Italian communists. Italian Communist Party. Communist Party USA: for Leninism, gays and against Trump
From the editor:We present a series of articles about the Italian workers and communist movement, which were prepared especially for our website by Italian comrades from the party « COMMUNISTI SINISTRA POPOLARE».
The first material is devoted to the fate and history of the Italian Communist Party. What role did the PCI play in the modern history of Italy? Why did the strongest communist party in Europe cease to exist? How did the rejection of Marxism-Leninism turn out for the Italian communists?
Leader of the Anti-Fascist Resistance
The Italian Communist Party played a major and undoubtedly positive role in the history of Italy. From the moment of its creation - January 24, 1921 - it decisively separated itself from the helpless and inert swamp of reformism, revisionism and opportunism of the Socialist Party, which fettered the working class either with empty super-revolutionary phraseology or with a compromising, conciliatory position in practice.
1936 Italian communists in Spain
The PCI found itself at the head of the proletarian resistance to bourgeois reaction and fascism striving for power. The organizational and human contribution of the Communist Party to the anti-fascist struggle was truly enormous, starting with the first attempt at armed struggle against the fascists - the detachments of the “People's Braves”.
During the fascist regime, until the end of 1943, the Communist Party was the only political anti-fascist force in Italy that acted in an organized manner in conditions of underground and secrecy. The newspaper and leaflets were printed and distributed quite regularly. The party organized a boycott of production and direct sabotage of military products.
In March 1943, even before the signing of the armistice with the Anglo-Americans, strikes were held at the largest factories in Turin, Milan and Genoa. This struggle and the military experience gained by Italian red commanders and fighters during civil war in Spain (1936-39) provided the Communist Party with a leading role from 1943 to 1945 in the armed resistance to the German occupiers and their fascist servants.
The post-war role of the ICP can also be assessed only positively. Suffice it to recall its role in the struggle for peace during the Cold War, for the establishment of a republican form of government in Italy, its contribution to the struggle of the working class to improve working and living conditions, to the struggle of the peasantry who seized the land of the landowners, to the defense of the democratic rights of workers against repeated attempts by reactionary coups in the 60s and 70s of the last century.
The Italian Constitution, while remaining bourgeois in its essence, thanks to the contribution and influence of the communists, was very different from the basic law traditional for a liberal state. The document contained potentially anti-capitalist elements.
It is the post-war policy of the PCI, its theory and practice of those years, that today force us to think critically and self-critically about the reasons for the long process of degeneration, which led to the self-liquidation of the party.
A Merciless Analysis of the Party's Degeneration
What exactly led Gramsci's revolutionary party ( PCI founder Antonio Gramsci - approx. ed.) to moral and intellectual poverty, political bankruptcy of its epigones and, ultimately, disappearance?
The answer to such a question cannot be given by the simple and convenient category of “betrayal” on the part of party leaders. It requires scientific, merciless and sometimes painful analysis to avoid such developments in the future.
Our party has begun to conduct such an analysis. Not without difficulties and even some resistance on the part of party members of a certain generation, for whom Togliatti ( founder and leader of the IKP Palmiro Tolyatti - approx. ed.) and Berlinguer ( Secretary of the PCI from 1972 to 1984 Enrico Berlinguer – editor's note) is a living embodiment of the ideas of communism, a kind of “icon” that is not subject to criticism. However, this issue could not be postponed any further.
The process of ideological and political disintegration of the ICP began during the war due to some major mistakes of Tolyatti in assessing the current situation, the balance of power in the country and in the international arena.
In 1943, the catastrophic course of military operations for Italy on all fronts forced the monarchy - after the Allied landing in Sicily - to sign a truce with them and arrest Mussolini. The German reaction was lightning fast: they occupied all of Northern and Central Italy. The king, his court and the highest officials of the state fled to the Anglo-Americans, fleeing German revenge and abandoning the country, but not its gold reserves, which were taken out during the escape. The country was divided into two parts: the south was occupied by the Allies, the north and center by the Germans.
1944 Demonstration in Rome
In the north, the party decided to switch to armed struggle, developing illegal work, to prepare a general uprising against the Germans and fascists. In the “liberated”, or more precisely, occupied by the Anglo-Americans, south, anti-fascist parties began to act openly, legally. Here the organs of the pre-fascist, liberal-monarchist state and parliamentary activities were restored. This objectively established difference in the conditions of the struggle gave rise to some difference in approaches, assessment of prospects, and analysis of the situation between the northern and southern party leadership.
The main question was: Should the Communist Party cooperate with the monarchical provisional government of Southern Italy in order to further develop military operations in the north in order to achieve the complete liberation of the rest of the country, or should it fight equally against the fascists, the Germans and the treacherous monarchy? Is the party fighting for a revolutionary, socialist outcome of the Resistance or only for “national” liberation from the Germans?
After Tolyatti returned from Moscow at the fifth congress, which took place in Naples at the end of 1943, these issues were resolved. Not without internal resistance on the part of some military-political cadres from the North, the majority of delegates voted for Togliatti’s proposal: until the country is completely liberated, to temporarily postpone the question of the future socio-economic system of Italy (socialism or capitalism) and the future form of its government system(monarchy or republic). To do this in order to expand the anti-fascist front and attract specialists from the royal army, wavering and pro-monarchist elements to the common armed struggle.
As a result, the Communist Party did not enter the bourgeois-monarchist government, but began to cooperate with it in military operations. Here Tolyatti was right. By the way, the adopted course met the recommendations of Stalin and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Mistakes occurred later as part of the implementation of this course. Let's try to briefly analyze them.
Incorrect definition of the class character of the Resistance
Gramsci defined the process of creation single state in Italy as an "unfinished revolution" due to the structural weakness of the Italian bourgeoisie.
Based on this analysis and the popular position in the communist movement of that time about the intermediate stages of revolutionary change, Togliatti (and with him the majority of party leaders) understood the armed Resistance as the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of the previous century in new conditions, that is, under direct, organized participation in the process of anti-fascist struggle of the working class at the head of the broad masses.
Consequently, the outcome of the Resistance, in his opinion, should not have been the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but the convening of a constituent assembly of all anti-fascist forces with the aim of creating an intermediate, “people's democratic” state. This understanding of the anti-fascist struggle, which Togliatti first put forward back in 1929, when Gramsci was in prison and could not take an active part in party life, was not shared by a significant part of the party leadership, led by Luigi Longo and Pietro Secchia, who operated underground in Italy.
This approach was a direct distortion of the thoughts of Gramsci, who saw the workers and peasants of Italy as the driving force of the anti-fascist struggle. In Gramsci's understanding, fascism could and should have been overthrown by armed uprising with the goal of establishing a “workers' and peasants' government.” In his concept, the main role is played not by anti-fascist coalition parties, but by the organized proletariat in alliance with the peasantry and other non-proletarian labor strata. According to Gramsci, the proletariat completes the bourgeois revolution after, and not instead of, taking power and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. The difference from the position of Togliatti is obvious.
Taking into account the above, it is easy to understand how in Togliatti the Resistance is gradually acquiring a purely military, national liberation character. In the German-occupied North, the party leadership believed that the Resistance should have a clearly defined class character. It must not end with a simple restoration of the pre-war liberal bourgeoisie and its institutions to power. The party's tireless political agitation among the working class was carried out in parallel with military operations. This led to a successful strike at the largest factories in Turin, Milan and Genoa in March 1944 under the conditions of the most brutal German occupation, the atrocities of the SS and fascist gangs.
1945 Red partisans
The large cities of Northern Italy and entire mountainous regions liberated themselves before the arrival of the Anglo-Americans. In these cities and regions, new governing bodies were established that arose directly in the process of armed struggle. They differed from the institutions of the pre-war liberal state in their class representation and in the way they were created and operated. Their model could become the basis of a new, post-war state. Tolyatti chooses the path of the Constituent Assembly to develop a new constitution.
Deviation from Leninism and choice in favor of bourgeois democracy
After the end of the war, the moment came to resolve the issue of the form of government and the socio-economic structure of the new Italy. Formally, the head of state is the crown prince, the regent of the kingdom. The temporary government body is the Committee of National Liberation, which has a central structure and peripheral bodies.
Unlike the Committee for the National Liberation of Northern Italy, in the central structure all parties of the anti-fascist coalition were represented on a parity basis (all parties have an equal number of representatives), and not in proportion to their actual strength and weight. As a result, bourgeois parties dominated the central structure.
In 1945, the Communist Party of Italy consisted of 2.5 million people, 500 thousand of them were armed and had military training. In terms of numbers, organization and strength, the ICP was the first party in the country.
In Italy, a dual power was actually established: on the one hand, in the North - the governing bodies of the CCW, on the other - in the South - the bourgeois-monarchist government. In such a situation, Togliatti and the majority in the party leadership unconditionally accept the rules of the game of bourgeois democracy, that is, they agree to hold a referendum on the choice between a monarchy and a republic, a universal vote to elect a Constituent Assembly (1946).
This choice was very risky. At that time, illiteracy reigned in Italy. The church had total ideological control over the majority of the population, especially the rural ones.
As a result, the establishment of the republic barely passed the referendum, and the Communist Party ended up only third in the elections, receiving much fewer votes than the Christian Democratic and Socialist parties, which were much weaker organizationally than the PCI.
Right-wing opportunists in the leadership justified the unexpected result by saying that the party had not yet mastered the tactics of legal work. Today we see that this was not true. The party had already been working legally in Southern Italy for three years, and in the North, the PCI never stopped political work among the population, even during the armed struggle.
The reason for the defeat was different: it was hopeless to fight on the battlefield chosen by the class enemy, and even under the rules imposed by him. In the game called “bourgeois democracy” programs and positions do not matter, the main thing here is cash, invested in the campaign, external pressure, ideological control over the population. This surrender of communist positions without a fight, in our opinion, is explained by the objective deviation of Tolyatti’s political line from Leninism.
Parliamentary cretinism of the PCI
The communists certainly contributed greatly to Italy's republican constitution. It differed from all previous ones in its potentially progressive nature: labor was proclaimed to be the basis of the republic, expropriation was envisaged private property, the active role of the state in ensuring material equality of citizens, the superiority of state and public interests over private ones, etc. But the constitution de facto remained bourgeois. The formulation “sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it through parliament,” although it asserts the superiority of the legislative power over all others, it contains all the anti-scientific uncertainty of the category “people,” which does not take into account its division into classes with opposing interests.
The territorial principle of electing parliament initially guarantees the predominance of representatives of the bourgeoisie in it. In addition, the constitution is programmatic and not coercive in nature: it is enough to postpone the implementation of its instructions to freeze the entire general plan.
Togliatti, however, was convinced that the continuation of the anti-fascist coalition and the role of the Soviet Union in the international arena would create the conditions for a progressive advance towards socialism "peacefully" through "structural reforms" and the gradual "expansion of democracy through parliamentary struggle."
The question of the proletariat taking power was first postponed indefinitely under the pretext that there were no conditions for a proletarian revolution, and then it was simply forgotten. The party’s motto was “defense of democracy and the constitution born of the Resistance,” in other words, defense of the bourgeois state and system. The Cominform repeatedly condemned the position of the Italian and French Communist Parties, correctly accusing them of “parliamentary cretinism.”
Criticism from the North
Within the party, too, not everyone agreed with the position of Tolyatti and the majority of the leadership, but there was no internal opposition as such due to strict adherence to party discipline. Those who objected to the new course were mainly cadres from the north of the country who had gone through the experience of conspiracy and Resistance. The main figure among the dissenters was Pietro Secchia.
An idea of his sincere revolutionary position can be gleaned from the following quotes from Secchia’s own speeches at meetings of the Politburo and the Party Central Committee:
“I cannot be accused of being unfaithful to the party if I do not agree with the concept of the Italian road to socialism. When I became a communist, the party set the task of developing the armed struggle and seizing power along the path indicated by October. Of course, the party can keep the same name and change not only its policies, but also its strategy and some basic principles. But you cannot demand from those who became communists because the party was guided by those other principles that they accept and share the new course. For, perhaps, many of us would not have become communists if the party had then pursued today’s line.”
“...Conditions do not develop spontaneously, on their own... we were resolutely against any form of waiting. We cannot wait for the moment [of uprising], we must prepare for it. Conditions are prepared and changed only by struggle.”
The dynamics of the class struggle very quickly resolved the issue of dual power in favor of the bourgeoisie: in 1947, the communists were expelled from the government under pressure from the Americans, the partisans began to be expelled from law enforcement agencies, and the fascists were restored.
The party did not react, and local attempts at resistance by partisan cadres were condemned by the center and punished by expulsion from the party. Secchia objected to the inertia of the party: “Between armed uprising and complete idleness, there is a whole range of options for struggle.”
In such a situation, Secchia, who was then responsible for organizational issues, went to Moscow, where at a secret meeting with Stalin, Zhdanov and other members of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, critical issues of the policy of national unity pursued by Togliatti were discussed. Subsequently, in 1950, Stalin proposed to transfer Togliatti from the post of Secretary General of the PCI to the post of Secretary of the Cominform, which would lead to the election of Secchia, as the second person in the party, to the post of General Secretary. The leadership of the IKP accepted Stalin's proposal, but Togliatti refused. Thus, the situation in the IKP has not changed.
As a result, this led to the fact that the party, in the name of the “national path to socialism,” inverting the role of the general and the particular, actually began to deny the universal laws of development of capitalism and the bourgeois state, the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Deviation from Lenin's theory of the state led to the disastrous perception of parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy as the only possible basis for struggle. Thus, the PCI gave legitimacy to bourgeois legality.
1969 "Hot Autumn"
The position of that time already contained all the rudiments of Eurocommunism, with only one difference: Tolyatti never formally rejected Marxism-Leninism, did not break off relations with the Soviet Union and people's democracies, never praised NATO and never stopped fighting for Italy's exit from it, as Berlinguer and the Eurocommunists later did.
1969 "Hot Autumn"
Let us once again quote Secchia on the correct understanding of relations between communist parties: “Some strongly emphasize the concept of complete autonomy. On the contrary, I understand autonomy within the framework of the ideological and political unity of the international communist movement. Therefore, I have always been against the wording of polycentrism and have always considered bilateral relations to be insufficient.”
About NATO: “I repeat that the danger does not come from various semi-militant fascist organizations, which despite this should be disbanded, beaten and destroyed, which could be done easily ... the main danger also does not come from the conspiracies of Prince Borghese, who naturally should be condemned for the crimes committed and for his attempt [the coup attempt on December 7-8, 1970], but without unnecessary noise, which has the obvious purpose of covering up the real and main danger. We should not fall for such a hoax. We must make it clear to everyone that the most serious danger, which could become dramatic in the event of an international conflict, lies in Italy’s complete and once again confirmed loyalty to NATO.”
1973
Class degeneration
1976
In addition to the above reasons, the gradual degeneration of the class composition of the party leadership played a significant role in the process of decomposition of the PCI. Already at the Eighth Party Congress (1956), under the pretext of expanding and updating the leadership, 25% of the workers and partisan cadres were withdrawn from the Central Committee. They were replaced by intellectuals and cadres who joined the party after 1945.
Class degeneration was accelerated by the decision of the Thirteenth Congress (1972, Berlinguer was elected General Secretary) to subordinate party cells in production (workplaces) to territorial party organizations. Since the petty-bourgeois element predominated in the territorial organizations, the percentage of workers' delegates at the congresses decreased sharply.
1976
If we add to all this:
1. The Eurocommunists' outright rejection of Marxism-Leninism in favor of a vague eclecticism, within the framework of which everyone is a little bit right and it is unclear who is wrong;
2. Sharp condemnation of the positive experience of building socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries, which began to be identified with repression;
then it becomes easy to understand why the party ceased to exist.
Today the Italian communists, like the Phoenix, are rising from the ashes. After all, there is an urgent need for their revolutionary activity, the overthrow of capitalism, which has exhausted its historical role. The mistakes of the past have been taken into account, the lesson has been learned. The Party will make every effort to ensure that they do not recur.
Just a few decades ago, the world communist movement was a powerful force that the leading countries of the world, including the United States, had to reckon with. Even during the “crusade against communism,” the communist parties remained the vanguard of the left.
Today the situation has changed dramatically. With the exception of China and a number of Asian countries, as well as Cuba, the influence of communist parties is practically invisible.
In a number of European countries, not only communist parties are banned, but also communist symbols. In the European Union, statements are increasingly being made that equate communism with fascism and national socialism, holding the communists responsible for inciting the Second World War.
But, despite the deep crisis, the communist movement is alive. And, most interestingly, in leading Western countries, communist parties continue to exist.
March of the French Communists, 1935. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
What do modern Western communists look like?
French Communist Party: there are traditions, no prospects
Italy and France were famous for their communist traditions - it was in these two countries that there were the strongest communist parties in Western Europe in the post-war period.
Beginning in the 1980s, the communists, caught in ideological contradictions, ceded the role of the main left party in the country to the socialists. The collapse of the USSR hit the PCF very seriously. Robert Yu, who replaced long-time leader Georges Marchais, initiated a departure from traditional ideology and accepted ecologists, feminists, and fighters for the rights of sexual minorities into the ranks of the organization. A split emerged in the party, as a result of which many members went to the socialists and other leftist organizations.
In the 1997 parliamentary elections, the French Communist Party, gaining 9.9 percent of the vote, entered the ruling coalition with the Socialists. As a result, for the last time in the post-war history of France, a government was formed in which communists received ministerial posts.
Following this, there was a new decline in the popularity of the communists, forcing them to enter into coalitions with other radical leftists.
In the 2012 parliamentary elections, the PCF was part of the Left Front, which won 10 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly. Seven out of ten seats belong to the communists.
Since 2010, the leader of the French Communist Party has been journalist Paul Laurent.
Italian Communist Party: with hope of revival
Italian Communist Party, during the fascist regime Mussolini which led an armed struggle against him, after the end of World War II had every chance of becoming the ruling power in the country. In 1947-1948, the communists were part of the Italian government. However, pressure from external anti-communist forces, primarily the United States, led to the fact that the communists' opportunities in real politics were limited.
After the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, cooperation between the Italian Communist Party and the USSR was virtually curtailed.
The collapse of the USSR put an end to the history of the party. The 20th Congress of the PCI transformed it into the Democratic Party of Left Forces (DPLS), which joined the Socialist International.
The party first switched to social democratic positions, and then completely became centrist, adopting the name “Democratic Party”.
Those who did not agree with the transformation of the PCI in 1991 created the “Communist Revival Party”. In 1998, a new split occurred in the party, as a result of which the Party of Italian Communists was created.
In 2014 it was renamed the Communist Party of Italy, and in 2016, after reunification with a number of new breakaways from the PCV, it was transformed into the Italian Communist Party, adopting the name of the historical PCI.
Things are not going well for the Italian Communist Party in its new reincarnation, and for all other small communist groups.
In the 2013 parliamentary elections, not a single communist party entered parliament. Only members of small groups who joined the Left Ecology Freedom party, which, in turn, entered into a coalition with former communists from the Democratic Party, were able to “infiltrate” there.
Since 2016, he has headed the Italian Communist Party Mauro Alboresi. The organization's membership does not exceed 20,000 people. IN best years The PCI had 2,000,000 members.
Communists of Italy after success in the 1972 elections. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Communist Party of Austria: small but staunch and proud
Unlike Germany, where the activities of the Communist Party are officially prohibited, Austrian communists have been freely active since 1945. Founded in 1918, today the party is one of the oldest communist organizations in Europe.
It is curious that thanks to the Austrian communists, the first Soviet football player appeared to play for the club Western Europe. Anatoly Zinchenko in 1980 he received permission to play for Rapid Vienna, since this club had close relations with the Austrian Communist Party.
The Austrian communists were represented in the country's parliament from 1945 to 1959, after which they failed to achieve success in federal elections. And from 1970 to 2005, communists were not represented in local parliaments. However, the Austrian Communist Party did not cease to exist.
In the November 25, 2012 elections to the city council of Graz, the party's bastion, the KPA received 19.86% of the vote and 10 seats out of 48, which allowed the Austrian communists to form the second largest faction after the Austrian People's Party.
In the 2013 parliamentary elections, the Austrian Communist Party received 1 percent of the votes, and again did not win seats in parliament.
The party is currently led by Mirko Messner And Melina Knauss.
The Spanish Communist Party: the force that the EU fears
The Spanish communists left a deep mark on the history of our country. Many of them, after the defeat in the Civil War of 1936-1939, lived and worked in the Soviet Union.
Son of the leader of the Spanish communists Dolores Ibarruri Ruben Ibarruri became an officer in the Red Army and died a heroic death in the battles of Stalingrad.
Before the fall of the regime Franco Spanish communists in their homeland operated illegally. Many of them were shot or died in prison. The party was again legalized in 1977, and in its first parliamentary elections received 9.33% of the votes, taking 3rd place.
Like other European communist parties, the party did not avoid splits, but was able to remain an influential political force.
In the 2016 elections, the communists were in the Unidos-Podemos coalition, which showed an excellent result, collecting more than 5 million votes and receiving 71 parliamentary seats.
A situation arose in which the Unidos-Podemos coalition, in alliance with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, could form a government. However, official Brussels sharply objected to this. The reason was not only the possibility of communists entering the government, but also the fact that Unidos-Podemos acts from the position of “Euroscepticism”. As a result, the government was formed by the right-wing “People's Party”, which did not have a majority.
The leader of the Spanish communists is Jose Luis Centella.
Spanish communists, 1936. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Communist Party USA: for Leninism, gays and against Trump
It’s hard to believe, but not only are there communists in the USA, but their headquarters are located not just anywhere but in the “capital of world imperialism” - New York.
American communists, who were subjected to persecution and repression for decades, showed enviable resilience. In the 1980s, the US Communist Party opposed Soviet perestroika, for which it was deprived Mikhail Gorbachev financial support. In 1991, amid the collapse of the USSR, a split occurred in the party. The minority, which demanded a rejection of the ideology of Leninism, formed the Liaison Committees for Democracy and Socialism, and the majority maintained the same course.
At the same time, the party is focused on a peaceful and democratic transition to a socialist economic system in the United States and declares its refusal to use violent methods to overthrow the existing system.
Despite loyalty to Leninism, the program of the American Communist Party contains rather unexpected theses. For example, that capitalism, through the media, which are under the monopoly power of corporations, uses sexism, national chauvinism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-communism in order to divide the working class and its allies.
Current US communists are fighting for the rights of sexual and gender minorities. “Workers around the world strive for a life without war, exploitation, inequality, and poverty. They strive to build a bright future based on democracy, peace, justice, equality, cooperation and meeting the basic needs of people. This future is socialism, a system in which workers control their own lives and destinies and build a better world together. The Communist Party USA is dedicated to the fight for socialism in this country. This document is the program of our Party, a statement of our goals and objectives, as well as a guide to action on the path to the Socialist United States of America,” the Communist Party program says.
Since 2014, the party has been headed by a 60-year-old John Batchell. The party size is approximately 2000 people.
Despite the fact that the communists declare their intention to achieve their goals through democratic means, last time candidate from the Communist Party of the United States entered the presidential race in 1984. Behind Gus Hall and went with him as a candidate for vice president Angela Davis 36,386 voters, or 0.04 percent, voted.
“The Communist Party does not support candidates from other parties, but we are deeply involved in mobilizing people to participate in elections,” the party’s website says.
In the 2016 election race, American communists mobilized people in support of Hillary Clinton. Currently, the US Communist Party is actively participating in street protests against the new president Donald Trump.
The Italian Communist Party, long the flagship of the country's communists and one of the world's most successful communist parties, emerged in the early 1920s. Actually, it was founded in 1921, in a fairly standard way - as a result of the departure of Leninists from the socialist party. Banned since 1926, the first congress was held abroad, in Lyon, and operated underground for 18 years. It was the only political party that really and thoroughly participated in the Resistance movement.
At the end of the era of fascism in Italy, she participated in the cabinets of 1944-47, in May 1947 she was removed from work in the government, and since then she has not entered the cabinet for more than 30 years - and at the same time, only in 2008 she was not in parliament for the first time since the war. There was no one at all who called himself a communist. Its confrontation with the Christian Democrats largely determined the entire political life of the country in 1945-90, and the confrontation took a variety of forms, with political overtones having a struggle for the primacy of two prominent cycling masters, Coppi and Bartali, a communist and a Christian democrat, respectively, in 1940 -50s. By the mid-70s, the PCI was considered the largest and most influential of the communist parties of democratic countries, collecting from 20% to a third of the votes, chronically controlled Bologna, Turin, Rome, Florence, it was in Italy that the concept of the “red belt” arose, which in this case included the provinces Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria. The communists were famous for organizing socially useful activities, from cleaning streets and improving services to organizing festivals and fairs, individual work with voters on the “every door” principle, and in general the organization as such. In 1976, the zenith of electoral popularity was reached - 34% of the vote. It is believed that it was the activity of the Communist Party that allowed the Fiat concern to build an automobile plant in the USSR, now known as the Volzhsky Automobile Plant, in the city of Stavropol, Kuibyshev region, now known as Tolyatti after the leader of the Communist Party of the 30s and 40s.
Since the mid-70s, as part of the strategy of “national solidarity” and “historic compromise”, the Christian Democrats under the leadership of Aldo Moro began to move closer to the PCI - it is believed that the Christian Democrats were inclined to cooperate with the Communist Party in the hope of repeating the same trick with it as before with the socialists - to involve them in the affairs of the government and through this strangle them. The death of Moreau at the hands of the Red Brigades led to a departure from this strategy.
In general, the party professed Eurocommunism and was inclined to cooperate with political opponents; it finally moved away from the Soviet camp in 1979, and did without Soviet money, receiving government subsidies by the number of his followers, of whom there were many. The PKI spoke out very sharply on issues of the Sino-Soviet split, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, and the activity of the Red Brigades.
In the 80s, the party was in some disorientation, and in 1991 it split into two, large and small, respectively, the Democratic Left (PDS, then DS) and the “recreated” (PRK or RK). The PDS proclaimed a course under the slogan “we have renewed ourselves to build a new Italy”, was accepted into the Socialist International (in some way returned to its former ranks), sometimes delegates ministers, its member D’Alema led the cabinet for two years (1998-2000), and another a prominent functionary, Napolitano, became President of Italy in 2006; Veltroni, who applied for the premiership from the “left” in the 2008 elections, was also a communist, and the mayor of Rome for seven years. In 1998, the new leader of the party, D’Alema, managed to bring to agreement a whole bloc of left-wing parties, which formed a single grouping called “Left Democrats” (PD).
The Republic of Kazakhstan collects 4-8% in elections, with a median of about 6%. RK and Lega Nord are the only parties objecting to the foreign policy consensus expressed in a strictly pro-American pattern of behavior. The Republic of Kazakhstan was responsible for the fall of the cabinet in 1998 because it did not agree with its budget policy.
Dmitry ZHVANIYA, Candidate of Historical Sciences
1920 Italian workers occupied the factory
The destruction of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), the most powerful communist party in Western Europe, was the greatest tragedy of the international left movement. At the time of the collapse of the PCI, many perceived it as a natural consequence of the collapse of the USSR and world communism. However, it is not. Without any doubt, the collapse of the USSR caused demoralization, confusion and vacillation in the left camp. However, the world communist movement exploded on a time bomb planted by its compromising leaders long before 1991. And this is very clearly seen in the history of the Italian Communist Party. And this example shows how compromise with the bourgeois system ultimately turns out for the left party.
Professor of Italian literature Enrico Fenzi, an intellectual who joined the Red Brigades, believes that the armed struggle launched by the Italian ultra-left was a reaction to “the duality of the Communist Party, which emerged in the 70s under the influence of major changes. The PCI in the 70s could no longer hide its double essence... it had to represent the interests of the state, defend institutions, side with the Carabinieri, open the way to extremism... The armed struggle for the “Red Brigades” was not a political formula, but a policy. The only way to get out of the framework of the politics of the PCI and the official left, the only way to get out of the party-cratic paralysis” (1). Enrico Fenzi personally participated in the attack on PCI Central Committee member Carlo Castellano.
The policy of the Italian Communist Party in the 70s was not accidental. It was the result of all the previous activities of the Italian communists. To become a party of bourgeois law and order was the task to which the policy of the PCI was subordinated. In the words of Herbert Marcuse, the PCI has more than once played the role of “doctor at the bedside of capitalism” (2). Let us consider the most characteristic points that help to understand the essence of the PCI and the reasons why this party caused a reaction of rejection among left-wing radical youth.
"Salerno Turn"
Founder of the PCI Antonio Gramsci. His slogan: “I hate indifferent people!”
Back in 1927, young communist leaders, Luigi Longo and Pietro Secchia, activists of the underground communist youth organization, expressed disagreement with the methods of fighting against fascism that the leadership of the PCI prescribed to them. In January 1928, an open clash occurred at the Second Party Conference in Basel. “We know very well,” said the then chairman of the PCI, Ruggero Grieco (who headed the PCI from 1934 to 1938), in his opening speech, “what exactly some comrades mean when they want more. We are talking about individual terror, terrorist acts. Well, for example, to raise the spirits of the masses, even blow up some kind of power grid, and at the same time X and Y will die” (3).
After the expulsion of Amadeo Bordiga from the party, the arrest of Antonio Gramsci and others, the leadership of the party was seized by Palmiro Togliatti. “The party leader, Palmiro Togliatti, lives in the Lux Hotel in Moscow, visits Paris... he does not have the opportunity to visit Italy illegally: the risk is too great,” writes Cecilia Kean in the book “The Italian Rebus” (4). While the party leader made himself comfortable in the Moscow Lux Hotel, ordinary activists fought the fascist regime in deep underground conditions.
Tolyatti left Moscow only in the spring of 1944 to finally, “without risking his life,” return to his country. He arrives in the south of Italy, in Naples. “The Neapolitan comrades want to decide everything tomorrow, but Togliatti is postponing the meeting for several days: he needs to look around, although all the main points of the strategy were outlined in Moscow” (5). Tolyatti, obeying the Kremlin’s instructions, does not even talk about establishing a socialist regime in the country. “Togliatti was so careful that it did not speak out at all regarding the issue of “republic or monarchy,” says Keene (6). From his point of view, it is necessary to “end the war, drive the Nazis out of Italy, and then we’ll see. It is necessary, one way or another, to come to an agreement with other parties that took part in the Resistance, and with the Anglo-American allies” (7).
Party activists active in the north of Italy, and not only in the north, thought completely differently. But Togliatti suppressed this dissatisfaction with the authority of the Kremlin courtier.
On April 21, 1944, a coalition government of “national unity” was created in Salerno, in other words, the second government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio. It included Togliatti and two more communists, representatives of other parties participating in the Resistance, as well as the famous philosopher Benedetto Croce. “But doesn’t the Salerno turn fit into Stalin’s broad international strategy? - notes Cecilia Keene. “Togliatti said more than once or twice that the “Salerno turn” was simply a development of the line outlined back in 1940” (8). However, not all communists approved of this step. After all, none other than Badoglio suppressed the communist uprising in July-August 1943, which was a reaction to the removal of Benito Mussolini on July 25, 1943.
Badoglio's cabinet lasted only a month and a half. On June 4, 1944, American troops entered Rome. Soon the first cabinet of socialist and resistance member Iwanoe Bonomi was formed. It included Tolyatti and representatives of other parties participating in the Resistance. “Some, especially the people of the Action Party, made utopian plans: they wanted to create a government of only leftists. But Togliatti was never a utopian and resolutely protested, saying that all this is an abstraction” (9).
Amadeo Bordiga is one of the organizers of the PCI, from which he was expelled for left-wing sectarianism.
On December 10, 1944, the second Bonomi cabinet was formed, which again included all the Resistance parties. One of the main biographers of Togliatti, Giorgio Bocca, noted that the “Salerno turn” was not a random gesture, but the beginning of a long-term policy. As socialist Pietro Nenni told Bocque, “Togliatti thought little about the fact that the X hour of a future revolution might come. He systematically pursued his line: we must participate in the government. In addition, we quickly realized that he did not at all consider the problem of merging with the socialists and creating a new united party to be very important. The real problem was relations with Catholics, much more important than the question of the republic” (10).
But many ICP activists, who fought against fascism with arms in hand, did not share Tolyatti’s conciliatory course. On April 25, 1945, a victorious uprising took place. Communist partisans shot Mussolini, but the civil war continued. In Milan, groups of partisans sought out the most prominent fascists, known for their cruelty, in order to deal with them without waiting for any orders or trials. Not only ordinary partisans, but also some leaders were confident that they could not stop, that the struggle continued.
“Wind from the North” is the name given to the partisan opposition in the Italian Communist Party. It was led by Luigi Longo and Pietro Secchia, recognized leaders of the partisan movement. Secchia absolutely did not like Togliatti's political course. He opposed the amnesty for ordinary fascists, which Togliatti, as Minister of Justice, carried out in the interests of “national unity.” It was because of this amnesty that the “black prince” Valerio Borghesi, who became one of the organizers of December 12, 1969 and other terrorist adventures of the extreme right, was released.
Secchia patronized an organization called the “Red Flying Squad” (“Volante Rossa”). Its activists played sports and dealt with former fascists. When the “Red Flying Squad” sent some fascist to the next world, Secchia’s close associate, Giulio Seniga, nicknamed Nino, a worker, partisan, during the Resistance showed himself to be an exceptionally brave man, joked: “Well, another one has been saved from the harmful smoking habits" (11).
The strategy and tactics of the “new party” that Tolyatti was creating dictated caution and gradualism. “To all partisan leaders of the northern cities of Tolyatti he patiently and persistently explains the meaning of the “Salerno turn”, explains what a new type of party is, the new party that he is creating,” writes Keene (12).
Pietro Secchia was against the conciliatory course of Palmiro Togliatti. Patronized the “Red Flying Squad”, which dealt with the Nazis
In fact, talk about a “new type of party” served as a verbal cover for old bureaucratic manipulations. Secchia and Longo were transferred to party work in Rome. Longo was appointed deputy of Tolyatti, and Secchia was appointed head of the organizational department. The Wind from the North opposition was a manifestation of the anxiety of the Italian proletariat over the results of the civil war. However, being closely connected with the leadership of the PCI apparatus, it was eliminated by simple bureaucratic tactics. “The sober realism of His Excellency Palmiro Togliatti” won (13).
Further, the PCI more and more fit into the traditional bourgeois legal order: Togliatti is part of the first three coalition governments led by the Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi, a prominent PCI figure, Umberto Terracini, is elected deputy chairman of the Constituent Assembly, participates in the development of the Constitution of the republic, the party participates in municipal elections.
But on July 14, 1948, an event occurred that almost upset the plans of the IKP leadership. At 11:30 am, almost next to the Palazzo Montecitorio, the fascist Antonio Pallante made an attempt on Tolyatti. The bullet hit the back of the head. Many regarded the incident as a government conspiracy against Tolyatti. The newspaper of the IKP “Unita” (“Unita” - “Unity”) published emergency number with the headline “Down with the government of murderers!” Bocca writes: “Having learned that they had shot at Togliatti, workers’ and communist Italy acts without waiting for party directives. A general strike occurs, unprecedented in its scope in Italian history. The authority of the state in the largest Italian cities as if he had evaporated, a period of interregnum sets in, when anything can happen” (14). However, Togliatti, having come to his senses, whispered to his comrades: “Calm, please, calm. Let’s not do anything stupid” (15).
Already on the morning of July 15, the socialist Nenni understood and recorded in his diary: the leaders of the Communist Party do not want to rouse the people to revolt because they do not see a real chance of success. “...neither the government nor the Communist Party wants the situation to aggravate. Two more days pass. The government is “in control.” And Longo (who until recently was a supporter of continuing the armed struggle - D.J.), speaking in parliament in the presence of the press, sarcastically declares that ordinary Italians are being intimidated (“The threat of rebellion!”, “Hannibal is at our gates!”), instead to think seriously and calmly about solving national problems” (16).
On July 17, the ICP Central Committee at a meeting approved the end of the general strike. The year 1948 ended calmly, “without nonsense,” without new shocks.
Doctor at the bedside of capitalism
PCI leader Palmiro Togliatti was afraid of “nonsense”
The Italian communists experienced the death of Stalin as a great grief. Nikita Khrushchev’s “revelations” at the 20th Congress of the CPSU made a huge impression on them. According to Enrico Berlinguer, he experienced a real shock. “Tolyatti did not want to “injure the party” and tried to dose out information about the revelations” (17). But the leader of the Federation of Italian Communist Youth, Enrico Berlinguer, who until recently constantly carried a small portrait of Stalin with him, “insisted on telling the communists the whole truth” (18). On December 20, 1956, he spoke at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the ICP, “his speech caused a great resonance, and they began to write about him as a “rising star”” (19).
The 20th Congress of the CPSU provided a theoretical justification for the pro-bourgeois policy of the Communist Party. “The working class and its vanguard - the Marxist-Leninist Communist Parties - strive to carry out the socialist revolution in a peaceful way,” wrote the CPSU Program. “This would correspond to the interests of the working class and the entire people, the national interests of the country” (20). The Communist parties were given the task of “winning a strong majority in parliament, transforming it from an instrument serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie into an instrument serving the working people” (21). After the death of Togliatti, the party was headed by Luigi Longo, “next to whom Enrico was all the time” (22). After Longo suffered a stroke, Berlinguer effectively led the party.
The years 1968-69 are marked in history by major social and political battles. According to Berlinguer himself, in Italy “the number of strike hours exceeded 68 million in 1968, this is the highest figure for last years. But already in the first two months of 1969, more than 44 million strike hours were registered” (23).
And what? “The Communist Party has returned to its characteristic path of cautious, controlled reformism,” writes British left-wing Marxist Chris Harman. - The communists have sold out! And when the government resigned in the summer in protest against a general strike called by the unions, the unions called for an end to the strike. The communist leader Berlinguer issued a statement in which he argued that the main problem existing in the factories was increasing labor productivity” (24).
IKP did everything possible to channel the working pressure. “The struggle is for expanding the rights of workers in concluding collective agreements,” Berlinguer explained, “for new trade union and political rights, for achieving a significant reduction in working hours, for various forms of control over the rhythms of work, for improving sanitary conditions, for the right to hold meetings in enterprises.” and in the workshops" (25).
Analyzing the actions of the IKP, at least only for the period of the late 60s, it can be called not only a doctor, but a resuscitator of capitalism.
At the end of the 60s, many left-wing intellectuals, dissatisfied with its reformism, began to leave the Communist Party. The Communist Party itself got rid of some left-wing intellectuals. For example, Rossana Rossandra and Lucio Magri were expelled from the PCI in 1969 because they protested the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in September 1968. They started publishing the magazine “Il Manifesto”. Unlike the other group “to the left of the PCI,” “Lotta continua!” (“The fight continues!”), which was aimed at students, the group “Il Manifesto” tried to propagate Communist Party activists. But just like “Lotta continua!”, “Il Manifesto” of its theoretical basis proclaimed Maoism. She had far fewer activists than LC, but her ideas were very successful. The group published a daily newspaper, which published discussions between various movements and organizations. Since 1971 she has been involved in collaboration with LC. Since 1973, she advocated the creation of a Popular Unity-type government in Chile. In 1974, the Manifesto group merged with the Left Socialist group.
Historical compromise and Eurocommunism
A fighter of the International Brigades in Spain and one of the leaders of the anti-fascist Resistance in Italy, Luigi Longo, continued the conciliatory course of Palmiro Togliatti, which he initially condemned
In 1971, one of the main issues in Italian political life was the election of the President of the Republic. One of the leaders of the Italian Socialist Party, Francesco de Martino, was considered the official candidate of the left. But already since 1969, confidential negotiations were conducted between a member of the PCI leadership, Luciano Barca, and one of Aldo Moro’s closest collaborators, Tullio Ancoro. “On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1971, Barco and Enrico Berlinguer came to Ancora’s home,” writes Cecilia Kean in the article “Three Tragedies.” Barco later described this meeting. Both Moro and Berlinguer seemed a little constrained; finally Berlinguer spoke first, saying that the Italian Communists were ready to support Moro's candidacy for the presidency of the Republic. Moreau expressed his gratitude with restraint, but noted that his party apparently had other plans” (26).
As can be seen from the above example, the PCI made every effort to become a respectable bourgeois party. And for this reason, its leaders were ready to support not a left-wing candidate for the presidency, but a prominent Christian Democrat. But they were still burdened by both the burden of the Stalinist past and the reputation of Kremlin puppets. To achieve this goal, the leadership of the PCI needed, firstly, to weaken ties with Moscow, and, secondly, to change the social base of the party.
Berlinguer published three articles in the party magazine “Rinascita” (“Renaissance”) under the general title “Reflections on Italy after the events in Chile.” “We are not talking about a leftist alternative, but about a democratic alternative. In other words, about possible cooperation and agreement between the masses of the people following the communists and socialists, with the masses of the people following the Catholics, as well as cooperation with other democratic formations,” is Berlinguer’s central idea (27). In the last of the three articles, Berlinguer used the term historical compromise. Not everyone liked this term. Many young, radical activists left the party. Berlinguer envisioned the historic compromise as one step along the path that would lead the PCI to permanent participation in government.
On March 18, 1975, the XIV Congress of the PCI, nicknamed the congress of “historical compromise,” opened in Rome. “There was another force that could offer its services to save Italian capitalism,” writes Chris Harman, “and that was the PCI. She had long been a critical supporter of the reform strategy, and the political unrest of the early 1970s gave her the opportunity to serve the status quo even better and further reduce her criticism. Party leader Berlinguer used the military coup in Chile to call for power sharing with the CDA. Chile's experience, Berlinguer said, showed that a country polarized between right and left was at risk of a coup. The solution is a historic compromise between the parties, which will contribute to stability” (28). The PCI did everything possible to appease the ruling Christian Democratic Party and erase the contradictions between the electoral base of the PCI and the Christian Democratic Party.
“In our country, the Catholic question and the communist question are not just superficially intertwined. They are intertwined throughout the social fabric to such an extent that it is impossible to talk about one without talking about the other, we read in the book “Catholics of the 70s.” — In fact, the cultural and historical tradition of the PCI grew up in Italy not against, but alongside, and fought together with the Catholic tradition. And there is continuity in the search for meeting points and convergence between the two traditions, despite all their significant differences. Convergence in the name of building a socialist society that would be based on all the historical components of the country” (29).
In the municipal elections on June 15, 1975, the Communists won. They also found themselves ahead in the parliamentary elections of June 20, 1976. “The votes were given to the PCI,” stated the official bourgeois newspaper “Corriere della Sera” (“Evening Correspondence”), “because this party was able to prove its seriousness and ability to make concrete proposals” (30). “The victory of the PCI was a triumph for the party and for Berlinguer personally,” says Cecilia Kean (31). But the Christian Democratic Party also completely retained its electorate.
Enrico Berlinguer spoke “not about a leftist alternative, but about a democratic alternative”
The PCI felt an urgent need to separate itself from the politics of the Moscow bureaucracy. “It was necessary to define the line separating the ideological values and cultural positions of large Western European communist parties from the experience of parties in power in Eastern European countries,” wrote Massimo D’Alema, editor-in-chief of the Unita newspaper. “It became, first of all, the theme of political democracy, its universal significance in social progress” (32).
At the Madrid meeting on March 2-3, 1977, Berlinguer (leader of the Italian Communist Party), Santiago Corrillo (leader of the Spanish Communist Party) and Georges Marchais (leader of the French Communist Party) made a joint statement called the “Eurocommunist Manifesto”. It pointed out that the old bourgeois democracy of the times of Marx and Lenin no longer existed. The rights and freedoms of workers expanded, the power of the bourgeoisie was limited. In place of the bourgeois democracy comes “advanced democracy,” sharply increasing the rights and freedoms of workers. “Among the transformative factors, the role of democracy is irreversibly increasing. It is the formula for social progress, its driving force” (33).
The institutions of this democracy can be used to renew society; moreover, they can be preserved in the new society. “We consider parliament the most important institution of political life in Italy,” Berlinguer argued, “and not only today, but also during the transition to socialism and during its construction” (34).
There was one year left before Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, and Berlinguer gave political guarantees to the bourgeois parties: “We believe that in Italy it is possible and must not only move towards socialism, but also build a socialist society with the participation of various political forces, organizations and parties, and that the working class can and must carry out its historical mission in a democratic and pluralistic system" (35).
Eurocommunism placed Berlinguer and the PCI in positions historically occupied by right-wing social democracy. This, in general, was not hidden. “The word “laborism,” wrote in Unita in the summer of 1980, its next editor-in-chief, Claudio Petruccioli, who would head Italian state television in 2005, “can mean a lot, including some good, acceptable things... We wanted We would like to remind you that when we talk about the “third way”, we are also convinced that the Italian left can and should use everything positive that is in the experience of Labor and Social Democrats” (36).
More and more, the PCI claimed the role of representative of “national interests.” “We communists,” Berlinguer declared, “must take into account this deep coincidence of the interests of the working class and the general interest of the country and build on this basis a political, economic, social line that will allow for a progressive change in the mechanisms and structures of the production and consumption system in accordance with the needs working class and country" (37).
“Eurocommunism of the 70s was an important step towards the integration of a number of European communist parties into the political institutions of their countries. The social interests of part of their bureaucracy ceased to depend on the “socialist camp” and became increasingly associated with receiving income from holding positions in their own state,” notes Claude Gabriel on the pages of the Trotskyist magazine Intervzglyad (38).
The political course of the PCI could not but affect its social base.
Slow death
Of course, the expansion of the social base of the PCI was reflected in its membership. Even among the section secretaries (grassroots organizations) there were practicing Catholics: according to a survey conducted in 1980, of the secretaries who joined the party in 1976-78, there were 5% of them. At the same time, from 1968 to 1981, the share of workers in the party decreased from 50.4% to 45.4% as a result of a faster growth in the share of other social strata, in which the PCI previously did not have serious influence. The representation of the urban petty bourgeoisie grew from 1968 to 1981 from 6.6% to 9.1%, and of office workers and intellectuals - from 3.3% to 10% (39).
The workers remained the core of the party and still formed the basis of the grassroots structure. “Among the members of the sections’ steering committees they accounted for 46.3%” (40). A different picture emerged for more high levels manuals. The PCI, having finally become part of the bourgeois law and order, having risen to the level of government politics, acquired a whole army of bureaucracy: city mayors, municipal councilors, parliamentarians, trade union bosses, qualified personnel developing the party’s socio-economic programs, and journalists. The bureaucracy of the PCI in its social status and in its social interests was much closer to the traditional bourgeoisie than to the working class. In Lenin’s words, in the PCI “a whole social layer of parliamentarians, journalists, officials of the labor movement, privileged employees and some layers of the proletariat has matured, which has merged with the national bourgeoisie and which this bourgeoisie was completely able to appreciate and “adapt”” (41). Eurocommunism, extolling the importance of “political democracy”, its universal significance (42), perfectly suited the interests of the party bureaucracy, interested in preserving the bourgeois status quo. The increased attention to gaining support in new, non-proletarian layers, characteristic of the policy of “historical compromise,” also had an impact. “Between the XIII and XIV Congresses of the PCI (1972-1975), the percentage of workers in federation committees (provincial organizations) decreased from 33 to 25. In 1978, 23.4% of the members of federation committees were workers, 23.8% were employees and Engineering and technical personnel (in 1975 the latter were only 18%). This change was especially noticeable over a long period. Over a quarter of a century (1951-1975), the percentage of middle managers who came from working class backgrounds decreased from 44.2% to 26.6%. In 1977, at a conference of one of the federations operating in the industrial province of Central Italy, only 19% of workers were among the delegates, with 63% of teachers, students and employees” (43). It must be taken into account that the middle-level worker leaders of the Communist Party were mainly representatives of the labor aristocracy.
In a word, in the mid-70s the PCI finally degenerated into a bourgeois party, which through its actions greatly disoriented the working class; a party that is far from “previous ideas about revolutionism”; the party of “strong reformism” (44).
It all ended very sadly. Italy, a country with a strong anti-capitalist and left-wing tradition, was left without a powerful left party. In 1991, the PCI abandoned its old name, transforming into the Party of Democratic Left Forces. During the activity of this party, the number of its members fell from 989.708 to 613.412. PDLS continued to mutate, as a result, the Democratic Party arose on its basis, which rejects even traditional social democratic principles, considering them too radical. Currently, the Italian government is headed by PD representative Enrico Letta. But this does not mean that a bright streak has come for the working people of this country.
List of used literature:
1. Bocca G. Noi terroristi: 12 anni di lotta armata ricostruiti e discussi con i protagonisti. - Milano: Garzanti, 1985. - P.18.
2. Waddis Jack. "New" theories of revolution. - M.: Progress, 1975. - P.357.
3. Mafai M. L’Uomo che sognava la lotta armata. La storia di Pietro Secchia. - Milano: 1984. - P.21-22.
4. Kin T.I. Italian rebus. - M.: Politizdat, 1991. - P.258.
5. Ibid. — P.212.
6. Ibid. — P.218.
7. Ibid. — P.212.
8. Ibid. — P.257.
9. Ibid. — P.213.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. — P.262.
12. Ibid. — P.260-261.
13. Ibid. — P.261.
14. Ibid. — P.235.
15. Ibid. — P.234.
16. Ibid. — P.235-236.
17. Kin T.I. Three tragedies // Issues of Philosophy - M., 1990. - N 4.- P. 107.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Program of the CPSU (adopted by the XXII Congress of the CPSU). - M.: Politizdat, 1962. - P.39.
21. Ibid. - P.40.
22. Kin T.I. Three tragedies. — P.107.
23. International meeting of communist and workers' parties. Moscow, 1969. - Prague: Peace and Socialism, 1969. - P.480.
24. Harman Ch. The fire last time: 1968 and after. - London, Chicago, Melbourne: Bookmarks, 1988. — P.198.
25. International meeting of communist and workers' parties. - P.480.
26. Kin T.I. Three tragedies. — P.108.
27. Rinascita. 28 settembre 1973. N 28.
28. Harman Ch. The fire last time... - P.200.
29. I cattolici degli anni 70. - Milano, 1977. - P.168.
30. Veselitsky A.A. Assassins: Strategy of destabilization and tactics of terror in the Apennines. - M.: Politizdat, 1985. - P. 195.
31. Kin T.I. Three tragedies. — P.109.
32. Problems of peace and socialism. N 1, January 1990. - P.54.
33. Ibid. - P.55.
34. Berlinguer E., Bufalini P., Di Giulio F. e altre. I Communisti italiani e il Cile. - Roma, 1973. - P.23.
35. Berlinguer E. La politica internazionale dei communisti italiani. - Roma, 1976. - P.115.
36. L'Unita. 18 Luglo 1980. - P.3.
37. Berlinguer E. La Questione communista. - Roma, 1975. - P.201.
38. Intervzglyad. winter 1991/92. N 2. - P.13.
39. Modern monopoly capitalism: Italy. - M.: Mysl, 1983. - P.300.
40. Ibid.
41. Lenin V.I. Op. 4th edition. T. 21. - P. 223.
42. Problems of peace and socialism. - M., 1990. - N 1. - P.54.
43. Modern monopoly capitalism: Italy. — P.301.
44. Problems of peace and socialism. - M., 1990. - N 1. - P.57.
(from to)
Italian Republic
(from to)
(from to)
Cominform
(from to)
(from to)
2252446 people
(V )
989,708 people
(V )
Italian Communist Party, or ICP(Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, abbreviated as PCI) - a party in Italy that existed from to. The most successful communist party in the 20th century in a developed capitalist society (numbers exceeded 2 million people, in the elections (1976) - 34.4% of the votes). The organ is the newspaper “Unita”, the magazine “Rinashita”. It relied on the country's leading trade union association - the General Italian Confederation of Labor.
Story [ | ]
The PCI was formed as a result of the split of the left wing from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) at the congress in Livorno on January 21, 1921 and was called Communist Party of Italy(Italian: Partito Comunista d "Italia; the original name remained until 1943). The split was led by Amadeo Bordiga, elected general secretary, and the prominent Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who led the radical group "Ordine Nuovo" (Italian L "Ordine Nuovo) in Turin. If in the ISP the majority was behind the centrists (unitarian communists) Giacinto Menotti Serrati, who supported the socialist revolution, but refused to accept the 21 conditions of the Comintern and exclude the right reformist wing from the party, then supporters of the dictatorship of the proletariat joined the ICP. Some left-wing maximalists, including Serrati himself, later joined the communists.
Despite the fact that the PCI, which was not in power, turned out to be the least affected by corruption scandals of all the major political forces in the country, the end of the USSR led to its self-dissolution. The day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, PCI Secretary Achille Occhetto, without even having time to consult with the rest of the leadership, declares the need to change the name of the party and accelerate the adoption of the Social Democratic program. In March 1990, the 19th Congress of the PCI voted by two-thirds for the “founding process” of a new left party in place of the PCI. The 20th Congress of the PCI transforms it into the Democratic Party of Left Forces (DPLS), which joins the Socialist International. The more radical wing of the party, led by Armando Cossutta, creates the Communist Renaissance Party (PCV). Later, the first transformed into the party “Left Democrats” (LD) and abandoned the symbols of the PCI, the Party of Communists of Italy (PCI) broke away from the PCV and adopted a logo very similar to the logo of the PCI.
The final result of the reforms of the PCI was the Democratic Party, which even rejected social democratic principles.
In 2016, the new Communist Party of Italy was created.
ICP leaders[ | ]
| Photo | Name | Original name | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Secretaries of the PCI | |||
| Amadeo Bordiga | Amadeo Bordiga | -1924 | |
| Antonio Gramsci | Antonio Gramsci | -1926 | |