Taking advantage of his visit to Argentina, we interviewed Franco Grisolia, leader of the PCL of Italy and of the International Trotskyist Opposition (ITO). He came to participate in the meeting of the extended executive committee of the ISL and spoke at an internationalist rally at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). We talked with him about previous experiences and also about the present.
Interview by Sergio García
Franco, tell us your conclusions about the ISL meetings
My conclusions are of enthusiasm, to position ourselves as a small Trotskyist current in a broader framework of Trotskyists who truly fight for the refoundation of the International. The debate seemed very rich, profound. I do not want to say that there are no problems; there are. But I do not see any particularly essential ones. It was a positive entry of our current into the framework of the ISL.
The framework of the meeting was the text of the ISL-OTI-L5I agreement. What do you think of this policy of regroupment?
I think it is essential, because for decades the Trotskyist vanguard was dedicated to dividing itself. There were some attempts at regroupment in the previous stage, but now it seems to me that this is the most serious project of international regroupment that there has ever been in the vanguard. It is an essential element. Naturally, we must build ourselves in the class struggle. You cannot just think about regrouping and then taking power because we are many; it does not work like that. But the premise for being able to enter the class struggle in a significant way is to regroup the revolutionaries because in recent decades they have divided, as opposed to uniting. One element, a reference bridge, is to unite forces to raise the perspective of solving the question of the political leadership of the workers’ movement, internationally and in each nation as well.
You had requested to join the ISL and now it has been accepted. How do we continue?
I think that we must consolidate what we are doing together. We consider ourselves in the ISL, although our congress is in May, which theoretically and democratically, could decide to change. But the reality is clear, because there are no significant options or objections in our international. We must consolidate political links, like the comrades of the L5I and Australia, which I believe will be possible with both. I also see things that may be important to begin work in some countries where we are not present. I think there are bases, there are some things that can turn out well if the work we started is possible. For example, apart from the L5I, we will see what reaction there is from the revolutionary sectors towards our development as an international current and see the situation in the United States, where comrades of different traditions and militancy can be regrouped in a significant section of the ISL.
What were the origins of the ITO?
We were born from a first regrouping of small groups in 1979, around a split of a British organization, very working class, that came from a current of international Trotskyism. At one time it was a fairly important current, led by Gerry Healy, which had about 2,000 real militants in Britain alone, many of them workers’ delegates. But it was managed very bureaucratically by a kind of dictator, who was this Healy.
We tried to start from criticism of the shortcomings of the other currents of Trotskyism, but at the same time from regroupment. In this framework, along with the British, there were three smaller groups: those from Italy, about 30 comrades from the United States and a small group from Denmark. At that time there was the so-called International Liaison Committee between the Morenoist and Lambertist currents, we asked to join but were not accepted. Unfortunately, as happens in the Trotskyist movement, a bad unification with another organization and other elements contributed to a collapse of the English group. The remaining force, very small, maintained the regroupment project.
We did not yet consider that we should regroup around ourselves, but rather fight on some points with forces that were progressive within the framework of the Trotskyist movement. After the collapse of the British section we tried with the USFI, we presented several alternative texts to the world congress of 1991, although we only had one delegate from Italy, which was me. We won some things, but in the end our section, which was entering Rifondazione Comunista – a significant split from the CP on the left – in order not to cave in to its leadership, we had to break with Mandelism and create our own independent organisation: the ITO. The name comes from when we were a fraction in the USFI.
At that time we regrouped with the Argentine PO. We knew Altamira because I had briefly been with the Lambertists when the PO was also there. We had thought of making contact with the PO in 1984, 1985, but decided not to. First, because the PO was linked to Lora’s POR in Bolivia, which, in the revolutionary situation of 1983, had a left-wing Menshevik attitude: the miners had stormed into La Paz, they had weapons and everything, but the POR was against the seizure of power because “they did not understand the dictatorship of the proletariat”… And second, because in the first election after the dictatorship the PO tried to build an electoral front of the entire left, including the Intransigent Party, which seemed to us almost like an electoral popular front. Finally the PO ran alone, but its moderate program to try to form such a front seemed negative to us. That is why we chose the USFI. Ten years later there were new conditions: the PO had broken with Lora’s POR and there was no hypothesis of an electoral popular front. If you read texts from the PO or from the current Altamira follows, Política Obrera, they say that they took the initiative of international regroupment. It is not true: we were the ones who approached the PO and from 1994 to 1997 we promoted the question of the refoundation of the Fourth.
If you were to summarise the experience with the PO, what political or methodological differences led to its end?
The catastrophic conception that the PO has of the collapse of capitalism and the conditions of development of the class struggle. There was a contradiction; I do not want to insult the theoretical level of apparent economic knowledge in particular of Altamira, but it was not so high. In the leadership it was held that the situation was one of collapse and that is why a revolutionary wave will necessarily come now. It is an a-Marxist method, because there was no collapse and neither the collapse nor its development are linear.
A year went by, the collapse did not come, the wave did not come and instead of analysing this they said “the collapse will come and there will be a wave”. And when we said “you said that a year ago and it didn’t happen” they didn’t respond, because it was a permanent ideological line. For a moment they agreed to try on non-minimal, essential bases: recognition of the crisis of the old bureaucratically deformed workers states, the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fight against the popular fronts, transitional methods and objectives, essential things to try to regroup.
At first, when we regrouped with the PO, there was a fairly strong Greek group, with a few hundred comrades; and a Turkish group, which had a more national development at the beginning led by some Trotskyist individuals who had spent time in France.
The relationship with some currents was very bad. For example with Workers’ Struggle (LO) in France, or the CWI in Great Britain, which had other sections. They all showed interest in the perspective of joining. And there was an immediate reflection from Altamira, who considered himself a great leader, with the capacity for psychological influence: “They are going to come and join us.” But really there was a lie behind that. They said, “Yes, you can stay at our house,” but when you finished eating they would say, “There is the door.” We never got anywhere. The problem we faced all the time was Altamira’s extreme personalism. At one point he was passionate about trying new options to regroup the Trotskyists. At other times there was no result because he would spend years discussing abstractions. The Greek party had a very good leader, Savas Matsas, who was more catastrophic than Altamira. He would go so far as to say that “the hell of the revolution is tomorrow.” I am surprised that there are people who go on for 60 years and every day it is the same: “the revolution is tomorrow…”
In 2004 we had a political debate that went as far as an international congress with delegates. There were time limits, translations, etc. But the PO came with a bloc, with the acceptance of the other leaders. There was a central document from which six of us abstained and one comrade voted in favor. In our party there is never a CC in without some vote against or abstaining, perhaps a little more than necessary, but that is how we are. The PO was all in a bloc, but we put forward seven amendments, limiting catastrophism, limiting the reach of the political analysis. There was a real discussion and we abstained.
Altamira was the father-boss of the PO: what he wanted was done, what he did not want was not done. On international issues, when he was not sure, he had the position of doing nothing and waiting for new significant forces to come together in surprise of his great analytical capacity. He never reacted by saying “get out, there is the door” or threatened to throw us out. But he ran the international organisation in a Bonapartist and anarchic way, because he didn’t organise anything. In the PO, at the end of each discussion, Altamira would speak for two or three hours and in two seconds the text would be corrected to express what he thought. The comrades of the PO should now take into account that they left that framework because Altamira was personally defeated in the primaries of the Left Front in 2015. It is not a very good thing to rebel when one is defeated…
After 2004, there was a period of non-functioning of the organization’s bodies, they only existed formally. For a period, the executive committee and a very restricted secretariat met, but it was not the leadership of anything in political activity. Finally, they never convened again and only comrades with diverse experience met. We made the mistake of not rebuilding the ITO at that time, not to split, but to say that since there is no democratic centralism as before, we will participate in a broad regrouping of discussion that wants to bring together other people. Although with nuances, we agreed with the Greeks and the Turks to go to a new congress, with delegates and to decide eventually to dissolve the democratic centralist format and resume with a more fluid discussion group. In the end, this did not happen.
In 2017 Altamira was concerned because we began to discuss a bit with the PTS, the Trotskyist Fraction in Europe, with similar positions against catastrophism. Altamira began to think that we were on the verge of joining them: “The Italians are joining the PTS”, and he broke off without any formal criteria. But it was total nonsense, we just had conversations, we were never interested and. In fact, the PTS later organized a split in our organization, which turned out to be a total disaster. Of the 60 militants that the PTS’s TF had in Italy, there are now not more than 15.
On Ukraine, there are quite a few differences with the TF. What is your opinion?
It is very strange. In fact, 15 or 20 years ago, we saw no alternative in the PTS because it was an international fraction, not democratically centralized, with a mother party and all its predictions as elements of unity. It did not correspond to our position because regroupment is a dynamic question, in which different traditions confront, and must have clear political bases. They had some elements that could be similar: a non-catastrophic vision of the situation and an understanding of the process of capitalist restoration in China. But that understanding was blocked. The logic would indicate that, since 2013, things should have deepened and China would have become imperialist. But it seems that they became blocked, perhaps because they are a sect that, at a certain point, there is nothing more to discuss. That is why they do not understand what is happening in the world. Today, from a total theoretical incomprehension, they have positions that are contradictory to what should be a coherent revolutionary position. That is why they do not recognize the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and have a lack of understanding of the development of the forces of the former workers’ states as new powers and the limitations of the former imperialist states. That is why they fetishize the role of the United States in relation to new imperialisms such as Russia and China.
Did you also have discussions with the UIT?
A small minority of us tried to say that we could not remain alone. We had rebuilt the ITO with the Italians, the Americans, the Danes, some English, and we were functioning. We were a very small organization that wanted to seek possibilities of unification and we held discussions with various groups. This minority took a position of saying that there was a solution and it was the UIT, but the majority of us responded that we did not like it because it is sectarian Morenoist. We may have some differences about the history of Morenoism, but the ISL is not sectarian Morenoist. The UIT is absolutely sectarian, a small organization that does not really want to build a Trotskyist regroupment, but rather to build on the basis of its Morenoist tradition and its own politics. With the UIT and the PTS we did not attempt anything, we only discussed our positions. With the UIT we did so by accepting a proposal of that minority, in a democratic manner, and to verify their hypothesis. There was a one-day meeting with Miguel Sorans and the result was very negative as a political position.
Now we are here in the ISL because we see that it is a revolutionary centralist organisation and we are all willing to be a minority in one position or another. The only previous attempt at unity was with the PO, apart from the one we are trying to unify now, with the L5I and Russian comrades who are facing a lot of repression, and I understand that if they were not in that situation they would probably have decided to join the ISL as well, which is bigger, democratic, which discusses, which is not sectarianly Morenoist in every aspect of history.
How is the rise of the extreme right expressed in Italy?
In Italy there is an extreme right and a right wing government because there is still Berlusconi’s party, a right-wing liberal, which has a significant position in the economy and television. We say that Meloni’s party is a post-fascist party, a party that has features of fascism but today does not try to propose a perspective of a fascist or semi-fascist State. In that sense, it behaves like a traditional conservative party. When Britain was still in the European Parliament, Meloni’s party was in the same current as the British conservative party, a traditional right-wing, but not far-right, party.
Now there is the League, led by Salvini, which is one of the four parties in this coalition. The fourth is more centrist, but very small, the former Christian Democrats. Salvini is doing a bit of far-right demagogy to get votes from Meloni. Six years ago they were stronger than Meloni, then they entered a government led by a man from the European financial bourgeoisie, Draghi, former president of the European Bank, and from 30% they fell to 10% while Meloni went from 4 to 30%. It was a whirlwind that took votes from everywhere. The majority of the percentage that the League lost went to Meloni.
For the moment there is nothing essential in terms of a very strong, massive attack. What they do is cover the non-payment of taxes, but not directly as it was in previous right-wing governments: businessmen can take a few more years to pay, but there must be positive results for the banker or the industrialist who does not pay for a year. For now there are no good results. They proposed a fiscal compromise, taking the average of tax rates in previous years, reducing them a little. But afterwards there is no control. For a sector of the small and medium bourgeoisie, small industrialists, it was good. The big businessmen do not like it so much: they evade taxes in a more technical way.
It is clear that if you do not collect this tax money there is less for health care. They say that they increased it, but less than the inflation rate. In reality they decreased it, it is an attack on public health care. There are many people who have to pay to be treated quickly, there are around five million Italians who will no longer be treated. The second thing is what they call autonomy. In Italy there is a unitary tradition, the southern regions are much poorer than those in the north. That is why there are standard levels of state investment because there is very little local tax income. Now the discourse was to analyse the situation region by region, also based on the taxes collected. But of course, the richest regions can collect more taxes. That is why a law clearly stated that each period there should be a discussion between the central government and the regions to receive what each one needed. This is not said by Meloni but by the League, which in the face of its electoral disaster, now presents itself as Italian patriots. Its greatest influence is still in the north and they want to use the administration to tell the north’s petite bourgeoisie that they defend their interests, that they have more resources, that they can eliminate some regional taxes.
Meloni’s electorate is more developed nationally and is historically more southern. Although she doesn’t like it very much, she has to concede some things to the League so that it supports her majority. That change is the premiership: Meloni and her party want to go from a parliamentary republic to a semi-presidential republic in which they would choose the premier, the prime minister. Meloni sees herself as the next one. The Northern League doesn’t like that, because it doesn’t want to be under Meloni’s leadership all the time, but that’s the agreement. They have many difficulties because the Constitutional Court has already intervened in the autonomy law, arguing that half of it is unconstitutional. It says that the minimums must be set nationally first and that is why agreements cannot be made region to region. The unions and left-wing parties are asking for a referendum, which in principle would take place next spring. But they are debating whether the autonomy law still exists or not. If the League doesn’t achieve regional autonomy, it is not interested in the premiership.
The most dangerous thing the government has done so far is a repressive law against workers’ struggles presented in parliament. It does not call into question the right to strike, but the pickets. They campaigned because in Italy there are ecological extremists who paint monuments, etc. We defend all pickets, of striking workers or demonstrations for Palestine. But if an ambulance passes, we let it through. They chain themselves up and say “we can’t.” It is a bit exaggerated, adventurous, we defend them but it is nonsense.
There are also struggles by unions that are called grassroots, which does not mean grassroots structure but independent and left-wing unions. They are strong in the logistics sector, where there are many migrant workers, Africans, Senegalese or from the Maghreb, abandoned by the large union organizations, with situations where the national collective agreement for each branch is not applied. Some grassroots unions did a good job and organized strong struggles. We participated and have comrades in the major unions and in several grassroots unions. There are about a hundred of them, the largest with 50,000 members and others with 500. The employers don’t like this, so they try to repress these struggles, the pickets, they increased the penalties and imposed very high fines. Before this law, hundreds of workers, rank-and-file trade unionists and also CGIL members faced civil or criminal cases. Under the current legislation they could imply a fine or at most six months with suspended imprisonment. With the current proposal, a heavy fine and imprisonment can be two years if it is the first time, the second another two years and you have to go to prison for four years. We are fighting quite hard. The CGIL, which is the largest trade union in Italy, spoke out against it. On Saturday, December 14 there was a national demonstration in Rome. With small far-left organisations and other trade unions, like a current of the CGIL, we built a united front against this. There are also more moderate sectors, the pacifists, the Catholics, the left, the Caritas. The united demonstration brings us together, but we have a harder line on this issue.
I think this is the greatest danger. Meloni also reduces taxes a little for the workers, a lot for the petite bourgeoisie and a lot for the bourgeoisie. In reality, the workers have about 40 euros more each month, but in health and services it costs them hundreds of euros more each year and of course there is no future recovery from inflation. The government says “we take into account the workers and the employees, unlike other governments we give them some things”. There are people who believe it, but much less. Now the great problem in Italy for the working class is abstention, because there is a situation in which half of the workers are not going to vote. There is a total distrust in the centre-left parties that were voted for by a majority by the workers, largely because of their actions in government.
Franco, what is your message to the ISL militants?
We are happy, because we did not know about the ISL until a year and a half ago. This is also important because other organizations say that since we have only known about it for a year and a half, we have to wait three more years. No! We are revolutionaries, we meet, we agree, in six months, a year, we make progress in agreements and organization.
It was a surprise and it must be said that the leaders and comrades of the ISL and the MST in particular did an extraordinary job, starting from a fundamental conception which is the regroupment to rebuild a revolutionary international that can, over time, build an alternative leadership to lead the class struggle in the world. We recognized this. We are happy with this, we have the same methods. Now we have to work because our entry, even though it is small, is not like 300 more entering a country: moreover, because there is experience in different situations and countries. This is also the case if the L5I enters, which I believe is highly probable. It is a point of reference to understand that it is time to unite.
When we debated a year ago in Milan, we put forward four points that we believed to be essential: the dictatorship for the socialist revolution; the opposition to popular fronts and blocks with the bourgeoisie; the understanding that the world is divided between imperialist powers (you have to be a flat-earther not to understand this, it is obvious that there is a global confrontation between China and Russia on one side and the old imperialisms on the other, you cannot say that perhaps they are still workers’ states); and the fourth point is the method of transitional demands.
It seems to me that in Argentina all the organizations have this last position. It is the program of the Left Front Unity, there are transitional demands, there is the question of power, of workers’ government. In France there were very important struggles, with strikes, such as for pensions, with a monumental government crisis, but none of the French organizations, LO, the Mandelists and not even the NPA, none said a word about workers’ government.
We have to constantly propose the slogan of workers’ government. In Italy there is no leaflet of our party on the feminist or any other question that does not combine the fact that to achieve this it is necessary to change society and a government of workers. Otherwise, it makes you a political spectator. In France, this is LO’s tradition. Rather, they say it as if it were a normal thing, that it is not their tradition to raise the question of power, even propagandistically. I consider this a major problem and a pity, because in France there are many Trotskyists but none of them understand this issue. Even less the Mandelists, who say that the workers’ government would be Mélenchon and ask him for some significant reforms…