Journal articles on the topic 'Communist parties – Italy'

This paper analyzes the relations between the communist parties of Yugoslavia and Italy during 1956, one of the most important years of the history of communism. The dissenting nature of those relations, which were based on the mutual wish to limit the Soviet hegemony within the global communist movement, is in the focus of this analysis. Finally, this paper aims to demonstrate how the roots of the close friendship between the two parties during the sixties and seventies can be traced back to 1956, and how the Yugoslav communists influenced or tried to influence their Italian counterparts.

The postwar ascendancy of the French and Italian Communist Parties (PCF and PCI) as the strongest ones in the emerging Western alliance was an unexpected challenge for the USA. The US response during this time period (1944–7) was tentative, and relatively moderate, reflecting the still transitional phase from wartime Grand Alliance politics to Cold War. US anti-communism in Western Europe remained guarded for diplomatic and political reasons, but it never mirrored the ambivalence of anti-Americanism among French and especially Italian Communist leaders and intellectuals. US prejudicial opposition to a share of communist power in the French and Italian provisional governments was consistently strong. A relatively decentralized approach by the State Department, however, gave considerable discretion to moderate, circumspect US officials on the ground in France and Italy. The subsequent US turn toward an absolute struggle with Western European communism was only in small part a reaction to direct provocations from Moscow, or the PCI and PCF. The two parties and their powerful propaganda appeared likely to undermine Western cohesion; this was the first depiction, by the USA and its political allies in Europe, of possible domino effects in the Cold War.

Soviet policy toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1943 to 1948 exemplified Josif Stalin's complicated relationship with the West European Communist parties and Western Europe in general. For a considerable while, Stalin insisted that the PCI follow a policy of moderation. Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the PCI, heeded Stalin's orders and tried to ensure that the Italian Communists pursued a policy of national unity and avoided conflicts that might lead to civil war in Italy. But this moderate approach collapsed after the Soviet Union rejected the Marshall Plan in 1947 and thereby forced the West European Communist parties into extra-parliamentary opposition. Not until after the poor showing of the PCI in the 1948 Italian elections was the party able to regain a viable role. Stalin's conflicting advice to the PCI was indicative of his tenuous grasp of the situation in Western Europe.

This article dwells on the topic little studied in Russian and foreign historiography, namely, the intelligence work of foreigners in European countries in favour of the Communist International. The research involved documents from the Historical Service of the French Ministry of Defence and the French National Archives, in particular, the court cases of three French activists (J. Sadoul, A. Guilbeaux and R. Petit). The materials of the court cases were formed on the basis of the information gathered by the French intelligence about the activities of these people in European countries. The author of the paper, having analysed the above court cases, determined the chronological framework of this activity (1921–1925) and identified six areas of the Bolshevik agents’ work aimed to promote the communist movement in European countries. These areas included campaigning through organization and distribution of the Soviet press abroad; restoration of the cultural ties between the countries of Western Europe and Soviet Russia; propaganda measures in the occupied territories of Germany; establishment of additional contacts with representatives of the French Communist Party; attempts to revitalize the communist movement in Czechoslovakia and Turkey; and establishment of a link between the Comintern and the Italian and Swiss communists. The author comes to the conclusion that the agents’ activities in these areas had positive results. This example of cooperation between the European communists and leaders of the Comintern through French agents is a new page in the history of communism. It demonstrates the collaboration between the Bolsheviks and representatives of the opposition parties in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, actively mediated by French citizens, and personifies this aspect of the development of the world communist movement.

The Poznań uprising of June 1956, coming just a few months after Nikita Khrushchev's landmark “secret speech” at the Twentieth Soviet Party Congress, constituted the first real test of de-Stalinization. The uprising was a turning point in postwar Polish history and the precursor to subsequent bouts of unrest in Poland. Yet, the episode itself and its repercussions that year were overshadowed by more pressing and dramatic developments, especially the revolution in Hungary four months later. The responses of the leaders of the two largest non-ruling Communist parties to the Poznań rebellion have been well documented, but much less is known about how ordinary Communist Party members in Italy and France viewed the unrest. This article draws for the first time on the personal testimonies of more than fifty people who in 1956 were rank-and-file Communists from the federations of Var and Gorizia. The article looks in detail at the contemporary reactions to the anti-Communist rebellion. In so doing, it reveals much about ordinary Communists’ priorities, degrees of critical detachment, and level of commitment to the Soviet Union and the Communist cause.

Based on unpublished historical sources from the archives of the communist parties of Yugoslavia and Italy (Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade; Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Archivio del Partito comunista Italiano, Rome), this paper analyzes the two last meetings of the leaders of the two parties, Josip Broz Tito and Enrico Berlinguer. The topics are Berlinguer?s two visits to Yugoslavia, in October 1977 and October 1978, which took place at the height of the inter-party alliance, after the Berlin Conference of the Communist Parties of Europe held in June 1976. The aforementioned two visits are viewed in this paper as case studies that testify to the nature of the alliance between the two parties, and illuminate the key similarities and differences between these two political actors.

IT IS NOT EASY TO EXPLAIN THE REASONS THAT LED TO THE appointment of Bettino Craxi as Prime Minister. First of all, there was certainly the political fatigue of the Christian Democratic Party which had held the premiership for 35 years. AIdo Moro, a great man and leader, had tried to mediate between the various currents within the party, as well as between the party and other allied parties (the Republicans, the Social Democrats, the Socialists). But what Moro really dreamt of was a possible alliance with the Communist Party to solve at least the most serious issues, such as terrorism and economic decline. He thought of repeating with the Communists the experience the DC had had in the early 1960s with the Socialists: widening the democratic area with the view of transforming the PCI into a social democratic trend. In order to obtain this he even considered letting the PCI take part in the majority at least if not in the government itself. His disappearance had serious repercussions, especially in the Christian Democratic Party where internal friction grew even stronger than in the past. This resulted in a great drop in the party's power and ability to manage the country politically even if, at least in part, it regained in the 1979 and 1983 elections the votes lost in the 1976 elections.

This article examines the nature and significance of the activities carried out in France and Italy by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an international organization that was secretly funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to support anti-Communist intellectuals, including those on the left end of the political spectrum. These two West European countries, with their large and politically influential Communist parties, were central to the CCF's work in Europe. The organization's task was complicated by domestic concerns and traditions that forced local intellectuals to stress their autonomy from the CCF International Secretariat and its U.S. patrons. The article uses the cultural Cold War and the competing interpretations of anti-Communism and cultural freedom within the CCF as a lens to explore the limits of U.S. influence and persuasion among the intellectual classes of Europe. By repeatedly asserting their independence and agency, the French and Italian members of the CCF helped redefine the character and limits of U.S. cultural diplomacy.

Based on archival materials in Italy and the Czech Republic, the article examines the history of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) radio programme ‘Oggi in Italia’, which was broadcast from Prague to Italy throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The programme was produced clandestinely by former partisans who had fled to Czechoslovakia in order to escape prosecution during the ‘trial of the Resistance’ (processo alla Resistenza). ‘Oggi in Italia’ was a central element in the PCI's media strategy, particularly during the Cold War, when access to the official airwaves was circumscribed. The programme was thus a key element of the long-term legacy of the Resistance movement, but also played a highly significant role in the wider process of negotiation between the Communist parties of Italy, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

SINCE 1989 THE NATURE OF OPPOSITION IN SEVERAL WESTERN democracies has been subject to change, and Italy is no exception. But the Italian case is distinct because the changes which occurred in Italy after 1989 amount to a revolution compared to the traditional political equilibrium. The Italian political scene was dominated, from the post-war years (1948) to the 199Os, by two political parties: the DC (Christian Democracy) and the PCI (Italian Communist Party), which respectively occupied the positions of ruling party and opposition party for over forty years.

Are there long-term legacies of civil wars on the electoral geography of post-conflict democracies? We argue that parties derived from armed bands enjoy an organizational advantage in areas where they fought and won the war. Former combatants can create a strong local party organization that serves as a crucial mobilization tool for elections. Parties have strong incentives to institutionalize this organizational advantage and retain electoral strongholds over time. We test our theory on the case of Italy (1946-1968). Our findings indicate that, on average, the communist party managed to create a stronger organization in areas where its bands fought the resistance war against Nazi-Fascist forces—and left-wing parties had a better electoral performance in those areas in subsequent elections. A stronger party organization is correlated with a positive electoral performance for many years, while the direct effect of civil war on electoral patterns decays after few years.

AbstractAlthough it is now recognized that the Stalin-Tito dispute was sparked off by Tito's desire to intervene decisively in the Greek civil war, the ideological context of that decision has never been fully explored. This article suggests that, since the early days of the Second World War, Tito had been committed to establishing a popular front ‘from below’, i.e. under clear communist control. He did this not only in Yugoslavia, but used his position in the war-time Comintern to persuade other communist parties to do the same. As a result he was dissatisfied with the all-party coalition governments established with Stalin's consent throughout Europe in 1945. Tito favoured a communist offensive, while Stalin, aware of the international position of the Soviet Union, favoured a more cautious approach. When Stalin summoned the first meeting of the Cominform in September 1947 and made Tito its de Facto leader, Tito mistakenly assumed he was to head a new international committed to a revolutionary offensive not only in Eastern Europe but in Greece and even Italy and France.

AbstractWithin a one-dimensional spatial framework, we deduce that parties’ incentives ‘to go negative’, by blaming alleged insufficiencies of the rival concerning commonly shared values, increase with their ideological proximity. We test our hypothesis by considering the long period of no-cabinet alternation that characterized both Italy and Japan. In particular, we focus on the (spatial) incentives of the Italian Communist Party and of the Japanese Socialist Party to emphasize on a particular topic related to negative campaigning, i.e. political corruption issues. The status of the perennial opposition held by both parties, together with the existence of several political corruption scandals during the period considered, makes the Italian and the Japanese political systems particularly apt to test our hypothesis. The results, based on data derived from electoral programs, support our theoretical insights.

Adoption of the early forms of the new Eurocommunist ideology by the communist parties of Italy, Spain and partially, Greece in the late 1960s (1967–1969) made the conflict of these parties with CP of USSR inevitable. This was the deciding factor of forming the new course of financial policies of LCY towards the previously mentioned parties. The main events leading to this outcome were the establishment of military dictatorship in Greece in 1967 and Czechoslovakian Crises of 1968. The process of forming the official standing of the party on the military intervention in Czechoslovakia marked the crucial turning point in the way the party ideologies of CPI, CPS and eventually CPF were defined and understood. In the aftermath of these events, Eurocommunist fractions gained power in CPI, CPS and in the interior CPG. It was exactly during this troublesome and turbulent period for CPI, CPS and interior CPG that LCY formed the policies of providing the regular financial aid to CPI, and irregular but significant financial aid to CPS and CPG interior. Such financial policy had the goal of easing the financial consequences of braking relations with the CP of USSR, who was the main sponsor of the previously mentioned parties until then, and thus contributing in making the victory of the LCY friendly Eurocommunist fractions in the ensuing power struggle within CPI, CPS and CPG permanent. In the case of CPF, financial policies of LCY were focused on financing the research-vacations in Yugoslavia of those members of CPF that belong to the opposition within the party. Eventually, the relationships of the CPI, CPS and CPG with the CP of USSR recovered, as was also already many times the case in complex relations between USSR and SFRY, but CP of USSR never regained the influence it once held within the communist parties of Europe.

Thе article considers some key episodes of Andrej A. Gromyko’s diplomacy, as the Minister of foreign affairs of the USSR, in the sphere of the Soviet-Italian relations in the 60–80s. The main attention is focused on such aspect of his work as cooperation of the USSR and Italy in establishment of the European collective security system. Under examination are the visits of A. A. Gromyko to Rome in 1966 and 1970 which were important links in the preparatory process for the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (СSCE) and in the development of bilateral Soviet-Italian relations. The source corpus of the article contains secret documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published in Italian language, official documents edited by the Ministries of foreign affairs of USSR and Italy, and the memoirs of the diplomat as well. Analysis of these sources allowed to evaluate personal contribution of A. A. Gromyko to the development of Soviet-Italian relations and to reveal some principles of his work dealt with adjustment of a peace dialogue between the USSR and Italy. Among his achievements there was launching of the Soviet project of the CSCE in the course of the negotiation process with Italy. As the result of his efforts contacts between the USSR and Italy went beyond the channels within the communist parties of both countries, and the Soviet-Italian relations advanced to higher level in different spheres. Besides, agreement between two countries on some important issues of international relations was achieved. The author believes that the principles put in the basis of the Soviet-Italian relations by of A. A. Gromyko retain their relevance in the modern international context.

This article explores the effects of the growth of the “cartel parties” within the Italian system and the new relations between the unions and leftist parties, going beyond the models and experiences of the twentieth century. One of the consequences concerns the stronger interdependence of the parties and the state, and their need for more public resources. Another aspect relates to the relationship of the party with society and other socially representative organisations and stakeholders. In the case of Italy, the Democratic Party, set up in 2007, embodies the weak-minded party version, progressively dismantling the relationship with the trade union movement and, in particular, with the CGIL. The Italian situation confirms that underlying these evolutions there are not only external factors, such as globalisation and changes in the work world, but also internal factors, such as the logic of actions, drawn up and put aggressively into practice by the “cartel parties".

Italian visual propaganda often makes use of well-established imagery, to exploit its proven impact. Renaissance masterpieces with religious subject matter were recurrently reproduced on political posters in the early post-war years and during the referenda campaigns of 1974 and 1981, mostly to characterise the parties as Christian. In Italy and elsewhere these images now tend to be employed in a secular way, for instance to denounce injustices and atrocities, and invite compassion and solidarity for the victims. Symbolic motifs traditionally associated with specific ideological traditions also used to feature strongly in Italian visual propaganda; they virtually disappeared in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Christian-Democrat and Socialist parties in the wake of the Mani pulite investigations, and the Communist Party’s transformation into a social-democratic party. They have been replaced by new icons. Iconographic motifs dear to fascism and Nazism, however, continue to be used, by stealth or unabashedly, by Italian far-right organisations.

In post-war Italy, ‘reformism’ has been ignored by many, wished for by some, and pursued by only a few. While it was a beacon for the major progressive political forces of Western countries, in Italy this idea was for a long time considered an ‘impossible’ vision. Even when there have been attempts to trace its development, explain the reasons for its failure, or reassess some of its merits, it has been sought everywhere except where it should actually be located: within those parties which defined themselves and considered themselves reformist, for example within the social democrat tradition. For a long period on the political level, Italian social democracy was squeezed between the formidable Catholic tradition and a powerful Communist culture. These pressures contributed to its negation, on both a historiographical and a political level, including a denial of the features of modernity in its development, or at the very least the obscuring of its achievements. Italian reformism, whether a ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’ option, has thus been removed from consideration, both in politics and in historiography.

With the removal of Khrushchev in 1964 the Soviet Union adopted—at the level of the secret service—a more aggressive policy towards western countries, with a more intensive recourse to so-called ‘covert operations’. These operations regarded even western communist parties, such as the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which were close to being viewed as ‘orthodox’ by the Soviet leadership. The so-called ‘active measures’ which resulted were realised through the infiltration of agents, the training of (usually young) extremists, and (through them) the sending of warnings to the PCI leadership about its divergence from the Soviet line. This context helps us to understand better than before three key events of the years 1968–1973: the emergence of the first terrorist groups in Italy (the Partisans Action Groups and the Red Brigades); the bombing of the electric mains line where Giangiacomo Feltrinelli lost his life; and the car crash in which Enrico Berlinguer was involved in 1973 during an official visit to Bulgaria. An analysis of the Cold War context in which Italian terrorism (and specifically the Red Brigades) developed reveals origins and patterns that are different to those usually identified in the literature.

In the last five years, the Italian political system registered its most important crisis. All parties, existing since the second world war, disappeared or were greatly transformed. The main purpose of this article is to analyse the deepest causes of the first Italian republic's collapse, following some specific interpretations of ltalian political observers.L. Ricolfi bases his theory on the emergence of "Lega" and the return of laïque culture in Italy. The old christian democratic and communist parties will suffer the most from these changes.A. Sofri emphasizes the identity of northern regionalism between the "Lega" and the "Pool of Milan" ('Clean hands operation"). A real opposition emerges between the judges of Milan and the politicians of Rome.S. Romano and M.L. Salvadori prefer the historical approach: for them, the events of1990-1994 are very similar to what happened in 1922-1926and in 1943-1945. The absence of a pacific alternative and the "ideological war" among political forces produce the effect that every change in Italian politics implies an end of regime.L. Ornaghi and V.B. Parsi deal with the "values" of citizens which, very often, do not correspond to the values of old politicians. For them, a democracy for the political parties -as structured in the last 45 years- must give priority to a democracy for the citizens.

Following the political stabilisation achieved with the victory at the election in 1948 of the Christian Democrat Party, De Gasperi's leadership had to deal with new domestic and international dynamics. The government dialogue with the ‘laical’ parties did not end with the reconstruction of the identity of a nation divided by the Fascist phenomenon, nor did it solidify along the lines of an ideologically driven anti-Communist design. De Gasperi's leadership was interwoven with profound changes in the role of the Church, the economic system and political organisation, founded upon new party and government systems. The national and European dimensions influenced one another in this conjuncture, resulting in a new set of equilibria: in the stability of the executive, within the limits set by the primacy of the parliamentary institutions and the organisational role of the party as a focus for political support; in economics, with a revision of classical economic liberalism; and in a unique synthesis of the secular tradition with social Catholicism, with a new interpretation of the 1948 Constitutional model.

The article is devoted to the analysis of different views in Romanian historiography on the participation of I. Antonescu, along with Germany, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and Finland, in the war against the USSR, starting from June 22, 1941. It is known that the decision to join the anti-Soviet war was taken by I. Antonescu alone, without any consultation with any political group, or even with the king Mihai, who has learned from the BBC radio that Romania had entered the war with the USSR. First, the war was proclaimed as a “sacred war” against Bolshevism for the return of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, received full support from the king and from the leaders of the “historical parties”, as well as from a wide range of the population. However, in August 1941, at the request of Hitler, having already military rank of Marshal, Ion Antonescu decided to continue the war in the East, which has been completely unfounded (the territory to the East of the Dniester never belonged to Romania). The modern Romanian historiographers emphasize that the continuation of the anti-Soviet war on the other side of the Dniester, which led to large (and useless) human losses, has become one of Antonescu’s greatest mistakes. The article also raises the issue of the Holocaust in Romania during the Second World War (suppressed during the communist years), the decline in the scale of the tragedy in that period. It is noted that the arrest of I. Antonescu on August 23, 1944 was the merit of the young king, Mihai I, and his entourage, and not the Communist Party of Romania represented by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu.

This article analyzes the battle between Italian Communists and anti-Communists during the early Cold War. Without denying the critical role of high politics or the rivalry between Washington and Moscow, the article places the home front at the center of its analysis, using a bottom-up perspective. Drawing on the rhetoric, remembrances, and visual propaganda produced by Communists and anti-Communists alike, the article shifts the focus of attention away from governments and diplomacy and toward imagination and culture as agents of historical change. Looking beyond the institutional-administrative sphere of politics, the article explores the aspirations, emotions, expectations, and hopes formulated by Italians under conditions of existential uncertainty. The article concludes that the Cold War in Italy was, above all else, an internal contest between two parties over what the recent past meant and what would ensure a just and stable order for society.

- According to the author, after the Second World War, Italy was too weak to build an autonomous foreign policy in China or to influence the conflict between Communists and Nationalists. However, Italian diplomacy, especially the Italian ambassador in China Sergio Fenoaltea, tried to have his own vision of the Chinese Civil War and to take advantage of the weakness of Italy to establish a good relationship with the Kuomintang government: China was a great power, especially at the United Nations, and it could be very important for the future of Italy. Furthermore, Fenoaltea criticized Marshall's mediation between the Communists and the Nationalists along with the American endorsement of Jiang Jieshi. From the perspective of the Italian ambassador, the USA was not able to understand the situation in China or to support a really democratic force. Finally, Italian diplomats in China tried to be equidistant between the two parties acting during the Civil War to protect the little Italian community in China and to not impair the possibility of a pacific and positive relationship with the future winner of the Civil War. Key words: Italy-China relationship, Italian foreign policy, ambassador Fenoaltea, Chinese Civil War, international politics, Communists and Kuomintang.

The Italian political crisis of 1993–1994 and the new political dynamics to which it gave rise, and which persist today, have strongly shaped both public debate and historiographical reflection on the Italian Republic. This article assesses the impact of the political changes of the post-1994 period (and notably Berlusconi's entry into politics) on the debate over the so-called First Republic, with regard to: Italian national identity in the post-Fascist period; the functioning of the political system, especially in relation to the role of the political parties; anti-Fascism and its internal divisions; communism and anti-communism.

The article presents an analysis of the origin of the policy of non-intervention in the civil war in Spain in 1936. The archival materials of the Foreign Office’s fund (National Archives, London) make it pos-sible to widen greatly our knowledge about genesis and character of that policy, to argue the version about Great Britain as an initiator of non-intervention. Many factors influenced this process: interests of British monopolies, strategic and political considerations, such as anti-Communism of the elite of British society, their sympathy towards the rebels of Franco, wish of official London to make it possible for the left parties in France, neighbouring to Spain, not to acquire stronger positions. Non-intervention turned against the Spanish Republic, made it easier for Germany and Italy under cover of it to carry massive intervention on side of the rebels which ensured Franco’s victory in the civil war. On the basis of unknown documents of the Foreign Office the author gives an analysis of complicated diplomatic struggle of the Powers in the beginning of the civil war in Spain.

AbstractThis article argues that Gerd-Rainer Horn's model of a ‘Mediterranean New Left’ encompassing both the French Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, 1960–1990) and the Italian Partito socialista italiano di unità proletaria (PSIUP, 1964–1972) needs to be significantly revised. It agrees that, half a century on from the events which gave rise to their foundation, this much misunderstood part of the political spectrum, midway between social democracy and the far left, is worthy of rescue from the ‘enormous condescension of posterity’, but questions how similar the two parties actually were. Major differences emerge, especially in the nature of each party's relationship with communism, with the philosovietism of the PSIUP contrasting with the PSU's evolution towards an anti-Leninist decentralist socialism of self-management. Yet, at the same time, important new evidence is uncovered about the concrete political and personal links that developed between leading intellectuals of the PSIUP and PSU, an example being the friendship of the Italian parliamentarian and theorist Lelio Basso with the journalist Gilles Martinet, later French ambassador to Italy. Other transnational links, both across the Mediterranean and to eastern Europe, are explored. Furthermore, the location of the roots of both parties in the 1940s generation of anti-fascist resistance calls into question prevailing assumptions equating the New Left with the youth of the 1960s, with wider implications for our understanding of the development of the European left across the twentieth century.

After the 1998 general elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, the largest party, the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), formed a minority government. The origin and existence of this government was enabled by an agreement with the second largest formation, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). What was then known as the Opposition Agreement became the subject of considerable debate. The paper analyses the Opposition Agreement in comparison with other minority governments with external support, be they governments formed on the basis of ad hoc agreements or complex ones. The text looks in detail at government practice in Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, and Italy at the time of the Historic Compromise; this is then used as a context for outlining the specifics of the Czech case. The paper highlights not only the Opposition Agreement between the Social Democrats and the Civic Democratic Party and the later Toleration Patent, which even deepened the cooperation between these two parties, but also the frequent ad hoc legislative coalitions which the minority government was able to form. An additional aim of the paper is to outline foreign analogies to the potential future single-party minority government of the Czech Social Democrats supported by the Communists. Because of its considerable length, the text is divided into two parts; the first part is printed in this volume.

In this article I analyse global and national neoliberalisms- economic and social class war from above- neoconservatisms which are leading to and connected with NeoFascisms- with their scapegoating, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, heterophobia, militarism and the attacks on dissent- whether electoral, media, or from academics/ universities and workers’ organisations and actions. Six prime examples are Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in the USA, Orban in Hungary, the Law and Justice government in Poland, and the racist government in Italy, in effect led by Salvini. Across Europe Far-right anti-immigrant, xenophobic and ultra nationalist authoritarian parties are recruiting and becoming electorally significant- and, in some cases, significant on the streets. Critique social democratic reformist parties and governments for adopting neoliberal austerity policies and thereby becoming delegitimised, together with the too-often `accomodationist' trade union and party leaderships. and critically examine prospects for left social democracy as represented, for example, by the Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party in the UK. Much of the article is devoted to the resistant and the revolutionary role of teachers, academics and education/ cultural workers in different arenas, from national and local electoral and direct action politics/ Focusing on Critical Education, Critical Educators, Marxist Education, Marxist Educators, I seek to address four aspects of education: pedagogy, the curriculum, resistance in the classroom and the hidden curriculum, and the structure of schooling nationally and locally (within-school). I conclude by setting out what is specifically Marxist about the proposals set out. These are: (1) Class Analysis: the Capital-Labour Relation; (2) Capitalism must be replaced by Socialism and that change is Revolutionary; and (3) Revolutionary Transformation of Economy and Society needs to be preceded by and accompanied by a Class Programme, Organisation, and Activism. Regarding capitalism, our task is to replace it with democratic Marxism, to lead, firstly, into socialism, and ultimately, into communism. As teachers, as educators, as cultural workers, as educational, union and party activists, as intellectuals, we have a role to play.

Dentro del rico panorama de la tratadística cinquecentesca se encuentra el De proxenetis, et proxeneticis del anconitano Benvenuto Stracca (1509-1578), publicado por primera vez en Venecia en 1558 y articulado en cuatro partes, de las cuales la última –la más extensa– reúne algunas quaestiones que, según el autor, tienen el valor de convertir el tratado «uberiorem et fertiliorem» Considerándolo casi una suerte de apéndice al famoso De mercatura, seu mercatore, la compilación, dedicada al Cardenal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi (1500-1564) legado de la Marca, tiene el indiscutible mérito de condensar en un solo texto y sistematizar la communis opinio en la materia, proporcionando un cuadro de los principales problemas inherentes al mediador y la mediación a finales de la primera edad moderna. NOTAS * La autora agradece de un modo especial la excelente disponibilidad del Dr. Gabriel Antonio García Escobar, colegial del Real Colegio de España en Bolonia, para la traducción y corrección del texto en su versión castellana. [i] Para una primera aproximación a este jurista véase L. Franchi, Benvenuto Stracca giureconsulto anconitano del secolo XVI, Roma 1888; L. Goldschmidt, Benvenuto Straccha Anconitanus und Petrus Santerna Lusitanus, in «Zeitschrift für das gesamte Handelsrecht», 38 (1891), pp. 1-9; A. Lattes, Lo Stracca giureconsulto, en «Rivista di diritto commerciale», 7 (1909), pp. 1-28; Benvenuto Stracca nel quarto centenario della sua morte. Convegno di studio (Ancona, 29 marzo 1980), Ancona 1981; D. Maffei, Il giureconsulto portoghese Pedro de Santarém autore del primo trattato sulle assicurazioni, in Diritto Comune Diritto Commerciale Diritto Veneziano, a cura di K. Nehlsen-von Stryk e D. Nörr, Venezia 1985 (Centro tedesco di studi veneziani, Quaderni - 31), pp. 54-60; C. Donahue jr., Benvenuto Stracca's De Mercatura: Was There a Lex mercatoria in Sixteenth-Century Italy?, en From lex mercatoria to commercial law, a cura di V. Piergiovanni, Berlin 1987, pp. 69-120; V. Piergiovanni, Considerazioni comparative tra Benvenuto Stracca e Gerard Malynes, in Relations between the Ius Commune and English Law, a cura di R.H. Helmolz e V. Piergiovanni, Soveria Mannelli 2009, pp. 185-196 y, por último, Id., Stracca, Benvenuto, in DBGI, II, Bologna 2013, pp. 1920-1922. [ii] Benvenuto Straccha, De proxenetis, et proxeneticis Tractatus, Venetiis, apud Ioannem Baptistam, et Melchiorem Sessam fratres, 1558. [iii] Ibidem, c. 35r. [iv] Benvenuto Straccha, Tractatus De Mercatura, seu Mercatore, Venetiis, apud Michaelem Bonellum, 1575. [v] Sin pretensiones de exhaustividad sobre este ilustre personaje, distinguido con importantes misiones diplomáticas y llamado a dirigir la Comisión encargada de reformar y actualizar las Constituciones Egidianas (1357), véanse los más recientes: C. Hoffmann, Kardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi und seine Reform der Aegidianischen Konstitutionen, Berlin 1989; Alberto e Rodolfo Pio da Carpi collezionisti e mecenati. Atti del Seminario internazionale di studi (Carpi, 22-23 novembre 2002), a cura di M. Rossi, Tavagnacco 2004, y la bibliografía en ambos citada.

"For most of us, if we do not talk of ourselves, or at any rate of the individual circles of which we are the centres, we can talk of nothing. I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world." -- Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage This issue of M/C explores the notion of 'chat', examining its contexts, forms, functions and operations. 'Chat' appears to be a descriptive subset of 'talk', often characterised somewhat unfairly as idle or frivolous 'small talk', 'gossip' -- the kind of tête-à-tête that is mediated through cups of tea (alluded to in Jen Henzell's cover image). However, 'chat' is not only an extremely prevalent activity, but, as Trollope implies, a primary social activity. Serious academic regard for 'chat' can be traced to Malinowski's (150) coining of the term "phatic communion" to refer to talk that expresses the "ties of union", a notion later taken up by Laver ("Communicative Functions"; "Linguistic Routines"). Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson made a similar distinction between the content level of communication (contains assumptions that are communicable) and the relationship level (which reveals the speaker's attitude to the assumptions communicated and the speaker's relationship with and opinion of the hearer). 'Chat', they argue, is more about building and solidifying relationships between interactants than imparting information. Even gossip, probably the most content driven form of 'chat', lets hearers know that they are regarded well enough by the speakers to be drawn into confidence. We have divided the M/C 'chat' issue into two sections along the lines of context. The first section deals with what might be termed 'traditional' or 'more general' forms of chat, where the interactants are either physically (face-to-face) or acoustically (telephone) copresent. Given both the period and the medium in which M/C 'chat' is being published, it should not be surprising that the second section deals with computer-mediated communication (CMC). With the advent of CMC, 'chat' -- and research on it -- has been transformed, taking with it much of the old formula and leaving behind some of its trappings. M/C 'chat' is introduced by Charles Antaki's Feature Article "Two Rhetorical Uses of the Description 'Chat'". In this insightful and highly accessible piece, Antaki explores the paradoxical manner in which the description of a discursive event as 'chat' may be used to socially persuasive ends. Antaki takes as his starting point the fact that some uses of the word 'chat' demonstrate an old-fashioned view of spoken discourse as an inefficient information-transmission system ('mere talk' and 'gossip'). This, he argues, belies -- and belittles -- its use in actual talk. Analyses of four transcripts containing the descriptor 'chat' illustrate how speakers deploy it as a tactic to promote a description of an informal and blameless event, when in fact the episode in question might be categorised as something rather different. As befits an article by a member of Loughborough University's influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, folded into the analysis is a persuasive demonstration of the methodological and theoretical strength of Conversation Analysis (CA) for describing language-in-use. However, as Antaki concludes, this is not just a game for analysts - we are all fundamentally sensitive to the power of the 'chat' descriptor. M/C 'chat' is introduced by Charles Antaki's Feature Article "Two Rhetorical Uses of the Description 'Chat'". In this insightful and highly accessible piece, Antaki explores the paradoxical manner in which the description of a discursive event as 'chat' may be used to socially persuasive ends. Antaki takes as his starting point the fact that some uses of the word 'chat' demonstrate an old-fashioned view of spoken discourse as an inefficient information-transmission system ('mere talk' and 'gossip'). This, he argues, belies -- and belittles -- its use in actual talk. Analyses of four transcripts containing the descriptor 'chat' illustrate how speakers deploy it as a tactic to promote a description of an informal and blameless event, when in fact the episode in question might be categorised as something rather different. As befits an article by a member of Loughborough University's influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, folded into the analysis is a persuasive demonstration of the methodological and theoretical strength of Conversation Analysis (CA) for describing language-in-use. However, as Antaki concludes, this is not just a game for analysts - we are all fundamentally sensitive to the power of the 'chat' descriptor. In a turn away from the micro-level world of Conversation Analysis (CA), Mark Frankland's "Chatting in the Neighbourhood: Does It Have a Place in the World of Globalised Media?" is a broad diachronic and synchronic overview of the place local media such as 'chat' and community newspapers fit into an evolving and increasingly global media-scape. The first half of Frankland's article is an historical demonstration of the almost inevitable links between the rise of the urban form and moves away from local media to media globalisation. Given this history, in the second half of the article Frankland asks what effect the absence of local forms of media might have. He argues that local media forms are important sense-making mechanisms, operating at the level of personal effectivity, for assimilating the constantly changing media-scape. Local news media, and the even more micro level of 'chat' may act as "transition discourses", meaningful local contexts in which we may discuss the global. Most of the articles in this collection are about forms of chat to which both parties consent. "Invitation or Sexual Harassment? An Analysis of an Intercultural Communication Breakdown" by Zhu Yunxia and Peter Thompson considers quite the opposite -- unwelcome 'chatting up' or verbal sexual harassment. Zhu and Thompson examine a series of three telephone invitations to a party from a male Chinese tutor to a female Australian student, which resulted in an accusation of sexual harassment. Through an analysis combining Searle's speech acts, Austin's felicity conditions and Aristotle's rhetorical strategies, Zhu and Thompson suggest that different cultures use different tactics in the speech act of an invitation and they believe that the potential for miscommunication is increased when intercultural differences are present in the interaction. "The Naturally-Occurring Chat Machine" is Darren Reed and Malcolm Ashmore's interesting methodological reflection on the nature of the data collection and transcription processes of Conversation Analysis (CA), in order to "provoke a reconsideration of the marginal status of textually conducted interaction as a proper topic for CA". The worked-up complexities of CA transcripts, they argue, produce a myth of an unmediated origin, when in fact 'machinic-productive processes' are used to produce data considered 'studiable' in the CA of face-to-face conversations. Analogous processes produce data for the CA of Internet newsgroup messages. Ironically, in terms of CA's claim of using 'naturally occurring' data, Reed and Ashmore make the controversial counter-claim that newsgroup data might be considered superior to transcribed data, as the textual character of Internet newsgroups is the result of participants' work. In effect, therefore, Internet newsgroup data is considerably less mediated than recorded and transcribed conversations. Reed and Ashmore provide a neat link between bring the first section of M/C 'chat', dealing with what might be termed 'traditional chat media', and the second section concentrating on computer-mediated communication (CMC). The boom in CMC also marks the renaissance of Conversation Analytic research. Interestingly, both Reed and Ashmore, who end this section, and Paul ten Have, who we asked to introduce the CMC section, note that the proliferation of new interaction media not only provides new contexts in which to investigate human interaction, but also very conveniently produce easy-to-use data as a natural process of participation. Paul ten Have begins the CMC section with an introduction to some of the fundamental features and concerns of CMC research in his ethnographic investigation of how to find someone to talk to in a chat room. From the standpoint of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA), "Computer-Mediated Chat: Ways of Finding Chat Partners" takes us through a description of the more or less generic categorisation features of most chat rooms, and then into the three primary concerns that CMC users often make apparent very early in an interaction: age, sex and location, indicated by the acronymic "a/s/l please". Interestingly, his conclusion is that while it is clear that pre-existing communication procedures must be adapted to the new environment -- manifested perhaps most obviously by a more explicit questioning when searching for chat partners -- current media do not provide much scope for radical change in the fundamentals of 'chat'. Paul ten Have begins the CMC section with an introduction to some of the fundamental features and concerns of CMC research in his ethnographic investigation of how to find someone to talk to in a chat room. From the standpoint of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA), "Computer-Mediated Chat: Ways of Finding Chat Partners" takes us through a description of the more or less generic categorisation features of most chat rooms, and then into the three primary concerns that CMC users often make apparent very early in an interaction: age, sex and location, indicated by the acronymic "a/s/l please". Interestingly, his conclusion is that while it is clear that pre-existing communication procedures must be adapted to the new environment -- manifested perhaps most obviously by a more explicit questioning when searching for chat partners -- current media do not provide much scope for radical change in the fundamentals of 'chat'. Miranda Mowbray continues this theme of the false perception of restrictiveness. She notes that most interactive CMC systems place certain restrictions on the way in which a person may present themselves on arrival in the room. In her article, "Neither Male nor Female: Other -- Gendered Chat in Little Italy", Mowbray notes that the Little Italy's system (created by Pavel Curtis originally for Lambda MOO) gives participants the opportunity to broaden their gender presentation options from 'female' or 'male' to a range of 'other genders'. Mowbray observes that a fifth of the inhabitants of Little Italy opt to choose a gender other than that of the traditional 'female' or 'male', and, significantly, that half of users presenting as 'other genders' are still participating after a year -- more than the traditionally gendered Little Italians. Through 28 responses from these Little Italians, Mowbray investigates why these other-gendered participants are more likely to remain in the one space than those who chose 'female' or 'male'. She concludes that it is "the personal creative investment by the other-gendered citizens in Little Italy that makes them especially likely to remain active citizens." Mowbray considers Little Italy's system to be an excellent demonstration of a "stickiness" feature -- a feature of a CMC system that attracts long term use. Her results should be of interest to software companies wanting to design popular -- and profitable -- chat rooms. Since interactive synchronous and quasi-synchronous CMC systems became popular with the release of IRC, ICQ, Webchat and various ISP chat rooms, a flood of research about the transformation of language in computer-mediated situations has resulted. However most of this work has concentrated on chat between strangers. Campbell and Wickman observe this bias in their article, "Familiars in a Strange Land: A Case Study of Friends Chatting Online", choosing instead to concentrate on computer-mediated chat between acquaintances. In this autoethnographic account, the authors note that although they have adopted some of the more common conversational CMC strategies, they have also created their own, relevant to their particular circumstances. Historically, CMC research has argued that the 'cues-filtered-out' nature of CMC systems leads to depersonalisation and the lack of necessity to adhere to social conventions of politeness. However, Campbell and Wickman note that in their own chat as online and offline familiars, they observe a strong need to adhere to politeness conventions, due to the face-to-face consequences of their online actions. This interesting finding suggests that politeness theory may be of great value in future CMC research, particularly that comparing and contrasting chat between familiars and strangers, and/or face-to-face and online interaction. As Ylva Hård af Segerstad points out, most CMC research is conducted on English language forums. M/C 'chat' is pleased to help redress this balance with the publication of investigations on the impact of computer-mediation on languages other than English, in this case Swedish. Given the English focus of the Internet, however, CMC research on languages other than English must, of course, take account of the variations between the language-specific and 'international' (read English-language) forums. This being the case, Hård af Segerstad discusses the result of questionnaire data and logged conversations to determine if written online Swedish is being adapted in ways particular to it, or if Swedish written language is being developed in analogy with adaptations observable in international chat rooms. While the surprisingly uniform results of the two data sources indicate that Swedish written language is being adapted for online chat (rather than using one language offline and another online), the actual adaptation strategies are much the same as those observed in other adaptations of writing in general. In their paper "Chatting to Learn and Learning to Chat in Collaborative Virtual Environments", Teresa Cerratto and Yvonne Wærn discuss the importance of conversation to educational contexts and the communication problems inherent in using an electronic medium as an educational tool. These authors are more concerned with the information transmission aspect of chat rather than its dominant relationship characteristics. They examine two groups of teachers in Sweden who are learning to use the new collaborative virtual environment, TAPPED IN™. Cerratto and Wærn note some of the strategies that the teachers adopt in attempting to gain the floor in this CVE where there are a number of people vying for attention. At the same time, tactics used by teachers for communicative collaboration are also discussed by these authors. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of their data, Cerratto and Wærn provide arguments for the importance of leadership in these particular learning environments, arguing a leader helps maintain the informational coherence of the discussions. In terms of redressing imbalances in CMC research, not only has language been particularly biased to English, but in some media -- Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in particular -- most research has been qualitative in nature. We may know how users manage their interactions online, but how many are doing so? The bases of many generalisations about adaptation strategies are somewhat shaky on the quantitative front. Much can be gained by combining the quantitative with the qualitative, and with this in mind, Hinner has taken it upon himself to not only create a system capable of capturing usage statistics for all the major IRC networks, but also to provide two years of these statistics and make this system available on his Website. His article details the processes involved in creating the Socip statistical program and sample graphs of the kinds of information that his system can provide. The CMC section of M/C 'Chat' brought to our attention many more articles than we could publish in the already quite expanded issue, and we were sorry to have had to pass over promising work in this popular field. The contributions included, however, represent a turning point in CMC research, in which our wonder -- and glee -- of describing findings of social interaction in what were assumed to be anti-social media, has turned to the detailed consideration of just how socialisation is accomplished in what promise to be increasingly common media. What has not changed, as Paul ten Have notes, and, indeed, as Charles Antaki began the issue, is that all human life can be found in language-in-use -- wherever it takes place. Hinner's article brings the CMC section of M/C 'chat' to a close, but is not quite the last blast. Very early in the article submission process, Ulf Wilhelmsson contacted us about including his "Dialogue on Film and Philosophy". Wilhelmsson wanted to translate -- from the original Swedish -- his Socratic dialogue about film in which Quentin Tarantino moderates a discussion involving numerous influential philosophers, film-makers, film-scholars and the odd Beatle (John Lennon). While we were somewhat taken aback, the rough translation of the first few lines was interesting, and, as it turns out, quite entertaining. Unfortunately, due to its length, the dialogue can not be supplied in regular M/C 'bits', and so we have made it available as a downloadable Rich Text Format file. See the Editor's Preface to Wilhelmsson's article for more information on its content and to download the file itself. This very global issue of M/C brings together people in Germany to New Zealand, Sweden to the UK, all chatting about chat. We hope you enjoy this collection of articles. Felicity Meakins & E. Sean Rintel -- 'Chat' Issue Editors References Laver, John. "Communicative Functions of Phatic Communication." The Organisation of Behaviour in Face-to-Face Interaction. Eds. Adam Kendon, Richard M. Harris, and Mary Ritchie Key. The Hague: Mouton, 1975. 215-38. ---. "Linguistic Routines and Politeness in Greeting and Parting." Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardised Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech. Ed. Florian Coulmas. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. 289-304. Malinowski, Bronislaw. Supplement. The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trebner, 1923. 451-510. Rpt. as "Phatic Communion." Communication in Face-to-Face Interaction. Ed. John Laver and Sandy Hutchinson. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1972. 126-52. Trollope, Antony. Framley Parsonage. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Helmick Beavin, and Don D. Jackson. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton, 1967. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel. "Editorial: 'Chat'." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.4 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php>. Chicago style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel, "Editorial: 'Chat'," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 4 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Felicity Meakins, E. Sean Rintel. (2000) Editorial: 'chat'. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(4). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/edit.php> ([your date of access]).