Can democracy exist without socialism?

Achille Occhetto is certainly one of the great protagonists of the political history of the First Republic. He is, in fact, the last secretary of the Italian Communist Party, inspirer of the so-called “Bolognina turning point” which led to the birth, in 1990, of the Democratic Party of the Left.

In recent years he has tried to keep away from the brawl that characterizes our political agon, entrusting his thoughts to writing, to books in which Occhetto's will to reflect on what it means today, in the present time, to do politics and engage in name of an ideal, of a project, or, more prosaically, for the common good. This is also what emerges from the latest effort by the founder of the PDS, "Why it is not enough to call oneself democratic" (Guerini and Associati, 2022, pp. 200), a book that is at the same time a spiritual and political testament, the elaboration of a mourning for the defeat suffered by the socialist movement during the twentieth century and a political legacy for future generations.

The starting point of Occhetto's speech is that the illusions only partially realized by democratic socialism and destroyed by the real socialism represented by the Soviet Union still maintain their validity and all their value as a courageous and for now unfortunate attempt to achieve a social justice. It therefore becomes fundamental - and this is the starting point of the book - to know in depth what socialism was, in its most virtuous and less conflicting intentions, and then try to better understand how it can help us to face the problems of the present, to build a better future.

The perspective, therefore, is that of those who consider socialism not as an experience of the twentieth century, now closed because it failed, but as a form of thought and interpretation of reality and society that the world and human beings absolutely need to not to be crushed by the logic of capitalism, globalization and technological digitalization. Because, as Occhetto writes, if in a democracy freedom does not coincide with the equality of all human beings, then it is no longer enough to call oneself democratic. Is not sufficient. In order to resolve the eternal social question in which we are immersed, we need to find a new narrative, or an ancient one, or one that is a mix of past and present as the author writes: "It matters little if future generations will call this narrative 'socialism '. What matters today is that whoever feels heir to that tradition, be it a socialist, a communist, a left-wing democrat or a generally progressive one, knows how to reconnect the conversation between past, present and future ”.

For Occhetto, the way forward is that of a socialism capable of intertwining with the most pressing issues of the present, giving life to a renewed idea: ecosocialism.

Freedom, equality and ecology must therefore come together in a single form of thought. Awareness must emerge that the solution to the problem of climate change affects the entire economy, all public and private actors and civil society. It can only be achieved by renouncing a concept that mythologizes immediate gain and creating a high and virtuous synthesis between the social question and the environmental question. An ecosocialist synthesis.