Sacrifici e desideri. Il movimento del ’77 nell’Italia che cambia

The “politics of sacrifice” of the Andreotti government and the proposal of “austerity” advanced by Berlinguer were the main target of the movement of 1977. Sacrifices and austerities were considered converged programs, oriented – according to the protesters – not only to cope with the economic crisis, but to lay the foundations of a model of development based on the reduction of the levels of welfare for the lower classes. Very hard attacks were directed to the Italian Communist Party (Pci). Took then place, that year, the first frontal clash in Italy between the main party of the left and a social movement. The movement in fact considered the Pci placed in defence of capitalism and distant from any project of social transformation. It was not only a political and ideological clash, but also a conflict between different cultural universes, value systems, existential models, as result of different ways of interpreting the transformations of Italian society (the growth of the affluent society, the spread of consumption, the search for the satisfaction of individual needs). The movement – with its new ways of politicization and a relationship between militancy and private different than in the past – was also an expression of those changes. These transformations, however, also crossed the body of the Communist Party, in spite of the rigid positions of its leadership.