At a solemn civic ceremony in Italy's southern port city of Salerno recently, wartime resistance veterans, local dignitaries and somber-suited representatives of the major political parties assembled to observe the 31st anniversary of the Liberation. Suddenly, a gang of left-wing toughs charged into the Christian Democrats' contingent and seized and burned their party flags —as if they had no right to be there.
In movie theaters round the country the most talked-about new film is Todo Modo (In Every Way), a surrealistic thriller built around a savage portrayal of the Christian Democratic leadership, including Aldo Moro, the country's Premier. In one scene, Marcello Mastroianni, playing a satanic priest, conducts a doom-laden spiritual retreat for the Christian Democratic chiefs, and snarls at them: "After 30 years in power, how much longer do you really think you have? You are all dead, can't you understand? Dead!"
The savaging of the country's lone great middle-of-the-road party—in art as well as life—has become almost a national political sport in mid-1970s Italy. If the Communists emerge from the June 20th parliamentary elections with a claim to national power, the fundamental cause will be the serious erosion of the Christian Democrats in the modern Italy that they very largely created. Today the party is maligned and ridiculed as never before—and from every corner of Italian society. Urban youths rail against it as sclerotic and establishmentarian. Women, swept up in a drive for legal abortion and other rights, have turned away from it as unresponsive to their needs. Middle-class Italians, once the party's backbone, grumble about its ineffectiveness and vulnerability to scandal and corruption. Italian editorial writers ceaselessly dissect the party's "crisis" and discover new symptoms of its logoramento—exhaustion.
At the same time, more and more Italians seem to have persuaded themselves, often reluctantly, that the only way to deal with Italy's economic drift and political scandals is to rap the Christian Democrats with a Communist vote. In local and municipal elections last June, Italy's self-confident Communists won almost 34% of the vote, compared with just above 35% for the Christian Democrats. Since then, the Christian Democrats, though thoroughly aroused to their plight, scarcely seem to have recovered any political ground. Says Small Businessman Eugenic Buontempo of Naples, reflecting the resigned attitude of millions of his countrymen: "We've tried everything else; we might as well try the Communists." Gianni Agnelli, head of the giant Fiat company and Italy's foremost industrialist, describes the Christian Democratic government today as "confused" and "incapable."
Improbable Beginning. Those have not always been apt adjectives for Italy's Christian Democrats, who have held national power longer than any other Western European party—and with considerable benefit for Italy. Then how to account for the party's steep decline, a slide that poses serious questions not only for the long-term survival of democracy in Italy but for the future of NATO and the European Community as well?