Party of Italian Communists
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Party of Italian Communists
Partito dei Comunisti Italiani |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Leaders |
Armando Cossutta Oliviero Diliberto Cesare Procaccini |
| Founder | Armando Cossutta |
| Founded | 11 October 1998 |
| Dissolved | 11 December 2014 |
| Split from | Communist Refoundation Party |
| Succeeded by | Communist Party of Italy |
| Headquarters | p.za Augusto Imperatore, 32 00186 Rome |
| Newspaper | La Rinascita della Sinistra |
| Youth wing | Federation of Italian Communist Youth |
| Membership (2012) | 12,500 |
| Ideology | Communism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| National affiliation |
The Olive Tree (1998–2005) The Union (2005–2008) |
| European affiliation | Party of the European Left (observer) |
| International affiliation | none |
| European Parliament group | GUE/NGL |
The Party of Italian Communists (Italian: Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, PdCI) was a communist party in Italy.
The PdCI was founded in October 1998 as a split from the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) by Armando Cossutta, the original leader of the PRC. The main reason for the split was the unwillingness of the majority of the PRC to participate in the operation that toppled the Prodi I Cabinet.
Fausto Bertinotti had kept the party in alliance with The Olive Tree coalition-in-government for two years, but declared the intention to leave because of his disagreement over social policy. Leaving would have left the government without a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. The issue was hotly debated within the Refoundation party, and in the end a few votes, coming from the Trotskyist factions, finally decided. Soon after, the PRC joined the D'Alema I Cabinet with Oliviero Diliberto serving as Minister of Justice. Refoundation obtained two ministries in the subsequent Amato II Cabinet.
Most PRC MPs followed Cossutta into the new Party of Italian Communists, but the PRC secured more voters: in the 1999 European Parliament election the PdCI won 2.0% of the vote, while the PRC 4.3%.
Diliberto, who had been elected Party of Italian Communists general secretary in 2000, led the party to continue its alliance with the other parties of the centre-left coalition for the 2001 general election, in which The Olive Tree lost to Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition. The PdCI won 1.7% of the vote and a handful of deputies and senators.
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