Despite the fact that the Communist Party leadership has tried to stop tho discussion on the 22nd Congress and its consequences, the objective situation in the Italian working class movement is still favourable for the spreading of tho conceptions of our movement, and people continue to discuss Trotsky and the trotskyist movement.
On March. 9th, a Communist Party controlled cultural organisation, organised a public debate on Trotsky in liilan. Lucio Magri, momber of the regional Secretariat of the Communist Party debated with Livio Maitin, member of the International Secretariat and socretary of the Italian section of the Fourth International. The Socialist Youth was represented by comrade Migliardi of Turin,
The attendance was very large since the meoting had been announced by two communist daily papers, including the official organ of the Communist Party. The discussion developed at a very high level, and the conceptions of Trotsky and the Fourth International were discussed as such without any distortion, The communist speaker admitted that Trotskyism represented an important theoretical tendency in the working class moviient, while claiming that it could not give any valid contribution to the strugglo of the working class in the advanced capitalist countries.
A similar dobate will take place in Rome at the end of March between Livio Maitan, a Communist Party intellectual and a leading member of the Left wing of the Socialist Party, The debate will be developed around a book by Trotsky which has just been published by a leading Italian publishing house (comrade Maitan translated it and wrote an introduction. )
In another instance, comrade Maitan was onabled to speak at the last mecting of the National Council of Italian Trade Unions as a representative of a small trade union.
The Rome group of the Italian section of the Fourth International organised a debate on workers! control on March 17th at its headqu rters. The attendance was large and several mombers of the Communist Party and the Socialist Party spoke in the discussion. A translation of a document written by the Italian section on the question of workers! control will be published in the nem issue of "Quatrieme Internationale,"