Opening to the Right

When Italy's center-left coalition was formed eight months ago, the crucial question was who would do what to whom. Would the apertura a sinistra ("opening to the left") pull the Christian Democrats and other center parties leftward? Or would the Socialist Party, long allied with the Communists, move toward the center?

The nationalization of the power industry (TIME, Oct. 5), a meaningless economic move, was a sop to the Socialists, who hold no Cabinet posts, but whose 88 votes in the Chamber of Deputies keep Premier Amintore Fanfani's government in power. The next measure the Socialists are demanding is the creation of 15 regional governments in Italy, a move opposed by many Christian Democrats because it would give the left a dangerous amount of local power if the Socialists remained tied to the Reds.

Last week the course of the apertura became hopefully clearer: the left was opening toward the right and the Socialist-Communist alliance seemed to be breaking up.

Decisive Break. Responsible for the change was Socialist Party Leader Pietro Nenni, a longtime fellow traveler who split with the Reds in Parliament after Nikita Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin in 1956. But the split was far from committing his entire party. Last week at a three-day meeting of the Socialist Party's Central Committee Nenni proposed to make the break decisive. He offered to open negotiations with the government for a five-year joint legislative program which, if the Fanfani government buys it, will probably bring the Socialists into the government after next spring's elections.

Although Nenni carefully avoided spelling out the specifics of his program, it was believed that the Socialists would settle for gradual social and economic reforms that the other parties had already agreed on. More important, the Socialists were ready to call it quits on demands for more nationalization. The whole deal, warned Nenni, depends on a single condition: the breakup of the local political pacts with the Reds in the proposed regional governments. Said Nenni: "A struggle for power in which Socialists associate themselves with Communists is impossible."

Petty Insult. Nenni's plan infuriated the fellow travelers in his party's high command. "A scandal,'' cried one. Shouted another: "For a few corrections in the capitalist system, they are offering the breakup of the workers' movement." But Nenni's proposal carried, 45 to 31.

Angrily, Communist Party Boss Palmiro Togliatti called Nenni's program a "serious and grave" threat "to isolate not the Communist Party, but the whole working class." As further proof of their injury, the Reds turned to petty insult, stopped calling Nenni "Comrade," a salutation they have used since World War II.

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