboration changed the pci's view of itself, of it's own place in Italian politics? Do you believe that there has been afundamental shift in the way the other parties perceive the pci? NAPOLITANO: We have discussed this period of collaboration with the Christian Democrats, the Socialist party, and other parties at great length. Between 1976 and 1979 the Italian Communist party supported the government and took part in the parliamentary majority. This collaboration was controversial insofar as there were those within our ranks who were deeply concerned about the negative consequences of an attitude such as that of the Christian Democrats (dc) which, especially in the last phase of the collaboration , appeared to be aimed at undermining our party. The program that was agreed upon by our party and all our "partners," as part of a policy of "Democratic Solidarity," was no doubt sabotaged at many critical points by groups within the DC and by other political forces. We met with growing resistance in trying to move reforms in the direction of social justice and more effective government—reforms that the dc had agreed to. All this certainly had a negative effect on the image of our party. However, we do not have a purely negative assessment of the 1976-79 period. This is true for various reasons. First of all, because we believe that 127 128 SAIS REVIEW results in the interests of both the working class and the country were obtained through the efforts and with the decisive contribution of our party. There is no doubt that between 1976 and 1978 we were successful in improving the economic and financial situation of the country. We were successful in reducing the rate of inflation from more than 20 percent to 1 2 percent without bringing on recession or unemployment; we were successful in safeguarding all the fundamental achievements ofthe workers' movement, including the level of income, real wages, and the bargaining power of the unions. Innovative laws were passed, laws of notable significance and importance , even if some of them were subsequently not applied, or proved to be difficult to apply. Moreover, this period allowed us to perform an important experiment, to be in more direct contact with the problems of effectively governing the country. I am speaking especially about short-term economic problems. For a party such as ours, and for the other forces of the Left in Europe, one weakness has always been the difficulty in dealing with short-term problems of political economy. I believe that we have now succeeded in linking these questions to the long-term orientations and programs of reform and renewal that, naturally, a party such as ours must pursue. I am convinced of the fact that in various strata of Italian public opinion, the seriousness, the sense of responsibility, the maturity of the pci as a party of government is now clear, and that this will remain true. For their part, the other parties have been forced to acknowledge the seriousness and maturity of our party as a governing force. Even recently, notwithstanding the disagreements between our party and the dc after 1979, the secretary-general of the dc has been obliged publicly to emphasize the fact that the dignity of the pci and its loyalty to democracy is above reproach. HARRISON: What, then, is the role of...