ABSTRACT
The Italian Left did not provoke the economic and political crisis of 1989-94; nor did the Left benefit from that crisis politically, as the elections of 1994 revealed. Most ex-DC and PSI voters backed the Right. The Progressive Alliance failed to win over those who had supported previous governments for so long. But the crisis after 1989, and particularly after 1992 and the ‘clean hands’ investigations, did rupture for ever the way the Left is structured and organised in Italy. Most important of all was the transformation of the PCI into the PDS. Also the new electoral system forced the Left to unify itself for the first time since 1948, in the umbrella group called the Progressives. In addition the early 1990s saw the formation of two new political groupings on the far Left of the Italian political scene. The first, Rifondazione Comunista (RC), was initially seen as merely the ‘Stalinist’ rump of the old die-hard wing of the PCI. However, through a combination of opposition to the economic reforms imposed by the Amato and Ciampi governments and street-based activity, RC established itself as the second biggest force on the Left in Italy. Meanwhile, the second new grouping La Rete (the Network), a ‘movement for democracy’ formed in 1990, suffered such a serious defeat at the polls in 1994 that its political life as an independent force seemed in danger. Yet, throughout Italy’s so-called ‘democratic revolution’, La Rete represented an important component of the Left’s hopes for radical political and social change. Its prioritisation of the antiMafia struggle in both the North and South did much to weaken the old DC-PSI political machine in Palermo and Milan. This chapter will examine the role of these two political forces during the Italian crisis. Its focus will be both electoral and social, looking at the way that La Rete and Rifondazione Comunista have looked to influence events both at the polls and in terms of movements within civil society. I will begin with Rifondazione Comunista (RC).
