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I watched the young woman, and next to her, the journalist. "Don't you see this as a defeat?", he asked. I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean.

"You've organised this great conference, but in America, the security council has voted to support the US, without a single abstention. The war's coming". It's true, she said. But if we're going to stop war, there's only one way to do it, by mass protests, in the streets, and that's what we're doing. Another participant at the European Social Forum, from Britain's Stop the War coalition, had his own answer. What the UN vote tells us, he said, is that the most important divides in society are between classes, not nations.

On one point, though, the pressman was right - the conference had been special. Organised in conscious imitation of the World Social Forum meetings held each year in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the European Social Forum in Florence brought together some sixty thousand activists from all over Europe. The weekend anti-war demo pulled anything up to one million people. Without anyone consciously planning it, the left has learned to re-invent the nineteenth-century tactics of classical social democracy. We meet in huge international conferences to plan the future. The only difference now is that no decisions are recorded. Not yet, anyway.

Are we watching the left finally rebuild itself? A friend asked me this, as we crossed the city. It was easy to think so, especially on Saturday's huge protest. José Bové was there, sharing his tractor with one of the leading stewards from threatened FIAT. There were contingents from ATTAC in France and North Africa, a dozen Italian unions, flags in a dozen colours, delegates from the thirty-plus countries that had attended the conference.

As we marched through residential areas, signing a pidgin mix of Italian, French, German, English and Dutch, people gathered at the balconies to wave us forward. One woman even threw small white flowers at the feet of the marchers from her window. Perhaps we reminded her of a previous liberation.

A similar mood of hope excited those within the conference. The leaders of such mass organisations as the union network COBAS and Communist Refoundation must have passed a signal to their militants. Discuss by all means, don't even be afraid to criticise, but no sectarianism. For the most part, the advice worked. Yet the tentative alliance of international anti-capitalism was diminished by certain absentees. There were fewer NGOs than I expected. Anarchists were represented around the cultural events, but not so much in the conference halls.

While some parts of the left are finally growing in confidence, other movements are also stirring. Belusconi told shop-keepers to close rather than see their businesses looted. One local paper, Firenze Nazionale, warned a similar constituency of "L'Invasione Blac Bloc". By Saturday, the British delegation was discussing the high BNP vote in Downham. Turkish delegates had their own election to report, an Islamist landslide, and three ultra-nationalist parties in the top six.

In Florence. tension was close. Passing time in a cafe, I watched two groups of Italians square up. "Troublemakers!", one group shouted - "fascists!" the others roared back. The Mayor welcomed the Social Forum to his city, offering all delegates a fifteen percent discount in the local museums and galleries. Such was his power. The entrance to the Duomo was flanked, though, by armed police, sent by the minister of the interior. The Corriere della Sera showed snipers guarding the doors of the Uffizi. And of course, Bush had his mandate, as the journalist told us.

How to stop the US war on Iraq? Some sections of the Italian left propose sending human rights observers, following tactics used in Palestine. One organising meeting was used to plan a European-wide protest demo. The British thought this should happen in February, while others wanted it earlier. My feeling is that most anti-capitalists underestimate - as ever - the casual brutality of which our rulers are capable. The left must be optimistic and idealistic, Florence was about us showing our best face. But while we meet, others plan. I am fearful.