Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician and statesman. Considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he led the PCI as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, which was marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts, such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970. Berlinguer was born into a middle-class family; his father was a socialist who became a deputy and later senator. After leading the party's youth wing in his hometown, he led the PCI's youth wing, the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI), at the national level from 1949 to 1956. In 1968, he was elected to the country's Chamber of Deputies, and he became the leader of the PCI in 1972; he remained a deputy until his death in 1984. Under his leadership, the number of votes for the PCI peaked. The PCI's results in 1976 remain the highest for any Italian left-wing or centre-left party both in terms of votes and vote share, and the party's results in 1984, just after his death, remain the best result for an Italian left-wing party in European elections, and were toppled, in terms of vote share in a lower-turnout election, in the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy.
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian poet, film director, writer, actor and playwright. He is considered one of the defining public intellectuals in 20th-century Italian history, influential both as an artist and a political figure. He is known for directing the movies from Trilogy of Life.
The Italian Communist Party was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was founded in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga, Antonio Gramsci, and Nicola Bombacci. Outlawed during the Italian fascist regime, the party continued to operate underground and played a major role in the Italian resistance movement. The party's peaceful and national road to socialism, or the Italian road to socialism, the realisation of the communist project through democracy, repudiating the use of violence and applying the Constitution of Italy in all its parts, a strategy inaugurated under Palmiro Togliatti but that some date back to Gramsci, would become the leitmotif of the party's history.
Palmiro Michele Nicola Togliatti was an Italian politician and statesman, leader of Italy's Communist party for nearly forty years, from 1927 until his death. Born into a middle-class family, Togliatti received an education in law at the University of Turin, later served as an officer and was wounded in World War I, and became a tutor. Described as "severe in approach but extremely popular among the Communist base" and "a hero of his time, capable of courageous personal feats", his supporters gave him the nickname il Migliore. In 1930, Togliatti renounced Italian citizenship, and he became a citizen of the Soviet Union. Upon his death, Togliatti had a Soviet city named after him. Considered one of the founding fathers of the Italian Republic, he led Italy's Communist party from a few thousand members in 1943 to two million members in 1946.
New Masses (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It was the successor to both The Masses (1911–1917) and The Liberator (1918–1924). New Masses was later merged into Masses & Mainstream (1948–1963).
The 1968 Italian general election was held in Italy on 19 May 1968. The Christian Democracy (DC) remained stable around 38% of the votes. They were marked by a victory of the Communist Party (PCI) passing from 25% of 1963 to c. 30% at the Senate, where it presented jointly with the new Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP), which included members of Socialist Party (PSI) which disagreed the latter's alliance with DC. PSIUP gained c. 4.5% at the Chamber. The Socialist Party and the Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) presented together as the Unified PSI–PSDI, but gained c. 15%, far less than the sum of what the two parties had obtained separately in 1963.
Marco Bellocchio is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor.
Autonomia Operaia was an Italian leftist movement particularly active from 1973 to 1979. It played an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, alongside earlier organisations such as Potere Operaio, which was created after May 1968, and Lotta Continua.
Vittorio Foa was an Italian politician, trade unionist, journalist, and writer.
Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties, which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe. During the Cold War, they sought to reject the influence of the Soviet Union and its communist party. The trend was especially prominent in Italy, Spain, and France. It is commonly considered to have been prompted by the Prague Spring. Although the various parties converged against the Soviet factor, their own doctrines remained as different at the dissolution of the movement as they originally were before 1968.
Il Politecnico was a Communist cultural and literary magazine published in Milan, Italy, between 1945 and 1947. In the debut editorial it was stated that the magazine was inspired by the homonymous journal which had been founded by Carlo Cattaneo in 1839 and published until 1845. Although it was a short-lived publication, Il Politecnico was the most prominent magazine in Italy during its run.
Yön was a weekly Turkish political magazine published between 1961 and 1967. It was a Kemalist and leftist magazine. In fact, Yön was more than a publication in that its contributors represented a political movement in the 1960s, Yön movement, which was a successor of the leftist-Kemalist movement in the 1930s known as Kadro movement. The latter also gathered around a publication, Kadro.
Rinascita was a political and cultural magazine published in Rome, Italy, between 1944 and March 1991. It was one of the media outlets of Italian Communist Party (PCI).
Aldo Braibanti was an Italian poet, essayist, screenwriter, playwright, director, and visual artist. A communist and anti-fascist, he fought as a partisan in the Italian Resistance, returning to his intellectual pursuits after the war. He dedicated himself to visual arts, cinema, theater, and literature, as well as to myrmecology and ecology.
Il Travaso delle idee, mostly known as Il Travaso, was a satirical magazine which was in circulation between 1900 and 1966 with an interruption in the period 1944–1946. Its subtitle was Organo ufficiale delle persone intelligenti. The magazine was headquartered in Rome, Italy.
Classe Operaia was a Marxist monthly magazine which was published in Italy for three years between 1964 and 1967. Its subtitle was "political monthly of the workers in struggle."
Piergiorgio Bellocchio was an Italian writer, literary critic and journalist.
Pattuglia was a weekly communist satirical magazine published between 1948 and 1953 in Milan, Italy. It was official media outlet of the youth organization of the Italian Communist Party. Its subtitle was il corriere dei giovani.
Alberto Asor Rosa was an Italian literary critic, historian, and politician. He was an Italian Communist Party (PCI) member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1979 to 1980. Rosa was among the contributors to the leftist magazine Quaderni piacentini in the mid-1960s. He coedited another magazine entitled Classe Operaia with Mario Tronti from its start in 1964 to 1966. Rosa was the last editor of Rinascita, PCI's theoretical journal. He died on 21 December 2022, at the age of 89.
Communismportal