THE
19 June 1976 The in ternational Catholic weekly 25p
TABLET The Church in Spain: 1 fom Burns Approaches to Islam: W. Montgomery Watt Mr Paisley’s veto: From a Belfast correspondent Reviews: Peter Levi’s poems • Liturgical studies Dominian on authority • Muriel Spark’s fantasy
Italy on the eve The Communist parties that gained most from their participation in .th e resistance against Facism and Nazism were those of Italy and Yugoslavia. Tito, though a Marxist, has held power all this long period without subordination to Moscow. The Italian Communist leader, Togliatti, however, was trained in Moscow and followed Moscow’s policy till, at the end of his life, in the Caucasus, he left his party his testament, which included a plea that Marxist atheism should not mean refusal to collaborate with progressive Catholics in furthering Socialist aims. When the war ended the Communists followed a moderate line. They accepted the leadership of De Gasperi, a committed Catholic, who had proved his patriotism when living under the AustroHungarian Empire, and who wished the government replacing the Fascists to be on as broad a base as possible. He was coldly received in London; Pius xn also snubbed him because of his supposed friendliness with the Communists. It did not prevent this true statesman from collaborating with the European movement which laid the foundation of the European Economic Community. The Vatican also favoured collaboration in the European movement, but tried to stem the Communist advance in Italy by excommunication, an obsolete weapon which backfired. Meanwhile the Communists had supported De Gasperi’s incorporation of the Lateran Treaty in the new Italian Republican Constitution.
It is against this changing background that the electoral struggle in Italy, due to be decided on 20 June, should be seen.
The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1967 caused a schism in Moscow-dominated Mafxist-Leninism. It weakened the Communist cause in Italy most of all, though there were also remarkable desertions from Moscow leadership in France. Some considerable time ago the Italian Communist leader, Signor Berlinguer, made known his independence of Moscow, and his determination to achieve “Socialism” in the Italian way. As the elections drew nearer he specifically proclaimed his party’s moderation. On 3 June he stood in Paris on the same platform as the French Communist leader, M. Marchais, and affirmed the two parties’ commitment to a democratic pluralist society, the rights of minority parties, the independence of the judiciary, the autonomy of the trade unions. Back home Signor Berlinguer pledged that if admitted to a share in the government his party would not seek a dominating position, and would concur both in loyalty to nato and the eec. He did not drop the party’s atheistic doctrine, but said that it would work with Catholics for a form of Socialist democracy.
The whole question turns on Signor Berlinguer’s credibility. Even if his personal sincerity is not questioned, there is no guarantee that he would not be disowned if Moscow thought it opportune. The Popular Front has resulted, notably in Czechoslovakia after the war, in the supremacy of Communism, achieved by intrigue and never through the working of democracy. An appeal to the dissident Catholics who have made common cause with the Communists was published two weeks ago by the editor of the Jesuit periodical Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Bartolomeo Sorge sj, who in his own review has cogently argued that Catholicism and Marxist Socialism are mutually exclusive. Now, in the daily paper 11 Popolo, he has said that they should realise that their action was not merely political, as they claimed it to be. It was fundamentally incompatible
