On Saturday, March 31, about 15,000 people marched through the streets of Milan on the "Occupy Piazza Affari" demo. Piazza Affari is the Italian stock exchange and the demo was the first national protest against the national unity government headed by Mario Monti.

The national congress of the PRC, Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, is taking place this coming weekend, December 2-4. After moving left at the previous congress, the leadership have moved back to the idea of some kind of alliance involving the Democratic Party. The Marxists have opposed this and produced an opposition document for the congress, receiving a substantial amount of support within the ranks of the party. Here we provide a report on the intervention of the Marxists in the local congresses and a shortened version of their congress document in English.

Berlusconi has lost his majority in the lower house of the Italian parliament. Although he won a vote on the latest round of austerity measures included in the budget, he did so with less than half the votes of the MPs in parliament. The result of the vote was 308 in favour, 1 abstention, but with the majority of MPs not voting. This means the budget was approved but now Berlusconi stands naked having lost his parliamentary majority. His days are numbered and the pressure is mounting for him to go.

On October 15 Rome saw one of the biggest demonstrations of the last few years in Italy. Up to half a million people flooded the streets of the capital. Not only was this a huge demonstration in terms of the numbers taking part, but even more significantly you could hear the most radical slogans of the last decade. The masses, inspired by Athens, Madrid and New York, chanted “we don’t want to pay the debt”, “No to austerity”, “No to the dictatorship of the ECB and the banks”, etc.

On Tuesday, September 6, hundreds of thousands of workers and youth flooded the streets of more than 100 Italian towns and cities, answering the call for an 8-hour general strike made by the CGIL, the main trade union confederation.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the demonstrations against the G8 in Genoa. Those demonstrations are still remembered today because of the brutal repression by the police and the forces of the state, which led to the murder of Carlo Giuliani.