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102-673: The party was founded in January 1991 by Maurizio Lupi , a physical education teacher and former member of Christian Democracy and of Federation of the Greens . The party took part in Italian elections for the first time at the 1992 general election . The party got 0.07% of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies and 0.09% in the Senate . In 1997, Lupi ran as mayor of Turin , receiving 0.74% of

204-591: A Catholic priest. The PPI won over 20% of the votes in the 1919 and 1921 general elections , but was declared illegal by the Fascist dictatorship in 1926 despite the presence of some Popolari in Benito Mussolini 's first government. As World War II was ending, the Christian Democrats started organising post-Fascist Italy in coalition with all the other mainstream parties, including

306-637: A campaign of Bolshevisation , which forced each party to conform to the discipline and orders of Moscow. During the clandestine conference held in Como to ratify the party leadership in May 1924, 35 of the 45 federation secretaries, plus the secretary of the youth federation, voted for Bordiga's Left, four for Gramsci's Centre, and five for Tasca's Right. Before the Lyon Congress in 1926, the Centre won almost all

408-813: A centrist break-away from the PSI, as well as its usual allies, the PLI and the PRI. In the 1948 general election the DC went on to win a decisive victory, with the support of the Catholic Church and the United States , and obtained 48.5% of the vote, its best result ever. Despite his party's absolute majority in the Italian Parliament , De Gasperi continued to govern at the head of the centrist coalition, which

510-633: A change of tactics in a democratic direction within the Bolshevik party and consequently within the Comintern. This happened in particular regarding the possibility, previously opposed, of an alliance with the social democratic and bourgeois parties. This provoked a tension in the party between the majority (Left) and the minority factions (the Right and the Centre) supported by the Comintern. The proposals of

612-472: A new Centre newspaper, l'Unità , edited by Gramsci, was founded. The Left continued as a faction, principally functioning in exile. It published the newspaper Bilan , a monthly theoretical bulletin. In 1926, Bordiga and Gramsci were arrested and imprisoned on the island of Ustica . In 1927, Palmiro Togliatti was elected secretary in place of Gramsci. In 1930, Bordiga was expelled from the Comintern and accused of Trotskyism . After Joseph Stalin dissolved

714-611: A new party called Christian Democratic Centre and form an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi 's new party, Forza Italia (FI). The left-wing factions stayed within the new PPI, though a minority would form the Social Christians in 1993 and would join forces with the post-communist Democratic Party of the Left (DPS). Some right-wingers, feeling Casini was still too moderate, joined the National Alliance . In 1995,

816-481: A number of laws safeguarding employees from exploitation, established a national health service, and initiated low-cost housing in Italy's major cities. De Gasperi served as prime minister until 1953 and died a year later. No Christian Democrat would match his longevity in office and, despite the fact that DC's share of the vote was always between 38 and 43% from 1953 to 1979 , the party was more and more fractured. As

918-750: A progressive left-wing and democratic socialist party. A third of the PCI membership, led by Armando Cossutta , refused to join the PDS, and instead seceded to form the Communist Refoundation Party . In all its history, the PCI was particularly strong in Central Italy , in the Red Regions of Emilia-Romagna , Marche , Tuscany , and Umbria , as well as in the industrialised cities of Northern Italy . The party's municipal showcase

1020-407: A progressive, led the party and Andreotti the government. This custom, in clear contrast with the principles of a Westminster system , deeply weakened DC-led governments, so that even with broad majorities they were unable to resolve differences between the several factions of the party, and ultimately turning the Italian political system into a de facto particracy ( partitocrazia ). From the 1980s

1122-404: A result, Prime Ministers changed more frequently. From 1954 the DC was led by progressive Christian Democrats, such as Amintore Fanfani , Aldo Moro and Benigno Zaccagnini , supported by the influential left-wing factions. In the 1950s the party formed centrist or moderately centre-left coalitions, and even a short-lived government led by Fernando Tambroni relying on parliamentary support from

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1224-442: A single world party according to Vladimir Lenin 's vision. In the 1921 Italian general election , the party obtained 4.6% of the vote and 15 seats in the country's Chamber of Deputies . At the time, it was an active yet small faction within the Italian political left, which was strongly led by the PSI, while on the international level it was Soviet -led. During its 2nd Congress in 1922, the new party registered 43,000 members. This

1326-646: A speech heralding the Revolutions of 1989 , a move now referred to in Italian politics as the svolta della Bolognina (Bolognina turning point). The collapse of the Communist governments in the Eastern Europe led Occhetto to conclude that the era of Eurocommunism was over. Under his leadership, the PCI dissolved and refounded itself as the Democratic Party of the Left , which branded itself as

1428-488: A way of life, not just a political party. Christian ideals were usually paired with the idea of freedom. In the 1946 general election the DC won 35.2% of the vote. In May 1947 De Gasperi broke decisively with his Communist and Socialist coalition partners under pressure from U.S. President Harry Truman . This opened the way for a centrist coalition that included the Italian Workers' Socialist Party (PSLI),

1530-815: The Pentapartito system. It originally supported liberal-conservative governments, along with the moderate Italian Democratic Socialist Party , the Italian Liberal Party , and the Italian Republican Party , before moving towards the Organic Centre-left involving the Italian Socialist Party . The party was succeeded by a string of smaller parties, including the Italian People's Party ,

1632-708: The 1948 general election the party had its best result ever (48.5%) and an absolute majority in the Italian Parliament . The party won 66.8% in eastern Lombardy (73.6% in the Province of Bergamo ), 60.5% in Veneto (71.9% in the Province of Vicenza ), 69.6% in Trentino and 57.8% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia , that is to say where the late Italian People's Party had its strongholds. In the Centre-South

1734-655: The 2001 election . DL would be formed as an official political party in 2002, succeeding the PPI and its three allies. In 2007, DL would merge with the Democrats of the Left , the successor of the DPS, to form the Democratic Party , which is today the largest centre-left political party in Italy. The party's ideology drew on the Christian democratic doctrines developed from the 19th century referred to as Catholic social teaching ,

1836-593: The 2006 general elections , the party ran as part of the House of Freedoms coalition, getting only 0.04% of the votes in the Chamber of Deputies election and 0.11% of votes in the Senate election. In the 2008 general elections , Alessandro Lupi ran for the Chamber as part of The People of Freedom list, but wasn't elected. In the 2009 Turin provincial election, the party supported the candidate Renzo Rabellino , leader of

1938-799: The Christian Democratic Centre (CCD), while others directly joined Forza Italia . A split from the PPI, the United Christian Democrats (CDU), joined Forza Italia and the CCD in the centre-right Pole of Freedoms coalition (later becoming the Pole for Freedoms ), while the PPI was a founding member of The Olive Tree centre-left coalition in 1996. In its early years, the party was stronger in Northern Italy (especially in eastern Lombardy and Veneto ), due to

2040-511: The Christian Democratic Centre , the United Christian Democrats , and the still active Union of the Centre . Former DC members are also spread among other parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia and the centre-left Democratic Party . It was a founding member of the European People's Party in 1976. The party was founded as the revival of the Italian People's Party (PPI), a political party created in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo ,

2142-802: The Communist Refoundation Party (PRC). The roots of the PCI date back to 1921, when the I Congress of the Communist Party of Italy was held in Livorno on 21 January, following a split in the XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party . The split occurred after the Congress of Livorno refused to expel the reformist group as required by the Communist International (Comintern). The main factions of

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2244-486: The Historic Compromise of the 1970s, which ended in 1980, until its dissolution in 1991, not without controversy and much debate among its members. The PCI included Marxist–Leninists and Marxist revisionists , with a notable social-democratic faction being the miglioristi . Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer and the influence of the miglioristi in the 1970s and 1980s, Marxism–Leninism

2346-638: The Italian Communist Party (PCI), the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), the Italian Liberal Party (PLI), the Italian Republican Party (PRI), the Action Party (Pd'A) and the Labour Democratic Party (PDL). In December 1945 Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi was appointed Prime Minister of Italy . The Christian Democracy party was opposed to both Fascism and Communism. In elections Italians were voting based on

2448-549: The Italian Communist Party , DC members had ample opportunity to abuse their power, and some did. In the 1960s, scandals involved frauds such as huge illegal profits in the administration of banana import quotas and preferential allocation of purposely misprinted and therefore rare postage stamps. Giovanni Leone was forced to resign as President of the Italian Republic in 1978 after the Lockheed bribery scandals . He

2550-558: The Italian Social Movement (MSI), the post-fascist party. In 1963 the party, under Prime Minister Aldo Moro , formed a coalition with the PSI, which returned to ministerial roles after 16 years, the PSDI and the PRI. Similar " Organic Centre-left " governments became usual through the 1960s and the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 the DC governed with the external support of the PCI, through the Historic Compromise . Moro, who

2652-568: The Italian road to socialism , the realisation of the communist project through democracy, repudiating the use of violence and applying the Constitution of Italy in all its parts, a strategy inaugurated under Palmiro Togliatti but that some date back to Gramsci, would become the leitmotif of the party's history. Having changed its name in 1943, the PCI became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II , attracting

2754-533: The Marxist idea of class struggle . The party thus advocated collaboration between social classes and was basically a catch-all party which aimed to represent both right-wing and left-wing Italian Catholics under the principle of the "political unity of Catholics" against socialism , communism and anarchism . It ultimately represented the majority of Italians who were opposed to the Italian Communist Party . The party was, however, originally equidistant between

2856-660: The No Euro Movement ; the list got only 0.39% of the votes. In the 2010 Piedmontese regional elections , the Greens Greens supported centre-right candidate Roberto Cota , getting 1.76% of the votes and one seat and outperforming for the first time the Federation of the Greens , which received only 0.76% of the votes. In the 2014 Piedmontese regional elections , the party supported the candidate of Forza Italia Gilberto Pichetto Fratin , but got only 0.27% of

2958-639: The Organic centre-left governments, although it never directly joined a government. It successfully lobbied Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ (Lada) car factory in the Soviet Union (1966). The party did best in Emilia-Romagna , Tuscany, and Umbria, where it regularly won the local administrative elections, and in some of the industrialised cities of Northern Italy . At the city government level during

3060-626: The Portella della Ginestra massacre , in which eleven leftist peasants (including four children) were murdered at an International Workers' Day parade in Palermo by Salvatore Giuliano and his gang. In the political chaos that ensued, the United States government engineered the expulsion of all left-wing ministers from the cabinet on 31 May. The PCI would not have a national position in government again. De Gasperi did this under pressure from

3162-466: The Segni Pact , and contemporary polling suggested heavy losses for the DC in the upcoming 1994 general election . In hopes of changing the party's image, the DC's last secretary, Mino Martinazzoli decided to change the name of the party into the Italian People's Party (PPI). Pier Ferdinando Casini , representing the right-wing faction of the party (previously led by Forlani) decided to launch

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3264-504: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , led to a complete break with Moscow in 1979. In 1980, the PCI refused to participate in the international conference of Communist parties in Paris; cash payments to the PCI continued until 1984. Achille Occhetto became general secretary of the PCI in 1988. At a 1989 conference in a working-class section of Bologna, Occhetto stunned the party faithful with

3366-539: The Svolta di Salerno ( Salerno 's turning point), Togliatti, who had returned to Italy the month prior after 18 years of exile, agreed to cooperate with King Victor Emmanuel III and his prime minister of Italy , the Marshal Pietro Badoglio . After the turn, the PCI took part in every government during the national liberation and constitutional period from June 1944 to May 1947. Their contribution to

3468-554: The kidnapping of Ciro Cirillo , a Campanian DC member for whom a ransom was paid thanks to the local ties of the party with the Camorra ). It was however supported by all the mainstream parties, including the PCI, with the two notable exceptions of the PSI and the Radicals . In the trial for Mafia allegations against Andreotti, it was said that he took the chance of getting rid of a dangerous political competitor by sabotaging all of

3570-582: The 1970s and 1980s and toward Eurocommunism and the Socialist International . The PCI sought a collaboration with the socialist and Christian democracy parties, a policy known the Historic Compromise . The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro , the DC leader, by the Red Brigades in May 1978 put an end to any hopes of such a compromise. The compromise was largely abandoned as a PCI policy in 1981. The Proletarian Unity Party merged into

3672-508: The 1980s, the Italian economy was being undermined by a constant devaluation of the Italian lira and the issuing of large amounts of high-interest treasury bonds, so that, between 1982 and 1992, the excessive budget deficit built a significant proportion of the debt that would plague the country well into the 21st century. In 1992 the Mani pulite investigation was started in Milan , uncovering

3774-594: The Communist International in 1943, the exiled members of the PCd'I in Moscow changed the party's name to the PCI on 15 May. Under this name, it reorganised in Italy and became a parliamentary party after the fall of Fascism. The party and its militants were actively involved in the resistance to Benito Mussolini 's regime through clandestine action. They were well prepared for clandestine activity because of

3876-504: The Communist city council built 31 nursery schools, 896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built and 8,000 children received subsidised school meals. In 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri , introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a renewed concentration on cheap public transport. Bologna's social services continued to expand throughout

3978-408: The Communists and the hard right represented by the Italian Social Movement . As a catch-all party, the DC differed from other European Christian Democratic parties, such as the Christian Democratic Union of Germany , that were mainly conservative political groupings. The DC, which included conservative as well as social-democratic and liberal elements was characterised by factionalism and by

4080-420: The DC gained more than 50% of the vote in Lazio (51.9%), Abruzzo (53.7%) and Campania (50.5%). From the late 1950s, the DC's support started to move South and by the 1980s it was stronger in the South than in the North, with the exception of Veneto, which remained one of the party's strongholds. In the 1983 general election the party suffered a dramatic decrease in term of votes and its electoral geography

4182-424: The DC had lost part of its support among Italian voters. In 1981, Giovanni Spadolini of the PRI was the first non-Christian Democrat to lead a government since 1944, at the head of a coalition comprising the DC, the PSI, the PSDI, the PRI and the PLI, the so-called Pentapartito . In the successive 1983 general election , the DC suffered one of its largest declines in votes up to that point, receiving only 32.5% of

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4284-416: The DC leader and prime minister of Italy, was losing popularity, and feared that the leftist coalition would take power. While the PCI was growing particularly fast due to its organising efforts supporting sharecroppers in Sicily , Tuscany , and Umbria , movements that were also bolstered by the reforms of Fausto Gullo , the Italian Minister of Agriculture . On 1 May, the nation was thrown into crisis by

4386-442: The Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries as reported at the time in l'Unità , the official PCI newspaper. Giuseppe Di Vittorio , chief of the communist trade union Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), repudiated the leadership position, as did prominent party member Antonio Giolitti and Italian Socialist Party national secretary Pietro Nenni , a close ally of the PCI. Napolitano later hinted at doubts over

4488-405: The II Congress in Moscow of 1920. The official program, drawn up in ten points, began with the intrinsically catastrophic nature of the capitalist system and terminated with the extinction of the state. It follows in a synthetic way the model outlined by Lenin for the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) . For a while, this identity resisted, but the fast progress of the reaction in Europe produced

4590-404: The Italian government continuously from 1946 until 1981. The party was nicknamed the "White Whale" ( Italian : Balena bianca ) due to its huge organisation and official colour. During its time in government, the Italian Communist Party was the largest opposition party. From 1946 until 1994, the DC was the largest party in the Italian Parliament , governing in successive coalitions, including

4692-411: The Left were no longer accepted and the conflict between the factions became irremediable. In 1923, some members of the party were arrested and put on trial for "conspiracy against the State". This allowed the intense activity of the Communist International to deprive the party's left-wing of authority and give control to the minority centre which had aligned with Moscow. In 1924–1925, the Comintern began

4794-467: The Leninist preferred the single world party as it was internationalist and strongly centralised, while on the other side the Italians wanted a party more tailored to their nation's peculiarities and more autonomy. After the fall of Fascist Italy on 25 July 1943, the PCI returned to a formally legal status, playing a major role during the national liberation, known in Italy as Resistenza (Resistance) and forming many partisan groups. In April 1944, after

4896-403: The PCI in 1984. During the Years of Lead , the PCI strongly opposed the terrorism and the Red Brigades, who in turn murdered or wounded many PCI members or trade unionists close to the PCI. According to Mitrokhin, the party asked the Soviets to pressure the StB , Czechoslovakia's State Security, to withdraw their support to the group, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do. This, along with

4998-415: The PCI over this issue. Napolitano became a leading member of the miglioristi faction within the PCI that promoted a social-democratic direction in party policy. In the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated the party membership to be approximately 1,350,000, or 4.2% of the working age population, making it the largest Communist party in per capita terms in the capitalist world at

5100-403: The PCI, were among the more numerous partisan forces. The PCI took part in the 1946 Italian general election and the 1946 Italian institutional referendum , campaigning for a republic. In the election, the PCI was third, behind Christian Democracy (DC) and the PSI, gaining almost 19% of votes and electing 104 members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy . The popular referendum resulted in

5202-484: The PPI would ally with the DPS and several smaller centre-left parties to form The Olive Tree . The alliance, whose primary components were two legal successors to the two major political forces of pre-1990s Italy, won the election. Romano Prodi , an independent former PPI member, led the list and became prime minister. Faced with flagging poll numbers, the PPI formed Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL) after allying three other smaller, social liberal parties to contest

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5304-472: The United States Secretary of State, George Marshall , who had informed him that anti-communism was a pre-condition for receiving American aid, and Ambassador James Clement Dunn , who had directly asked de Gasperi to dissolve the parliament and remove the PCI. In the 1948 Italian general election , the party joined the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front (FDP) but was defeated by the DC. The United States government provided support to anti-PCI groups in

5406-436: The United States ordered a removal from government of the PCI and PSI. The PCI–PSI alliance lasted until 1956; 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

5508-423: The centre-left) and Giulio Andreotti (closer to the centre-right). Moreover, it was often the case that if the government was led by a centre-right Christian Democrat, the party was led by a left-winger and vice versa. This was what happened in the 1950s when Fanfani was party secretary and the government was led by centre-right figures such as Scelba and Segni, as well as in the late 1970s when Benigno Zaccagnini ,

5610-505: The centre-right United Christian Democrats , which were led by Rocco Buttiglione , split off from the PPI and also entered in alliance with FI. In the following years, most Christian Democrats joined FI, which became the party with the most ex-DC members in absolute terms. In December 1999, Forza Italia gained full membership in the European People's Party . The PPI would continue in a rump fashion, usually finding itself in left of centre political coalitions. In 1996 , under Franco Marini ,

5712-534: The course of the post-war period, the PCI demonstrated in cities like Bologna and Florence their capacity for uncorrupt, efficient and clean government. After the 1975 Italian local elections , the PCI was the strongest force in nearly all of the municipal councils of the great cities. The Soviet Union's brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 created a split within the PCI. The party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano (who in 2006 became President of Italy ), regarded

5814-541: The double adherence of members to the party and to factions which were often identified with individual leaders. The DC's factions spanned the political spectrum from left to right and continually evolved over time. In the early years, centrists and liberal-conservatives such as Alcide De Gasperi , Giuseppe Pella , Ezio Vanoni and Mario Scelba led the party. After them, progressives led by Amintore Fanfani were in charge, though opposed by right wing led by Antonio Segni . The party's left wing, with its roots in

5916-401: The early and mid-1970s. The city centre was restored, centres for the mentally sick were instituted to help those who had been released from recently closed psychiatric hospitals , handicapped persons were offered training and found suitable jobs, afternoon activities for schoolchildren were made less mindless than the traditional doposcuola (after-school activities), and school programming for

6018-438: The efforts made by Italy's top authorities to prevent any of the alleged Italian war criminals from being extradited and taken to court. The denial of Italian war crimes was backed up by the Italian state, academe, and media, re-inventing Italy as only a victim of Nazism and the post-war Foibe massacres . The party gained considerable electoral success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to

6120-471: The election, and argued that should the PCI win, the Marshall Plan and other aids could be terminated. It spent $ 10–20 million on anti-communist propaganda and other covert operations, much of it through the Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan, and then laundered through individual banks. Fearful of the possible FDP's electoral victory, the British and American governments also undermined their campaign for legal justice by tolerating

6222-408: The first years of the PCd'I, there was no official leader; the accepted leader, first of the faction/tendency and then of the party, was Bordiga (Left) of the communist left current. Leaders of the minority currents were Angelo Tasca (Right) and Gramsci (Centre). As a territorial section of Comintern, the PCd'I adopted the same program, the same conception of the party and the same tactics adopted by

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6324-458: The former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin , Longo and other PCI leaders became alarmed at the possibility of a coup in Italy after the Athens Colonel coup in April 1967 that led to the Greek junta . These fears were not completely unfounded as there had been two attempted coups in Italy, Piano Solo in 1964 and Golpe Borghese in 1970, by military and neo-fascist groups. The PCI's Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare

6426-473: The freedom of culture. At the time, the PCI, which had absorbed the PSI's left-wing, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity , so strengthening its leadership over the Italian left, was the largest communist party in a capitalist state , garnering 34.4% of the vote in the 1976 Italian general election . Relationships between the PCI and the Soviet Union gradually fell apart as the party moved away from Soviet obedience and Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy in

6528-426: The left of the late Italian People's Party ( Giovanni Gronchi , Achille Grandi and controversial Fernando Tambroni ), was reinforced by new leaders such as Giuseppe Dossetti , Giorgio La Pira , Giuseppe Lazzati and Fanfani himself. Most of them were social democrats by European standards. The party was often led by centrist figures unaffiliated to any faction such as Aldo Moro , Mariano Rumor (both closer to

6630-430: The new Italian democratic constitution was decisive. The Gullo decrees of 1944, named after Fausto Gullo , sought to improve social and economic conditions in the countryside. During Badoglio and Ferruccio Parri 's cabinets, Togliatti served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy . During the Resistance, the PCI became increasingly popular, as the majority of partisans were communists. The Garibaldi Brigades , promoted by

6732-410: The new party were L'Ordine Nuovo, based in Turin and led by Antonio Gramsci , and the Maximalist faction led by Nicola Bombacci . Amadeo Bordiga was elected secretary of the new party. The party was officially founded as the Communist Party of Italy – Section of the Communist International ( Partito Comunista d'Italia – Sezione dell'Internazionale Comunista ), since the Comintern was structured as

6834-485: The official political line and refused to support the final report. Unexpectedly to his hosts, his speech challenged the communist leadership in Moscow. He refused to excommunicate the Chinese Communist Party and directly told Brezhnev that the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , which he called "the tragedy in Prague", had made clear the considerable differences within the communist movement on fundamental questions, such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and

6936-502: The party in case of such an event. The KGB drew up and implemented a plan to provide the PCI with its own intelligence and clandestine signal corps. From 1967 through 1973, PCI members were sent to East Germany and Moscow to receive training in clandestine warfare and information gathering techniques by both the Stasi and the KGB. Shortly before the 1972 Italian general election , Longo personally wrote to Leonid Brezhnev asking for and receiving an additional $ 5.7 million in funding. This

7038-434: The party led a campaign against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War . The party and communist partisans, among others, then went on to play a major role in the resistance movement that led to the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy . On 15 May 1943, the party changed its official name to the Italian Communist Party ( Partito Comunista Italiano ), often shortened to PCI. This change was not surprising as PCI started being used as

7140-511: The party strived to organise itself on some bases that were not a mere reproduction of the traditional parties' bases. It then took again some arguments that distinguished the battle within the PSI, namely the idea that it is necessary to form an environment fiercely hostile to bourgeois society and that is an anticipation of the future socialist society. The purpose of this was not considered utopian because already in this society, especially in production, some structures are born on future results. In

7242-483: The party was divided between the centre-right led by Arnaldo Forlani (supported also by the party's right wing) and the centre-left led by Ciriaco De Mita (whose supporters included trade unionists and the internal left), with Andreotti holding the balance. De Mita, who led the party from 1982 to 1989, tried to transform the party into a mainstream "conservative party" in line with the European People's Party to preserve party unity. He became prime minister in 1988 but

7344-403: The party's acronym around 1924–1925. This name change also reflected a change in the Comintern's role—it increasingly became a federation of national communist parties. This trend accelerated after Lenin's death and its new name emphasised the party's shift from an international focus to an Italian one. At the time, it was a hotly contested issue for the two major factions of the party. On one side,

7446-449: The political thought of Romolo Murri and Luigi Sturzo , and ultimately the tradition of the defunct Italian People's Party . Two Papal encyclicals , Rerum novarum (1891) of Pope Leo XIII , and Quadragesimo anno (1931) of Pope Pius XI , offered a further basis for the DC's social and political doctrine. In economics , the DC preferred competition to cooperation , supported the model of social market economy , and rejected

7548-526: The propriety of his decision. He would eventually write in From the Communist Party to European Socialism. A Political Autobiography ( Dal Pci al socialismo europeo. Un'autobiografia politica ) that he regretted his justification of the Soviet intervention but quieted his concerns at the time for the sake of party unity and the international leadership of Soviet Communism . Giolitti and Nenni went on to split with

7650-459: The public. Leaders such as Antonio Gava , Calogero Mannino , Vito Ciancimino , Salvo Lima and especially Giulio Andreotti were perceived by many to belong to a grey zone between simple corruption and Mafia business, even if most of them were later acquitted. Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( Italian : Partito Comunista Italiano , PCI ) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It

7752-549: The replacement of the monarchy with a republic, after 54% of the votes were in favour and 46% against. Luciano Canfora saw the Salerno Turn and 1944 as a rebirth of the PCI, and said "the PCI had gradually followed a path which required it, as a historical task, to occupy the space of social democracy in the Italian political panorama." As part of the May 1947 crises , the PCI was excluded from government. Alcide De Gasperi ,

7854-403: The rescue options and ultimately leaving the captors with no option but killing him. During his captivity Moro wrote a series of letters, at times very critical of Andreotti. . Later the memorial written by Moro during his imprisonment was subject to several plots, including the assassination of journalist Mino Pecorelli and general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa . At the beginning of the 1980s,

7956-483: The same symbol, a crusader shield ( scudo crociato ). As a Catholic -inspired, centrist , catch-all party comprising both centre-right and centre-left political factions, the DC played a dominant role in the politics of Italy for fifty years, and had been part of the government from soon after its inception until its final demise on 16 January 1994 amid the Tangentopoli scandals. Christian Democrats led

8058-407: The so-called Tangentopoli scandals (endemic corruption practices at the highest levels), and causing numerous, often controversial, arrests and resignations. After the dismal result in the 1992 general election (29.7%), also due to the rise of Lega Nord in northern Italy and two years of mounting scandals (which included several Mafia investigations which notably touched Andreotti), the party

8160-657: The strong Catholic roots of those areas, than it was in the South . There, the Liberal establishment that had governed Italy for decades before the rise of Benito Mussolini still had grip on voters, as well as the Monarchist National Party and the Common Man's Front . The DC was very weak in Emilia-Romagna and Central Italy , where the Italian Communist Party was the dominant political force. In

8262-415: The structure of their organisation, and the fact that they had been victims of systematic repression by the authorities; more than three quarters of the political prisoners between 1926 and 1943 were communists. Throughout the dictatorship, the party was able to maintain and feed a clandestine network, distribute propaganda leaflets and newspapers, and infiltrate fascist unions and youth organisations. In 1935,

8364-569: The successor parties of the DC continued to be key political actors only in the South, where the clientelistic way of government practised by the Christian Democrats and their allies had left a mark. In the 1996 general election the League gained 7 out of 8 single-seat constituencies in the Province of Bergamo and 5 out of 6 in the Province of Vicenza, winning well over 40%, while the combined score of

8466-538: 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, and peak share being 34.4% of the vote (12.6 million votes) in the 1976 Italian general election . The PCI was part of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and the Italian government from 1944 to 1947, when

8568-559: The three main post-DC parties (the new PPI , the CCD and the CDU ) was highest in Campania (22.3%). In the 1996 Sicilian regional election the combined score of those parties was 26.4%. The electoral results of the DC in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1946 are shown in the chart below. Having ruled Italy for over 40 years with no alternative other than

8670-597: The time and the largest party at all in the whole of Western Europe with the Social Democratic Party of Germany . United States government sources said that the party was receiving $ 40–50 million per year from the Soviets when their investment in Italy was $ 5–6 million. Although the PCI relied on Soviet financial assistance more than any other Communist party supported by Moscow, declassified information shows this to be exaggerated. According to

8772-516: The vote cast (a decline of -5.8% relative to 1981). Subsequently, Bettino Craxi (leader of the rising PSI) reclaimed for himself the post of prime minister, again at the head of a Pentapartito government. DC re-gained the post of prime minister in 1987, after a modest recovery in the 1987 general election (34.2%), and the Pentapartito coalition governed Italy almost continuously until 1993. While Italy experienced steady economic progress in

8874-419: The votes in the absence of much of the Left, who were unable to attend as a result of fascist controls and lack of Comintern support. Recourse to the Comintern against this evident manoeuvre had little effect. The PCd'I as conceived by the Left terminated. The organisation continued with the support of the Comintern and a new structure and leadership. In 1922, the newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo was closed and in 1924

8976-678: The votes, while his party got 0.81% of the votes. In 1999, the party ran in Turin provincial election, getting 0.38% of the votes. In 2003, the party's local representative Roberto De Santis received 0.5% of the votes in Rome provincial election. In 2004, the party took part in the European Parliament elections with a joint list (called "Abolizione Scorporo"), together with the Federalist Greens . The list got only 0.49% of

9078-408: The votes. At the 2004 Turin provincial election, the Greens Greens supported the centre-right candidate Franco Botta ; the founder Maurizio Lupi chose to run instead with an unrelated, independent list. In the 2005 Piedmontese regional elections , the Greens Greens supported the centre-right candidate Enzo Ghigo ; the list got 1.16% of the votes, winning one seat for its leader Maurizio Lupi. In

9180-501: The votes. In 2016, Maurizio Lupi and his daughter Sara were sentenced for expenditures fraud. Christian Democracy (Italy) Christian Democracy ( Italian : Democrazia Cristiana , DC ) was a Christian democratic political party in Italy . The DC was founded on 15 December 1943 in the Italian Social Republic (Nazi-occupied Italy) as the nominal successor of the Italian People's Party , which had

9282-459: Was Bologna , which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards. Amongst other measures, the local PCI administration tackled urban problems with successful programmes of health for the elderly, nursery education and traffic reform, while also undertaking initiatives in housing and school meal provisions. Communist administrations at a local level helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. From 1946 to 1956,

9384-423: Was disbanded in 1994. In the 1990s most of the politicians prosecuted during those investigations were acquitted, sometimes however on the basis of legal formalities or on the basis of statutory time limit rules. In 1992, Mario Segni led a breakaway faction called Populars for Reform (PR). The DC suffered heavy defeats in the 1993 provincial and municipal elections. Subsequently, Segni's PR would be reformed as

9486-601: 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), under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga , Antonio Gramsci , and Nicola Bombacci . Outlawed during the Italian fascist regime, the party continued to operate underground and played a major role in the Italian resistance movement . The party's peaceful and national road to socialism, or

9588-642: Was in part due to the entrance of almost the whole Socialist Youth Federation ( Federazione Giovanile Socialista ). The party adopted a slim structure headed by a Central Committee of 15 members, five of whom were also in the Executive Committee (EC), namely Ambrogio Belloni, Nicola Bombacci, Amadeo Bordiga (EC), Bruno Fortichiari (EC), Egidio Gennari , Antonio Gramsci, Ruggero Grieco (EC), Anselmo Marabini, Francesco Misiano , Giovanni Parodi, Luigi Polano, Luigi Repossi (EC), Cesare Sessa, Ludovico Tarsia, and Umberto Terracini (EC). Since its formation,

9690-525: Was later acquitted. Like the other parties of the Pentapartito coalition, the DC was invested in the Tangentopoli scandals and in the subsequent Mani pulite . Moreover, as Southern Italy had become the party's stronghold in the 1970s and the 1980s, it was likely that the Sicilian Mafia and dishonest politicians tried to collaborate. The DC was the party most associated with Mafia among

9792-481: Was on top of the $ 3.5 million that the Soviet Union gave the PCI in 1971. The Soviets also provided additional funding through the use of front organisations providing generous contracts to PCI members. In 1969, Enrico Berlinguer , the PCI deputy national secretary and later secretary general, took part in the international conference of the communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with

9894-543: Was removed from the party statute and the PCI adhered to the Eurocommunist trend, seeking independence from the Soviet Union and moving into a democratic socialist direction. 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

9996-566: Was replaced by Forlani in 1989. Disagreements between de Mita and Forlani brought Andreotti back to the prime-ministership from 1989 to 1992. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the great Cold War ideological conflict, and ultimately the Tangentopoli scandals, the heterogeneous nature of the party led it to its collapse. The bulk of the DC's membership joined the new Italian People's Party (PPI), but immediately several centre-right elements led by Pier Ferdinando Casini joined

10098-607: Was stronger precisely in the traditional Christian Democratic heartlands, the DC was reduced to 21.0% in Piedmont (with the League at 16.3%), 32.1% in western Lombardy (League at 25.2%), 31.7% in Veneto (League at 17.3%) and 28.0% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (League at 17.0%). As the DC's role was reduced, the 1919 PPI strongholds and the DC's traditional heartlands would become the Lega Nord's power base. Meanwhile,

10200-562: Was successively abandoned by the Liberals, who hoped for more right-wing policies, in 1950 and the Democratic Socialists, who hoped for more leftist policies, in 1951. Under De Gasperi, major land reforms were carried out in the poorer rural regions in the early postwar years, with farms appropriated from the large landowners and parcelled out to the peasants. In addition, during its years in office, Christian Democrats passed

10302-485: Was the party main leader and who had inspired the Compromise, was abducted and murdered by the Red Brigades . The event was a shock for the party. When Moro was abducted, the government, at the time led by Giulio Andreotti , immediately took a hardline position stating that the "State must not bend" on terrorist demands. This was a very different position from the one taken in similar cases before and after (such as

10404-586: Was very different from 30 or even 10 years before, as the region where it obtained the best result was Apulia (46.0%). In the 1992 general election the shift was even more evident as the party was over the 40% mark only in some Southern regions (41.1% in Campania , 44.5 in Basilicata and 41.2% in Sicily ), while it barely reached 20-25% of the vote in the North. As a result of the rise of Lega Nord , which

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