Bella Ciao

Sounds interesting. The annual pride march here in Dublin tends to have a left presence consisting only of Labour Youth and Socialist Youth (the Labour and Socialist Party youth wings unsurprisingly). It's not the most political event in the world, perhaps surprisingly in a country where male gay sex was illegal until fairly recently.

On another note, have you tried going along to any meetings of left groups (as opposed to campaign meetings) over there yet? I have to admit that I'm curious about what a Rifondazione branch meeting or nearest equivalent is like, having only been to much bigger things.

I’m working on it! The internal workings of Rifondazione are still a bit of a mystery to me, to be honest. I have met someone from the Young Communists and someone from the Falce Martello tendency and will keep this blog updated with my progress.

I think that the internal workings of Rifondazione are still a bit of a mystery to many of its members! It seems to be a remarkably fluid organisation or at least to have a highly permeable boundary. Their reported membership turnover is phenomenal, recruiting and losing tens of thousands a year.

I get the impression though that this isn't because people make a big decision to join or leave but more that in its broader milieu whether or not someone currently holds a party card isn't considered a big deal. One side effect of this is that many of its members aren't really engaged with its structures.

Meeting the FalceMartello people is a bizarre experience, like a walking caricature of the Militant.

The membership turnover may - in part - be a product of the Italian system of 'tesseramento', whereby political parties (and many other organisations) have a single round of membership card issuing each year. So if, for example, you join the party in November 2005, you're no longer a member come January 2006.