Berlusconi, Craxi’s friend – working world

The death of Silvio Berlusconi has given rise to a phenomenon of strong resonance in the press and the media, which has taken on unusual characteristics: in particular due to its extent and also due to its permanence over time. I was impressed, for example, by the presence of over thirty pages of news and comments dedicated to his person and his history, political and non-political, in the major national newspapers, starting with the newspaper founded by “his enemy”: La Republic. But Corriere della Sera was no less, not to mention almost all the other means of communication. In particular, of course, the television ones. This mountain of news and comments that has been “served” to us for several days has seen a somewhat strange exception, at least in my eyes: the almost absolute absence of news, analyses, memories, parallels in the relationship between Berlusconi and Craxi or, more generally, between the deceased leader and the socialists, naturally both those of his time and those of today.
The first consideration that came to my mind is that all of this certainly pleased Berlusconi, because it corresponded perfectly with what he attempted to build during much of his public life, and above all after 1992. C ‘in fact there was always a lot of control in the way Berlusconi spoke and conversed with Craxi and Craxi. Before and after Tangentopoli, before and after the death of his “very dear friend” in January 2000, throughout the forty years and more marked by their friendship, the political leader who today is so widely accredited in public opinion dedicated to leader of the PSI only a few meager words, almost always taking care not to express a clear opinion both on his political thought and above all on his actions: whether political-partisan or government.
The last time I had the opportunity to hear Berlusconi speak in public was on the occasion of the constituent congress of the new party he had invented: the PdL. It was 2009. Even then, in what was a particularly solemn moment for him, above all because he was “again” founding, he managed to mention Bettino Craxi only once in his speech. And he did it only to be able to thank his daughter Stefania directly, present there. Immediately after the thanks he wanted to add an absolutely minor memory of the socialist leader’s political life: that of the customs clearance of the MSI right that Craxi, as President in charge, had made in 1983, a gesture he said anticipated the choice that he himself would have made ten years After.
Why this prudence, which often borders on reticence? The question is not idle, even in reference to the occasion of death. In fact, it responds to the need to clarify who are still the socialists who have continued to vote for him; above all what political relationship these comrades of ours, of yesterday and today, can simultaneously continue to have with their great leader, Bettino Craxi, who has been missing for twenty-three years now.
Berlusconi has always been a moderate Italian-style, in the name of initiative and “I mind my own business“. Before the collapse of the party system he was a Christian Democrat, but without contradiction a friend and associate of Craxi: a Christian Democrat by practical obligation and a Catholic-moderate preference; companion of Craxi out of friendship but above all because “he is the best in the square”. In 1992-93, guided precisely by his practical instinct, he supports the justicialist wave, with more conviction after it appears unstoppable; immediately afterwards, acknowledging that the communists will be saved, he understands in an amen that he must now defend himself. This is not a risky move or the courage shown by those who want to save Italy, as I have read again in the newspapers these days. As he himself recognized years later, “my miracle was not to have set up an alliance but to have put together an electorate without a country”.
For this reason the socialist votes then go with him, and then they stay with him; for this reason Berlusconi can do without Craxi, now exiled to Hammamet: until he dies with some palpitations, afterwards in complete tranquillity. It is the management team of what was once the PSI that facilitates his task by any means, confirming him in his deep-rooted preference never to get confused with what he is and represents: it is not his world, it never was, with Craxi and without Craxi. If it welcomes into its ranks, albeit with great prudence and only after having tried them for a long time, some who formed around or even within the PSI, it is because they are “high-ranking” and expert personalities, capable of guaranteeing them political reliability and substantial practical harmony. The fact is that his personality, his political message, his government actions are on a completely different side. A parallel with what he achieved, having much less strength than his “friend” Bettino himself, forty years earlier, sitting in that same chair that he has often considered a source of impotence, can give us ample proof. Between 1983 and 1987, Craxi was able to profitably and authoritatively use his role as head of government to introduce power relations and new rules of governance in the “Italian system”, capable of promoting an effective government capacity, useful for clearing up the network of obstacles that prevented its development and modernization internally. Among other things, thus making possible and practicable a great foreign policy, neither marginal nor subordinate but constantly founded on a great authority.
That socialist Prime Minister was then, in the decade of the 80s, the bearer of a meager consensus, just over 11%. And he had to deal every day with two formidable turreted castles, protected and supported by a plurality of allies, which dominated all politics. The fact is that that character not only had a great political imagination, aided by a very hard head, an adamantine courage and an enthralling enthusiasm; he was also a socialist son of the party, inherent in his history, an expression of his best culture, who had also bent the healthy decision-making that was part of his nature towards the comparison and participation of many. For these reasons, and perhaps also because of his tiredness, Craxi was unable to overthrow the political table when an entirely party-based trap such as the “relay pact” barred his way to the popular ratification of his work as a statesman, which a enemy newspaper estimated then, in the spring of 1987, to be over 65%. To throw everything upside down we needed a populist and this could not “unfortunately” be the socialist Craxi, whatever De Mita, Berlinguer and subsequently their heirs thought of it who, opposing his design, actually contributed to building that catwalk which he brought Berlusconi to power walking on the collapse of the parties.
In the end, everyone reaps what they have sown: it applies to Berlusconi, it applies to Craxi. The question before us today, also due to the unusual redundancy that has been assigned to the story of recent days, and that is, also taking into account the political-propaganda consequences of Berlusconi’s after-death, is whether this story can be told and lived without subterfuge and therefore return to bear fruit. The crisis of the political system that we have been going through for almost thirty years has profoundly changed Italy, as unfortunately we are forced to observe every moment. Perhaps even here the birth of a so-called moderate party, even on the ashes of an experience that reeks of post-fascism, could be a sign of stabilization, capable, at least potentially, of expressing a government capable of doing and realizing, perhaps putting in the field a discreet management of ordinariness. How, on the ashes of what the left has been in these three decades – with all its vagueness, forcing and net of unjust and guilty exclusions – space can be created, but also the practical conditions, to rebuild a force of democratic socialism and reformist, modern and plural, capable of inspiring even the less old of us, living in the present and perhaps even preparing to govern the future. But clear behavior is needed and words of truth must be spoken: above all by those who were once Christian Democrats and Communists in particular.
For all these reasons, also in the light of the interpretation that I allowed myself to advance on the events connected with Berlusconi’s death, I confirm my opinion that the judgment and use of the experience of Craxi’s socialists, whether you want it or no, it is an inescapable watershed and at the same time a great resource.