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Christian Democracy in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Mario Einaudi
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Extract

The American mind has been traditionally more ready to accept the validity of political parties which tend to reflect the complexity of political and economic problems and are not based on any simple ideology. For a nation's mind is not a simple one, nor are its interests capable of simple definition. In a free society, a political party with any claim to national scope and to a lasting identification with the task of solving the particular problems of the country in which it operates, will probably be found to be a composite movement, a meeting ground where different groups bring their different attitudes, a clearing house from which compromises emerge. This is the kind of party to which the United States has grown accustomed. It satisfies an instinctive desire to avoid those clashes on a straight ideological basis which would divide the country and endanger the maintenance of the common foundation and the survival of methods of political action accepted by all.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1947 , pp. 16 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1947

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References

1 Demofilo, (De Gasperi) Tradizione e “Ideologia” della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome, 1944), p. 18.Google Scholar

2 Gronchi, , Assemblea Costituente, Debates, July 24, 1946, p. 315.Google Scholar

3 Gronchi, ibid., p. 317.

4 De Gasperi, , Idee Ricostruttive della Democrazia Cristiana. This was the first manifesto of Italian Christian democracy, issued on July 25, 1943.Google Scholar

5 See speeches by De Gasperi, at various meetings of the Christian-Democratic party, Popolo,Rome,March 4, 1945, April 25 and 28, 1946.April 25 and 28, 1946.Google Scholar

6 See pre-election statement by Salotti, Cardinal in the Catholic Action paper, Quotidiano, Rome, 03 24, 1946.Google Scholar

7 Assemblea Costituente, Debates, July 25, 1946, p. 351.Google Scholar

8 Gonella, , Il Programma della Democrazia Cristiana per la Nuova Costituzione (Rome, 1946) pp. 28, 29, 33Google Scholar; Tupini, “La Nuova Costituzione Italiana,” Popolo, August 2, 1946.Google Scholar

9 Motion approved by the national council of the party on March 2, 1945. Text in Indirizzi Politico-Sociali della Democrazia Cristiana (Rome, 1945), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

10 Gonella, ibid., pp. 13 ff., 40.

11 Gonella, ibid., pp. 32, 38, 43, 45.

12 Gronchi, , Speech at the first party convention, Popolo, April 28, 1946.Google Scholar

13 Andreotti, , “Il nostro Lavoro,” Popolo, September 24, 1946.Google Scholar

14 See speech at the first party convention, Popolo, April 28, 1946.Google Scholar

15 See text of letters in Indirizzi, pp. 13–15Google Scholar. In the first organizing circular issued in his capacity as political secretary of the party, De Gasperi said “Collaboration will have to be refused to so-called ‘women's fronts’ or ‘youth fronts,” already active in various localities, all of them of dubious origin and with even more dubious goals.” (ibid., p. 65)

16 Demofilo, , Tradizione, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

17 See Gonella, , pp. 38, 51Google Scholar; De Gasperi, , speech before the national council of the party, Popolo, August 2, 1945Google Scholar; Quotidiano, August 7, 1946.Google Scholar

18 See speech by De Gasperi, at the first party convention, Popolo, April 28, 1946.Google Scholar

19 Tupini, , La Nuova Costituzione (Rome, 1946), p. 28.Google Scholar

20 Assemblea Costituente, Proceedings of the First Sub-committee of the Constitutional Committee, Statements by Togliatti, and Tupini, , July 30, 1946, pp. 10, 12.Google Scholar

21 Gonella, , p. 55.Google Scholar

22 Speeches by De Gasperi, at the first inter-regional party convention in the North, Popolo, July 3, 1945Google Scholar, and at the first party convention, Popolo, April 25, 1946.Google Scholar

23 Assemblea Costituente, Proceedings of the Second Sub-committee of the Constitutional Committee, Statement by Mannironi, , July 29, 1946, p. 32.Google Scholar

24 The question has been debated in the constitutional committee whether these powers should be legislative or merely administrative. The issue does not appear to be a legitimate one. If there is an agreement to recognize a specified field of action as properly regional, the region can then act within that field with norms having full legal validity for all the inhabitants of the region. Whether we want to call those acts administrative or legislative is a semantic problem. The basic fact is that those rules cannot be nullified by the action of any superior legislative body.

25 Assemblea Costituente, Proceedings of the Second Sub-committee of the Constitional Committee, Report by Ambrosini, , July 27, 1946, pp. 5 ffGoogle Scholar. and order of the day by Tosato, , summing up the Christian-Democratic position, July 31, 1946, p, 66.Google Scholar

26 See answer of Grieco, communist leader, to the regionalist and autonomist declarations of the Christian-Democrats and of the Sardinian Action party, Assemblea Costituente, Proceedings of the Second Sub-commillee of the Constitutional Committee,July 29, 1946, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

27 Gonella, , p. 47.Google Scholar

28 Popolo, September 26, 1946.Google Scholar

29 Tupini, , La Nuova Costituziene, 36 ff.Google Scholar; Resolution of the national council of the party, March 2, 1945, Indirizzi, p. 29 and ff.Google Scholar; Speeches by De Gasperi before the party's national council and convention, Popolo, August 2, 1945 and April 25, 1946.

It is interesting to see the French MRP moving with the same deliberate cautiousness in economic matters. In answering the program of the “Délégation des Gauches,” the MRP said: “It is necessary to transform entirely the present spirit and methods of planned economy m the sense of a considerable decrease in the burden of administrative services and of a greater freedom in their application. It is also necessary to achieve the participation of all affected and organized groups in the elaboration and in the application of the plan to each of the economic sectors.” (Le Monde, Paris, 11 10, 1945).Google Scholar

30 Montini, , Unità e Libertà del Lavoro (Rome, 1944), p. 32.Google Scholar

31 See text in Montini, , p. 53 ff., as reported from La Croix, April, 1944.Google Scholar

32 Giornale dei Lavoratori, Rome, 10 6–13, 1946.Google Scholar

33 Approved in Naples on July 30, 1944. See text in Indirizzi, p. 51 ff.Google Scholar

34 The ratio between party members and party voters was 1 to 5 for the Christian Democrats and 1 to 2 for the Communists at the elections of June, 1946.

35 Popolo, September 24, 1946.Google Scholar

36 See remarks by Don Sturzo to the party's national council, following his return to Italy after 22 years of exile, Popolo, September 21, 1946Google Scholar. Sturzo's views on the rebuilding of Italy are well expressed in his Italy and the Coming World (New York, 1945)Google Scholar. The historical development of Christian-democracy in Europe is traced by Sturzo, in “The Catholic Church and Christian Democracy,” Social Action, May, 1944, pp. 5–43Google Scholar. On Sturzo himself, who, as the founder of the Popular Party in 1919, established the political foundation of the Christian-Democratic Party of to-day, see Moos, Malcolm, “Don Luigi Sturzo—Christian Democrat,” American Political Science RevieW, April, 1945, pp. 269–292.Google Scholar