Italian Political Parties: Post-WWII Transformations
Post-WWII Transformations of Italian Political Parties
The changes in Italian society, as in all of Europe since 1945, have affected all political parties, including the Christian Democracy (CD). The CD was unable to adapt to the new social and economic status or become a party hoarder. Its position benefited the center for the duration of the electoral system of proportional representation, which hindered the establishment of parliamentary majorities and produced the consociational system in Italy. The adoption of a largely majoritarian electoral system, which produced polarization, undermined the importance of their centrist role and was one of the reasons for the loss of electoral support and power. Since 1980, it was losing political power, and its decline and subsequent burst, exposing corruption (Clean Hands trials) and the internal currents.
The Italian People’s Party (1994), which inherited the remains of the CD, insisted on its position as a centrist identity. Other parties from the outbreak of the CD are the Christian Democratic Center (CCD) and the United Christian Democrats (CDU), which joined the coalition of Berlusconi and the UDR of Cossiga in 1998.
The Italian Communist Party (PCI)
Founded as an offshoot of the Socialist Party in 1921, under fascism, it came to unity of action with the Socialists. It played an important role in the Resistance against the Nazis and the battles of liberation. From the beginning, it was part of the National Liberation Committee and joined the government of Badoglio II. It actively participated in establishing the new republican regime and in the drafting of the Constitution. It may be said that it is a constituent of the Italian Republic, whose constitution is endowed with progressive social content.
The pressures of the Vatican and the Allies from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, with the Cold War being born, and blackmail from the U.S. (Italy would not enter into the Marshall Plan) caused both Communists and Socialists to be separated from the Executive in the same year. They did not return to it until the Prodi government in 1996, but as the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).
It has always been the second-largest Italian party. The Communist Party remained the most voted in a Western country and yet away from national power, by taxing the American cousin, and forced to be in opposition for over 40 years. It controlled amounts of power in common and red regions of central Italy, with the Socialists. The Stalinization crisis of 1953 was resolved in 1956 with proposals for the renewal of the party. From the period of the General Secretariat of Enrico Berlinguer (1972-1984), it had a Eurocommunist orientation, and from 1973 (after the military coup in Chile), it accepted the historic compromise proposed by Aldo Moro, which brought it to power in Parliament. It was a mass party with a strong labor component, and in the 1950s, it grew to 2 million members and over 1,500,000 in the 1970s.
- It supported the CD governments between 1976 and 1979, until the assassination of Aldo Moro.
- Since the 1970s, it has not opposed Italy’s participation in NATO.
- In 1983, it abandoned democratic centralism, taking away from the USSR since the invasion of Prague in 1968.
- The events in the East in 1989 led to internal demands, and in 1991, it was transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which would later be renamed Democratic Left (DS).
- It has entered the Socialist International, replacing the hammer and sickle with the rose of European socialism.
- It has participated in The Olive Tree coalition since 1994.
- In November 2001, Piero Fassino became Secretary, facing a crucial period for the party, which had obtained only 16% of the vote in May, less than half of those obtained in 1976.
The Communists who did not accept these changes created the Communist Refoundation Party (CR) in 1991, which has obtained between 5 and 8% in the last three elections and is led by Bertinotti. It brought down the Prodi government in 1998 with a motion of no confidence. An immediate split gave birth to the Party of Italian Communists (PdCI).
The Italian Socialist Party (PSI)
Founded in 1892, from the Italian Workers’ Party. Like all its sister parties, it had two streams, the revolutionaries and the reformers, the latter being expelled in 1912. The introduction of universal male suffrage and proportional representation from 1919 was a successful election for the PSI, although it suffered a communist division in 1921.