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Whether they join the government again or not, Italy's Socialists face a grim denouement. A coalition of Christian Democrats and left-wing Socialists can probably last only until a substantive and controversial issue is brought up in Parliament. Then, short of votes, the government will fall once more. No one particularly wants a special election, but one may have to be called. If it is, the Socialists undoubtedly will lose even more votes than they lost last year. They have split and reunited too many times to be taken seriously any longer. Automaker Giovanni Agnelli, a shrewd political observer if not a disinterested one as head of the vast Fiat enterprises, calls the latest schism "the death knell of Italian Socialism." Adds Agnelli: "In the future, the Socialists can only be complementary to a government." They will still have parliamentary seats, still occupy a place on the stage of Italian politics. But their role like that of the monarchists, for instance, is not likely to be central.