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A ‘Mediterranean New Left’? Comparing and Contrasting the French PSU and the Italian PSIUP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2010

DANIEL A. GORDON
DANIEL A. GORDON*
Affiliation:
Department of English and History, Edge Hill University, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP; gordond@edgehill.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This 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.

Une ‘nouvelle gauche méditerranéenne’? comparer et contraster le psu français et la psiup italien

Cet article affirme que le modèle de Gerd-Rainer Horn d'une ‘Nouvelle gauche méditerranéenne’, englobant à la fois le Parti socialiste unifié français (PSU, 1960–1990) et le Partito Socialista Italiano di Unità Proletaria italien (PSIUP, 1964–1972), doit être révisée de manière significative. Il montre que, un demi-siècle après les événements qui avaient donné lieu à leur fondation, cette partie souvent mal comprise du spectre politique, à mi-chemin entre la social-démocratie et l'extrême gauche, mérite d'être sauvée de ‘la condescendance énorme de la postérité’, tout en s'interrogeant sur le degré de similarité véritable entre les deux partis. Des différences importantes apparaissent, en particulier dans la nature des relations que chaque parti entretien avec le communisme, le philosoviétisme du PSIUP contrastant avec l'évolution vers un socialisme anti-léniniste décentralisé d'autogestion du PSU. Pourtant, en même temps, de nouvelles preuves importantes sont découvertes sur les liens politiques et personnels concrets qui se sont développés entre des intellectuels de premier plan du PSIUP et du PSU, prenant comme exemple l'amitié du parlementaire et théoricien italien Lelio Basso avec le journaliste Gilles Martinet, plus tard ambassadeur français en Italie. D'autres liens transnationaux à la fois à travers la Méditerranée et vers l'Europe de l'Est sont également explorés. Les racines des deux partis dans la génération de 1940 de la résistance antifasciste nous poussent par ailleurs de mettre en question les hypothèses prévalentes qui assimilent la Nouvelle gauche avec la jeunesse des années 1960, avec des implications plus larges pour notre compréhension de la gauche européenne à travers le XXème siècle.

Eine ‘mediterrane neue linke?’ vergleich und gegenüberstellung der französischen psu und der italienischen psiup

Dieser Artikel argumentiert, dass Gerd-Rainer Horns Modell einer ‘mediterranen Neuen Linken’, die sowohl den französischen Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, 1960–1990) und den italienischen Partito Socialista Italiano di Unità Proletaria (PSIUP, 1964–1972) umspannt, revidiert werden muss. Ein halbes Jahrhundert nach den Ereignissen, die zur Gründung dieser Parteien geführt haben blieb dieser oft missverstandene Teil des politischen Spektrums auf halbem Weg zwischen Sozialdemokratie und Linksextremismus stecken und bedarf gerade deshalb einer genaueren Untersuchung. Dennoch hinterfragt dieser Aufsatz, wie ähnlich sich die beiden Parteien tatsächlich waren. Wesentliche Unterschiede treten hervor, insbesondere in der Natur der Beziehungen die beide Parteien zum Kommunismus unterhielten, mit dem Philo-Sowjetismus des PSIUP einerseits und der Entwicklung des PSU hin zu einem anti-leninistischen, dezentralen Sozialismus der Selbstverwaltung andererseits. Gleichzeitig werden jedoch wichtige neue Beweise über die konkreten politischen und persönlichen Verbindungen zwischen führenden Intellektuellen des PSIUP und des PSU aufgedeckt, zum Beispiel die Freundschaft des italienischen Parlamentariers und Theoretikers Lelio Basso mit dem Journalisten Gilles Martinet, später französischer Botschafter in Italien. Andere transnationale Verbindungen sowohl über das Mittelmeer als nach Osteuropa werden ebenfalls untersucht. Die Wurzeln beider Parteien in der Generation des antifaschistischen Widerstands der 1940er Jahre erlauben darüber hinaus, die vorherrschende Annahme einer Gleichstellung der Neuen Linken mit der Jugend der 1960er Jahre zu hinterfragen, mit weitreichenden Auswirkungen für unser Verständnis der Entwicklung der europäischen Linken im 20. Jahrhundert.

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Articles
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Contemporary European History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , November 2010 , pp. 309 - 330
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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15 Paul Oriol and Anne Couteau, interview with author, Paris, 2 Jan. 2006.

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20 La Tribune Socialiste, April 1961. The political style of Foot (1913–2010), who was of the same anti-fascist generation as the PSU's early leaders, was characterised by a comparable sense of moral fervour.

21 Vladimir Fisera, Construire un autre monde: la politique internationale du PSU (1960–1969), special issue of TREMA, 13 (2010), 32.

22 Commission Internationale, ‘Stratégie internationale’, La Tribune Socialiste, 23 March 1972.

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28 Heurgon, ‘Une étape utile’.

29 ‘Une délégation du PSU à Alger’, La Tribune Socialiste, 14 Nov. 1968.

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31 Alain Savary, ‘Projet: Reflexions sur le parti’, report to members of the PSU national bureau, 27 June 1962, Fonds Gilles Martinet, Archives d'histoire contemporaine, Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po, Paris (hereafter FGM), MR6/2.

32 ‘Les vieux et la révolution’, La Tribune Socialiste, 24 May 1972. Illustrated with a cover picture of a tragic elderly figure with his head in his hands, the article argued that the far left privileged youth, with a militaristic vocabulary of struggles and battles, and an atmosphere where those who shouted loudest were the only ones listened to, citing an 83-year-old militant who had stopped going to meetings as a result.

33 Emilio Lussu (1890–1975), founder of the Sardinian Action Party.

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42 For example at that of its forerunner, the Union de la gauche socialiste in 1958. Belgian, North African, West German and Yugoslav delegates were also present, as well as Dorothy Thompson of the British New Reasoner. Thompson, Dorothy, ‘Delegation Fraternelle’, New Reasoner, 7 (1958–9), 108Google Scholar.

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44 Gilles Martinet, ‘Pour Lelio Basso’, 1978, FGM, MR26/1.

45 Martinet, Observateur, 131; ‘Dati biografici’, in Fondazione Lelio et Lisla Basso, Via alla politica, 61.

46 Martinet to Basso, 23 Jan. 1969, FGM, MR13/6.

47 Basso to Martinet, 7 Jan. 1969, and Martinet to Basso, 23 Jan. 1969, FGM, MR13/6.

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85 Covatta, Guerra fredda, 330; according to Fisera, Construire un autre monde, 28, the PSU's Abraham Behar made similar accusations against the PSIUP. Anna Celadin, ‘Intervista a Vittorio Foa a cura di Anna Celadin’, in Celadin, Mondo nuovo, presents three pieces of evidence to support the suggestion: the party paper was printed at the same printworks as the communist daily L'Unità; (unspecified) internal PSIUP sources have confirmed the rumour of funding from the Eastern Bloc; and Vecchietti and Valori often appeared on tours of Eastern Europe. It is interesting that presented with this, Foa said that he did not know about it, on the grounds that others dealt with the party press, but did not actually deny it.

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89 Fondazione istituto Gramsci, ‘Tullio Vecchietti’, www.teamsviluppo.com/GuidaGramsci/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=191&Itemid=826u (accessed 8 June 2010); Associazione nazionale partigiani d'Italia, ‘Tullio Vecchietti’, www.anpi.it/uomini/vecchietti_tullio.htm (accessed 8 June 2010); Who's Who in Italy 1990 (Milan: Who's Who in Italy, 1990), 2002–3, which is the only one of these sources to mention the PCI. It may also be speculated whether it was more than coincidence that Vecchietti was the third of the political strategists considered in this article to have had a Napoleonic fixation.

90 Mattera, Il partito inquieto, 230, 246.

91 Tulio Vecchietti, ‘Il drama di Budapest’, Avanti!, 25 Oct. 1956, cited in Scirocco, Giovanni, Politique d'abord: il PSI, la guerra fredda e la politica internazionale (1948–1957) (Milan: Unicopli, 2010), 203Google Scholar, and in Mattera, Partito inquieto, 266; Tulio Veccheitti, ‘Il punto critico dell'Ungheria’, Avanti!, 3 Nov. 1956, cited in Scirocco, Politique d'abord, 209.

92 Vittorio Foa, speech to PSIUP central committee, translated as ‘Une signe de faiblesse’ in La Tribune Socialiste, 10 Oct. 1968.

93 Celadin, ‘Vittorio Foa’, 175; Martinet to Lisli Basso (Lelio Basso's widow), n. d. (1980s), FGM, MR25/12; ‘Dati biografici’, 61.

94 Sensini, ‘Socialproletari’; Heurgon, PSU, 103–5.

95 Allum, P. A. and Amyot, G., ‘Regionalism in Italy: Old Wine in New Bottles?’, Parliamentary Affairs, 24, 1 (1970), 63Google Scholar; ‘Candidati alla camera’; Kesler, Gauche dissidente, 358–363; Covatta, Guerra fredda, 330; Hauss, New Left.

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97 Giachetti, Sessantotto, 138–40.

98 Deli, Peter, De Prague à Budapest: les sursauts de la gauche française (Paris: Anthropos, 1981)Google Scholar.

99 Jean-Daniel Bénard, ‘L'action internationale du BN de l'UNEF: 1967–1968’, in Barralis and Gillet, Au coeur des luttes des années soixante, 243–9; Jean-Daniel Bénard, interview with Jean-Philippe Legois, 3 Feb. 2003, Conservatoire des memoires étudiantes, www.cme-u.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98&Itemid=45 (accessed 29 June 2010).

100 Published in La Tribune Socialiste, 12 Sept. 1968.

101 Fisera, Construire un autre monde; Gremion, Pierre, Paris Prague: la gauche face au renouveau et à la régression tchéchoslovaques (Paris: Jussaud, 1985), 74–9Google Scholar.

102 Basso, Scritti scelti, 59; Basso, ‘Un Tribunale Russell per i paesi dell'Est’ (1977), in Scritti scelti, 306–12, which argued that whereas dictatorships in Latin America were intrinsically linked to capitalism, abuses in the USSR were not inherently linked to the Soviet economy.

103 Allum and Amyot, ‘Regionalism’, 71.

104 ‘Il Manifesto cherche à aider à l'autoorganisation des luttes’, La Tribune Socialiste, 17 Feb. 1972.

105 Basso, ‘La mia utopia’, Panorama, 16 March 1972, repr. in Basso, Scritti scelti, 56, 57.

106 Jean-Claude Bauvet, ‘Sur les forces politiques en Italie’, La Tribune Socialiste, 26 April 1972; Maguy Guillem, Jean-Yves Langonay and Jean-Yves Romo, ‘L'Italie avant les elections’, La Tribune Socialiste, 4 May 1972; Jean-Claude Bauvet, ‘Beaucoup de bruit pour rien en Italie’, La Tribune Socialiste, 24 May 1972.

107 André Barjonet et al., ‘Si le PSU a encore sa raison d'être’, La Tribune Socialiste, 15 Nov. 1972, citing Le Monde, 18 Oct. 1972; Frédéric Duchamps, ‘Partiront? Partiront pas?’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 29 May 1972; Marcelle Padovani, ‘PSU: convalescence en ours’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 13 March 1972; Poperen, Jean, L'Unité de la gauche 1965–1973 (Paris: Fayard, 1975) 411Google Scholar; Rennes, Rocard, 91.

108 Martinet to PSU Bureau national, 29 Jan. 1972, FGM, MR6.

109 Martinet to André Garnier, 5 June 1972, FGM, MR6, which also bemoaned the influence of ‘an original social-Christian ideology’ in which ‘a populist and voluntarist ethical vision’ had replaced rationalist, materialist argument.

110 Martinet, ‘Pour Lelio Basso’; Foa, Vittorio, ‘Introduzione’, in Foa, La cultura della Cgil: scritti e interventi 1950–1970 (Turin: Einaudi, 1984), xviiGoogle Scholar.

111 Rennes, Rocard, 98.

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113 Vecchietti to Martinet, 22 June 1982, FGM, MR24/3.

114 Lelio Basso International Foundation, ed., Theory and Practice of Liberation at the End of the XXth Century (Brussels: Bruylant, 1988); Giachetti, Sessantotto, 134; Bull, Martin and Newell, James, eds., Italian Politics: Adjustment under Duress (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), 46, 55Google Scholar; PSU Documentation, 1960–2010, 53, 115, 129.

115 Daniel Gordon, ‘Le PSU et les luttes de l'immigration: perspectives nationales et internationales’, in Kernalegenn et al., PSU vu d'en bas, 327–36; Jean-Claude Gillet, ‘Epilogue: La mémoire vive’, in Barralis and Gillet, Au coeur des luttes des années soixante, 369–99.

116 ‘Intervista a Fausto Bertinotti a cura di Anna Celadin’, in Celadin, Mondo nuovo, 187–202; Hilary Wainwright, ‘The Left and Power – the Italian way’, Red Pepper, May 2005.

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118 François Prigent, ‘Les réseaux socialistes PSU en Bretagne (1958–1981): milieux partisans, passerelles vers le PS, rôle des chrétiens de gauche’, in Kernalegenn et al., PSU vu d'en bas, 73–92.

119 50 ans plus tard. . . le réalisme c'est toujours l'utopie, 10 April 2010.