Italian Communism in Crisis

Abstract

The 1980s have not been kind to the Italian Communist Party (PCI). It has avoided the fate of its French and Spanish counterparts, and is in no immediate danger of being relegated to the historical dustbin. It has not succumbed to the sectarian isolation many were predicting at the end of the 1970s, just as it has resisted the temptation to cast off its entire history and carry out an 'Italian Bad Godesberg'. It has increased its critical distance from the statist models of the East, and has also evolved a considerably more open internal structure. Finally, the PC1 still counts 1.5 million members, and, in spite of a severe setback in the 1987 elections, it obtained 26.4% of the vote.