Against the Euromissiles: Antinuclear Movements in 1980s Italy (1979-1984)

Between 1981 and 1983, the mobilization against the Euromissiles introduced an extraordinary novelty in Italian social and political history. The Italian antinuclear movement took off later than in other European countries and its main feature was a politicization unknown elsewhere. The movement developed on the basis of a double and contrary youth mobilization: the first coming from the Communists and the second from the New Left. The movement was not only manifold, but also radically divided about its goals (balanced disarmament vs. unilateralism, atomic weapons vs. nuclear energy, nuclear issue vs. military budget) and methods of protests (pleas vs. conscientious objections, mass demonstrations vs. civil disobedience, referendums vs. tax objections). Continuous disagreements conditioned and weakened the antinuclear movement, even when the axis of the protest was transferred to Comiso, to which and from which the PCI and the Radical Party promoted different and contrary marches. Even when, in 1983, a unanimous framework was approved, a common mobilization remained difficult, both in Comiso and in Rome. The movement was only a vast, heterogeneous and divergent coalition, but it expressed a common political base and culture. Neither Communist nor pacifist, but influenced by the new left protest against traditional political parties, the new culture was rooted in environmentalism, pessimism, nuclear catastrophism, anti-Americanism, new socialism, disarmed unilateralism, opposition to everything that could resemble traditional politics. The movement preoccupied the Italian government, but it was never a real political danger and never even succeeded in bringing the nuclear issue to the foreground. Nonetheless, it deeply changed the political culture: it brought new styles and sensibilities, unknown to the traditional left. For the first time, criticisms of ideologies and parties, direct action, civil disobedience and individualism split Christian Democracy from Catholic grassroots and Communists from the young.