Campi Bisenzio Journal; a Fairground Full of What's Called Communism

By ROBERTO SURO and SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMESSEPT. 8, 1988 This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to . As a full moon rose big and yellow over the Tuscan hills, streams of people began making their way from parking lots in bulldozed corn fields to a little city of circus tents where the largest Communist party in the West was celebrating its identity crisis.Held at the end of the summer in a different city every year, the Italian Communist Party's Festa Nazionale del'Unita resembles a big county fair except that there are no animals, no rides and no cotton candy. But hot dogs of a sort are available at a stand run by an East German chef.Packed with speeches and debates, part of the fair is always a partisan pep rally. This year some five million people are expected to visit the fairgrounds in a suburb of Florence for a 25-day gathering more important than any others in recent years.While engaging in a lot of eating, drinking and dancing, the party is trying to decide what it means to be a Communist. No Hammer, No SickleAdvertisementIt is the Communists' first major event since a new party leader, Achille Ochetto, took over in June, promising a ''new course'' of drastic renewal.AdvertisementFrom the fair's 140-page official program some clear hints emerge about what the party no longer wants to be. The party's hammer-and-sickle symbol does not appear once, perhaps in deference to a lively dispute over proposals to dispose of it permanently. The word ''Communism'' is not used once.Italy's new Communism seems even harder to find among the hundreds of stalls set up by commercial enterprises where young men demonstrate complex window-washing devices and knives that can cut anything.Politics turns up only in one corner where an alternative life-style commune is selling little wooden toys and a board game called Third World Monopoly. The game is based on the lives of Peruvian peasants in which the winner is the player ''who has suffered the least harm and has known how to expand his own creativity.'' Delicacies Over DialecticIdeological ambiguity was evident even in the musical program on a bright evening as the fair got under way in late August. James Brown, known as the Godfather of Soul, was supposed to perform at the same time as a little known rock band called U.S.S.R. - Faithful to the Line did its act across the way. The cacophonous dialectic was never resolved because on the second night of the fair neither of the two musical arenas was ready for use.Culinary politics is played among the 40 bars and 22 restaurants spread across the 180-acre site where cooks from the Soviet Union, China, Hungary and other Communist nations serve up native dishes in fierce competition with restaurants offering more familiar Italian fare.Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box.Invalid email address. Please re-enter.You must select a newsletter to subscribe to.View all New York Times newsletters.''We admit this party is in difficulty,'' said Paolo Cantelli, secretary of the party organization in Florence, ''and we so are trying to renew and revive our ideals because we believe our appeal lies in values and ideals more than in specific policy proposals on things like taxes.'' The Pull of NostalgiaAt the ceremony inaugurating this year's unity festival, several young party leaders, some dapper and some tousled but all of them stylish, drew mild applause by speaking out against apartheid and in favor of environmental protection and of women's rights.But the only real excitement came when a gaunt, bent 77-year-old man doffed a cloth cap and took the podium, saying, ''Dear comrades!''AdvertisementThe crowd that accurately reflected the party's aging membership cheered when Giancarlo Pajetta recalled the fights against Fascism led by men ''who went to the school of the working class.''Rejecting calls for de-Stalinization here, the veteran party leader waxed nostalgic for dramatic days long past. The Ballot-Box DefeatsThe Communist Party's battles are less clear-cut now than when it had foes like Mussolini, a domineering Roman Catholic Church and an aristocratic power structure. And now the battles are being lost regularly.In May the Communists suffered their worst setback in 35 years when their share of the vote in elections for local offices fell to just below 22 percent of the electorate, down from a high of 34.4 percent in 1976. Even party elders had to acknowledge that a long, slow decline was quickening drastically.During its most successful moments in the 1970's the party emphasized competence over ideology as it efficiently administered several big cities, distanced itself from the Soviet Union and unsuccessfully promoted itself as a trustworthy partner in a democratic, pro-Western government. Why Communism? The reputation for competence was tarnished when bad management forced Communists from city halls in places like Naples, Venice and Rome. Meanwhile, the party's old ideological appeal is ever more obsolete because Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, has become a folk hero to those who favor change.Having taken positions not much different than those of other leftist parties like the Socialists and Social Democrats, Italy's Communists are trying to figure out why they are Communists through a series of debates at the festa on two historical themes: the French Revolution and prominent personalities from 1968, the year of protest politics, including Pope Paul VI, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The political discussions and the arguments are all over by early in the evening. The crowds thicken later when the moon is high and white and the agenda is set by waiters, Ping-Pong tournaments, disco dancing, and stand-up comics. Italy's Communists may not know who they are, but many people think they do know how to throw a party.A version of this article appears in print on September 8, 1988, on Page A00004 of the National edition with the headline: . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe