Antonio Maillo, elected new leader of IU, usually refers to the case of Italy in his political analyses. He also does so when he takes pains to explain his project to some of his colleagues, especially to those who are most skeptical about the processes of confluence, a word that today arouses suspicion at Izquierda Unida. “We must avoid the scenario of the left in Italy. We are on time,” he wrote in X in April, shortly before confirming his candidacy for IU leadership. On Tuesday, after being elected president with 53.4% of the vote, he pushed for one interview with El PAÍS, with the risk of 'Italianization' and 'a disintegrated left'. So at the IU meeting to be held this weekend in Madrid, Maíllo will become general coordinator of the federation with the firm idea of avoiding the self-destructive mistakes of the Italian left since the 1990s. And with a model that, in his opinion, represents a total contrast to the Italian situation: the trade union Comisiones Obreras.

Although in 2019 resigned as coordinator of IU in Andalusia In order to return to teaching high school, Maíllo never lost sight of IU life. Not only has he maintained informal contact, but since the last meeting, in 2021, he has been part of the collegiate board, the body for the daily management of IU, albeit without a specific area assigned to it. However, he did not consider a return to the front lines until he saw a “temptation to withdraw” at IU, explains a leader close to the new leader. That's when he decides to take a step forward in what he calls an “ethical obligation,” and when his warning about what happened in Italy gains momentum, he adds.

But why so alert to 'Italianization'? The PCI, founded by Antonio Gramsci, among others, was a reference for its colleagues in the West after the end of the Second World War and for decades. Not only because of its militancy, which amounted to more than two million membership cards, but also because of its social porosity and cultural influence. In 1984, just forty years ago, it became the party with the most votes in Italy in national elections, in this case the European one, on a day celebrated under the shock of the death of its historic leader Enrico Berlinguer. Then everything fell apart very quickly. In 1991, the result of a little-discussed theorization after the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to which the word “communist” itself was cursed, the PCI was disbanded.

Since then everything has been division, foundations and refoundations, dissolutions and nostalgia. The Democratic Party of the Left led by Achille Occhetto, the main person responsible for the dissolution of the PCI, was supposed to serve as a refuge for the bulk of the communists, but it failed. It was eventually transformed into left-wing democrats, merged with a diverse menu of movements and currents. There were PCI militants who chose the Communist Refoundation from the start, not relevant today. Over time, many ended up in the Democratic Party (PD), a heterogeneous formation founded in 2007 that remains the main reference for the center-left. On the left, several forces have emerged over the years, diffused and with little influence, which have ultimately closed down, poorly lived or been integrated into the PD.

“If you ask on the street today which party is to the left of the Democratic Party, the vast majority have no idea. It's impossible to follow. And this in a country where the PCI was almost everything,” says Andrea Donofrio, professor of the History of Political Thought at Complutense University, who specializes in Italian politics. The result, he adds, is greater progressive abstinence. “There is a very left electorate that is apathetic and disillusioned, orphaned,” he analyzes.

To Jaime Bordel, co-author of Salvini & Meloni. Children with the same angerwho knows transalpine politics deeply, the IU leader's fear seems 'logical', especially since for the Spanish communists of his generation – Maíllo was born in 1966 – the dissolution of the PCI and the subsequent 'disaster' 'a collective trauma.” “His words should sound like a warning of what can happen to the left that was much higher than the PCE ever achieved, to a PCI that was the backbone of society, and that, as a result of bad decisions and confrontations, went without references has been left mired in demoralization, confusion and self-referentiality. Today it is a left in which the majority leans towards a movement without institutional aspirations,” he summarizes.

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In and out

Maíllo, who insists he will complete the current academic year as a teacher, won against three candidates in the primaries. The main opponent was Sira Rego, Minister of Youth and Children (23.4%). Behind them were the IU coordinator in Madrid, Álvaro Aguilera (14.1%), and the member of the federal coordinator José Antonio García Rubio (8.3%). Maíllo's victory, with 4,463 votes, is clear but not overwhelming: between the support of his rivals and blank votes, that is almost half. The vote resulted in the election of the first 80 members of the federal coordinator, a majority of whom Maíllo will ratify on Sunday. Amendments to the political document who received more support, Left that was, is and will be. The final text will define IU's strategy.

Maíllo is assured of leadership, but not of calm. There is dissatisfaction within the organization about what is perceived by the IU in Sumar as a lack of awareness, both in terms of the division of responsibilities in Congress. on the European list, where Manu Pineda has moved to number four. Given these starting conditions, what will the political action of the new coordinator translate into to prevent “Italianization”?

According to the aforementioned leader, the new coordinator must “overcome the internal distrust of concurrence or even the temptation to go it alone again, which exists in part of IU as a result of the end of Unidas Podemos and the problems in Sumar.” And at the same time, it should promote “a change in the way Sumar works” that will better accommodate organizations, he adds. “Not only for IU, but also for us,” he concludes, rejecting the “caricature” according to the “IU will dissolve in Sumar” and recalling that Maíllo has been a member of IU since its foundation in 1986.

Another leader close to Maíllo sees his words about Italy as one message “inward” and another “outward.” The first, in IU, is “against the temptation of isolation”; the second, for the entire space, “against platform parties and without roots, against haste and lack of consistency in projects.” “There are certain mantras of the new politics that need to be overcome,” he says.

At the doors of the meeting, Maíllo avoids any message that seems directed at anyone, inside or outside IU. “I emphasize the risk of fragmentation, the cause of which is a neoliberal inoculation in our own organizations that encourages the direction of individualism over the collective, while we have a very high percentage of ideas in common,” explains Maíllo, who feels part of a generation of communists marked by the death of the PCI and do not forget that Italy shows that the irreversible defeat of the alternative left is not an unthinkable hypothesis.

Faced with this Italian 'counter-model', the chosen coordinator gives CC OO as an example to follow: 'Si Commissions is the largest social organization in Spain, with well over a million membersIt is because of its plurality, because it is united, because the one who loses in a congress does not leave and create a new union, because the one who wins knows how to be the majority and the one who loses is the minority. Without that, the Commissions would not have the social power and political impact that they do.” Maíllo aspires to this for IU and for his fellow travelers, although he realizes that he is not the first to set that goal.