The Milan Congress sees consolidation and amplification of Radical initiatives despite the very difficult political context of the year. By now the most authentically libertarian thrust of the great social movements that had erupted the year before appeared to have exhausted itself and a progressive reinforcement of the trend towards a new ideological closure began. Unexpectedly the fight against the Concordat scored significant successes while the date for the parliamentary battle on divorce approached.

The Congress precisely defines several points and, alongside some traditional annual Radical battles (contesting the February 11th holiday (Lateran Pact Anniversary), exemption from religious instruction in the schools, the Milan-Vicenza anti-militarist march) establishes new commitments: against "class-system divorce guarrteed by the ecclesiastical courts" and in favour of the constitution of a "Unitarian Committee for the Judicial Defence of the Radical Minorities".

The Congress elects Angiolo Bandinelli as Secretary and Roberto Cicciomessere as Treasurer.

 

The VI th Congress of the Radical Party,

having heard the report of National Secretary Mellini and Treasurer Bandinelli and after an ample debate in which Radical comrades and those of other left-wing and independent forces and groups,

ascertains that the political work of the National Secretary has adequately followed the political objectives laid down in the Ravenna Congress with regard to the construction of the Party according to the specifications of its statute and to the preparations for a popular referendum for the abrogation of the Concordat. In particular for what regards the putting the statute into effect, it notes that this remains a valid design and still to be realized for what concerns the structuring of the regional parties and to all other subjects relating to its federating and federative character.

With regard to anti-nuclear and anti-Concordat initiatives, the Congress emphasises that under the prevailing thrust of the Radical Party practically alone, the decomposition has begun of the political line favouring the revision that for twenty years has characterised the ranks of the entire range of lay forces from the Communists to the Liberals to the so-called left-wing of the Christian Democrats and Catholics. This is demonstrated by the number and quality of those adhering to the National Committee For Support to Radical Action, both individuals and lay groups, which already includes more than sixty left-wing members of Parliament among the former. The Congress points out the new political presences in the Radical and anti-clerical battle which include The Italian League for Divorce, The Association for Religious Liberty in Italy, The Liberal Left, The Federation of Republican Youth, and the adhesion to the abrogation campaign of "Questitalia", the most prestigious and rigorous magazine of dissent of the New Left. In particular, the Congress sends its greetings to the "matrimonial out-laws", to divorcees and to the laymen of the LID's (Italian League for Divorce) various delegations, who in just these last days, everywhere in Italy, are directly involved in the fight against the Concordat and who are the living testimony to the democratic, progressive and popular values of the divorce movement.

The Congress notes too the success of the Radical action to promote an efficacious anti-military movement and the fact that the commitment of a constantly growing number of anti-authoritarian and pacifist groups this year has created the premises for achieving this objective.

The Congress notes the growing unitarian character of all the Radical undertakings in this period which have been and are developing punctually thanks to the support and the decisive presence of Communists, Socialists of all types, Republicans, anarchists as well as comrades of dissent, from the new left and among democrats.

The Congress also takes note of the importance for the party's development of the work of those comrades and Radical groups who have tried to increase the Radical Party's potential, also organisational, by means of actions such as the "judicial revolt", the denouncing of police repression in all of its forms, the direct non-violent actions against persistent Stalinist aggressions made on the socialist and libertarian ferment in the so-called popular democracies and, in particular, Czechoslovakia.

Also, and most of all, in relation to the country's present political situation marked by great social battles and by the generalisation of the sites of the class conflicts and of its radicalisation, the Radical Party - while confirming its previous and definitive condemnation of the Center-Left coalition and all other forms of collaboration with the clerical-classist DC

(Christian Democratic) Party, not only on the parliamentary and governmental level - reaffirms that the battle for the actuation of civil rights is not only a significant component or a superstructure of the class conflict: on the contrary, it represents a necessary demand and furnishes the historically suitable tool for determining the effective overthrow of the present production relations and the abolition of all forms of oppression and exploitation of one man by another that have been known up until now, from the most classic examples to the ones typical of consumer societies and State capitalism.

The VIth National Congress, in consideration of the effective political-organisational possibilities that result from the Treasurer's report, as well as the indications of the National Secretary and Directing Committee, commits the Radical Party to pursue the following goals:

1) proceed along the lines already begun for organising a referendum for the abrogation of the Concordat and make take greatest efforts to assure that the fight primarily takes place in places of work, the schools, offices, factories, and the countryside:

2) impose the divorce vote on the Chamber and the Senate and assure the commitment of the entire party to the LID;

3) contest the February 11 holiday, first of all in the high schools, that should wherever possible be, instead, the sites of the unified fight against the Concordat on that date;

4) propagate on a mass level the importance of exercising the right to exemption from religious instruction in the schools as a means of combating clericalism in the Italian schools;

5) promote activity capable of dismantling the class divorce system existing in Italy under the ecclesiastical courts by legitimately demanding that all the millions of "matrimonial out-laws" have access to them;

6) assure holding counter-marches against the celebration of the capture of Rome, denouncing any political collusion that may take place in this case between the DC and clerical forces;

7) assure the traditional Radical participation in both sponsoring and organising the IVth Milan-Vicenza Anti-militarist March;

8) promote the publication of a white book on the militarization, the structures and the colonial precedents that characterise the situation in Sardinia.

9) create greater connections between the Radical Party's anti-militarist activities and corresponding international organisations and undertakings;

10) promote the creation of a united committee for the defence of judicial rights for radical minorities.