HUNDREDS of thousands of workers struck on 23 September in Italian cities, as the wave of industrial action against austerity measures continued.
The austerity package is a direct result of premier Amato's preparations to meet the terms of the Maastricht treaty. Together with the massive strike wave in Greece, these are the first anti-Maastricht strikes.
During the one-day strike 100,000 people marched through Milan and 50,000 demonstrated in Bologna. The day ended with clashes with the police in Milan.
A few days later 250,000 pensio ners demonstrated against the raising of the retirement age and restrictions on state pensions. A one-day strike of all public sector workers is set for Friday 2 October. Given the size of the state sector this amounts to an effective general strike.
Despite the suspension of the lira from the ERM, Italy intends to plunge ahead with ratification of the treaty. This means reducing the huge public debt, and slashing state expenditure on welfare and the big Italian state industry sector.
Next year it is intended to cut state expenditure by £41 billion.
A key step has been the abolition of the scala mobile, the partial sliding Italian workers from the worst ravages of inflation. Pensions will be cuts and 20 million people will lose free health care; and the retirement age is to be raised by two years for both men and women, an unprecedented move in an advanced capitalist country.
Union bosses signed an agreement to scrap the scala mobile in July. This has led to a huge fight in the major trade union federations, especially the CGIL, traditionally controlled by the Communists, and now strongly influenced by supporters of the ex-Communist PDS (Democratic Left Party).
CGIL leader Bruno Trentin, himself a PDS supporter, was booed and subject to a barrage of bottles and rotten eggs when he tried to speak at the Milan raily. He escaped with police protection.
Militants of the left split from the Communists, the 140,000-strong Party of Communist Refoundation, have played a leading role in the campaign in the defence of the scala mobile and in the strikes.
The resurgence of workers struggle in Italy, the biggest mass strikes for 20 years, is the best guarantee against further political advances by the rightwing populists in the Lombard League, who scored heavily in Milan and other cities in elections earlier this year. •Mass strikes are planned against austerity moves in Sweden for 6 October. Not happy with Maastricht: Italian pensioners The debate on Maastricht has been fierce on the left, and not only in Britain. French Trotskyist organisation Lutte Ouvriere called for abstention in the referendum, while the Fl section, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, campaigned for a 'no' vote.
With or without Maastricht Europe remains capitalist - that is absolutely obvious. But the Maastricht road to European unity is not a matter of inditference for the working class. Monetary union means massive deflation and the destruction of state welfare systems. It means a huge attack on basic working class gains.
The strike wave in Greece and Italy is the proof of the pudding. How can the left be against austerity measures but neutral or indifferent to the political measures which give rise to those austerity measures?
The debate on Maastricht closely parallels the debate on capitalist restoration in the ex-USSR and eastern Europe. Austerity and deflation ULL there is a direct result of attempts to restore capitalism and the market economy.
Many on the left say the restoration of capitalism amounts to a 'move sideways' or even historical progress (!), while at the same time opposing privatisation and austerity measures.
Such chop logic Is ridiculous. Maastricht and the restoration of capitalism in the East represent direct attacks on the working class. Since when have socialists been neutral on such matters? No. 29 10 Oct. 1992
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