13.03.2025

What’s in a name?

Toby Abse reports on Rifondazione Comunista’s desperate attempts to re-enter parliament and the illusions it is fostering in the Bric countries as a source of peace

The Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC - Party of Communist Refoundation) remains a relatively large organisation by the standards of the European far left, with nearly 10,000 members. Rifondazione’s cadre are real, dues-paying members and not people who once expressed some interest in the party on a demonstration, as is the case with the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, for example.

It is larger than any other Italian communist organisation, such as what now calls itself the Partito Comunista Italiano (previously known as the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani - PCI) or Marco Rizzo’s Partito Comunista. Rifondazione has 446 circoli (territorial branches) scattered all over Italy. They are grouped into 97 federations covering somewhat larger geographical areas - generally provinces, but sometimes cities or municipalities in areas where it is stronger.

In the run-up to the latest, 12th national congress in February, there were 97 federation congresses, in which members voted in person at the end of serious political discussion. 5,308 members attended one of these local debates, in which they chose between two motions - one proposed by the outgoing secretary, Maurizio Acerbo, and another by the previous secretary, Paolo Ferrero. Acerbo’s motion obtained 2,689 votes and Ferrero’s 2,619, according to the Il Manifesto report published on February 11 - and Acerbo was also re-elected as party secretary. Although Ferrero’s minority still have reservations about the legitimacy of the vote, they agreed to accept it and remain in the party out of a sense of ‘responsibility’. The danger of a split, which would have done massive damage, appears to have been averted, for the time being at least.

What is the essence of this fierce debate, which resulted in a change to the line that the party adopted after the August 2008 split at the Chianciano congress, when Ferrero’s supporters managed to sabotage Nichi Vendola’s plan to liquidate the party into a broader, non-communist formation? Vendola’s supporters were forced to leave and form what was then called Left Ecology Freedom (Sinistra Ecologia Libertà - SEL). Whilst Vendola’s followers did eventually return to the Italian parliament, Rifondazione has never done so.

Between 2008 and February 2025, Rifondazione’s general line has been to attempt to create a ‘third pole’ in opposition to both the right and the neoliberal ‘centre-left’ (ie, successive Partito Democratico-led coalitions). In practice, this has involved building alliances at every election, in a bid to exceed the threshold for parliamentary representation (3%). Therefore Rifondazione has never stood under its own name in any general election since 2006.

Arguably, this tactic might have had some merit if the name under which it stood had been consistent from one election to another, giving it brand recognition. However, standing under different umbrellas in three successive general elections meant that less informed and committed voters may not always have grasped that the driving force behind all these electoral cartels was Rifondazione, especially since none of these labels included the word ‘communist’, and the hammer and sickle was never used as an electoral symbol on the ballot paper.

Apart from the brand recognition problem, which is serious for a party without a parliamentary presence and the mainstream media presence that flows from this, there was another, more political one: namely that most of these projects involved an alliance with forces to Rifondazione’s right - often left-populist outfits led by rather unreliable celebrities, who relished a figurehead role and sought to tone down the cartel’s political programme. It is probably not accidental that the only time Rifondazione crossed the parliamentary threshold was in the 2014 European election, when its coalition with SEL and a few independents was called the ‘Lista Tsipras’. Whilst this identification with the Greek left premier (2015‑19) may have been naive, it meant Rifondazione was not beholden to any Italian celebrity.

Acerbo’s justification for calling for a move away from the ‘third pole’ strategy is twofold. Firstly, the dominant force on the Italian right is now much further to the right - and much more determined to undermine the 1948 constitution born of the World War II resistance, as opposed to merely lowering taxes on the wealthy and cutting services and benefits to the poor (although, of course, the Meloni government has also done the latter, with some gusto). Secondly, the dismissal of the PD as a purely neoliberal and anti-working class party no longer makes sense, given Elly Schlein’s leadership over the last two years, with its closer relationship with the CGIL union confederation and rejection of former prime minister Matteo Renzi’s anti-union legacy.

Quite what Acerbo has in mind in terms of electoral strategy is not altogether clear. Ferrero and his supporters accuse Acerbo of trying to incorporate Rifondazione into the ‘centre left’. Given that when Fausto Bertinotti adopted this strategy it destroyed Rifondazione as a mass party between 2006 and 2008, it seems more likely that what Acerbo may be considering is the sort of arrangement that the former PD culture minister, Dario Franceschini, recently proposed, with reference to Giuseppe Conte’s Five Star Movement (M5S) and the small centrist parties of Matteo Renzi and Carlo Callenda: namely that each party stands separate lists for the proportional seats, but agrees a common candidate in ‘first past the post’ constituencies. This, after all, is more or less what Rifondazione did back in the 1994 and 96 elections.

Acerbo has tried to reassure his critics by stating that any choice of electoral strategy will be subject to a vote by all party members before being implemented, so that there would still be the possibility of what is currently the minority gaining a majority on this particular issue. Acerbo has called his new line ‘the Electric Turn’, in what seems to be an unfortunate analogy with the career of Bob Dylan - older readers may remember that Dylan’s disillusioned folkie fans yelled ‘Judas’ at him when he abandoned the acoustic guitar!

More to the point, Acerbo has described the new line as an expression of “democratic, libertarian and intersectionalist” communism - which some might see as a watering down of class politics. To be fair, his plan in the coming year seems to involve Rifondazione campaigning vigorously alongside the CGIL for a ‘yes’ vote in four referenda that would repeal various aspects of Renzi’s Jobs Act, and campaigning alongside the neoliberal, but anti-racist, Piu Europa for a ‘yes’ vote in a referendum to change the qualification for requesting Italian citizenship from 10 to five years legal residency.

Given that Ferrero, in a letter to Il Manifesto published on February 13, challenged the accuracy of the account of the conclusion of the congress offered by the newspaper, it seems best to summarise some of the contents. Ferrero argues that ‘No to war and military spending’ is the key point in constructing political alliances. He proposes constructing a “popular coalition” against such war and military spending - “a political pole alternative to the supporters of war and Nato, like the PD”.

He argues: “To defeat the fascists it is necessary to construct both social protagonism and a political alternative - not the electoral convergence with the neoliberal and warmongering anti-fascists who gave rise to popular consensus for the right”. He goes on to state:

Secondly, the breaking of US imperialist dominance is the principal objective for those who want peace. The emergence of the Brics is not simply a manifestation of inter-capitalist contradictions, but also opens a space for our struggle for a multipolar and cooperative world of peace. The Brics are therefore a very positive development, to be sustained and enlarged, regardless of the judgement we make of every single component of this same alliance.

Despite the qualifications, this view of Ferrero’s seems to risk substituting some rather dubious governments for the international workers’ movement as the best brake on US imperialism.