"The most reactionary government in Europe" was a title held by the British Conservatives for the whole of the Not until last year did they have a real challenger: inventing a party from nothing, building a governmental alliance from incompatibles, and taking political office in one of the continents most unstable countries. Silvio Berlusconi. Media mogul turns politician. The man from nowhere.
And it is beginning to look like that is where he is to return.
After 226 days in office Italy's 52nd post-war government has perished. Faced by a stack of no confidence motions - including most importantly one from his Lega Nord allies - Berlusconi has resigned, his political career strangled in its infancy.
On the face of it this latest casualty looks like just another mortality in the ritual slaughter that is Italy's political system - the country's governments have traditionally had a shelf life not much longer than Gorgonzola in the Summertime.
But behind all the blood and guts there is something more profound - the Italian ruling classes are in a deep crisis. This is primarily a crisis of restructuring. It takes the widest of forms. It is both economic and political.
Europe
Berlusconi was given a clear mandate — modernise Italy's political and economic structures in the context of the post-1989 European situation. He has been a dismal failure.
His first test was to put right Italy's massive budget deficit in accordance with European Union strictures. He floundered straight away. His bungling gave birth to a massive opposition movement.
Not only did he manage to unite the various wings of the trade union movement against him and draw them into explicitly political activity, but he also brought mass protest back onto the agenda. Over a million people demonstrated on November 12 against the proposed cuts in pensions and health benefits.
Victim
If the Burlusconi experiment was born as an attempt by the Italian bourgeoisie to begin post-Cold War modernisation so too has it become a victim of this process.
This is most apparent in the corruption charges now being assembled against him. One of the most striking things about the Italian political situation is the division that has opened up between the judiciary and the executive wing of goveminent Although these days Tory politicians are regularly found guilty of serious misconduct - and even of illegal activity - it is mostly for their gross incompetence rather than an indication of a breach in the capitalist state machine.
The same cannot be said of Italy. After 1991 the systems of political administration were becoming redundant - there was no longer a need to structure the whole of Italian political life around keeping out the Communist Party (PCI).
The blocs began to crumble. Big business wanted reform. It was no longer necessary to pay the high price of PCI exclusion — a deeply corrupt Christian Democratic party in permanent office, fuelled by the mafia, all under the benign approval of the church.
Pervasive corruption was becoming too burdensome. In a modern industrial western economy the need for constant pay offs and bribery slows down the turnover of capital and gets in the way of profit. Business becomes a bureaucratic mess. The empowerment of the judiciary to clean up the country was deemed unavoidable.
Disease
Someone was also needed for the second key strategic task: establishing a new centre right political formation. Because such a complete break with the past was called for the leading figure of the new government could not come from the diseased political classes. In stepped Signor Berlusconi.
With his band of middle management wannabees in a few months he conjured up out of nothing a fresh political party -Forza Italia. It was a remarkable phenomenon. A whole layer of the business classes became politicians overnight.
Now the party's over. The experiment has got out of hand.
The judges are beyond the control of the executive. After all, why should the prime minister be the only one in the country not to pay the price of business corruption?
Once it was announced that he was to be investigated his time was up as a political leader.
It has been precisely the fact of Berlusconi's newness to the scene that has been his undoing. He has not been able to shrug off his connections to his Finninvest business empire.
Similarly, the freshness of Forza Italia means he has no political base of any substance to fall back upon. The movement was a TV invention. Its fragility was demonstrated back in July when the popular Milan prosecutor Antonio di Pietro was able to face down the government's proposal to limit the power of the magistrates.
Television
It is instructive that television has become a key issue in the protests. The November demonstration included tens of thousands of media workers angered at Berlusconi's proposals to reform the state network RAI. The plan was to distribute the seats on its governing body to the partners of the government coalition.
Political control over the means of mass communication was also the issue that brought to a head the conflict between the Lega Nord and Forza Italia. In a vote called by the Lega speaker of the chamber Irene Pivetti, Lega deputies voted against the government and opened up the fissure of the government bloc.
The petit bourgeois regional populists of the Lega Nord remain at the centre of developments. With 117 of the 630 seats in the Chamber of Deputies - more than both the National Alliance and Forza Italia - they are now in a position to determine the future direction of government.
Up to now they have been able to look two ways - to their alliance partners who are implementing the austerity measures and to their base in the middle classes who want reform. Bossi has been a skilful enough politician to pull off the balancing act - and has along the way been denounced by Berlusconi as a "despicable traitor" for his inconstancy.
Things may become more difficult I've had a few... but then again too many to mention now. With Berlusconi gone Forza Italia is more or less washed up. A new alliance is posed. And the obvious partners are the ex-communist PDS.
The PDS is trying to establish a popular front style of "constitutionalist government" that includes the small forces of the ex-Christian Democrats in the Peoples Party, some bits of Forza Italia (without Berlusconi), the Lega, and themselves.
Its leader Massimo D'Alema has accepted that some cuts in pensions will be necessary. In his haste to prove how "responsible" the new party is he has rejected all possibility of a bloc with the class struggle forces of Rifondazione Comunista.
The cross-class alliance sought by the PDS will probably never come off. There is too much residual fear of parties that have any historic connection with the workers movement - however tenuous or treacherous it may be. Already 60 Lega deputies have threatened to resign if a link is established with the PDS. The other possibility is a government led by the far right. Fini the leader of the MSI is beginning to emerge as the one character not smeared by betrayal or backbiting. This is the image he seeks -the man with a cool head in a crisis, a "post-fascist" statesman to lead a strong Italy. This is what is behind the dissolution of his party into the broader force of the National Alliance - a formation of the right that has not the same fascist heritage. If there is a move to a more presidential style of rule, as some are touting, he would be an obvious choice.
This would be disastrous. An outright victory for the far right would be the herald of a massive onslaught on the workers movement. This is not yet posed however - the Italian bourgeoisie is not seeking this road at the moment.
There is then a striking similarity here with the debate going on in the political classes of Britain - how best to recompose the centre right in order to marginalise the labour movement and workers parties?
And who is to be the Christian Democrat to implement the austerity? If this proves insufficient is it necessary to turn to the far right forces of authoritarian popularism?
The situation therefore remains very fluid. The mass movement has not gone away. The deferral of the austerity measures to the Spring only postpones the necessary confrontation. What emerges from it will shape the future not only of Italy, but the whole of Europe.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.75. 7 January 1995, Page 14