On December 7 and 8, Potere al Popolo (Power to the People, PaP) convened 180 delegates at the Social Center “Intifada” in Rome to outline programmatic guidelines aimed at shaping a radically different society. Over the two days, participants built upon six years of the organization’s activity, discussing key issues and defining PaP’s future direction.
Delegates addressed PaP’s organizational structure and its approach to three key themes: labor and immigration, wealth redistribution, and ecology. These discussions were informed by regional consultations, ensuring grassroots input into the new program, which is set to be finalized in 2025. “This is because our program must be able to give concrete solutions to concrete problems and show a new model of society,” the organization stated.
Against the backdrop of relentless attacks on labor rights and solidarity under Meloni’s far-right government, the assembly sought to envision a society rooted in participation, equity, and care. PaP described a vision of a society that could be “wonderful,” adding: “If only socially produced wealth were distributed and enjoyed socially, if only war and environmental devastation were replaced by cooperation and care for the ecosystem and life itself.”
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Over the past years, PaP has consistently supported workers’ struggles across Italy, points out the organization’s spokesperson Giuliano Granato. This includes a recent strike organized by the trade union USB (Unione Sindacale di Base) in multiple sectors on December 13. As with previous demonstrations since Giorgia Meloni became prime minister, trade unions and activists rallied against divisive and racist policies eroding solidarity and unity in the country. The Meloni government has introduced measures that undermine migrants’ basic human rights, deepen existing socioeconomic inequalities between northern and southern Italy, and aim to impose severe restrictions on the right to protest.
In response, a key priority for the left in Italy is to unmask and counter the far-right administration’s agenda. But PaP’s ambitions go beyond preserving the status quo, according to Granato. “We need to look up, transform our organizations into forces for change, rather than merely preserving the existing situation,” he told Peoples Dispatch.
“We are living in a time when workers are generating unprecedented wealth, offering the potential to free up more time. Yet, we remain oppressed by capital and its relentless logic. This is what we must overturn, placing the world back in the hands of those who sustain it every single day,” says Granato.
As PaP activists develop their program rooted in concrete experiences, they remain tenacious enough to envision the possibilities that could emerge from successful labor and solidarity struggles. “Lenin spoke of the need to dare to dream,” Granato concludes. “Dreams rooted in reality, constantly confronting observation of reality. Dreams that serve because when ideas take hold of human beings they themselves become a material force for changing the balance in our societies.”
