about the broad mass party as against the united tront. ....
Whilst it is certainly true that the majority of the founders of the PRC came out of the old Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), most of these former PCI members could not be described as Stalinists and Democrazia Proletaria, the only far-left party of any size left behind by the movement of 1968, took the decision to dissolve itself into the PRC as long ago as 1991.
It should be underined that this was no SORTERS emocional oudurs. PCs fuson with DP had been discussed in
790 before the final split in the PCI at the Rimini Congress of February 1991, with the initiative for the talks coming from the notoriously pro-soviet Cossutta, not the DP leaders.
Given that everybody in the RC leadership was well aware that the old Lega Comunista Rivoluzionaria (now the
The contrast with the PCF in France -which even now maintains its distance from the LCR or Lutte Ouvrière - should be selfevident - and in this respect Rifondazione has to be seen from the moment of its birth as marking a new departure in European politics.
Morever, despite Coccutta's presence as a leading figure in the PRC between 1991 and 1998, the majority of the ex-PCI members who joined the PRC in is earty months were followers of Pretro Ingrao, not supporters of Armando Cossutta's small prosoviet current. W hatever Ingrao's political confusion - which became all too manifest in 1989-1991 when he first led the opposition to party secretary Achille Occhetto's proposed transformation of the PCI into the PDS but then accepted the role of loyal oppositionist Bertinotti's turn towards anti-capitalist youth in autumn 2001 - so different from the old PC's hostility to the youth movement of 1977 - was a logical progression from the stances taken towards workers and women in the 1990s.
Women have played an important role within the PRC leadership, often challenging the party line - even if sometimes from the right, like Luciana Castellina - in contrast to PDS DS women fast tracked through quota systems but generally as politically compliant as Blair's women MPs.
Given the ancient taboo on overt homosexuality within the old PCI, it is also worth noting that it was the PRC who gave a prominent role to gay activists like Nichi Vendola long before the PDS/DS belatedly shifted their stance.
Finally even if the PRC polled a lower proportion of the vote amongst 18-25 year olds than amongst the general population in right, the semi-Cossuttian area dell' Ernesto.
This diversity has given rise to a lively and at some times turbulent
internal life, which has led to a number of changes of line and on two occasions to splits.
But a broad party that reacts to political and social trends outside its ranks, whilst not immune to errors and misjudgements, is infinitely preferable to any organisation of a few thousand lacking internal democracy and deeply imbued with a conviction of its own (or its Central Committee's) infallibility - the predominant experience on the British (particularly English) far left.
If we want to build a radical left alternative to Blairism that stands any chance of evolving into a new mass worker's party we have a great deal to learn from the PRC's experience in Italy.
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