Italian Communist Party
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The '''Partito Comunista Italiano''' (PCI) or '''Italian Communist Party''' emerged as ''Partito Comunista d'Italia'' or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninism|Leninist ''comunisti puri'' tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that body's congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. Amedeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. In 1926 the party was outlawed by the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini.
Although forced underground, the PCI continued underground and in exile. In 1926 its left wing led by Bordiga was finally defeated and replaced by a new leadership around Gramsci at a conference in Lyon which issued a set of theses expressing the programmatic basis of the party at that point. However Gramsci soon found himself jailed by Mussolini's repression and the leadership passed to Palmiro Togliatti. Togliatti would lead the party until it emerged from illegality in 1944 and relaunched itself as the Italian Communist Party.
The party took part in every government during the national Liberazione|liberation and constitutional periods, from June 1944 to May 1947. In the first general elections of 1948 it joined the PSI in the ''Democratic Popular Front'' but was defeated by the Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy party.
The party gained considerable electoral success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to center-left governments, never joining directly. One of its successes was the lobbying of Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ (Lada) car factory in the Soviet Union.
After the Athens Greek military junta of 1967-1974| Athens Colonel Coup in April of 1967, Longo and other PCI leaders became alarmed at the possibility of a repeat in Italy. Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare 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 radio communication units. 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 May 1972 elections, Longo personally wrote to Leonid Brezhnev asking for, and receiving and additional $5.7 million in funding. This was on top of the 3.5 million that the PCI was given in 1971. The Soviets also provided additional funding through the use of front companies providing generous contracts to PCI members. At the time the PCI was the biggest Communist Party in a democratic state, obtaining a score of 34,4% in the 1976 general elections.
In 1969, Enrico Berlinguer, PCI deputy national secretary, took part in the international conference of the Communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with the "official" political line, and refused to support the final report. Berlinguer's unexpected stance made waves: he gave the strongest speech by a major Communist leader ever heard in Moscow. He refused to "excommunicate" the Chinese communists, and directly told Leonid Brezhnev that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries (which he termed the "tragedy in Prague") had made clear the considerable differences within the Communist movement on fundamental questions such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and the freedom of culture.
Relationships between the PCI and the Soviet Union gradually fell apart as the party moved away from Soviet obedience and Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy in the 1970-80s, definitely embracing social-democracy (eurocommunism) and the Socialist International. The PCI sought a collaboration with Socialist and Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy parties (the ''Historic Compromise|historical compromise''). Christian-democrat party leader Aldo Moro's kidnapping and murder, by the Red Brigades in May 1978, put an end to any hopes of such a compromise. In the 1980s, State Security (Czechoslovakia)|Czechoslovakian State Security (StB) support for the Red Brigades allegedly increased. The PCI disavowed the Red Brigades' tactics, and asked the Soviets to pressure the Czech StB to withdraw support, which Moscow would have been unable or unwilling to do. In 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a complete break with Moscow. In 1980, PCI refused to participate in the international conference of Communist parties in Paris.
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In 1991 the PCI disbanded to form the ''Partito Democratico della Sinistra'' (PDS), with membership in the Socialist International. The communist tendency, led by Armando Cossutta, left the party to form the ''Partito della Rifondazione Comunista'' (PRC) or Communist Refoundation Party.
In 1998 the PDS, with several smaller parties, the ''Laburisti'' (liberal socialists), the ''Cristiano Sociali'' (christian socialists), the ''Comunisti Unitari'' (right-wing split of the PRC), the ''Sinistra Repubblicana'' (left republicans) and the ''Riformatori per l'Europa'' (social democratic trade unionists), co-founded the "Democratici di Sinistra" (DS) or Democrats of the Left party. Later in the same year the Armando Cossutta tendency left the PRC to form the ''Partito dei Comunisti Italiani'' (PdCI) or Party of Italian Communists.
Party Secretaries (in chronological order):
Amadeo Bordiga (1921-1924)
Antonio Gramsci (1924-1926)
Palmiro Togliatti (1927-1964)
Luigi Longo (1964-1972)
Enrico Berlinguer (1972-1984)
Alessandro Natta (1984-1988)
Achille Occhetto (1988-1991)
External links
http://www.dsonline.it/ http://www.rifondazione.it/ http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/ http://www.cartacanta.it/manifesti/pci/index.html http://www.cartacanta.it/manifesti/Manifesti%20pci%20-%20fgci%20-%20pds%20-%20seconda%20parte/index.html http://www.cartacanta.it/manifesti/pci_3/index.html
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