Armando Cossutta

Armando Cossutta
Member of the European Parliament
In office
20 July 1999 – 19 July 2004
ConstituencyNorth-West Italy
President of the Party of Italian Communists
In office
11 October 1998 – 21 June 2006
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byAntonino Cuffaro
Secretary of the Party of Italian Communists
In office
11 October 1998 – 29 April 2000
PresidentHimself
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOliviero Diliberto
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
14 April 1994 – 27 April 2006
ConstituencyTuscany (1994–1996)
Campania 1 (1996–2001)
Marche (2001–2006)
President of the Communist Refoundation Party
In office
12 December 1991 – 11 October 1998
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice disestablished
President of the Parliamentary Committee for Regional Affairs
In office
26 October 1983 – 1 July 1987
Preceded byEnzo Modica [it]
Succeeded byAugusto Barbera
Member of the Senate of the Republic
In office
25 May 1972 – 14 April 1994
ConstituencyLombardy
In office
27 April 2006 – 28 April 2008
ConstituencyEmilia-Romagna
Personal details
Born(1926-09-02)2 September 1926
Milan, Italy
Died14 December 2015(2015-12-14) (aged 89)
Rome, Italy
Political partyPCI (1943–1991)
PRC (1991–1998)
PdCI (1998–2007)
Other political
affiliations		GUE/NGL (1999–2004)
OccupationJournalist, politician

Armando Cossutta (2 September 1926 – 14 December 2015) was an Italian communist politician. After World War II, Cossutta became one of the leading members of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), representing the most pro-Soviet Union tendency;[1] his belief in that country as the leading Communist state led him to criticize Enrico Berlinguer. Later in life, although he did not regret the choice he made, Cossutta considered that he was mistaken in opposing Berlinguer.[2]

Opposed to Achille Occhetto's 1991 proposal to dissolve the PCI,[3][4] Cossutta founded, together with Sergio Garavini, Nichi Vendola, and others, the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC),[1] of which he became the president.[5][6][7] When Fausto Bertinotti, the PRC leader, voted against a motion of confidence to the 1996 government of Romano Prodi, Cossutta opposed his stance, and left the PRC along with Oliviero Diliberto and others to found the Party of Italian Communists (PdCI).[3] Afterwards, Cossutta was president of the PdCI and a member of the Italian Parliament. He also served as a member of the European Parliament during the Fifth European Parliament term (1999–2004).[3]

Cossutta was targeted for decades by political opponents, including allegations that he personally received Soviet money and of being a KGB spy, both of which had been viewed with scepticism or were dismissed in two parliamentary commissions (one by the centre-right coalition in 2002, the other by the centre-left coalition in 2006) about the Mitrokhin Archive, one of the main sources of the allegations, which was also viewed with scepticism; a Supreme Court of Cassation ruling held that it was defamatory to refer to him as a Soviet spy, and awarded him damages.[1][3] Cossutta never renounced communism. He never hid or regretted his role, and claimed its legitimacy in a bipolar world, in which all involved parties, from the United States to the Soviet Union, had their international lenders.[8]

  1. ^ a b c Di Nicola, Primo (15 December 2015). "La morte di Armando Cossutta: 'Ero, sono e resterò sempre un comunista'". Il Fatto Quotidiano (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  2. ^ "Armando Cossutta: 'Io comunista non mi pento di niente'". L'Unità (in Italian). 20 September 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d "È morto Armando Cossutta". Il Post (in Italian). 15 December 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  4. ^ Aversa, Aurelio (15 December 2015). "Armando Cossutta, il ruolo dei comunisti nel nostro paese, il Pci e la svolta del segretario Occhetto della primavera 90, i radicali". Radio Radicale (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  5. ^ Boucek, Françoise (2012). Factional Politics: How Dominant Parties Implode or Stabilize. Amsterdam: Springer. p. 1992. ISBN 978-1-137-28392-4.
  6. ^ "Addio ad Armando Cossutta". L'Espresso (in Italian). 15 December 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  7. ^ Charalambous, Giorgos (2016). European Integration and the Communist Dilemma: Communist Party Responses to Europe in Greece, Cyprus and Italy. London: Routledge. p. 200. ISBN 978-1-3171-3950-8.
  8. ^ Dell'Arti, Giorgio; Furfaro, Simone (17 December 2015). "Biografia di Armando Cossutta". Cinquantamila.it (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2023.