ITALY: Planting the Tombstone

Nine months ago, in his eagerness to achieve “reunification” with Giuseppe Saragat’s Social Democratic Party, devious Pietro Nenni formally broke off the decade-old “unity of action” pact between his Socialists and Italy’s Communist Party. While the skeptical claimed he would never make a final break with the Communists, and the hopeful predicted he would, Nenni skillfully teased the Social Democrats and did neither. Last week Nenni settled all doubts. “Any social progress must necessarily enjoy the support of the Communists,” proclaimed the

Socialist Party’s Central Committee in a resolution which drew only one negative vote. “Together we must break the monopoly of Christian Democracy.”

Best guess of Italy’s political pundits was that crafty Pietro Nenni, impressed by recent Red gains in local elections, was taking a calculated risk that an alliance with the Communists would strengthen his party’s prospects in Italy’s forthcoming general election. Whatever his motives, the turnabout planted what Nenni himself once called “a heavy tombstone” on the last lingering hope that Nenni would join the Social Democrats to give Italy a strong anti-Communist left.