The Bologna Congress centres around the defence of the referendums. The campaign for the collection of signatures ended successfully last Spring, but there is still the road to the vote which is full of obstacles.

The attacks on the referendum are many and various - from the fraudulent proposal of the Communists to the first "broadened interpretations of art.75 of the Constitution on the admissibility of referendums - but all of them have their roots in a conception of national unity as conformity of opinion and hysterically opposed to any manifestation of political dissent in the country.

The Congress is fully aware of all this so that its motion furnishes very clear instructions: to defend the packet of the eight referendums is to defend the referendum as an institution, a possible and practicable tool of political action for all and not an obsolete find of constitutional archeology.

In conclusion, the motion determines the restitution of public financing to the parliamentary group, thus confirming the criterion of rigorous self-financing of the party.

The Congress confirms Adelaide Aglietta as Secretary and Paolo Vigevano as Treasurer.

The XIXth Congress of the Radical Party indicates the defence of the referendum project as the essential commitment in the following months of the National Secretariat, the Federative Council and the party as a whole.

From the regular holding of these referendums on the pre-established dates depends, in fact, the defence of the referendum as an institution itself and of the republican Constitution which has in this institution one of the cardinal points of popular sovereignty. The Congress, even while taking note of the recent assurances from the PCI about not using the anti-referendum law against the nine pending referendums, cannot avoid taking into account of the fact that there will be efforts to assert a limiting philosophy of the institution, which is the precise character of that law, by means of abnormal and unconstitutional juridic interpretations before the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Constitutional Court as well as the Parliament itself. This interpretation will attempt to impose itself in particular against the referendum on the Concordat and against those regarding the Italian judiciary ordinance, the military code, the public financing of political parties and the Reale Law (anti-terrorist law, ed.).

The first referendum to be put in danger, however, is the one on abortion. In this respect, the Radical Party can do nothing but reiterate its old position made more evident today by the political conditions in which the lay parties find themselves after the voting down of the law in the Senate. In this situation the law, however approved, could do nothing but prolong the social plague of mass clandestine abortion. The Radical Party therefore decides to convene by the first week in December a national demonstration against clandestine abortion and for the defence of the referendum. In fact, only with the strong support of the majority of the country would the lay parties be able easily to achieve a fast and just legislative solution that would contain the depenalisation sanctioned by the referendum. The Radical Party appeals to the MLD, the CISA, and to the organisations promoting the referendums to organise this demonstration.

On the issue of public financing, while rejecting the Communist and Socialist accusations of reaction against this referendum, the Radical Party noted that its position is that which the PCI supported before the passing of the present law and confirmed its aversion to this law of the financing of political parties and its distorting mechanisms, and to favour instead a law of indirect financing of the actions and political initiatives of all the citizens.

The XIXth National Congress of the Radical Party, in closing the campaign for collecting signatures for the petition in favour of the Congress and the institution of the referendum against the proposals for modification and the attacks being made on this fundamental tool of direct democracy; also believing that the popular petition can be a factor of political mobilisation and information in the greater strategy of defending the referendum, commits the members and Radical associations (in co-ordination with the regional parties) to articulate and set into motion many petitions with differing texts, according to the evolution of the political situation, capable of provoking debate and involving different social groups, factories, schools, neighbourhoods, and work sites, with the collecting of signatures and the creation of ad hoc committees for the defence of the referendums.

Even though the Radical Party is not in a position at the moment to stipulate a new referendum project, the Congress believes it is necessary in the coming months to keep in mind this prospect; it gives a mandate to the regional parties and the Federative Council to sound the hypothesis of new referendums and determining the possible times and means of holding them. From the hunting laws to the new dispositions on public order, from law 382 for the part regarding the useless agencies which have not been suppressed and the clerical assistance agencies, to law 393 of 1975 on nuclear energy plants, from the most serious norms of law 685 regarding drugs to the new laws on public order.

In view of the institutional compromise among the six parties of the coalition and the corporative interests, and in the absence of parliamentary opposition, the referendum today is the only instrument available for popular and democratic control, the only possibility of expressing general interests that otherwise will go unheard, unprotected and unrepresented. The Congress furthermore asks the regional parties to measure and realise their own growth and federational autonomy in the activation of the tools for direct democracy foreseen in the regional statutes.

The confirmation of the commitment and the strategy of the referendum is also the best reply to those who want to annul and limit the referendum as an institution by striking at the constitutional rights of the citizens and the Constitution itself.

As in 1974, when the Radical Party decided that the best way of defending the divorce referendum was to promote other referendums, without, unfortunately, having as yet the strength to do so, so today the nine pending referendums can only be protected by advancing the referendum strategy as the only one capable of disseminating democracy in the country.

This is the only way of safeguarding an alternative possibility for the entire left: an alternative government for the country that to assert itself does not look to power according to the ideological tradition of the Jacobins and the Leninists, but looks to the libertarian idea of the full actuation and constant spreading of democracy, civil rights, confrontation and dialogue.

Only in this way, furthermore, can the work of the Radical deputies in the Chamber be strengthened, to whom the Congress extends its fraternal greetings and gratitude for the excellent work done within the parliamentary sphere and who otherwise would be crushed as the only intransigent and democratic opposition in Parliament today.

The XIXth Congress of the Radical Party also underlines the worsening of the information situation with the hardening of the censorship policy on the part of the mass media and confirms that the nine referendums are strictly connected to the defence of the citizens' right to information. Thus it believes it to be necessary and urgent to mobilise the national and regional parties and local associations in the fight against the attempts to kidnap the news and the truth.

The Congress gives a mandate to the National Secretary and the Federative Council to prepare the party for the European elections to guarantee that the new European Parliament elected by universal suffrage contains elements of those alternative groups that have grown and become strengthened in recent years in Europe and to contribute as well to renewal of European Socialism. In these elections the party must present itself with its internationalist and federalist characteristics in the conviction that the capitalism of the multi-nationals cannot be fought on the national level where, without democratic development on the international level, it mechanically breeds new authoritarian mechanisms.

In view of these elections, the Congress commits the party to promote a large mobilisation, as it did for the Radicals' participation in the Italian national elections, in order to guarantee the equality of all competing parties against the danger of non-proportionalist bills.

The Congress notes that, notwithstanding the absorbing initiative of the campaign for referendum signatures, some basic characteristics of the party were not attenuated but, on the contrary, reinforced with the creation of new independent initiatives such as the League for Alternative Energy with the commitment of associations in the fields of ecology, environmental defence and the fight on energy problems. The Congress, believing that the defence of the environment, of nature and of the quality of life is an objective of central importance for the party, pin-points a great lacuna in the country's politics for lack of organic policies of Italian leaders regarding the improvement of the quality of life, against pollution, against adulteration of food stuffs and merchandise, against the damages caused by official medicine, against uncontrolled population growth, against the sport of hunting and vivisection, and for the right to freely expose one's body. It thus asks the Secretariat and the executive organs to support the battles that the Radical associations, the ecological groups and the nudists of the Radical sphere wage in the aforementioned sectors.

The XIXth Congress takes notice of the battles undertaken by the FRI (Radical Front of Invalids), of its political project regarding the application of Articles 27 and 28 of Law 118 of 1971 and of its desire to become a confederate of the Radical Party. The also commits the Federal Radical Party to to support with all the means at its disposal the bill of popular origin for bilingual parity in Sardinia and analogous proposals wherever the same problem exists and may be raised.

The XIXth Congress of the Radical Party reiterates the need of confirming clearly and coherently the party's option for non-violence as a basic strategic choice and not merely a tactic. This collective awareness must not only be confirmed in the Congressional documents, but in political practice as well and in the daily life of the party, in the external image its actions project. For this it is necessary that non-violent praxes no longer be delegated to a few comrades within the party, but that the entire party membership make it their own.

At a moment when the regime's involuted tendencies towards a strong and violent state are ever more evident, and the attempts to push any opposition whatever into a desperate reaction of violence, because by using violence the opposition can be repressed with the consent of all the citizens - at such a moment non-violence appears ever more clearly as the one choice which is not homogeneous with the character of the regime and thus victorious because of its "otherness" in regard to the logic of power and the only adequate option for all opposition in Italy.

The Congress confirms that non-violence does not simply mean to refrain form committing acts of violence or condemning violent acts committed by others as do those parties that direct or aspire to directing the violence of power. It is instead an option for an activist role against the regime, a choice of disobedience, the refusal to submit to the regime's rules of violence; it is an option to be delinquent if delinquency means refusal to obey unjust and violent laws. To find again the rigour of this choice is indispensable for the Radical Party that, being non-ideological, can strengthen its identity and assert its historical continuity precisely by means of this choice of method, that expresses in practice the party's Socialist, libertarian and self-managing political project.

It is with this method that the Radical Party has conducted, often by itself, its battles of rigorous anti-Fascism against the regime in the historical continuity and ideals of Rosselli (an anti-Fascist executed under the Mussolini regime, ed.), justice and liberty, of Calamandrei and Ernesto Rossi and their battles against the violence of Fascism.

The Congress decides to begin its campaign for a "yes" to every referendum with specific, collective civil disobedience actions. These non-violent actions (simultaneous fund raising drives with advance notice given to the police to open the campaign against public financing; collective crimes of slander against the Rocco Code, etc.) must be established by the Federative Council.

The Congress, in accepting the request of the Sardinian Radical Party, commits the party to collaborate with the anti-militarist and anti-nuclear organisations in setting up a federal demonstration to close down the U.S.'s nuclear base on the island of Maddalena. The demonstration, to be held on Christmas day, should be the beginning of a popular mobilisation to denounce the presence of nuclear bases and for the demilitarisation of Sardinia and the restof Italian territory.

The Congress emphasises that due to the commitment of the referendums, the party was not able to work for its own great internal improvement that is so urgent and necessary, and which must take place according to the federative ideas of the Statute if the party is not to fall into conflict with it and reintroduce traditional, centralistic thinking about delegating to the national organs which, on the contrary, must be made to deteriorate further while strengthening the federative factors of the regional parties and the other federative components such as the real structures of the libertarian organisation of the party.

It would be that much worse if this happened inasmuch as a debate is by now going on within the party along with very important research; and notwithstanding the lack of understanding of the press and many observers, one begins to note attention and interests from people outside the party too. With regard to this, the Congress notes the creation of new publishing enterprises such as "Argomenti Radicali" (Radical Issues), "Alternativa Nonviolenta", and "Quaderni Radicali" (Radical Notebooks) as well as historical and sociological works recently dedicated to the party and its history.

This variety of initiatives, that has developed within the federative thinking of the Statute, must also be developed within the party and its relations with public opinion. As in 1967, the party must face a moment of collective reflection. To this purpose the Congress commits the Federative Council to convene with the support of the energies of all Radicals:

1) a theoretical conference on the political organisation indicated in the Statute and its present degree of realisation;

2) an extraordinary congress on the implementation of the Statute;

3) a conference to be realised in common with the MLD, CISA, FUORI and CARM on women's and men's liberation, sexual liberation and the non-violent option.

The National Congress, taking note of the treasurer's report and the party budget, confirms, in conclusion, that the organisation of the party and all of its activities must be based on the strictest self-financing by active members and supporters, and decides:

1) that the ordinary expenses of running the party, including the ordinary printing costs, must be kept within the limits of the party's ordinary income;

2) that the amortisation of the deficit must be planned with the auto-taxation of the members in varying proportions according to income categories based on the declarations made by each contributor;

3) that every activity and initiative of the party must be undertaken according to provisional budgets of the Federative Council based on the programs of self-financing determined by agreements between the national and regional parties.

It decides therefore that every political initiative proposed to the Congress and lacking such a financing program must be sent back to the Federative Council.

The XIXth Radical Party Congress commits the party:

to the joint organisation of the IIIrd International Non-violent Anti-militarist March promoted by the Sardinian Radical Party and the Radical anti-militarist constituent - a political occasion for confirming the internationalist commitment of the parties and the Radical, anti-militarist, anti-nuclear, and ecological European movements.

The Congress equally commits the Federative Council to set up, by means of Notizie Radicali, an adequate debate that will recede these conferences and to assure the publication of the acts relating to them.

Commits the Federative Council and the party Secretary to co-ordinate in time the initiatives of the regional parties, the Radical associations, and the militants, that are directed through the referendum campaigns and single actions to take from the regime its most valid tool for incrimination and repression.

It makes the commitment to undertake an immediate action in regard to the President of the Chamber of Deputies for a speedy discussion of the amnesty proposal and to prison wardens.

It makes a commitment to request an immediate encounter with the parties of the left on the issue of public order that will be under discussion in the coming months.

The Motion On Public Financing

The XIXth Radical Party Congress, taking note of the National Treasurer's report and the budget, believing that the party, to preserve and strengthen its statutory characteristics, must continue to organise its battles on the basis of the most rigorous self-financing by its own active members and supporters, holding as well, that the simple existence and availability of public financing funds, in spite of being administrated by an separate fund and being frozen by the decision of the preceding Congress, has acted as acted as a degenerative factor on the characteristics foreseen in the statute by creating expectations that have in any case have in any case caused the deterioration of the whole party's sense of responsibility for self-financing on all levels of its struggles and the consequent rigorous planning of its political initiatives, while confirming the decisions of the preceding Congresses that such funds, even while being the property of the Radical Party and electorate, cannot and must not be used either directly or indirectly for the party's purposes on pain of distorting its statutory characteristics. believes for the preceding reasons that the management of these funds be distinctly separated from the management of the party, and for all the more reason it cannot be the party in any circumstances to decide or manage their use in any form even if aimed at goals of general interest.

To this end, seeing that the Radical Parliamentary group enjoys distinct independence from the party on the basis of the Statute and of practice, decides that public financing instalments for 1977 and 1978 be returned to the parliamentary group, that by the provisions of the law transferred them to the party, and renders the elected Radical representatives, who by the Constitution and the Radical Statute are the people's representatives, responsible and guarantors of the correct management and utilisation of these funds for non-party purposes; in this regard gives a mandate to the National Treasurer to put these decisions into immediate effect.