Interview of Piero Sansonetti with Fausto Bertinotti

Bertinotti, what is happening in the Italian politics? How do you judge the battle that has shaken the country these days? What do you think of the solution found to the crises? What do you think of the attitude….

Bertinotti does not let me finish the question, he interrupts me and tells me that he is very happy to do an interview with Liberazione, and that he wants to talk about politics, about the future of the left, about the movements, about the ideas needed to fight the big battles of these years; but he does not intend to discuss the merits of the arguments concerning the parliamentary balances and the institutional and governmental choices. It would not be fair if the Chairman of the Camera, in such a delicate political moment, would engage in the parliamentary battle by releasing an interview to the newspaper of his party. Alright. I do not even try to insist that much. I change my question.

Bertinotti, at this stage the radical left is forced to go from utopia to realpolitik. Does it not risk, in a way, to change its own nature, to change its skin?

In our history, we have always faced utopia critically. We have neither refused it nor exalted it. Utopia has been a decisive category in certain periods of the working movement. It is very strong in the primordial stage, then somehow it has been questioned by the scientific socialism, by Marx. It gets even swept away in the next phase, when a “deterministic” thought is prevalent, and the shift from capitalism to socialism is thought to be an automatism, an historical, inevitable and natural event, as it was the shift from the feudal system to capitalism. The socialist way out is said to be inscribed in the natural development of the production-forces. When does the rediscovery of the Utopia occur ? Every time men become aware of the “strong reply of history”. Especially at the end of last century, when history answers to the illusions of the ‘900, to the real mistakes, to the real horrors, then Utopia becomes a chance, an opportunity to rebuild, to keep the argument open, to keep the prospective open…

In 1989 Cesare Luporini talked about socialism as an horizon to be kept still…

That’s right; at that stage utopia has a very important role. But I think that the working movement has always had this relation with the Utopia: it has always seen it as an opportunity to scan the horizon, as an instrument of politics and research, but never as a goal, as the only content of politics. Then, there is the globalization and the critique of globalization and I think Utopia changes its nature once again, it regenerates itself, it becomes concrete.

How does it become concrete?

It turns itself into the critique to capitalism. What is the most famous slogan of the anti-globalization movement?

Another world is possible…

Precisely. Look at the three words. The first one ( “another” ) represents the change, the alter-native, the overturning of some full stops of society: with our old language we could say “the coming out from capitalism”. The second word ( “world” ) states the global, world-wide nature of politics. And the third word is the definition of concreteness: “possible”. We are in the real, in the realistic, we are out of the dream.

Is there not a contrast, difficult to put together, between this utopian-concrete line of the left, and the governmental experiences, as to say the realpolitik?

Bertinotti thinks about it for a while. He gathers his thought and looks for the right words.

You see – he tells me – I do not underestimate at all the governmental experience. The one currently going on in Italy and in other western countries. But I think that we cannot “hang” politics to it. As to say, to hang the “concrete utopia”, the one we were talking about, to the governmental conquest. Participation to the government is a very important experience for the left: but if it become the compass, if it becomes essential, if it becomes the refraction prism through which look at reality, if we define it and we fix our analyses, then we do not understand anything more, we lose our bearings.

I make an objection. The wide public opinion, I think, has come out of the ‘900 with two firm beliefs, both strong and in contrast one with the other. The first one is that governments fill with disgust. The second is that government is the only thing that matters in politics, and that politics is nothing but the competition to conquer the government itself. Is it not true? And if it is true, it is not wrong to underestimate the importance of being at the government?

I think what you say is right, but it is only the observation of the way things are. Then we have to understand why they happen. The huge importance that governments have compared to the public opinion results from the weakness of politics. Europe is now going through a crisis of politics. And inside this crisis there is the crisis of the politics of the left. And this crisis of the left is just a part of an even bigger one, which the crisis of democracy. The weakening of the big subjects of the mass politics – parties, trade unions, as to say the big social and political coalitions, coalitions of ideas and communities – has left just two characters on the nearly desertificated public scene: public opinion and government. On their own, one facing the other. Without any mediations, any hinges, any collective bodies able to produce politics and to turn the demands and the conflicts into politics. At this stage, the government is not important as a “producer of works” any longer, but it enlarges its image and its weight thanks to the lack of the other subject into the politics. It substitute them, because it has been left alone in front of the people. If we accept this state of affairs we accept the victory of the anti-politics.

Why does the centrality of the governments mean anti-politics?

In the absence of politics, anti-politics becomes the mechanism of relation between the public opinion and the government. Do you want a nearly arithmetical proof? In all the electoral competitions of the last few years in Europe, all the governments in office have lost ( with the only exception of Blair, who has had a huge electoral cut down anyway). Do you remember Aznar before the elections? He seemed unbeatable, almost a god, he had become the symbol of the modern and winning governer. He went to the elections and he lost. Do you remember Schroeder? He was utterly powerful, he ruled with huge powers; when he had the feeling that Oskar La Fontaine could disturb his action, he drove him out of the government. Then he went to elections and he lost. Same path for Jospin, Berlusconi and all the others. Why? When there is a lack in political bodies there is a growth of delegation and anti-politics. They are two sides of the same precarious balance. It is made of three passages already arranged: delegation, resignation and then breaking off. It is a very risky balance indeed, because it swallows up democracy, excluding it. By now the anti-politics starts to infiltrate the politics, to permeate it, to conquer it.

As it happens for example with berlusconism?

Exactly, that is a clear example. But I can see the anti-politics making its way in the centre-left as well. To be diplomatic let’s not talk about Italy. Let’s have a look at France: there is a lot of anti-politics in the electoral campaign of Ségolène Royal, there is a sweet populism. Ségolène Royale has taken the demands and the critiques of the anti-politics and has made them hers own. Do you understand? Anti-politics advances even because it has got some critical elements towards politics which are absolutely legitimate, new and are the result of the crisis of politics itself. This condition generates a progressive crisis of democracy.

What is the reason of this spreading of anti-politics?

I think that this society, which is an unjust one, generates conflict. This seems to be a confirmed, undeniable fact. More precisely, this society generates conflicts (plural). All sorts of conflicts: working, community, gender, professional, corporative, identitarian…These conflicts do not produce victories or defeats according to who governs. There is an autonomy between conflicts and governments. that determine The victory or the defeat of a movement is not determined by the governmental conditions in which it operates. But these movements cannot settle any conquests. That is to say, the problem is that these movements, even when they win, do not “conquer” but simply “prevent ”. So they cannot build democracy through their victories. They operate within the crisis of democracy, they compensate to the crisis of democracy with their struggles, but they do not produce any antibodies to it. Namely, they cannot have the same political results as the previous cycle. Last century movements conquered “casemate” and they produced stable shifts of the public opinion. Nowadays the movements can be very strong, they defeat powerful enemies, but they do not build common sense and mass consent. Now you see : it is here that the lack in democracy counts, the absence of subjects able to gather these demands and these pushes, and even these conquest “ to prevent ”.

I would say it is not a total lack: there is the radical left, there is Rifondazione…

They play a very important role. They get a lots of successes. But here we have to talk about the “critical mass”, that is of the possibility to create a tendency. The radical left is still missing a subject able to try itself in this dimension, able to reach the critical mass. This causes another kind of consequences that I will try to explain: in Europe the traditional conflicts split up, they divide into two and change their nature. Today we observe two groups of conflicts. One group concerns the differences between left and right and it is very evident, very inflamed when the lefts are at the opposition. The other group concerns the contrast between “high” and “low” in society, as to say between the ruling class and the base; this kind of conflict is much stronger whenever the left is at the government. These two conflicts intersect. The dispute between high and low becomes the vehicle of the anti-politics.

Why does the high-low conflict prevail when there is the left at the government?

Because often left governments are not able to take advantage of the strength and push of the movements. This mitigates the left-right conflict, which is excluded from the government, and so there is space for the other kind of conflict.

What is the way to go out of this void?

There is no other chance but to rebuild organised political subjects. But for this to happen there is the need to build a political culture and a left political culture.

Sorry, but I cannot see any chances of rebuilding political subjects and left-wing culture unless different pieces, and different men, and different fields of the left politics start to think and talk to each other again, start to confront and to produce a common thought…I do not think there is a single force within the left capable of solving the problem you are posing.

I agree. I think the only way out if this crisis is the union of the forces and the prioritization of the problem of the political culture and of what to do. There is the need to come uncoupled from what has been mainly done so far. As to say the organisational engineering of the parties, which comes after the institutional engineering and so on. It has always been like this throughout these years. The politics which can only think about how to intend and adjust itself: which electoral law, which parties geography, which mechanisms of power division… The relationship with the peoples and with the movements stays out, as well as the problem of the culture needed to tackle a political and social project of society. I would like that the different areas of the left could focus on this, could produce ideas on this problem instead of wasting time planning new parties schemes and architectures…

If I understand, you are saying: let’s close the torment about new parties aggregations and disintegrations, and let’s focus on the new relations between politics and society. That is, rather than building new parties let’s build new politics…

Yes, that’s right. Let’s suspend the argument on how to organize and let’s start one about what to do. Let’s try to discuss the topic of political culture and the one of the relation between politics and society, even through the traditional parties, without putting the problem about how we cross them, but about what we can unite and which ideas and solutions we can provide.

Is there a new unity of the left inside this reasoning?

Yes, I think so. To face the crisis of the politics there is the need to face the issue of how to reach the “critical mass”. If you don’t, if you postpone this matter to goodness knows when, you can sow forever and ever, do it well, but you will never reap anything. This critical mass must be transversal. It must force us to go across to do politics.

Excuse me, but I do not understand perfectly. Could you give an example?

Let’s consider Italian foreign policy. It has been realized by the government and even before in the drawing up of the program. It is a foreign policy with a sense and it gives a contribute to Europe. Very well. But I ask to myself: why can the lefts only participate to the governmental foreign policy and they have not – as lefts – a common idea of foreign policy, an idea of the world, and then an idea of Europe, and so on. This same kind of reasoning is valid for the social conflict as well, or for the environment, or for the gender conflict, or for the working rights…

How do you deal with the relation between the radical and the reformist left in this picture? Are they still valid categories?

These categories are still real on the level of the political sides. If we keep these two definitions, then – using traditional words - we should say: these two lefts have to meet and to confront. But if we consider the level of the political cultures, rather than the political sides, then things change a bit. Let’s see. On this level, radical lefts have different profiles. By now, I think that it tends to prevail the profile of the radical left which has refounded itself in connection with this century movements. The orthodoxical cultures of the left, the ones which still shape themselves in opposition to the social-democracy, are less significant. The winning radical left is the one which meets feminism, environmentalism, and so on. What happens in the other field: reformists have a big quantitative strength, which nevertheless is marked by a loss of the political culture. Mainly, European socialist parties refer to the culture that Riccardo Bellofiore calls social-liberal. What does that mean? It means they think that the measures to reduce social uneasiness and increase the rights must be taken without questioning the paradigm of competitiveness. Even if there is a part of social-democracy which is still strongly left-orientated – France, Fabius. But the tendency is social-democratic. In order to fruitfully build a political laboratory of the lefts, this social-liberal tendency needs to be reshuffled somehow. Not for a political reason, but because the deepness of the social crisis – but of the political crisis too – tells us that we must show an idea of a model – social, economical, democratical; that is what Europe needs. Not an adaptation, but a construction. But I am not thinking about an argument with preventive ideological fences. The themes of the argument will be the distinctive element, and not the “identities” of those taking part in the discussion. If it is decided to face the subjects of the politics – of the model, of the project for the society – and not those of the administration, then who sees politics as a mere administrative fact – which is the social-liberal idea – is excluded. Today the left appears like this: reformist lefts prevail on the level of organisations, whereas radical lefts prevail on the level of cultural politics.

Why does the radical left have this strength and this weakness?

Because it is not able to put forward a proposal which touches the problem of the critical mass. That is why the voter often says: “You are right, but I choose him”. It comes the problem of the effectiveness of politics. That is an essential problem for the movement and for whoever has some needs. I am forced to say that you are good, but unable to solve my problem – even if you have some wonderful ideas about how to do it. And so I choose the other one who may answer my need badly, but I always think that if he wanted to answer it well, he could… If the radical left cannot solve the problem of effectiveness, and so the problem of unity, then the reformist forces will always be ahead, because they start with an advantage of consents, and so it appears that hey have already solved the problem of unity.

Bertinotti, there is clearly a problem in the political battle of this period: the massive and mighty intervention of the strong powers, which alter the relations of the forces in the political clash. What do we have to do?

We have to analyze the strong powers. Scientifically analyze them in their strength. We have to avoid thinking that those powers are “conspiracies”; that they are plots to baffle. That is not true: they are forces; they count on the culture. I cannot see the representative of the strong power who picks up the phone and commands. No: he has ploughed the political field and at some point harvests the fruits, the effects. We then need to understand where their strength lies. They do not only have the power; they have the power and tend to build hegemonic processes. They are public opinion builders, they work on the consent. The problem is to find their strong point and contrast them openly. It comes to my mind: “with respect”; in the sense that I recognize the base of their position, and I think of defeating them because I can propose an higher and stronger point of view, which can gather consent: a point of view fundamentally capable of proposing itself as universal. I can only win on that field; only if I overcome. Not if I cry, I protest, I appeal to strange rules. Sometimes it happens to me that we act as the heroical Tecoppa did: he expected the opposing swordsmen to stand still waiting for him to transfix them…

(Liberazione - February 26th, 2007)

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