Italian Communist Party
Partito Comunista Italiano |
|
---|---|
Secretaries |
Amadeo Bordiga Antonio Gramsci Palmiro Togliatti Luigi Longo Enrico Berlinguer Alessandro Natta Achille Occhetto |
Founded | 15 May 1943 |
Dissolved | 3 February 1991 |
Preceded by | Communist Party of Italy |
Succeeded by | Democratic Party of the Left |
Headquarters |
Via delle Botteghe Oscure 4 Rome |
Newspaper | L'Unità |
Youth wing | Communist Youth Federation |
Membership | 989,708 (1991) max: 2,252,446 (1947) |
Ideology |
Communism (Eurocommunism) Democratic socialism |
Political position | Left-wing |
National affiliation |
Popular Democratic Front (1947–48) Historic Compromise (1976–80) |
European affiliation | none |
International affiliation |
Comintern (1921–43) Cominform (1947–56) |
European Parliament group |
Communists and Allies (1973–89) European United Left (1989–91) |
Colours | Red |
Party flag | |
The Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy.
The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played a major part in the Italian resistance movement. It changed its name in 1943 to PCI and became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II, attracting the support of about a third of the voters during the 1970s. At the time it was the largest communist party in the West (2.3 million members in 1947 and 34.4% of the vote in 1976).
In 1991 the PCI, which had travelled a long way from doctrinaire communism to democratic socialism by the 1970s or the 1980s, evolved into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which joined the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists. The more radical members of the party left to form the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC).
The PCI participated to its first general election in 1921, obtaining 4.6% of the vote and 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. At the time, it was an active but small faction within Italian political left, which was strongly led by the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), while on the international plane it was part of Soviet-led Comintern.