Petre Andrei, Fascismul
(Petre Andrei, Fascism[1])  

Silvia BOCANCEA

Abstract: Republicarea lucrării Fascismul pe care Petre Andrei a publicat-o în anii ascensiunii acestei mișcări în Europa este un gest cultural necesar. Spre deosebire de celelalte ediții ale studiului, prezenta ediție vine cu elemente ce fac posibilă o mai bună percepere a concepției lui Petre Andrei și a criticii pe care acesta i-a făcut-o fascismului. În afară de aceste elemente ce țin strict de facilitarea relației lectorului cu cartea, această republicare este importantă din cel puțin următoarele două motive: definiția pe care i-o dă Petre Andrei fascismului este valabilă și astăzi și avertismentul pe care sociologul l-a formulat atunci este valabil pentru orice societate ce se poate afla la un moment dat în criză.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, fascism, ideology, bolshevism.

Prima întrebare ce poate apărea la republicarea studiului Fascismul al lui Petre Andrei ar putea fi: la ce bun? Fascismul e istorie, iar ceea ce interesează acum este criza globală și, la nivel național, judecarea torționarilor din regimul comunist. Dar, un cititor atent al scrierilor lui Petre Andrei înțelege faptul că în situația unei crize economice riscurile ce pândesc democrația sunt enorme, fiindcă lipsa de orizont și de soluții economice lasă loc fantasmelor colective: sunt propuse și se susțin persoane mesianice și programe politice miraculoase. Procedurile democratice și dezbaterile parlamentare, mari consumatoare de timp, ajung să fie considerate piedici în calea unei bune evoluții a societății, uneori chiar piedici în calea bunăstării unei națiuni. În astfel de momente, constatăm că democratizarea unei societăți nu este un proces ireversibil, pentru că un șoc economic poate distruge o construcție realizată în timp.
Studiul Fascismul a fost elaborat de Petre Andrei în 1926 și publicat în 1927 (în revistele Minerva și Viața românească), într-o perioadă a ascensiunii fascismului în Europa și a primelor gesturi ale fascismului românesc. Din păcate, în anii în care efervescența generației noilor naționaliști era în creștere, acest studiu nu s-a bucurat de o percepție care să genereze o dezbatere importantă sau o un curent de opinie care să se opună „poruncii vremii”. După război, studiul a fost trecut la index, pentru că autorul său fusese ministru în guvernul format de către regele Carol al II-lea, astfel încât era trecut în categoria „dușmanilor poporului”. Abia după căderea comunismului, studiul a fost republicat în anul 1992[2], apoi în ediția bilingvă a operelor lui Petre Andrei, în anul 2010[3]. Dar, și această ediție nu a avut o răspândire care să permită receptarea mesajului acestui studiu la un nivel apreciabil. Fascismul lui Petre Andrei a fost analizat abia recent, în studii publicate în revista Transilvania nr. 11/2011 și în volumul colectiv Dimensiuni social politice ale operei lui Petre Andrei, apărut în 2012[4].
Ediția apărută de curând la Editura Institutul European, îngrijită de Doru Tompea, este cea mai completă din câte au fost editate până în prezent și cu cele mai multe șanse de a se bucura de o percepere seminficativă. În primul rând, ea este o ediție în limba engleză, a cărei traducere a fost revăzută și revizuită, fapt ce îi oferă șansa de a fi percepută nu doar în România. În al doilea rând, este pentru prima dată când acest studiu este publicat la o editură de prestigiu cum este Institutul European. În fine, lucrarea este însoțită de texte ce facilitează perceperea operei lui Petre Andrei și a studiului său despre fascism: o prefață realizată de Daniel Șandru („Petre Andrei. On a Different Manner of Understanding Politics in the Interwar Period”); o prezentare biografică a lui Petre Andrei, realizată de Doru Tompea („Petre Andrei – Biographical Sketch”); republicarea unui text scris de Petru P. Andrei, fiul lui Petre Andrei care s-a ocupat de recupetarea operei savantului („Petre Andrei – The Man and his Personality”[5]); un studiu introductiv realizat de Sorin Bocancea („Fascism: A Scientific Warning for a deaf Society”). Volumul se încheie cu o trecere în revistă a studiilor care s-au scris despre Petre Andrei („Petre Andrei – Bibliografical Contribution”), realizat de Doru Tompea.
În lucrarea Fascismul, Petre Andrei analizează un fenomen ce începuse să capete proporții și în România, dar de care puțini intelectuali s-au preocupat. Din păcate, în România anilor ’20, intelectualitatea românească a fost atrasă în această mișcare fără a avea o privire critică  asupra ei. Din aceast punct de vedere, Petre Andrei a fost o voce singulară, care s-a exprimat împotriva curentului cultural și politic ce începuse să capate proporții de masă. În demonstația sa, el a utilizat o bibliografie actuală la acea vreme, printre autorii invocați numărându-se: Luigi Sturzo (unul dintre fondatorii Partidului Popular Italian și dintre părinții creștin-democrației), Robert Michels, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Oda Olberg ș.a.
Sociologul a fost interesat în primul rând de cauzele ce au dus la apariția fascismului în Europa, în centrul preocupării sale fiind fascismul italian. În opinia sa, ca și bolșevismul, fascismul a izvorât „din motive economice, din antagonismul capitalist al marilor puteri”[6]. De fapt, pe parcursul întregului studiu, Petre Andrei va asocia cele două ideologii politice (fascismul și comunismul) care, chiar dacă au fost adversare, aveau cauze comune și aceleași efecte devastatoare pentru societățile în care s-au impus. Iată cum le prezintă Petre Andrei: „dacă bolșevismul este comunist și internaționalist, fascismul este e reacționar-burghez și naționalist. Bolșevismul e o concepție teoretică reprezentată și aplicată de un partid politic, pe când fascismul a fost mai întâi un partid politic fără doctrină precisă și abia mai târziu s-a alcătuit o concepție fascistă pe baza naționalismului”[7]. Elementul comun al celor două ideologii pe care sociologul l-a ideintificat este dictatura, pe care el o considera nocivă pentru orice stat: „dictatura fascistă nu se deosebeşte în esenţa sa de dictatura bolşevică, căci atât în Italia, cât şi în Rusia ea este apăsătoare şi abuzivă. Bolşevicii şi fasciştii au creat monopolul puterii în favoarea partidului şi al clasei lor, ei s-au impus cu forţa, trecând peste lege, ceea ce constituie un fapt de o gravitate excepţională, căci au proclamat primatul forţei asupra dreptului legal. Oricând se pot găsi însă – într-o astfel de stare – forţe mai mari, care pot răsturna pe conducător şi atunci legea, siguranţa, autoritatea, statul sunt desfiinţate”[8].
Analizând evoluția fascismului italian, Petre Andrei constată că nu este vorba de o ideologie sau de o teorie propriu-zisă, ci de „o însăilare de elemente variate, care aparțin altor concepții diferite și uneori opuse între ele, cum ar fi naționalismul, sindicalismul și bolșevismul”[9]. El ar fi, în realitate, o mișcare politică ce a reușit să  antreneze aceste elemente. Cu toate acestea, P. Andrei a reușit să  ofere o definiție a fascismului, poate una dintre primele definiții date acestui fenomen în literatura de specialitate: „o concepție activistă, aristocratică, bazată pe ideea de elită, care trebuie să conducă societatea. În al doilea rând, fascismul este mistic-clerical, deoarece proclamă biserica catolică drept o valoare superioară, alături de națiune, în scara ierarhiei mussoliniene. Mai departe, fascismul este un naționalism integral, care ajunge chiar la mesianism și imperialism. El identifică statul cu națiunea. Și, deoarece a conduce un stat înseamnă a crea necontenit, a realiza, nu a discuta, fascismul este antiparlamentarist. Dar, conducerea nu o pot avea decât cei aleși, care trebuie să urmeze propriile lor forțe sufletești fără a asculta de glasul masei și fără a face apel la colaborarea ei, de aceea fascismul este și antidemocratic. După metodele sale, fascismul este o reînoire a machiavellismului”[10].
Această definiție este formulată după ce Petre Andrei a criticat fiecare dintre elementele specifice fascismului: elitismul, misticismul, mesianismul, naționalismul integral, imperialismul și antiparlamentarismul. Definiția încheie, practic, o primă parte a studiului, a doua parte fiind o pledoarie pentru democrație.
Încă un element este de reținut din analiza fascismului: unele soluții pe care o ideologie sau o mișcare le poate oferi la un moment dat într-o societate le pot asigura succesul și le pot legitima. Și fascismul italian și nazismul din Germania au reușit în primă instanță să vină cu rezolvări ale unor probleme sociale acute, șomajul fiind prima dintre acestea. Dar, aceste succese de moment nu trebuie să le legitimeze. „Fascismul în genere apare ca o mișcare și o concepție retrogradă care, chiar dacă a adus Italiei unele realizări practice utile, rămâne totuși periculoasă prin nota ei absolutistă dictatorială. Viața statului nu poate fi pusă în dependență de un om, fie el cât de mare, pentru că atunci se întronează arbitrarul și aproape întotdeauna abuzul”[11]. Cred că acest avertisment este valabil pentru orice epocă și pentru orice perioadă de criză, fiindcă o mișcare antidemocratică poate fi legitimată oricând de un succes social de moment.
Ceea ce a scris Petre Andrei în Fascismul, mai ales în cea de-a doua parte a studiului, poate fi considerat și crezul său politic. În întreaga sa activitate politică, pe care o începe (poate că nu întâmplător) după publicarea acestui studiu, el a fost un democrat convins. Petre Andrei a luat atitudine împotriva fascismului românesc atât în calitate de profesor la Universitatea Al. I. Cuza, cât și în calitate de parlamentar. Între intelectualul și omul politic Petre Andrei nu poate fi identificată o fractură, ceea ce a gândit și a scris în studii profesorul fiind susținut și de pe băncile Parlamentului de către politicianul Petre Andrei.
Reducerea în atenție a studiului Fascismul este utilă atât din motivul pe care l-am enunțat mai sus (slaba percepere a lui până în prezent), cât și din cel puțin din următoarele două: definiția pe care o dă Petre Andrei fascismului este valabilă și astăzi, lucru de care orice lector se poate convinge consultând lucrările recente din acest domeniu; avertismentul pe care îl formulează intelectualul și omul politic Petre Andrei este valabil pentru orice societate ce se poate afla la un moment dat în criză. Indiferent de problemele economice și de urgența unor măsuri, soluția cea mai bună vine tot dinspre democrație.

Note
[1] Petre Andrei, Fascism, Editura Institutul European, Iași, 2013, ISBN: 978-606-24-0022-4.
[2] Petre Andrei, Fascismul, Editura Neuron, Focșani, 1995.
[3] Petre Andrei, „Fascismul”, în Opera omnia, Tomul VIII, Volumul I, Editura Tipo Moldova, Iași, 2010.
[4] Doru Tompea, Daniel Șandru, Dimensiuni social-politice ale operei lui Petre Andrei, Editura Academiei Române, București, 2012.
[5] Acest eseu a apăru pentru prima dată în volumul Petru P. Andrei, Valeriu Florin Dobrinescu, Doru Tompea (ed.), Petre Andrei – jurnal, memorialistică, corespondență, Editura Grafix, Iași, 1993.
[6] Petre Andrei, Fascism, ed. cit., p. 89.
[7] Ibidem, p. 90.
[8] Ibidem, pp. 131-132.
[9] Ibidem, p. 113.
[10] Ibidem, pp. 112-113.
[11] Ibidem, p. 131.

O analiză a migrației Est-Vest după extinderile UE din 2004 și 2007: efecta asupra dezbaterii politicii de migrație

(An Analysis of East-West Migration Following the 2004 and 2007 EU Enlargements: Effects on the Migration Policy Debate)

Rada Cristina IRIMIE

radairimie@yahoo.com

Abstract: Of special interest to EU migration policy are the effects of the EU enlargements of May 2004 and January 2007, with the addition of the EU-8 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Latvia) and EU-2 (Bulgaria and Romania) respectively. After the fall of Eastern communist regimes, massive East-West migrations were predicted and were expected to have a significant negative impact on the original EU-15. However, neither mass migration nor significant negative effects for receiving countries materialized, though many policies were implemented relating to these concerns. This paper seeks to analyze the effects of the expansions and accompanying policy changes on the long-standing trend of East-West migration. Policies implemented prior to and during the enlargements are examined, followed by an analysis of the likely impact of migration trends on both current and future EU migration policy, using comparative case studies of both sending and receiving countries. A review of the literature on trends and policies surrounding the enlargements suggests that economic concerns continue to play a role and have increasingly become the primary determinant driving migration patterns, though contributing factors such as asylum migration, ethnic return, and undocumented migration, as well as important topics in labor migration, such as the effects of the recent economic downturn and remittance flows will also be examined. Results from the analysis indicate that though EU migration policy continues to be more and more centralized, further integration is required, and should include standardized data gathering and reporting to facilitate informed policy decisions.

Keywords: migration, policy, enlargement, European Union.

Introduction

In 1998, negotiations for European Union membership began between the EU and the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia, followed by negotiations with Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania (EU-10). This led to the first Eastern enlargement of the EU in January 2004 (EU-8), and included all of the aforementioned countries except Bulgaria and Romania which joined the EU in January 2007 (EU-2). It was widely expected that mass migrations would take place from the new member states to the existing members, due in part to high wage differentials[1]. This expectation fueled intense policy debates leading up to the accessions, and immensely influenced the policy of the older EU states (EU-15). While mass migrations never materialized for most receiving countries, there was a definite change in European migration patterns, as patterns shifted from being predominantly permanent East to West flows, to circular and temporary East-West movements[2].

The next section covers a brief history of migration policy within the EU, followed by a review of the various general types and causes of migration important to the region. An examination of several cases of sending and receiving countries reveals the variety of both the drivers and manifestations of migration patterns in the EU, as well as certain themes that are common to many EU member states following the accessions. Analysis and concluding thoughts focus on the theme that throughout the migration scholarship it is repeatedly revealed that insufficient or inadequate information hinders good scholarship and the ability of policy makers to institute data-driven policies.

History of EU Migration Policy

The history of migration prior to the enlargements was a large part of what determined the policy shifts leading up to and during the enlargements. From the outset, the EU has sought to define and implement common policies on migration issues, including free movement within the EU member states, and common immigration, border control, and asylum policies. Since the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which set the stage for a trend towards a unified European migration policy, the EU has continued to integrate, driven by the movement towards a single market on the one hand and the relative inefficiency of national migration policies on the other. Starting in 1985, the Shengen Agreement sought to relax internal borders among EU countries and shift the focus to strengthening external borders. Then, in 1998 with the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, the Shengen Agreement became part of the acquis communautaire, the total body of EU legislative practices and standards. In 2007, all of the EU-10 countries except Cyprus joined the Shengen Agreement.

     Another important milestone was the Dublin Convention, which was designed in 1990 and ratified in 1997 with the intention of making it impossible for asylum seekers to apply for asylum in more than one EU member state. Further, it established that the country responsible for processing applications is the country of first handling, rather than the country of first arrival, and states that applicants can be sent back if there is no risk of persecution in the home or transit country. This essentially set up all Eastern European countries as transit countries (or “safe” countries), and caused these countries to form a buffer zone to the rest of the EU member states[3]. In response, Eastern countries like the Czech Republic and Slovenia implemented asylum policies that were monitored by international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration[4].

     Up until the fall of the USSR, Eastern European countries were concerned with regulating the flow of people out of their regions, and protecting their borders. The flow of people between Eastern European countries was relatively free among Warsaw Pact members (which included the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania), but emigration outside the region, especially to Western countries, was quite limited. After the dissolution of the USSR and subsequent political changes, most Eastern European nations removed exit restrictions and instead focused on border protections. In the decades preceding the 2004 enlargement, there was a great deal of worry that mass East-West migrations would destabilize not only the receiving countries of the EU-15, but also the struggling economies of many of the accession states, leading to political turmoil as well. These fears lead to a great deal of interest in the study of European migration patterns, and the creation of policies to deal with such an influx[5]. These worries stand in contrast to most current scholarship in which there seems to be a consensus that the overall effects of enlargement are positive[6].

     Another factor influencing migration flows in the region had to do with agreements made during the accession process of the EU-10 countries. Though new entrants to the EU were eventually to be subject to the same migration policies as the old EU-15 states, labor movements were initially subject to restrictions limiting flow from the EU-10 to the EU-15[7]. Sweden, Ireland, and the UK were the exceptions, allowing immigration from new member states to proceed without significant additional restrictions. It seems likely that migration patterns were at least somewhat disrupted as migrants shifted towards the UK and Ireland due to the lack of transitional arrangements in those countries[8]. However, there is some evidence to suggest that these restrictions had little impact on migration flows as a whole[9].

     Further complicating matters was the reluctance of Eastern states to give up all of the visa-free agreements which had been in place between Warsaw-Pact states. As EU members, they were required to adopt the acquis, but doing this meant that previously easy movement between Warsaw states became a time consuming and costly prospect, as citizens of non-EU countries now needed a visa for entry into the newly added EU states[10]. Another source of migration shift came after the ratification of the Geneva Convention and European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms between 1989 and 1998 by countries that would accede to the EU in 2004 and 2007, which increased the desirability of these states as destinations for asylum seekers[11]. These developments in policy set the stage for a shift in migration patterns across the region, and set many of the parameters under which new and old member states operate in response to population inflows and outflows.

     Having now discussed some of the history and policy decisions that took place Europe prior to the enlargements, the following section examines some of the types and causes of migration in the EU, as groundwork for an analysis of several case studies of sending and receiving countries from the EU-10 and EU-15.

Types of Migration and Influencing Factors

Since the political transformations of the late 1980’s, four main types of migration have come to the fore. The first category is labor migrants, who are typically unskilled to moderately skilled workers moving from Eastern Europe to more economically advanced Western European nations, with a small percentage of managers and experts moving from West to East[12]. Economic factors continue to be the main driver of migration, especially from low to high-income counties, and to fuel demand for cheap labor in Western Europe[13]. More recently demand for Western highly skilled labor in Eastern countries has been a small but significant driver for migration[14]. The second type of migration, also related to labor factors, is small-scale traders establishing markets in border regions and big cities, typically selling goods that were purchased cheaply in their home, neighboring countries. These are especially prevalent along the Polish border.

      The third category consists of refugees, asylum seekers, and ethnic return migrants—refugees and asylum seekers played an especially large role in migration flows to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland due to newly established asylum procedures in these states, though it slowed in later years as migration restrictions tightened[15]. This marked a change as Eastern EU states had previously been net asylum senders rather than receivers. This is also relevant to labor issues, because asylum seekers typically wish to find work in the host country in which they reside, but often can only find employment in undesirable low-wage positions[16]. An example of ethnic return migration took place following the division of the Czech and the Slovak Republics in 1993, which caused a large population exchange as migrants moved from each state into the other depending on which country individuals perceived to be their homeland, causing disruptions to the labor force of both regions[17].

     And fourth are transit migrants, or those trying to get to Western Europe or North America by passing through Eastern European countries, which tends to be driven primarily by those seeking increased economic opportunities[18]. As part of the EU, Eastern countries have become more attractive destination in their own right, in addition to serving as gateways for refugees from such places as Georgia, Russia and Asia, Other factors that influence migration patterns and policy are undocumented migration, remittance flows, and in recent years, the global economic downturn.

     Undocumented migration poses special problems for policy makers, because it is so difficult to obtain accurate data on undocumented immigrants, such as the number and origin of such individuals[19]. For example, in Poland the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimates that between 100,000 and 150,000 foreigners work in the country illegally each year. A telling fact is that in 2007, the number of applicants for temporary work visas was 22,000, but after policy changes to make them easier to obtain the number increased to 180,000 in 2010, though migrants still make up a negligible percentage of the Polish labor market overall. Governments may not be able to completely control undocumented immigration, but by taking steps to regularize the immigrants coming into the country better data can be gathered to inform further policy choices[20].

     Hand in hand with the issue of undocumented migrants are the problems of human trafficking and the smuggling of undocumented migrants. This in particular in an area in which good data is severely lacking, in part because of the difficult nature of obtaining data on illicit activities in general, and in part because it has so far failed to be a significant priority at the state level in the EU[21]. The upshot is that the EU community as a whole recognizes the importance of addressing the problem of irregular migration, and with the current policies in place, it can be hoped that continued progress towards state compliance will be achieved[22].

     Migration to developed countries somewhat slowed down during and immediately after the recent global economic crises, but has overall remained steady in spite of the economic downturn[23]. More recently, it appears that migration rates are beginning to rise again, though it is still too early to know whether it is the start of a definite upward trend[24]. The current economic condition influences not only the decision of individuals and groups on whether to migrate, but also affects remittance flows back to the sending countries. Remittance flows in the European region have historically been from West to East as migrants from poorer countries send wages to support relatives in their home countries. This flow of funds is thought to be one key to bringing stability to areas that would otherwise lose important segments of the workforce through emigration, and to help alleviate poverty in poorer countries[25].

     Though prior to the fall of the USSR labor migration from East to West was relatively rare, it has become increasingly important as migration restrictions have been lifted and harmonized[26]. Economic factors are generally agreed to be the primary drivers of migration, and some researchers continue to rank them as the most important factors driving migration decisions[27]. However, a simple economic cost-benefit model cannot adequately account for migration patterns. If the decision to migrate were simply based on whether all future monetary benefits from moving to the new host country would exceed the cost of moving, then factors like host-country demand, and non-economic factors like social networks would not have an impact[28]. Freeman and Kessler[29] argue with Boswell and Meuser[30] that migration studies would be best served by integrating economics and other disciplinary approaches. So while economic factors continue to be a major factor, other drivers of migration must also be taken into account.

     There is, however, a questions about the degree to which states are able to control migration flows through policy action. For example, on some views, states play a passive role, merely responding to migration choices by individuals and groups, but work done by Joppke[31] suggest that states in fact play an active role in determining migration flows. This stands in contrast to other theoretical frameworks, for instance, emphasizing structural factors that are largely outside state control[32]. On this model, the main thing states can regulate is who obtains legal immigration status. In short, there are many factors that go into informed policy decisions, and much disagreement about basic questions such as how or to what extent specific policies are able to effect migration outcomes. The keys to these questions are good data and research, but at present good country-level data can be difficult to find in spite of continued efforts to integrate migration policy among EU states.

Case Studies: Sending Countries

Poland

Poland has a long history as a sending country for migrants, though outflows tended to vary depending on the particular economic and political situation of the period. For instance, after the fall of the USSR, a large exodus of Poles of German decent took place, in spite of the fact that Polish migration policy has in general discouraged migration flows in or out of the country[33]. Network factors play a large role in the directionality of Polish migration patterns. For example, the close—if disruptive—ties with Germany provide networks for many Polish immigrants moving to Germany. In Poland itself, the number of foreigners is quite low and a negligible amount of those immigrants participate in the Polish labor market.

     After the 2004 accession, the international mobility of Poles ended up being one of the most spectacular examples of population movements in modern European history. The dynamics, scale, and structural characteristics of migration from Poland all underwent changes, most of which can be attributed to the selective opening of EU-15 labor markets and the corresponding transitory arrangements[34]. Large-scale outflows such as these are supposed to have a significant negative effect on the sending country, but analysis by Kaczmarczyk, Mioduszewska and Żylicz[35] suggests that the effects have so far been only moderate, and in the long-term, mass-migration may lead to the outflow of economically redundant segments of the population which would actually foster modernization of the Polish economy.

     Though Poland is overwhelmingly a sending country, in recent years it has also been the most important receiving country of the EU-10, hosting 77 percent of all asylum seekers in the region. With the increase in stability of the Polish economy and political situation, it has become a more attractive destination for asylum seekers. Additionally, its close proximity to less stable regions in the East, and the network relations with the Caucasus region and Georgia, which are a source of many asylum seekers, account for the relatively high percentage of asylum seekers. In recent years the number of asylum applications in Poland has even overtaken that of a number of EU-15 countries. This contrasts with other EU-10 countries like Bulgaria and Hungary that receive very low percentages of EU asylum seekers, and in general the trend for asylum seekers is still to move west into the more developed EU-15 countries[36].

     Poland, along with many other Central Eastern European countries, struggled with high unemployment in the period leading up to the accession, with rates as high as 20 percent in 2002. While from 2000 to 2004 the labor market gradually improved as the Polish economy grew, unemployment began to fall after accession in 2004[37]. Like many sending counties from the EU-10, the outcomes for Poles in their new host countries are often less than optimal, and characterized by low-wage jobs and underemployment, which may lead to a slowdown in migration as conditions at home stabilize[38].

Bulgaria

Bulgaria also has a long history as a sending country due in part to poor economic performance and regional instability. In 2010, around 430,000 Bulgarians lived in EU-15 countries, primarily in Spain, Germany, and Greece, and according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, by percentage of population Bulgaria was the second largest sending country in the world to OECD members, losing around 1 percent of its population to emigration[39]. Migrants from Bulgaria tend to be medium-skilled, but though around 70 percent are employed in their host country, positions tend to be slightly below their qualifications. Economic factors tend to be the primary motivators, and the goal is often to send remittances or improve living and working conditions[40]. Bulgaria is highly dependent on remittances, which constitute a considerable percentage of the GDP[41]. Consequently, the state of the Bulgarian economy remains closely tied to the economic health of countries that host its migrants, and the effects of the global economic downturn will likely impact Bulgaria more in the long-term.

     Overall migration rates have remained quite high, at around 3.4 percent of the Bulgarian population between the years 2004 and 2009, and saw an increase with the accession in 2007[42]. This is in spite of the fact that many potential host counties have been slow to open their labor markets to EU-2 countries, and imposed heavy transitional restrictions—even countries like the UK that placed very few restrictions on EU-8 members[43]. Though there is some concern about brain drain from Bulgaria, enrollment rates in tertiary education have increased in recent years to a level higher than found in most EU countries, and in 2008 the Bulgarian government instituted a program designed to bring high-skilled Bulgarian citizens and foreigners back to Bulgaria to settle, but it remains to be seen whether this program will be effective, and poor national data collection systems will make it difficult to assess the results. However, in general working age Bulgarian migrants tend to have lower overall educational attainments than their EU-8 or EU-15 counterparts[44]. In addition to trying to attract highly qualified Bulgarians living abroad, the government has also adopted a new National Migration, Asylum and Integration Strategy for 2011 to 2020 that seeks to prevent illegal migration and improve how labor migration is handled. With the focus on migrant integration and the recognition that migration can provide interesting opportunities for economic development, Bulgaria is continuing to push towards migration strategies in line with EU principles and policy[45].

Case Studies: Receiving Countries

Germany

Germany is largely a receiving country, though as noted above it has also been a sending country for a small number of highly skilled professionals, but it was historically a country of emigration, sending farmers to Russia, and others to Eastern Europe, south, and to the US[46]. However, under the 1949 German constitution, the return migration of ethnic Germans from East Central Europe and the former USSR to Germany and the attainment of citizenship is guaranteed. Because of this, ethnic Germans who experienced discrimination, forced resettlement, and expulsion from other countries had a homeland to move to. As a result of Germany’s encouragement of other countries to remove barriers to emigration, a tremendous flow of migrants to place based largely on ethnic grounds. After the breakup of the USSR a huge amount of ethnic return migration took place as ethnic Germans migrated to Germany from East-Central European and post-Soviet countries. Though the provision allowing easy return migration for ethnic Germans was abolished in 2005, it continues to play a role in the East-West migration dynamic of the EU—albeit a drastically reduced role compared to 2005 and earlier.

     Leading up to the 2004 enlargements, Germany was expected to be the most affected country by the increased mobility. This was thought to be the case because of the large existing EU-8 population already residing in Germany, and due to its close proximity to EU-8 countries[47]. Of the new EU-10 states, the biggest sender of migrants to Germany is its neighbor to the east, Poland. While political factors like national security push towards closure, globalization and world economics push towards openness (the so-called “liberal paradox”). In response to this, in 2000 Germany opened up tech visas designed to recruit up to 20,000 highly skilled workers, which marked a change in Germany’s long standing anti-immigration policies though public sentiment in Germany remains mixed[48]. But in keeping with the prior trend towards closure, Germany maintained restrictions on labor access for EU-10 countries for the maximum 7 years, and at least in part because of this experienced only moderate increases in migration after the enlargements[49]. Further, there is evidence that transitional arrangements may have driven high-skill workers away, leaving a greater proportion of migrants with lower qualifications[50].

     Another facet of East-West migration unique to Germany was the flow of workers from the former German Democratic Republic into the Western portion of the country. These movements tended to mirror the new migration patterns across the EU, in that they were generally circular and transitory[51]. Rather than a massive wave of migration after the accession that some researchers predicted[52], Fertig and others more accurately predicted a moderate increase in migration to Germany, especially from the first round of candidates, based on an analysis of the drivers of historical migration patterns[53].

Ireland

Though a modest wave of immigration was expected in Ireland, as one of only three countries to largely allow open access to new member states from the start, it was also one of the only countries where the number of incoming migrants far exceeded predictions[54]. Since 2004 a disproportionately large number of EU-8 (especially Polish) citizens migrated to Ireland, and between 2007 and 2009, the number of EU-8 citizens living in Ireland rose from 30,000 to 39,000. In the decades leading up to 2004, Ireland had a net outflow of migrants, but in 2004 this changed to a net increase which peaked in 2007 with the arrival of an estimated 32,000 migrants. One difference that saw a smaller percentage of migrants from EU-2 countries following the 2007 enlargement is that the UK placed severe restrictions on access to labor markets for EU-2 citizens[55]. Also, though EU-10 migrants are among the least educated groups in Ireland, they are still relatively well-educated. On the other hand, they tend to be employed below their skill level, in lower paying jobs in the Irish labor force with a wage disadvantage from around 32 to 45 percent relative to natives. In spite of this they do have high employment rates—as high as 80 percent within the Irish labor force[56].

     Since 2000, around 122,000 long-term migrants have arrived in Ireland, but this likely does not capture the full scope of the population movements since it does not include short-term or temporary migrants[57]. While over the next 20 years long-term immigration to Ireland is expected to fall to insignificant numbers, data gathering systems need to be implemented in order to properly track and plan for any future population movements, especially as more countries seek to join the EU in the coming decades. In the meantime, the impact of larger than expected migrations has lead to increased strain on public services, such as medical care and public housing, and as the migration restrictions ended in 2011, that is only expected to increase. Additionally, the economic downturn may cause Ireland to return to outward and return migration[58]. However, these factors have been offset by the positive economic benefits that have resulted from the enlargements, such as an additional 40,000 jobs added to the economy[59].

Analysis

It should be clear from the proceeding discussion of sending and receiving countries that the experience of EU accession varies considerably from country to country, based on a host of factors such as prior regulations, economic condition, geographic location, and networks. Typically, employment opportunities in receiving countries are low-skilled positions, and many migrant workers from EU-10 countries end up employed below their skill level. While there often seems to be some negative economic impact on sending countries, this is somewhat mitigated by remittance flows and the removal of surplus workers from the labor force. Additionally, though the general migration trend is still from East to West, since accession the trend in EU-10 countries and across the EU has been towards circular, transitory migration, rather than permanent waves of migrants coming from the East[60].

     Since 2004, about 1.8 percent of the EU-8 population has moved to the EU-15, raising the host country population by an average of 0.3 percent, approximately 75 percent of which can be attributed to the enlargements. In spite of their smaller size, the addition of the EU-2 countries sent about 4.1 percent of their total population, which resulted in an additional 0.3 percent increase in host-country population size, of which about 50 percent can be attributed to the enlargement[61]. This is expected to have a negative permanent effect on the economies of the sending countries of about 3 to 10 percent of potential per capita GDP, though this effect is expected to be offset in the short-term by the flow of remittances back to the sending countries[62]. While these figures are in some regards helpful to policy makers and forecasters, aggregate numbers fail to illustrate the diversity of experiences among sending and receiving states after the 2004 and 2007 enlargements, and in order to ascertain specific useful information for policy decisions, better data gathering systems are needed.

     As the cases of Germany and Ireland indicate, the individual policy choices regarding transitional arrangements had very specific outcomes, though since Ireland was one of very few countries that did not impose significant transitional barriers the effects are largely lost in the aggregate numbers. Similarly with sending countries, the local structural factors, networks, and other mitigating factors all had a profound influence on how the enlargements affected the social and economic outcomes of their citizens at home and abroad. Though Germany in particular has relatively high-quality migration data available, that is far from the norm, and all of the other case study countries had serious shortfalls in the quality and availability of information. The new member states of the EU-10, and the EU-2 in particular, have especially underdeveloped data systems, but are in some ways better poised for new regulation since so many structural factors are still in flux and could be built up in a way that unifies policy among EU states, making the data comparisons among states significantly less problematic. However, even EU-15 states are not free from data shortfalls. For instance, in Ireland, published data does not allow the number of EU-10 immigrants to be determined before 2006, and Barrett[63] notes a huge discrepancy between census data and administrative data (issuance of social security numbers known as PPS numbers) that continues to be a problem. Numbers from the census indicate an estimated inflow of 100,000 migrants from 2004 to 2010 versus 300,000 based on PPS numbers issued—the reasons for this discrepancy can only be guessed at, which may mean that important factors that could have significant impacts on the market and immigration models have been missed[64].

     Additionally, because of the issues with how individual states define classes of migration and gather different types of data, analysis between countries is also a challenge, and coming to reasonable policy decisions that affect the entire EU body are difficult to say the least. As a precursor to further wide-ranging migration policy changes, uniform data systems across states are essential.

Conclusion

Though there are many areas of unified migration policy, overall there is still a high degree of fragmentation and dispersion on the specifics of migration policy[65]. Fertig[66] and others have pointed out that the most difficult part of forming an analysis is the lack of good data for many regions of the world, and at present there is no unified system or methodology for population data collection among EU member states, and so the amount and quality of data available varies widely from country to country[67]. Policy makers would like to know the size, makeup, and attributes related to the timing, duration and length of stay for future waves of migration[68], but current approaches to migration theory, research, and data-collection are not comprehensive or developed enough to form accurate models and predictions about migration patterns and the effects of migration policy[69]. The European Commission recognizes the need for further integration of migration policy, and in order for this to take place, new unified data collection systems must be enacted[70].

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VARIA

Rădăcinile bolșevismului: o perspectivă ideologică asupra intelighenției ruse din secolul al XIX-lea

(Roots of Bolshevism: An Ideological Overview of the 19^th Century Russian Intelligentsia)

Emanuel COPILAȘ

Abstract: The present article generally aims to prove that Bolshevism had very little to do with European social-democracy. They are two distinct intellectual and political traditions, although the influence of the latter upon the former cannot be denied. To confirm this hypothesis, the main part of the article consists in a diachronic analysis of the ideas of the Russian intelligentsia, the nursery of the future Bolshevik dictatorship, starting with its humanist origins and ending with its terrorist degeneration. For a better understanding of the origins of Russian populism, the first part of the article presents the Marxist origins of European social-democracy. The research methods I made use of are political comparative analysis and ideological analysis.

Key words: Enlightenment, social-democracy, populism, nihilism, terrorism, dictatorship.

European social-democracy: an offspring of Enlightenment

The struggle for social emancipation is a product of Enlightenment and of the liberal philosophy which it gave birth to[1]. Republicanism, democracy, human rights, universal suffrage, individuality, free market[2] – all of these invaluable achievements reflect the imposition of the modern era with its growing urbanization, extended commerce, secularization and a major emphasis on human reason. However, after several decades it became rather clear that the above mentioned gains were not universal, as the French revolutionaries postulated them, but confined to a certain social category, namely the rising bourgeoisie. The industrial revolution that made modern Europe possible thrived on slavery and barbarous exploitation of other continents[3]; later, as slavery was increasingly difficult to maintain due to uprisings, the emancipation of public opinion and most importantly because of the technological advancement that allowed former slave owners to become respected businessmen and former slaves to become employees without any decrease in profits, on the contrary – one of modernity’s promises, human rights and individual dignity, was therefore fulfilled. Not without major conflicts (if we take into account only the American civil war), but essentially going along with the historic tide: slavery was abolished after it begun to hamper the profits of major European and American companies, not as a direct consequence of Enlightenment’s ideals[4].

Could the promises of modernity such as liberty and equality be extended also to peasants and industrial workers and not be confined exclusively to the bourgeoisie? Could they become truly universal? This was the main question of some intellectuals later labeled as the utopian socialists. Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, all of them imagined perfect communities where social conflicts would be abolished by means of grassroots democracy and an emphasis placed on public property understood as the antidote of private property that tended to dismantle the social texture and entail abuses and exploitation[5]. They received the label ‘utopian’ because their revolt was purely moral.

‘Scientific socialism’ on the other hand, the one Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pretended to discover – affirmed that the growing inequalities between the capitalists who own the means of production and the workers who do not will eventually led to the disintegration of the capitalist mode of production. This was, in their opinion, a scientific fact: the internal logic of capitalism is based on accumulation, profit, and the exploitation of unpaid labor. As the concentration tendencies of capital amplify, meaning the big businesses getting bigger by incorporating or eliminating potential rivals – the number of capitalists decreases (as they became richer) while the number of workers which fuel profit making for their bosses increases, as they become poorer. This contradiction will sooner or later lead to an explosive tension and thus bring about a social revolution that will end capitalism and its unjust social stratification. This outcome was for Marx inevitable and therefore scientific. The historic laws of social development which he pretended to discover were embodied in the political economy of every stage humanity had passed through: primitive commune, antiquity, feudalism and capitalism. They consisted in forces of production and relations of production. The firs signified inventions or goods that the community or society benefited from mostly free and which entailed progress and welfare. Gradually, those inventions or goods came to be monopolized by a ruling class which pretended a certain price for them. Their production and reproduction, dominated by the ruling class, created patterns of economic and social stratification based on inequality and polarization, patterns which deemed property more and more private, in accordance with the interests of the ruling class. This status-quo was given a legal form and, from generation to generation, was regarded by society as being fair and natural. Marx called this status-quo relations of production. When the relations of production became increasingly oppressive, obstructing progress and well-being to the point that most people considered it intolerable, a social revolution occurred, releasing the structural tensions that have build up. Afterwards, the whole process would start all over again, the new forces of production becoming relations of production and so on. This materialistic philosophy of history offered the dialectic method as a tool for understanding the passing from one mode of production (the material dimension of a certain type of society in general, in Marx’s terms) to another. Thus the primitive commune gave way to antiquity, antiquity to feudalism and feudalism to capitalism[6].

Taking into account history’s dialectic, capitalism already contained the ‘germs’ of its future replacement, communism. Here, relations of production are codified in legal terms as private property, while the increasing forces of production, the workers, find themselves deprived of the means of production. As progressive it was at the beginning, when it replaced feudalism, capitalism, Marx argued, no longer facilitated social progress, but disrupted it. Why? Because capitalism’s core consists in a neverending succession of economic and social crises. By working, the proletarians create surplus-value, namely the difference between their salary and the total income the capitalist extracts from their work. The objective value of a product resides in the socially necessary work time needed to create that product. Since the capitalist seeks only profit, he will rely more and more on machines instead of workers. This means more and cheaper goods. But an increased productivity also means less valuable products: the time spent creating each product decreases proportionally with the number of machines that replace the worker. What follows is an abundance of cheap goods. But this is nevertheless a signal of the crisis which is to come. Marx argues that only workers can create surplus value; for the capitalist, workers represent the variable capital (their number fluctuates according to the needs of the business), while the machines represent the constant capital (meaning that they cannot be fired or hired as easy as the proletarians; moreover, machines cannot create themselves goods, in the absence of human intervention; they can only transmit a small part of their utility to the final product, proportional with their deterioration during the time spent forging it – this is the reason why Marx does not credit technology with the power to create surplus-value). By increasing the share of constant capital in order to raise productivity and sell cheaper goods, the capitalist is driven not only by its greed, but also by its creditors, most of them banks. Therefore he is forced by a structural mechanism to behave in this way; it is not a matter of simple choice, as utopian socialists would consider. Machines, bought with expensive loans, gradually replace workers; they do the job much faster and with incomparable efficiency. Salaries decreases and unemployment rises (this wave of unemployment is called by Marx the ‘proletarian reserve army’). The remaining workers are compelled to accept lower salaries or face the prospect of unemployment. Cheap goods are everywhere, but fewer and fewer people buy them: many have lost their jobs. We are now in the middle of an overproduction crisis. Having lost its clients, the capitalist goes bankrupt, thus leading to more unemployment and the bankruptcy of other capitalists as well. Banks can no longer recuperate their loans, not to mention their interest rates. The resulting general collapse can be compared to a forest fire: after it passes, the forest is regenerated. But this regeneration, brought about with the same capitalist means, will implacable lead to the next fire and so on, until the contradiction between forces and relations of production (proletarians and workers) will entails such a massive breakdown that capitalism itself could no longer start over again. Finally controlling the means of production (factories), the workers victory would signal the appearance of a class free society in which economy is no longer driven by money and profits, but by man and for man[7].

One can observe that in Marx’s terms, there can be no reconcilement between work and capital: what he calls ‘the general law of capitalist accumulation’ is very clear in this respect: the capital’s prosperity is proportional to the growing of the ‘proletarian reserve army’[8]. In other words, capital and social conflict go hand in hand. Before publishing his magnum opus in 1867, Marx attempted to explain the demise of capitalism through another, simpler contradiction, that between utility and exchange value. For consumers, the commodity possesses utility, while for capitalists it possesses only exchange value, which is nevertheless the distinctive feature of commodity. But, in the process of getting from its producer to its consumer, which is interested exclusively in its utility, the commodity must pass an intermediary phase where it acquires exchange value: the market. The market is therefore a capitalist contradiction between producers and consumers. It does not facilitate social prosperity, only intermediary and parasitic profits. Social revolution means here getting rid of the market, the exchange values and the commodity itself, an inherent feature of the capitalist system[9].

            Capitalism entails structural contradictions and cannot be abolished only through moral means. A moral capitalist is a contradiction in itself: if he decides to increase salaries and the sums paid for the social insurance of his workers, he will also need to increase the price of his products in order to survive; selling his merchandise at the same price he practiced before applying these measures would mean a decrease in profits and finally bankruptcy. But a higher price for his goods means that he will slowly loose competitiveness on the market: immoral entrepreneurs can afford to sell their commodities cheaper because they spend less money with they employees. The outcome in this case is also bankruptcy. Either way, Marx argues, capitalism is a social relation inscribed in things and in the material processes that constitute our day to day life: it does not exist only in our mind and therefore it cannot be replaced through good deeds alone: an approach like this can only enforce the system. This is why the social revolution is indispensable for the real overthrowing of capitalism; its mere moral ‘taming’ leads nowhere. However, capitalism’s domination cannot be reduced to materialism, although this constitutes its backbone: ‘The ideas of the dominant class are in every epoch the dominant ideas, which means that the class which is the dominant material force of society is at the same time its dominant spiritual force’[10].

            To sum up, Marx’s revolution is first of all social, only afterwards political and cultural. Only the working class, numerically and technically fueled by capitalism itself – can accomplish the revolution by developing ‘class consciousnesses’. In this process, the role of intellectuals as guides is very important, but these intellectuals could never replace the proletarians in the revolutionary process. We are far from the Leninist party with its sectarian and conspirative behavior and with its dictatorial means. Also, for Marx proletarians are not only the factory workers, but virtually everyone who depends on a salary for a living, a salary delivered first of all by particular employers. What Marx eventually wanted was a larger and more profound democracy than the bourgeoisie had to offer: human rights and individual freedom cannot exist in a polarized society in which workers are compelled to sell their physical and intellectual capacities in order to survive: work should mean creativity, joy and fulfillment, not mind-numbing exhaustion, permanent stress and fear of losing one’s job: each men should work for its own purpose, not for the purpose of capitalist intermediary gains. But this outcome Marx rendered possible only in a post-capitalist world, where workers would benefit from their products, not being alienated with reference to them and where the social stratification entailed by the capitalist mode of production would cease to exist.

            From its Marxist form, European social-democracy gradually gave way to a progressive rapprochement with the Enlightenment ideals from which it was born: democracy and human rights.  Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein and other second generation Marxists which’s ideas will be analyzed in the conclusions section are proof in this regard. The 19^th century Russian revolutionary ferment cannot be properly understood in the absence of its European model, which it tried to emulate sometimes beyond the point of recognition. But unlike it, it will gradually move away from the humanism of Enlightenment, preparing the ideological and political ground from which Bolshevism was born.

Populism, nihilism, terrorism, Marxism: ideological stages of the Russian revolutionary movement

Intellectually speaking, Russia’s encounter with modernity had begun with Georg Friedrich Hegel’s philosophy. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, dialectics, reconciliation of opposites, reason – all these concepts advanced or re-elaborated by the German philosopher highly influenced not only intellectual and social emancipation movements such as social-democracy, but the whole modern phenomenon[11]. Hegel’s famous sentence ‘the real is the rational and the rational is the real’ received a conservative interpretation in his native Germany, where it came to signify the praising of the exiting political status-quo, namely the Prussian absolutist monarchy. In Tsarist Russia, on the other hand, his maxim gained a whole different, revolutionary meaning: the real had to be rationalized. This meant the abolishment of autocracy and the institution of a democratic republic according to the principles of Enlightenment[12].

            The first organized movement against Tsarist autocracy was that of the so-called Decembrists, a group of officers inspired by the French Revolution who sought to replace the existent Russian political structure with that of a constitutional republic. In December 1825, after an open revolt against the new Tsar, Nicholas, their leaders were hanged and the group dismantled[13]. Although the first serious contestation against Tsarism, the Decembrist’s revolt was first of all a political movement; the populist movement which followed placed most of its emphasis on revolutionary ideas, hoping to create a social awareness capable of emancipating peasant Russia from the oppressing autocracy.

            Vissarion Belinski, a literary critic highly influenced by Hegel’s philosophy, is counted today as one of the founding fathers of Russian intelligentsia. Morality, the permanent quest for truth and regarding individuality and human dignity as the sole basis of a successful intellectual, social and political reform, Belinski’s romantic temper and oratory brilliance is well remembered by his friend and colleague Alexander Herzen. Unlike Belinski, who’s essentially liberal ideas were completed by social-democratic tendencies (he evaluated literary works on the count of exposing the precarious condition of peasantry and the intrinsically unjust structure of Tsarism)[14], Herzen, acknowledged even by Lenin[15], although their ideas were not at all compatible – as the first truly Russian populist – developed vivid and original social-democratic theories.

            Although Herzen influenced not only the development of Russian socialism, but that of liberalism as well, the two ideologies are mixed in his works sometimes beyond the point of recognition. He held individual freedom above all other values, although criticizing the bourgeois West whenever its governments obliterated social emancipation, like in 1848. ‘Despite his aesthetic dislike of the bourgeois West, he was a good European, at least insofar as prizing individualism and rejecting the use of violence before exhausting all the possibilities of persuasion and peaceful alteration’[16]. Like all populists, Herzen valued the peasant commune and insisted that Russia could achieve its own, specific democracy by abolishing Tsarism and creating a federative political structure between these communes. He therefore advocated for a sort of peasant grassroots democracy which, unlike Western Europe, could advance toward socialism avoiding the terrible social consequences the development of capitalism caused there. Most importantly, Herzen believed in this yet passive existence of rural democracy and its capacity to be spontaneously transferred to the entire Russian political system[17].

            More radical in his youth, Herzen gradually renounced prospects of violent revolution and insisted upon reforms, from above and also from below, as the key to social transformation[18]. However, he never became a convinced supporter of pluripartidism; after the crushing of the 1848 revolutions he sincerely hoped ‘Europe had figured out that the representative system is nothing more than an ingenious means to replace the satisfaction of social requests and determined action with empty words and endless debates’[19].

            Herzen’s rejection of all forms of intellectual and political dogmatism or authoritarianism made him lots of enemies, among which Karl Marx. Marx’s expeditious and abrupt personality, along with his deterministic philosophy of history was something Herzen could not reconcile with, especially because he shared Alexis de Tocqueville’s opinion that industrialization will not radicalize and organize workers towards revolutionary aims, but improve their life style thus transforming them into bourgeois. In Adam Ulam’s words, ‘Marx was for him the embodiment of the German bourgeois spirit: formal, unromantic, and devoid of those elements of humor and compassion that he deemed essential for a real fighter for the people’s rights. The news that Marx was to address or even to attend a political gathering or banquet was cause enough for Herzen to send his excuses’[20]. Unlike Marxists, who stood in favor of revolution, not reforms (see the first section of the article), Herzen argued for ‘gradual progress’ as means of social emancipation.

            I am not at all afraid of the word ‘gradual progress’, which was trivialized through the undecided attitude and reluctant steps of different reforming authorities. The gradual character, as continuity, are tightly connected to any process of understanding. Mathematics is learned progressively; why believe that the ultimate conclusions of sociology could be injected to a man like the vaccine against smallpox or poured into mind as a medicine is poured as once on the horse’s throat? Between the actual conclusions and the actual situation there are practical improvements, there are ways, compromises and diagonals. To choose the most short, comfortable, accessible ones is a problem of practical sense, of strategy. Going permanently ahead, without looking back, you can end up like Napoleon, to Moscow, and perish afterwards during the retreat, even without reaching Borodino. The international association of workers and their other associations, their organs and representatives must strive hardly that authorities do not interfere in work relating problems, as they do not interfere in the administration of properties. The forms which held people in the chains of a semi-imposed slavery will not resist a la longue to the pressure exercised by logic and by the development of public consciousness. Some of them are so rotten inside that you can strike them down with a kick; others maintain themselves, plunging their roots like a cancer in a bad blood. By crushing them altogether, we could also kill the organism and we would certainly make the great majority to step down and then the most fierce defenders of the ‘cancer’ will be exactly those who suffer the most from it. Of course this would be something very stupid, but it is time to understand that stupidity represents an enourmous force that has to be taken into account[21].

            And furthermore:

            A wild eruption, caused by constant obstacle, will not spare anything: to redeem personal deprivations, revenge will come upon the most impersonal goods. Together with the capital gathered by moneylenders, another capital will perish, transmitted from generation to generation, from a people to another, a capital which contains the essence of the personality and of creation of different ages, a capital in which was naturally inscribed the chronicle of human life and in which history has been crystallized. Along with the milestones, the destructive force unleashed will also crush the heights which people have reached through endless efforts in all domains, from the beginning of civilization until now[22].

            Herzen’s moderation, erudition, toleration and authentic concern for a gradual emancipation that would preserve the gains of civilization, not relinquish them as obsolete and hypocrite bourgeois achievements – will transform him into an outdated and even ridiculous figure for a newer and more radical generation of populists, the nihilists. Young, more or less educated young men and women, the nihilists were disappointed by Herzen’s teachings which did not help the peasants free themselves from autocracy. In their opinion, more was needed: a revolutionary elite who would organize, discipline and even accomplish the revolution for the peasants[23]. Considering ‘Herzen’s socialism was too humanistic, too much grounded in the hope of change by evolution’[24], they did not hesitate to attack the founder of Russian socialism in writing, calling him a ‘liberal’ (among the intelligentsia, the term started to have a pejorative nuance in the second half of the 19^th century), a right-winger and a supporter of the ‘reaction’. Herzen replied with disappointment ‘that the attacks upon him and his position served the interests of the most reactionary part of the tsarist bureaucracy, and that the young radicals might live to be decorated by the government’[25].

            Nihilism, a label which the famous novelist Turgenev used to describe the new wave of populism and it was readily adopted some of its most representative members – still considered themselves Marxists, despite the numerous doctrinary incongruences with Marxism which will come into open a generation later[26]. The young rebels made use of a ‘correct radical style in dress, speech and general attitude’, of equal importance for them as their ideology. Nihilists usually were condescending in their speeches and conversations and displayed a ‘casual attitude towards dress and appearance, if not downright eccentricity’ which created a sober and austere impression. Nihilist women were highly emancipated for that period, wearing ‘short hair, drab clothing’, smoking and going to all kind of public spectacles. ‘Nihilists denied not only the traditional role of women, but also the family, property, religion, art – in a word, all of the traditional aspects of culture and society’. It was this vehement denial the ‘conservative press’ indefatigable condemned and ridiculed that they owe their name to[27].

            Perhaps the best known nihilist was Dmitri Pisarev, a young literary critic. Striving to replace the humanistic materialism of Belinski and Herzen with a presumably Marxist scientific materialism, Pisarev insisted upon ‘rational agriculture’ as a means of advancement towards social prosperity and civilization, a goal obliterated by the ruling elites who did not benefited from the emancipation of the ‘masses’[28]. Rationality in general, not only in agricultural matters, was to be achieved through a proper education in natural sciences[29]. Following the positivist trend of the epoch, Pisarev insisted that social sciences will someday achieve the precision of natural sciences and help bring about the inevitable revolution. ‘It is very natural for astronomy and chemistry to have left long ago the fog of fantasy babbling, while social and economic doctrines still resemble the characteristic modes of astrology, chemistry, magic and obsolete theosophy. It is very likely that these cabalistic theories will someday mold themselves in pure scientific forms and in time influence practical life’, Pisarev firmly wrote[30].

            Another influential nihilist was Nikolay Chernyshevsky. His well-known novel, What is to be done?, which’s title was borrowed by Lenin half a century later for a not less known political strategy book – became a sort of Bible for the nihilist generation. The novel, not exactly exceeding in literary qualities, presents the story of a young woman, Vera Pavlovna, which got married and ran away only to escape her parents plan to marry someone who she did not love. Her husband, the young nihilist doctor Lopuhov, helps her start a tailor shop organized on egalitarian, socialist bases. The shop prospers, but Vera realizes she fell in love with Lopuhov’s best friend, Kirsanov. Proving an inflexible rationality, Lopuhov stages a fake suicide, allowing his wife and friend to form a couple. In a few years, he returns under a fake identity, marries someone else and maintains a close friendship with his former wife and her husband. Briefly, the figure of a fanatical, ascetic revolutionary appears that of Rahmetov[31], an incarnation of the ‘new man’ the nihilists treasured: highly devoted to his work, his personal interest coinciding with the public interest and his reason being in perfect harmony with his passions[32]. Considered by Adam Ulam ‘the real source of Bolshevism’ and ‘an ancestor of Soviet socialist realism’, Chernyshevsky took great precautions to conceal his political activity, using fake names and camouglaging as much as possible his ties with the revolutionary groups. Even so, he was arrested in 1862, after a series of devastating fires that ravaged Moscow and were thought to be the work of nihilists. Two years after, he was condemned to seven years o hard labor and exiled, being allowed to return to European Russia only after nineteen years[33].

            The end of the 1860s witnessed the progressive decay of nihilism. Mikhail Bakunin, a renowned Russian anarchist living abroad and hostile to Marx as well as, to a certain extent, to Herzen, arguing for an immediate and total revolution to abolish first of all the state, along with all other aspects of a civilization that only hampered humanity’s emancipation potential – befriended with Sergei Nechayev, a former school teacher who attempted to create a revolutionary organization in Russia. They wrote together The Revolutionary Catechism, portraying the ‘revolutionary’ as a ‘doomed man’ who ‘knows only one science, the science of destruction’. This was no longer nihilism, but terrorism. Nechayev was soon to be arrested for the murder of a ‘cell member’ he considered to by a spy. The whole affair inspired Dostoevsky to write his famous novel, The Possessed[34]. The next decade gave birth to intransigent and ruthless revolutionaries like Petr Tkachev who did not hesitate to contradict and ridicule Engels himself for expressing reservations regarding his rudimentary methods and emphasis placed on peasantry as the key to the future Russian revolution if guided by a small and determined revolutionary elite[35] – but also to a ‘mass movement’ which remained in history under the name ‘going to the people’. Herzen’s slogan, ‘To the people!’, inspired ‘hundreds of young people, girls as well as men’, to go into the countryside and spread ‘revolutionary ideas’ among the peasants. ‘No immediate results were achieved. Some peasants listened with sympathy, many were hostile, and most understood hardly anything of what they heard. The preachers were extremely conspicuous, and soon they were rounded up by the police’. 1611 arrests were made between 1873 and 1877, but ‘only a minority received prison sentences’. However, ‘many of those who were acquitted were afterwards deported by the police to remote provinces of European Russia and Siberia’ as ‘administrative exiles’[36].

            Despite the police’s efforts, not all the agitators could be arrested. The ones who escaped formed in 1874 the direct ancestor of the Bolshevik Party, Zemlea i Volya (Land and Liberty). Thoroughly organized around a ‘basic circle’ – all the local groups responded to it and it consisted from an administrative section (propaganda and ‘providing false papers for persons living illegally’), a second section responsible for relations with intelligentsia, another section for strengthening ties with urban workers and another one for agitation among peasants. The final and soon to become the most important section ‘was known as the “disorganizing section”, and was concerned with the rescue from prison of arrested comrades, assassination of government officials as reprisals for maltreatment of revolutionaries, and the detection and punishment of traitors or police spies’[37]. Zemlea I Volya failed to carry the revolutionary message to the peasants, recruiting more proselytes among the poor factory workers of small cities. The growing reliance on terrorist tactics and political assassinations prompted in 1879 a split within the organization. Georgi Plekhanov, the only authentic Russian Marxist theorist, along with the future Menshevik Pavel Axelrod, formed a new group, named Chorny Peredyel (Black Partition), which was against terrorist tactics and stressed the importance of peasants rather than workers for the social emancipation of Tsarist Russia; on the other hand, ‘The politically minded terrorists took the name People’s will (Narodnaya Volya), and made the assassination of the Tsar their main aim’. After a series of failed attempts, they will finally succeed in 1881[38]. But this outcome will also entail the political and also physical destruction of Narodnaya Volya, only several years after. During 1881 and 1894, 5851 people were arrested for connections with Narodnaya Volya, 27 executed and 342 received jail sentences or were exiled to labor camps. The rest manage obtain milder sentences[39]. But the intellectual and political movement that started with Herzen’s populist humanist, became increasingly radicalized with Pisarev and Chernyshevsky’s nihilism and finally degenerated into plain terrorism with the Zemlea y Volya and especially Narodnaya Volya movements was finally over.

            Among the Russian intelligentsia, Georgi Plekhanov was, as mentioned above, the single truly Marxist theorist. This may seem a bit odd for someone who placed the peasants above factory workers within the Russian revolutionary process, but Plekhanov was no populist: he simply argued, along with Marx, that the abolition of serfdom in 1861 pushed Russia, slowly, but surely, on the path of capitalist development. Peasants were to become workers, only after this metamorphosis could they accomplish the revolution. Populists, as we remember, strongly believed that Russia could avoid the capitalist phase and plunge directly into a peasant based socialism[40]. This is why Plekhanov strongly criticized populists for having not understood the scientific course of history, while in the same time acknowledging their important contributions to the revolutionary struggle. No revolutionary elite could ever replace the proletariat during the emancipatory task, and no isolated terrorist act or conspiracy could ever be considered part of a real ‘class-struggle’[41]. For him, even Herzen was a ‘semi-Slavophil’ because he insisted on a unique path of development for Russia which din not imply the capitalist stage[42]. Drawing a sharp distinction between Marxists and populists, Plekhanov stated:

            The distinction between us resides in the fact that, while the development of the actual economic relations estranges you more and more from your rural community ideals, we, due to the same development, we are getting more and more close to our communist ideals. You are like a man which, wanting to go north, got up in a train which takes him south; but we know our road and ride the historic train, which takes us full speed ahead to our goal. But you are surprised by our orientation, because you believe a socialist cannot look upon the development of the bourgeois mode of production with sympathy. But this is due to the fact that your logic is highly vernacular.

            You imagine that a socialist who wants to stay true to his ideals must hamper, everywhere, the development of capitalism. This time as well you reason in the most primitive way; to hamper the development of capitalism, you say, means to prejudice the interests of the entrepreneurs; and because their interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the workers, everything that damages capitalism benefits work. You do not even suspect that capitalism is opposed not only to the link which follows it in the chain of historic development, but also to the one that precedes it, that it fights not only against the revolutionary attempts of the proletariat, but also against the reactionary tendencies of nobility and of the petite bourgeoisie. You hate capital to death and are ready to attack it wherever and whenever. This zeal often makes you look with sympathy upon those defeats of capitalism that can benefit only to the reactionaries. In this case, the program of your ‘Russian’ ‘socialism’ coincides with the program of the German ‘social-conservatives’ and not a trace is left of its progressive tendencies. In order to avoid such pathetic metamorphoses you must, finally, appropriate the dialectic conception of history. You must support capitalism in its struggle against reaction and in the same time be the arch enemies of capitalism regarding its struggle against the future workers revolution. Only such a program is worthy of a party which considers itself the representative of the most progressive aspirations of its time. To situate yourself on this point of view you must abandon your actual intermediary position between different classes and fuse with the workers[43].

            Plekhanov’s writings is what compelled Russian socialists to make the distinction between populism and Marxism[44], although Marx was well known and appreciated within Russia especially since his major work, the first volume of the Capital, was published in Moscow in 1872. Curiously enough, although Marx’s previous books were banned from the Tsarist Empire, the censors were certain that this time the dimensions of the volume and the dense and difficult prose would discourage potential readers[45]. But until 1884, when not only Marx’s but Adam Smith’s books as well were ‘banned from public libraries’[46], it was already too late. The book was a major success, selling 3000 copies over a year, while the German first edition of 1000 copies was sold in five years. Dialectically enough, ‘Slavophiles and Populists both welcomed the book as an exposé of the horrors of the Western capitalist system, which they wanted Russia to avoid’[47].

            At the end of the 19^th century, the Russian revolutionary movement lost in strength but gained in diversity. Populism was resuscitated by the Socialist revolutionary Party in 1896. They will soon obtain a substantial influence among the villages, even if they did not renounce the terrorist tactics put into use two decades earlier[48]. They will govern with the Bolsheviks until 1918 when, for opposing the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany which ended the war for Russia with major territorial costs but allowed Lenin and his followers to preserve Russia’s new political organization – they will be executed, imprisoned or exiled, and their party banished.

            Officially, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party held its first Congress in 1898. Two years after, the so-called ‘legal Marxists’ separated and after the 1905 revolution created the Constitutional Party (the Kadets). The Kadets shared a social-liberal ideology, arguing for universal vote and a parliamentary republic, an aspiration which they abandoned in 1906 for constitutional monarchy. Needless to say, both the social-democrats and the Tsarist political elite looked upon them with mistrust or even hostility[49]. Their intellectual mentor, Peter Struve, was criticized by Plekhanov since the beginning of the 1890s for his thesis that in the capitalist society contradictions do not grow, as Marx predicted, but on the contrary, they are softened – and for his appeals to social reforms rather than revolution[50].

            But the most important split that affected Russian social democracy consumed itself in 1903 during the second party Congress when between the moderate and radical tendencies existent among its members occurred a breach that will never be overcome. The maximalists Bolsheviks, in favor of transforming the party into a disciplined organization composed strictly of devoted and unscrupulous revolutionaries were outvoted at first by the minimalist faction, the Mensheviks, who advocated for a not so restrictive definition. The factional struggle which arose was not so much principled as it was personal: both the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin and the Menshevik leader Dan Martov sought to expand their influence and place their collaborators in key positions[51]. Soon after, Lenin managed to obtain a fragile and temporary majority and imposed his viewpoints. He ‘called his group the “majoritarians” (boslheviki), and his opponents the “minoritarians” (mensheviki)’[52]. Due to the weakness of the party in the provinces, although the Mensheviks held their first separate Congress in 1912, both factions worked together under the social-democratic label. But the events will growingly push them apart, despite hopes of reunification coming from both sides[53]. Although the Mensheviks considered themselves ‘rather orthodox than reformists in the Marxist European sense’[54], they were, however, ‘democrats by instinct, and their actions as revolutionaries were always held back by the moral scruples which this entailed. This was not true of the Bolsheviks. They were simpler and younger men, militant peasant-workers (…); doers rather than thinkers’[55].

Instead of conclusions: European social-democracy and Bolshevism, two incompatible intellectual and political traditions

The Bolshevik dictatorship was strongly criticized by prominent European social-democrats. Even at the end of the 19^th century, Eduard Bernstein argued that democracy and socialism are inseparable and the present cultural and economic conditions allow a non-violent transition to a broader degree of social emancipation[56]. Marx’s writings needed to be extensively revised: capitalism had gradually managed to overcome profound crises and the social polarization which would bring about the revolution was replaced by a growing social and political conscious middle class[57]. Democracy also entails a culture of moderation and compromise because ‘the parties and the classes supporting them soon learn to recognize the limits of their power and, on each occasion, to undertake as much as they reasonably hope to achieve under the circumstances’. Furthermore, ‘the right to vote in a democracy makes its members virtual partners in the community and this virtual partnership must in the end lead to real partnership. With a working class underdeveloped by in numbers and culture, universal suffrage may for a long while seem no more than the right to choose “the butcher” .However, as the workers grow in number and awareness, it becomes an instrument for transforming the peoples representatives from being the masters to being the real servants of the people’[58]. Bernstein insists that Marx’s works are not to be interpreted as a dogma and that those who rely on the final goal of the socialist movement (abolition of capitalism) rather than its movement (meaning practical achievements) are nothing more than utopians: Marx’s writings were sometimes ambiguous and ‘what deserves to survive’ from its legacy is rather the questions he asked and the social awareness he helped create, not his deterministic dialectic and his coercive philosophy of history[59].

            The ruthless methods of Bolsheviks, who suppressed critical thinking and freedom of speech in the name of party discipline and who did not hesitate to impose a brutal an violent dictatorship in Russia, similar in many respects with the one they have overthrown, worried Eduard Bernstein. He called this model ‘Blanquist Marxism’ (August Blanqui was a French socialist and political activist admired by Lenin who sought destroy the bourgeois society through a violent revolution put into practice not by the working class, but by a devoted and fanatic group of revolutionaries) – and condemned it in harsh and unambiguous terms: ‘The Bolsheviks are the true counter-revolutionaries in Europe; they will kill the socialist revolution. Their interpretation of Marxist theories on the dictatorship of the proletariat is absolutely false. They have known only how to create an army commanded by the officers of the Tsar and intended to combat the will of the people. Their rule is the rule of corruption. (…). Bolshevism leads directly to the decadence of humanity’. Regarding the extreme repressiveness of Bolsheviks against other socialists or social-liberal currents (like the above mentioned Socialist Revolutionaries or the Kadets) or against Russian workers themselves, the revolts of which have been promptly and mercilessly crushed, Bernstein wrote:

The Bolshevist government was the first socialist regime that had peacefully demonstrating workers shot down with machine guns. The Bolshevik government was the first to simply lock up socialists of other persuasions – Socialists who are not putschists, but who were robbed of their rights outside the law and in breach of the law, repeating in all this things previously done by reactionary governments. In Russia Socialists, comrades who were at many international congresses and who have fought for socialism all their lives, are locked up and robbed of their rights… We need only to read the Bolsheviks’ own reports, we need only to read their government’s own statistics on the state of finances and social life as a whole, to see that a rotten, fraudulent system is at the helm, a system that compromises itself further by trying, after having bankrupted its own country, to pull other countries into this bankruptcy[60].

Another powerful critic of Bolshevism, although from a more orthodox Marxist position, was Rosa Luxemburg. She insisted that the actions of the political party who represent the workers cannot be separated from the general movement for social emancipation. Furthermore, the ‘strong tendency towards centralization’ she observed in the Bolshevik Party meant that ‘it did not count on the direct action of the working class. It therefore, did not need to organize the people for the revolution. The people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the little group of revolutionists armed for the coup. Indeed, to assure the success of the revolutionary conspiracy, it was considered wiser to keep the mass at some distance from the conspirators’[61]. Lenin did not take into account that the leading organs of the party were also, to some extent, conservative, thus their exacerbated power obliterating future political tasks. Lenin’s aim was to control the party, not to help its development. He also ‘mechanically’ extrapolated ‘to Russia formulae elaborated in Western Europe’, not taking into account Russia’s specific social and economic conditions. The elitism, opportunism, dictatorial practices and betray of social-democracy by Bolsheviks was for Rosa Luxemburg an undeniable reality: ‘Nothing will more surely enslave a young labor movement to an intellectually elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straitjacket, which will immobilize the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a central committee’[62].

Karl Kautsky was another prominent adversary of Bolshevism. For him, ‘Socialism without democracy is unthinkable. We understand by Modern Socialism not merely social organization of production, but democratic organization of society as well. Accordingly, Socialism is for us inseparably connected with democracy’[63]. The Bolsheviks were accused of being ruthless, hypocrite and opportunistic politicians who managed to retain power by renouncing the principles they were supposedly guided by: ‘To reach power they have renounced the democratic principles. To maintain their power they did the same with the socialist principles’. Kautsky finally concludes that ‘Bolshevism has triumphed in Russia, but socialism has suffered a defeat’. By replacing ‘private capitalism’ with ‘state capitalism’ Bolshevism only strengthened the arbitrariness of bureaucracy, an outcome described by Kautsky as being ‘the most oppressive despotism Russia had ever known’ and placing the workers under ‘the greatest economic slavery they have ever endured’[64]. Under Bolshevik dominance, Russia’s social and educational decay was a reality, a program which had nothing to do with Marx’s project[65]. ‘Only fascist Italy may be compared to Russia in this respect’, Kautsky opines, before generally concluding that a generation later, in the 1930s,

What we see in Russia is, therefore, not Socialism, but its antithesis. It can become Socialism only when the people expropriate the expropriators now in power, to use a Marxian expression. Thus, the socialist masses of Russia find themselves with respect to the problem of control of the means of production in the same situation which confronts the workers in capitalist countries. The fact that in Russia the expropriating expropriators call themselves Communists makes not the slightest difference. The difference between Soviet Russia and Western Europe is that the workers in the developed capitalist countries are already strong enough to have limited to some extent the dictatorship of capital and to have altered the power relations to a point which makes the socialization of important economic monopolies a matter of the political victory of the workers in the near future, whereas in Russia the means of production are highly concentrated in one hand and their ownership protected by an absolutist state machine, while the workers, being divided, without organization of their own, without a free press or free elections, are completely shorn of any means of resistance[66].

This is how Bolshevism looked to the European social-democrats. Even the most radical amongst them, such as Rosa Luxemburg, who did not renounce the aim of replacing the ‘bourgeois’ democracy existent in the capitalist society with a democracy which would not be only an expression of class struggle and a means of oppression of workers by a conservative elite – criticized Lenin and his political organization for its intolerable departure from the principles of socialism[67]. Had they been alive at the beginning of the 20^th century, Marx and Engels would certainly not have considered Bolshevism a variety of socialism. Their radical democracy, growing more and more tempered as decades went by, is, as I have tried to prove in this article, a product of Enlightenment, while Bolshevism is the outcome of a degenerated form of populism, namely the nihilists and the terrorist sects which formed the majority of the Russian intelligentsia during the 1870s and the 1880s. The test of socialism is the test of democracy, real, immediate, palpable democracy; this is what really sets apart socialism from communism[68]. Without it, socialism cannot exist, although the history of the 20^th century abounds in sectarian, non-democratic terrorist and criminal groups which called themselves socialist. Indeed, as Karl Kautsky wrote in a posthumous work, ‘The fundamental aim of the Communists of every country is not the destruction of capitalism but the destruction of democracy and of the political and economic organizations of the workers’[69].

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Overcrowding in Italian Jails. A Quantitative Analysis of Foreigners

(Supraaglomerarea în închisorile italiene. O analiză cantitativă asupra străinilor)

Stefania GIRONE

Francesca De PALMA

     Abstract: Victims of prison-overcrowding in Italy are part of a structural and systemic problem which is still struggling to find plausible solutions. When natives and foreigners are separately considered, the overcrowding phenomenon assumes a perspective that goes beyond the mere Italian attribute and, therefore, better focalises on the ones who, having the status of foreigner,  are somehow in a weaker position in comparison with the native ones. As a matter of fact, the combination  foreign prisoner-overcrowding has allowed to address the prison issue in accordance with a more specific approach that compares the Italian native component and the foreign one. This highlights that the overcrowding phenomenon in Italy is not an aspect suffered mainly by foreign prisoners, but it is equally endured by most of the native ones. Additionally, this analysis takes into account, on the one hand, the most outstanding foreign nationalities housed in Italian prisons and, on the other hand, the Regions having the highest rates of overcrowding, foreign inmates, and prison capacities. The outcomes reveal that Moroccans, Romanians, Tunisians and Albanians are the ones at increased risk of prison overcrowding since, in fact, they represent 60.0% of the total foreign presence in the Italian jails. However, there is a sort of “equal overcrowding distress” that comes out of this context: actually, the four major foreign presences are housed at the same percentage by the six selected Regions (the most overcrowded by foreigners), circumstance that generates a kind of homogeneity of the unlivable conditions in prisons.

     Keywords: Italianprisons, inmates, overcrowding, migration.

            Europe calls on Italy to address prison overcrowding

     Prison population in Italy has had a sharp increase in recent years, phenomenon that can generally be attributed to the crisis of the welfare state and the corresponding – fair or unfair – criminal responses made in relation to security issues. Undoubtedly, in this circumstances, the weakest human categories are the ones that pay the utmost costs since they have to face greater difficulties in accessing rights and guarantees offered by the social system. Foreigners are fully-fledged placed in the above categories as, in fact, they are included by the UN in the category of people with special needs[1].

     Regardless the complications of making international comparisons (due to different legal systems and different statistical methods), there are some common traits found among the conditions of detainees in general and foreigners in particular. Specifically referring to foreigners, there are lots of problems related to the lack and/or the restraint of communication (mainly due to language obstacles), knowledge of legal rights, adequate legal assistance, Embassy or Consular support, health care and psychiatric care, employment and training opportunities (both inside and outside jails), know-how of management of foreigners by prison staff, family contacts and/or friendships outside the jail system, access to alternative measures to imprisonment, and so on.

     Nonetheless, scholars and politicians keep calling into question those causes and implications link to the sharp increase of foreigners in European prisons. Recent data[2] show that the foreign population in the EU prisons reached almost 120 thousand units, that is, about 20.0% of the total prisoners (over 631 thousand units made up of natives and foreigners). Taking into account the single member States, foreign inmates have – in percentage terms – a significant impact in Luxembourg (representing around 70.0% of total prisoners), Cyprus and Greece (close to 60.0%). However, the greatest incidences – in absolute terms – are found in Italy and Spain (more than 23,000 foreign prisoners in each country), Germany (around 17,500) and France (about 12,000) .

     The theme chosen by the Authors comes from their strong scientific interest in Migration, phenomenon that is inevitably leading to significant changes in the Italian demographic and socio-economic scene. Besides that, their attention on the combination foreigners-inmates has proved to be particularly significant, especially after the recent sentence imposed on Italy by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, on the issue concerning the overcrowding in Italian prisons.

     Indeed, the Strasbourg Court has called on Italy to address overpopulation in prisons as the overcrowding rate (O_v = P_p / P_c *100)^[3] reached 142.5% in November 2012^[4] and, though slightly declined, kept the alarming level of 139.9% in March 2013, that is, far exceeding the European one (99.6%). In other words, the above percentages tell that the whole 206 prisons located Italy were housing 140 inmates for every 100 places of standard capacity.

     Ultimately, the Strasbourg Court took the decision to reject the final appeal advanced by Italy and, consequently, adopted the former request of the European Court of Human Rights^[5] which obliges the Italian country to rapidly resolve prison overcrowding (within a year from May 27^th 2013) and provide for compensation the prisoners who are victims of that situation.

The prison population contained by the Italian country

     As already said above, Italy has some of the worst prison overcrowding in Europe, with a current total prison population of 65,831 units, which is 18,786 people above capacity (DAP^[6], 2013, Tab. 1).

Table 1: Inmates, regulatory capacity and overcrowding in Italian prisons by Region of detention.  March 31^st 201.  Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

*The inmates in day-release are totaled in the number of prisoners.

     Among the prisoners housed in the Italian jails, there are great quotas of males (women do not exceed 4.3%) and foreigners^[7] (35.6% of the total inmates are foreigners, unlike the 20.0% share held by the European Union).

     According to DAP statistical information (updated  to March 31^st  2013, Fig. 1), the prison population is concentrated in the regional territories of Lombardy (9,289), Campania (8,296), Lazio (7,231) and Sicily (7,081), thus collecting nearby 50.0% of the total inmates in the country. The Regions detaining the smallest numbers of prisoners are Valle d’Aosta and Trentino Alto Adige (181 and 280 units, respectively).

Figure 1: Territorial distribution of total population detained in the Italian prisons.                March 31^st 2013. Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

     However, as prison population is split into natives and foreigners, it’s interesting to observe that the former ones are mostly gathered in the South of the country while the latter ones, in the North. More specifically, the Regions housing large amounts of Italian inmates are Campania, Sicily, Lombardy, Lazio, Apulia and Calabria. Among the regional areas with great numbers of foreigners stand out, instead, Tuscany, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Piedmont. Yet, in both Lombardy and Lazio, the quota of native prisoners is quite significant as the foreign one (Fig. 2).

     Several regional areas show strong foreign traits: as a matter of fact, only seven Regions (Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Apulia and Sicily) have a percentage of foreign inmates below the national average (that is, 35.6%).

     Even though the quota of foreign prisoners is quite high in Valle d’Aosta and Trentino Alto Adige (areas where ¾ of the total prisoners are foreigners), the foreign overrepresentation may certainly have greater impact in Regions with bigger capacity. Veneto,  Liguria, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Piedmont are regional areas where, indeed, foreigner inmates exceed 50.0% of the respective total detained population (Tab. 1, Fig. 2).

    Figure 2:Territorial distribution of the (native and foreign) population detained

in the Italian prisons. March 31^st 2013. Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

     As table 1 shows, prison overcrowding is an unlivable condition that, except for Basilicata and Sardinia, spares no Italian Region. Besides, only nine Regions are placed below the national overcrowding threshold (O_v = 139.9%), which means that 61.2% (that is, 40,309 units) of the total inmates is deeply affected by overcrowding (Fig. 3).

     The territorial analysis points out that only two Regions (Apulia and Campania) cause strong unlivable-suffering for native prisoners while, instead, six Regions (Liguria, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Valle d’Aosta, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino Alto Adige) do the same for foreign detainees (Tab. 2).

     However, by observing the different overcrowding rates of the above Regions, it looks like that the living-discomfort tolerated by foreigners may be less threatening than the one suffered by the Italians in Campania and Apulia. Yet, in Lombardy and Lazio, overcrowding is (more or less) equally underwent by both natives and foreigners.

Figure 3: Prison Overcrowding inItalian  Regions according to the National

Average (139,9%). March 31^st 2013. Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

Table 2:Inmates in Italian prisons by Regions with great O_v (above national average = 139,9%). March 31^st 2013. Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

Foreigners housed in the Italian prisons

     This analytical focus on foreign detainees perfectly fits the progressive increase of immigrants in Italy, phenomenon that – following the widespread trend of the Western world[8] – is inevitably leading to significant changes in both demographic and socio-economic scenes[9]. 

     According to table 3, among the foreigners caged in the Italian prisons, there is a clear prevalence of Africans (49.0% of the total foreign prisoners), most of all coming from the Maghreb area (35.8%). They are followed by Europeans – members of EU (20.7%) and non (19.9%) – and then Americans and Asians who are certainly less (respectively 5.7% and 4.9%).

     Moreover, in the above context does not go unnoticed the high percentage of Nigerian females imprisoned, trait that is almost negligible in the other African countries.

     The most outstanding nationalities[10] among the foreign inmates are the Moroccan (19.0%), the Romanian (15.8%), the Tunisian (12.5%) and the Albanian (12.3%) ones, which all together sum 60.0% of the total, that is, nearby 14,000 of the whole foreigners housed in Italian prisons (23,436 units).

Table 3 – Foreign prisoners by geographical area of origin. March 31^st 2013.

Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

     As shown in figure 4, the four most representative foreign nationalities are differently distributed in the Italian territory:

Figure 4:Territorial distribution of the most outstanding foreign nationalities

(Moroccan, Romanian, Tunisian and Albanian) in Italian prisons.

March 31^st 2013. Source: authors’ processing based on DAP data.

a) Moroccan prisoners are mainly concentrated in the area of Lombardy, Tuscany and Piedmont;

b) Romanian detainees are most of all located in Lazio. Yet, their lesser extend presence in Lombardy and Piedmont cannot be completely ignored;

c) Tunisian inmates are the most spread on whole Italian land. As a matter of fact, they are housed in Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Veneto;

d) the Albanian ones are essentially hold in Lombardy and Tuscany.

     The Italian Regions gathering significant presence of all four nationalities (that means more than 1,000 units) are Lombardy (2,358), Tuscany (1,540), Lazio (1,476), Piedmont (1,439), Veneto (1,262) and  Emilia Romagna (1,254).

     At this point, in order to deepen the study on the four major foreign nationalities, it has been taken into account only those Regions featuring the following traits in their own penitentiary structure:

     1) a very high overcrowding rate, that is, above the national average (139.9%);

     2) a relevant share of foreign inmates, higher than the national one (35,6%);

     3) a considerable prison capacity (above 1,000 standard places)[11].

     By doing so, as tables 4a and 4b show, it has been identified the six Regions (Lombardy, Lazio, Emilia Romagna, Veneto, Liguria and Marche) where the most outstanding foreign prisoners (Moroccans, Romanians, Tunisians and Albanians) may “extremely” suffer of unlivable-overcrowding. Specifically, the outcomes reveal that each Region of the ones mentioned above:

a) holds a considerable amount of foreign inmates of all four nationalities, aggregates that range from nearby 50.0% in Lazio to 67.0% in Emilia Romagna (Tab. 4a);

b) causes “equal overcrowding distress” to each foreign group. Basically, since the four major foreign presences are hold by the six Regions at quite the same percentage (ranging from 52.3% for Moroccans to 54.6 for Romanians), it is certainly fair to say that there is a kind of “prison unlivable homogeneity” among the four nationalities. Likewise, a fifty-fifty discomfort can be found even among each single nationality (Tab. 4b).