Italy’s Communist Party From Brave Anti-Fascists to Electoral Swamp

In early 2011, Antonio Gramsci Jr., the grandson of a founder of the Italian Communist Party, gave a concert of Renaissance music in Rome on the last day of an impressive exhibition, “Avanti popolo: Il PCI nella storia d’Italia,” commemorating the history of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), founded in 1921.

Twenty years ago, in 1991, the Italian CP was disbanded after seventy years of struggle. ¹ At that time it was the largest “communist” party in Western Europe, and the second largest party in the Italian parliament, winning approximately 30% of the votes. CHALLENGE articles often state that communist revolution, not reform, is the only road to working-class victory over capitalism. Looking at the history of the Italian CP helps us to see why.

Shortly after its founding, the Party and workers of Italy faced a dangerous enemy, as Mussolini’s Fascists marched on Rome in 1922. The king appointed Mussolini to be his prime minister and soon after Gramsci and other founders were in prison. Gramsci never left prison, where he died in1937, leaving behind his famous Prison Notebooks. Nonetheless, during World War II, communists and other anti-fascist forces fought bravely. After the liberation of Italy Mussolini was captured as he tried to escape and his body, along with 14 other fascist leaders, was hung upside down from lampposts in Milan’s central square.

Despite this apparent victory, Palmiro Togliatti, the new leader of the Italian Communist Party, returned from the USSR to find a country occupied by the British and American armies and devastated by Allied bombings, civil war and severe food shortages. At this critical juncture, Togliatti and the Italian communists made a grave mistake by accepting the logic of the Popular Front, an alliance of anti-fascist forces, including communists, anarchists, socialists and the liberal bourgeoisie. They began supporting “democratic” reform measures and abandoned the philosophy of armed struggle to bring about communism.

The Italian CP became the largest “communist” party in Western Europe and the second largest party in Italy. Ironically, the larger the party became, the less communist it became. In practice, Italian Communists practiced reformism in the parliament but hypocritically preached revolution at party rallies. ²

By 1964 democratic centralism was abandoned and reformist factions flourished. In 1972, Enrico Berlinguer, the new leader, announced the party’s “historic compromise” of collaborating with the Socialists and center-left Catholics; revolution would no longer even be preached while reform was practiced. The Italian CP was now openly a reform party.

The 1991 party congress was the end. The Italian CP was dissolved and the name “The Democratic Party of the Left” was adopted, which today has become the “Democratic Party,” and mimics the U.S. model.

Valuable lessons can be drawn from the history of the Italian Communist Party. We cannot dismiss those who founded the party and were jailed for their commitment to communism, such as Antonio Gramsci. Neither can we ignore the communist partisans who fought fascism and died during World War II. We must also acknowledge how party members participated in strikes, protests and other struggles hoping to defeat capitalism.

But our Italian predecessors have shown us very clearly that holding elected office demands maintenance of the capitalist state, not revolt against it. Therefore, the most important lesson that can be learned from the mistakes of the Italian CP is that revolution cannot co-exist with electoral politics. Long ago, Karl Marx had warned workers that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” ³ Instead, he said, the entire state (political parties and practices, the courts, the cops, etc.) must be smashed.

As the final notes of Antonio Gramsci Jr.’s concert died away, the crowded hall burst into applause. Many of those present, old and young, still hope for a better future, one that will never come from reform, but only from communist revolution. The Italian CP was not an end, but a beginning, because we have learned from its mistakes. Antonio Gramsci Jr. took a copy of CHALLENGE and sends his “red greetings to his American comrades,” words to strengthen us in our struggles, wherever we are in the world.J

(Endnotes)

1 Images and Italian texts are available at <http://ilpcinellastoriaditalia.it/index.html>.

2 < http://partitocomunistaitaliano.blogspot.com/>

3            Karl Marx: The Civil War in France http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm