Tottering Once More at the Edge

The Communists are pushing again, and now they have help

Premier Giulio Andreotti's minority Christian Democratic Cabinet had suddenly stalled. Its parliamentary pact with other parties was in disarray. An all-out general strike, threatened by the unions, held the possibility of toppling the government altogether. And a swelling chorus of leftist parties, led by the Communists, was demanding the formation of an all-party "emergency government." As the Italian Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! warned: "The countdown against Andreotti has begun. " From Rome last week TIME Bureau Chief Jordan Bonfante cabled this report on the latest stage in Italy's ongoing crisis:

For 17 months, longer than the average life span of most postwar Italian governments, Andreotti's Cabinet has survived and even prospered with the support of the Communists and other major parties. The Premier reduced inflation from 25% to less than 15%, shored up the vulnerable lira, and even brought the 1977 balance of payments into the black.

The rest of Italy's notorious problems, however, have not only endured but even multiplied. Crime and political terrorism have continued to rise, with 76 kidnapings in 1977. Four shootings, presumably the work of political extremists, took place in Rome last week alone. A right-wing politician, suspected of participating in a fatal attack on a Communist Youth Federation member in 1976, was killed; two young leftists and the wife of a journalist working on the far-right newspaper II Secolo D'ltalia were wounded.

As budget time approached early this winter, Andreotti proposed a new round of austerity to slash the towering public-spending debt. The unions, already angered by an unemployment total of 1.6 million workers, or 8% of the labor force, responded with a vengeance. Early in December more than 150,000 striking metalworkers marched on Rome to protest. Andreotti defended his economic package--a mix of new investments as well as new tariffs--but the union leaders rejected it and threatened to call a general strike in mid-January.

As the pressure grew, leftists insisted that the time had come for Communist participation in an emergency government. Ugo La Malfa, leader of the small Republican Party and a perennial Cassandra of Italian politics, argued that only full Communist "co-responsibility" could provide the consensus necessary to cope with the country's grave problems. Besides, he reasoned, if the Communists were to return to opposition, they would be in a position to exploit labor and student disaffection and perhaps win the next election.

The Socialists too took up the call for an emergency government, but the strongest pressure came from the cautious Communists themselves. Earlier they had seemed content with gradual progress toward the "historic compromise" of an alliance with the Christian Democrats. But labor's militancy, and the risk of being left behind in the rush of events, led them to a high-risk change of tactics and an accelerated push for power. In a dramatic appearance on national television, Party Boss Enrico Berlinguer demanded what he called "a government of democratic solidarity." Accusing the Andreotti government of "uncertainties and contradictions" in the face of "the grave and worsening crisis the country is undergoing," he called for "a formula that would equally commit the Communists, the Socialists, the Christian Democrats and all the other parties willing to associate themselves with the great effort that must be exerted." Significantly, Berlinguer did not rule out the prospect that the Communists might decide to bring down the Andreotti government.

The Communist salvo, just short of an ultimatum, threw the Christian Democrats on the defensive. The government's answer was still no, but Christian Democratic Party Boss Benigno Zaccagnini, and even the party's anti-Communist war horse Amintore Fanfani, did not exclude some sort of "new forward step" of accommodation. Helping Andreotti was the fact that no party wanted to be blamed for toppling the government. In a televised press conference last week, the Premier insisted that he would fight to prolong the life of his government. But with the prospect of a general strike and a looming parliamentary fight over the budget, there was much political speculation that Andreotti will eventually have to attempt a new political deal giving the Communists more power.

One possibility is a reshuffled Cabinet that would include several politically independent technocrats acceptable to the Communists and Socialists. Also possible is Communist support in Parliament (rather than their present abstention on important votes)--a step equivalent to full Communist membership in a parliamentary coalition and thus another giant stride for Berlinguer toward the government itself. Trouble is, such a formula might prove too much for more conservative Christian Democrats and too little for the increasingly ravenous Communists. As one of Berlinguer's policy-makers said last month: "No reshuffles, no surrogates. That's not enough any more. A government with the Communists--that's all."

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