Assault on Communism

Secure for a while at least with a small parliamentary majority, Italy's Premier Mario Scelba last week announced that he was launching a head-on assault against the nation's No. I problem--the Italian Communist Party, which is the largest, richest and most powerful in the West. The trackdown was good news to Italy's antiCommunists, many of whom have felt such a move to be long overdue. It was good news for U.S. strategists, for whom the Italian party has lately loomed as. a real threat to NATO, EDC and the basic free-world stand against Communism. It was even good news to many in Italy who have been drifting reluctantly toward Communism because they wanted to be on the winning side if the Reds took over.

Good as it was, the ne,ws was nonetheless taken with some reservations about its. chances for real success. Premier Scelba's crackdown on the canny and deeply entrenched Italian Communists showed in itself a determination to meet, an issue which Italy's previous postwar Christian Democratic governments had notably avoided--with near-disastrous results. But to make the crackdown succeed, Scelba was going to need close support from his hairline majority. The question was: How determinedly will his coalition back him?

Stop the Rake-Offs. Key parts of the plan:

P: Investigation of Communist-operated trading companies which have been doing business with Iron Curtain countries and paying a fat rake-off (estimated by Scelba at $45 to $50 million a year) to the Italian Communist treasury. Presumably the investigation will be followed by measures to stop, if not the trade, at least the rake-offs, thus depriving Palmiro Togliatti's comrades of a fat revenue source. P: Government seizure of property formerly owned by Mussolini's Fascists and seized by the Communists after the Allied liberation. Up to now, it has been allowed to stay in Red hands. Included in the property tentatively slated for seizure are the presses on which the Communist daily L'Unit`a is printed, the sumptuous headquarters of the CGIL (Communist-run labor federation) on Rome's Corso d'ltalia, a large number of municipal Communist headquarters, numerous seaside resorts, gymnasiums, athletic fields, movie houses. In some cases, the Communists have paid nominal rent or purchase prices, which may make seizure legally difficult or impossible. P: Readjustment of "cultural relations," meaning chiefly that if Russia wants to send soccer teams, lecturers, movie stars and other such emissaries of culture to Italy, then Italy will expect to have a chance to reciprocate. P: cleanup of Communist infiltration in the Italian theater and cinema. A recent press-agency survey showed that of the country's 14 leading film producers, four were Communists and four more fellow travelers. As of now, the Italian movie industry is a heavy contributor to the Togliatti treasury.

P: Reform of the civil service, which employs countless Italians more loyal to the Communist Party than to the country. There is no prospect of removing Communists as such from their hundreds of minor posts, for there is no law banning adherents of the second largest political party from government service. But the government may refuse financial support to Red-run unions of government employees, forbid them to join in political strikes under penalty of dismissal.

After Patient Waiting. The Scelba Cabinet's ambitious plan was greeted with hosannas by the non-Communist press. Particularly notable was the fact that the two minor parties of Christian Democrat Scelba's coalition, including Giuseppe Saragat's Social Democrats, firmly joined in approving it. Said Rome's // Tempo: "For the first time, after many years of patient waiting, Italy has a government willing to go from the defensive to the offensive in this fight against subversion."

The job facing Scelba & Co. was now to turn resolve into reality. It will mean a struggle, and Italy's powerful Communists, it is certain, will see to it that the struggle is a rough and dangerous one.

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