Italian Communist Party

For the minor party established in 2016, see Italian Communist Party (2016).
"Communist Party of Italy" redirects here. For the party founded in 2014, see Communist Party of Italy (2014).

Italian Communist Party
Partito Comunista Italiano
AbbreviationPCI
Secretary
President
Founded21 January 1921; 103 years ago (21 January 1921)[a]
Dissolved3 February 1991; 33 years ago (1991-02-03)
Split fromItalian Socialist Party
Succeeded by
HeadquartersVia delle Botteghe Oscure 4, Rome
Newspaperl'Unità
Youth wingItalian Communist Youth Federation
Membership (1947)2,252,446
Ideology
Political positionLeft-wing
National affiliation
European Parliament group
International affiliation
Colours  Red
AnthemBandiera Rossa ("Red Flag")
Party flag

The Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was founded in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (Italian: Partito Comunista d'Italia, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI),[1] under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga, Antonio Gramsci, and Nicola Bombacci.[2] Outlawed during the Italian fascist regime, the party continued to operate underground and played a major role in the Italian resistance movement.[3] The party's peaceful and national road to socialism, or the Italian road to socialism,[4] the realisation of the communist project through democracy,[5] repudiating the use of violence and applying the Constitution of Italy in all its parts,[6] a strategy inaugurated under Palmiro Togliatti but that some date back to Gramsci,[7][8][9] would become the leitmotif of the party's history.[10]

Having changed its name in 1943, the PCI became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II,[11] attracting the support of about a third of the vote share during the 1970s. At the time, it was the largest Communist party in the Western world, with peak support reaching 2.3 million members in 1947,[12] and peak share being 34.4% of the vote (12.6 million votes) in the 1976 Italian general election.[3] The PCI was part of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and the Italian government from 1944 to 1947, when the United States ordered a removal from government of the PCI and PSI.[13][14] The PCI–PSI alliance lasted until 1956;[15] the two parties continued to govern at the local and regional level until the 1990s. Apart from the 1944–1947 years and occasional external support to the organic centre-left (1960s–1970s), which included the PSI, the PCI always remained at the opposition in the Italian Parliament, with more accommodation as part of the Historic Compromise of the 1970s, which ended in 1980, until its dissolution in 1991, not without controversy and much debate among its members.[3]

The PCI included Marxist–Leninists and Marxist revisionists,[16] with a notable social-democratic faction being the miglioristi.[17][18] Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer and the influence of the miglioristi in the 1970s and 1980s,[19] Marxism–Leninism was removed from the party statute[20] and the PCI adhered to the Eurocommunist[21] trend, seeking independence from the Soviet Union[22] and moving into a democratic socialist direction.[23][24][25] In 1991, it was dissolved and re-launched as the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which joined the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists. The more radical members of the organisation formally seceded to establish the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC).[3]


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  1. ^ Cortesi, Luigi (1999). Le origini del PCI: studi e interventi sulla storia del comunismo in Italia. FrancoAngeli. p. 9. ISBN 978-8-8464-1300-0.
  2. ^ Mack Smith, Denis (1994). Mussolini. London: Phoenix. p. 312. ISBN 978-1-8579-9240-3.
  3. ^ a b c d "Partito comunista italiano". Treccani (in Italian). Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  4. ^ Amendola, Giorgio (November–December 1977). "The Italian Road to Socialism". New Left Review (106): 39–50. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  5. ^ Bracke, Maud (2007). "West European Communism and the Changes of 1956". Which Socialism, Whose Détente? West European Communism and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-6-1552-1126-3.
  6. ^ "Accaddeoggi 21 agosto 1964: Togliatti muore a Yalta". WelfareNetwork (in Italian). 21 August 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  7. ^ Femia, Joseph P. (April 1987). "A Peaceful Road to Socialism?". Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process (paperback ed.). University of Oxford Press. pp. 190–216. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198275435.003.0006. ISBN 978-9-0045-0334-2.
  8. ^ Jones, Steven (2006). Antonio Gramsci. Routledge Critical Thinkers (paperback ed.). London: Routledge. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-4153-1947-8. Togliatti himself stated that the PCI's practices during this period, which also foresaw the later Eurocommunist trend, were congruent with Gramscian thought. It is speculated that Gramsci would likely have been expelled from his party if his true views had been known, particularly his growing hostility towards Stalin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  9. ^ Liguori, Guido (21 December 2021). "Gramsci and the Italian Road to Socialism (1956–59)". Gramsci Contested: Interpretations, Debates, and Polemics, 1922–2012. Historical Materialism. Translated by Braude, Richard (E-book ed.). Brill. pp. 94–123. doi:10.1163/9789004503342_005. ISBN 978-0-1982-7543-5. S2CID 245586587.
  10. ^ Bosworth, R. J. B. (13 January 2023). "Giorgio Amendola and a National Road to Socialism and the End of History". Politics, Murder and Love in an Italian Family: The Amendolas in the Age of Totalitarianisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 152–186. doi:10.1017/9781009280167.008. ISBN 978-1-0092-8016-7.
  11. ^ Sassoon, Donald (2014). Togliatti e il partito di massa (in Italian). Translated by Salvatorelli, Franco; Zippel, Nicola (E-book ed.). Castelvecchi. ISBN 978-8-8682-6482-6.
  12. ^ "Gli iscritti ai principali partiti politici italiani della Prima Repubblica dal 1945 al 1991" (in Italian). Cattaneo Institute. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  13. ^ Robbe, Federico (2012). FrancoAngeli (ed.). L'impossibile incontro: gli Stati Uniti e la destra italiana negli anni Cinquanta. FrancoAngeli. p. 203. ISBN 978-8-8568-4830-4.
  14. ^ Tobagi, Walter (2009). La rivoluzione impossibile: l'attentato a Togliatti, violenza politica e reazione popolare. Il Saggiatore. p. 35. ISBN 978-8-8565-0112-4.
  15. ^ Bernocchi, Piero (8 January 2021). "La rivoluzione ungherese del 1956 e il ruolo del PCI". PieroBernocchi.it. Retrieved 17 July 2023. La rottura che ne seguì fu completa. Il Psi si staccò definitivamente da ogni legame e sudditanza con l'Urss ma contemporaneamente si ruppero anche la forte intesa e l'attività unitaria con il Pci, avviata a partire al Patto di unità d'azione stipulato a Parigi nel 1934 e poi rinnovato nel settembre 1943 e nell'ottobre 1946, e con il frontismo negli anni del dopoguerra. Saltò anche il Patto di consultazione, che in un primo momento sembrò poter sostituire il Patto d'unità d'azione, e prevalse il rifiuto di un'alleanza organica con il Pci per conquistare il governo in Italia: obiettivo che invece il Psi raggiunse con i governi di centro-sinistra negli anni Ottanta. [The ensuing break was complete. The PSI definitively detached itself from all ties and subjection to the USSR but at the same time the strong understanding and unitary activity with the PCI was also broken, initiated starting from the Pact of unity of Action stipulated in Paris in 1934 and then renewed in September 1943 and in October 1946, and with frontism in the post-war years. The Consultation pact, which at first seemed to be able to replace the Unity action pact, was also broken, and the refusal of an organic alliance with the PCI to conquer the government in Italy prevailed: an objective that the PSI instead achieved with centre-left governments in the 1980s.]
  16. ^ La Civiltà Cattolica. Vol. 117. 1966. pp. 41–43. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  17. ^ Amyot, G. Grant (1990). "The PCI and Occhetto's New Course: The Italian Road to Reform". Italian Politics. 4: 146–161. JSTOR 43039625.
  18. ^ "Correnti interne al PCI". Res Pvblica delle Poleis. 12 July 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  19. ^ Morando, Enrico (2010). Riformisti e comunisti?: dal Pci al Pd: i "miglioristi" nella politica italiana nella politica italiana. Donzelli Editore. p. 42. ISBN 978-8-8603-6482-1.
  20. ^ De Rosa, Gabriele; Monina, Giancarlo (2003). Rubbettino (ed.). L'Italia repubblicana nella crisi degli anni Settanta: Sistema politico e istitutzioni. Rubbettino Editore. p. 79. ISBN 978-8-8498-0753-0.
  21. ^ Hobday, Charles (1986). Communist and Marxist Parties of the World. Essex: Longman. p. 104. ISBN 0-582-90264-9.
  22. ^ "European Socialists Question Communist Party Independence". The Herald-Journal. 27 May 1976. p. 12. Retrieved 1 February 2023 – via Google News.
  23. ^ "Guide to the Italian Communist Party Collection, 1969–1971 1613". Penn State University Libraries. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  24. ^ Urban, Joan Barth (1986). Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinguer. I.B.Tauris. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-8504-3027-8.
  25. ^ "'Il socialismo democratico abita a Botteghe Oscure'". La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 1 February 2023.