Talk:Italian Communist Party

NPOV

I'm sure the person who wrote this thinks they bent over backwards in being scrupulously fair; but they could've bent backwards just a little more... So at some point there needs to be added here the dirty tricks campaign waged by CIA and friends in the first postwar elections -- which is basically why the PCI lost them. This will add some balance to what the original author went into detail about later, during the "White Coup", Gladio period.

As well, there is a reference to abstract (Western) "Democracy"[sic] which implies the usual: that there's something specially democratic about the bourgeois variety of democracy. Which there isn't. So that particular section needs to have this qualified as "bourgeois democracy" or some such.

I will get to changing this above stuff later, if someone else doesn't first.

Pazouzou 23:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Complete revision urgently necessary !!!

Would somebody PLEASE go and change this site ?!?

Besides its unbearably anti-communist stance it contains a host of factual errors that definitely should be corrected.

A few examples:

1. There has never been a "definite break" with Moscow (i.e. the CPSU and the Soviet Union) - neither in 1979 nor later (until the dissolution of the original PCI in 1991). The PCI was partly critical of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries and maintained some special ideological positions but nevertheless remained part of the international communist movement and upheld its friendship (in a form of "critical solidarity") with the CPSU and the other ruling communist parties.

2. Eurocommunism is a very ambiguous term covering the quite distinct, controversial and internally conflicting policies of some Western European communist parties in the 70s and 80s, especially in Spain, France and Italy. Those parties NEVER had a common program accepted by all and were constantly at odds with each other. For example, the PCI never went only half as far in dismissing traditional communist principles as the CP of Spain. The term "Eurocommunism" (originating in the beginning from anti-communist corcles) should therefore at best be totally avoided. And most importantly: Eurocommunism despite all its special traits is absolutely NOT identical to Social Democracy. Therefore the assertion made in the article about the PCI "definitely embracing social-democracy and the Socialist International" is ridiculous. The PCI (again: for all its differing views in detail) did NEVER become a social-democratic party or even a member of the Socialist International.

3. The strange gossip about the Czechoslovak secret service supporting and financing the Red Brigades should either be verified beyond doubt (which will be impossible) or - even better - be deleted. The Italian version does not contain this nonsense. The same holds true for the rumors about the "Stasi", the KGB and training in clandestine warfare. Even if this would have been the case it must be related to the political situation in Italy at that time.

4. Pazouzou has in his or her comment (see above) already mentioned the overall prejudices about bourgeois democracy, the role of the CIA and so on. All this should also be considered in a total revision of the article on the PCI.

About Mitrokhin

Please note that the parliamentary research (based on a ex-communist majority) didn't find any proof of the truth of it. On the other side Gorbachev, who spontaneously presented himself in Italy as witness, has never been listened. For the moment we can't say that Mitrokhin said the truth, as we can't said that he said the false. Therefore I strongly suggest:

a) To maintain the sentence: "According to Mitrokhin, the party asked the Soviets to pressure the Czechoslovakian State Security (StB) to withdraw their support to the group, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do.[1]"

b) To restore the paragraph: "- Mitrokhin reports financing of the Italian Communist Party from the Soviet-Union between 1971 and 1977 as follows: - - * 1971: 1,600,000 USD - * 1972: 5,200,000 USD - * 1974: 10,500,000 USD - * 1976: 6,500,000 USD - * 1977: 1,000,000 USD"

Regarding point b): we can't know if it corrispond to truth or not. Sure we know that the PCI has been accused many times of having received funds from the soviets; all attemps to find the truth has been blocked by the old italian powers, which are, by the case, linked to the PCI (PCI itself, magistracy, etc). Therefore it is important to mention the reporting of Mitrokhin, of course as a reporting of him and not as a verified truth. The PCI has been during all his history accused to be the hand of the soviets in Italy, and during the terror years it has been accused of being the nice side of terror. Often it has even act as if it was. Only after the murder of Prime Minister Moro the italian communist party acted against terror. --151.27.23.141 14:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The "Mithrokin commission" was created by the old centre-right majority in 2002, and it didn't have an "ex-communist majority". Also, PCI never went to government, and the first Italian government with former communists in Italy was the Prodi government in 1996. To tell that "attemps to find the truth has been blocked by the old italian powers, which are, by the case, linked to the PCI (PCI itself, magistracy, etc)" is just spreading right-wing FUD. The PCI was never on the nice side of terror; in facts, the extra-parliamentary left (extra-parliamentary for a reason), who originated all of the armed groups, was always opposed to the PCI line, since the end of the '60, well before the Moro kidnapping. GhePeU 17:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Mithrokin's documents and Andrew's work is very clear: the PCI from just shortly after WWII until the late 70's was on Moscow's gravy trains to the tune of several million dollars a year. As Ghepeu pointed out though, the PCI was upset with the Red Brigades, and more so with Moscow’s continuing support of them, and this was the issue thatr started to drive the wedge between Moscow and the PCI. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 18:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The Mithrokin documents shall not be taken as absolute truth, since their authenticity has never been proved. They are a thousand of paper hand written by Mithrokin, and not photocopies of original documents. It has not been explained yet how this former KGB agent could have transcribed by hand such a big amount of secret docs, hidden and smuggled from Moscow without KGB realizing it. Any statement relying on it must be considered and described as dubious and not necessarily true.--Desyman44 (talk) 22:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

PCI and PDS

In 1991, 14 monthes after the falling of the Berlin Wall the PCI disbanded to form the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS). What's wrong with it? The falling of the Berlin wall and the countings of the citizens of the DDR about their conditions under communism WAS the reason of the changing of name (and, later, even the symbol). --151.27.23.141 14:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

PCI Funding

The information that the PCI was recieving money from the Soviets it not restricted to Mitrokhin, as he is one of a number of sirces (including the PCI) who have confromed this, Mitrokhin’s contributions is in the precise numbers that Moscow gave to the PCI. This is really not as controversial as you would like to portray it. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 14:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Italian coup attempt

For info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golpe_Borghese (or the italian wiki http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golpe_Borghese ) and (in italian) http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Solo

Sources needed

I removed:

After the Athens Colonel Coup in April of 1967, Longo and other PCI leaders became alarmed at the possibility of a repeat in Italy (there was two attempted coup in Italy in the 1964 and 1970 by neo-fascist and military groups). Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare the party in case of such an event. The KGB drew up and implemented a plan to provide the PCI with its own intelligence and clandestine signal corps. From 1967 through 1973, PCI members were sent to East Germany and Moscow to receive training in clandestine warfare and information gathering techniques by both the Stasi and the KGB. Shortly before the May 1972 elections, Longo personally wrote to Leonid Brezhnev asking for, and receiving and additional $5.7 million in funding. This was on top of the 3.5 million that the PCI was given in 1971. The Soviets also provided additional funding through the use of front companies providing generous contracts to PCI members.

and

Relationships also were strained as Czechoslovakian State Security (StB) support for the Italian Red Brigade increased. The PCI was uncomfortable with the Red Brigade’s tactics, and after the kidnapping and murder of Christian-democrat party leader Aldo Moro in 1978, the PCI asked the Soviets to pressure the Czech StB to withdraw support, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do.

This kind of statements should be adequately supported by sources. GhePeU 10:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I replaced it an added the sources. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 12:22, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Thank you, Ghepeu for your work in deleting the passages in question.

2. Since I do never pay any attention to TDC, I will not respond to him. But my statement above is of course still valid and the removal of the passages as well as a total revision on the PCI article is as necessary as ever.

--62.178.194.203 14:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

A brief response: too bad. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

If the source is Mitrokihn, in Italy the 8 year Parliamentary research commission and the magistracy didn't found any proof of the truth of the Mitrokihn documents.. but the contents of this documnet (like this statements) was heavily instrumentalized by the Berlusconi's party in every electoral campaign and the right-party member of the Parliamentary commission use varius quibbles to delay for months the final report.

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Merge with Communist Party of Italy?

This article seems to be talking about the same party as Communist Party of Italy under different names. I suggest a merger. Ltwin (talk) 07:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support, the two articles deal with the same party. Also, the PCdI article has some clear pov issues. --Soman (talk) 09:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support and I hope also that someone is able to fix the two articles into a good written one. --Checco (talk) 13:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, the first party was meant to be the "italian section of the Comintern." The second one refers to the republican post-war party, which was a newly founded party after the dissolution under fascism and, as the name suggests, was a more national than internationalist party. Not casually, the Italian wiki provides 2 articles for these reasons. Furthermore, it would be a too long article and wikipedia's guidelines recommend to split too ling articles to improve its legibility.--Desyman44 (talk) 20:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case then, Desyman, then perhaps someone who knows more about it should explain it better then the article currently does. The articles now just give the impression that the name change was the primary difference between the two entities. But if the articles were merged I don't see how it would violate the policy on article length, but I could be wrong. I would like to point out that currently the article on the Communist Party of Italy says that the party was using the name PCI even before the official name change, and in the same article, the party is referred to as the PCI. If the article isn't merged, it needs a serious rewrite to clarify this issue. Ltwin (talk) 21:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

It.Wiki is not a reliable source and the partition in two articles is very controversial to me as they both speak about the identical party. It is true that the party underwent major changes especially in its structure in the 1930s, but a single good article can explain also this and it won't be too long as the the two articles are currently short. --Checco (talk) 21:28, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose the two articles are about quite different parties and should be treated as such. The artcles should be improved to reflect.Harrypotter (talk) 20:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support, PCI was founded in 1921, the small name change being ininfluent. The problem is that originally PCI (styled both PCI or PCdI on early '20 newspapers) had a strong anarchist component, which was completely eliminated during the USSR exile of PCI under Mussolini's dictature. When the party returned legal in 1943, it was completely Stalinized, the anarchists having been purged. So, Italian anarchists created this myte of the "substantial" difference between the pre-Fascist and the post-Fascist party. But it's only a myte, the PCI being officially created in 1921, existed in exile during Fascist period, and disbanded in 1991.--79.54.157.212 (talk) 17:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The vote expressed by unregistered users, especially when totally disinformed (to say PCI was completely stalinized is ridiculous, since Di Vittorio, f.e., has always been far from stalinism) should not taken into consideration. Not to mention the risk of socket puppeting.--Desyman44 (talk) 12:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: since it seems there are enough differences to consider them two different subjects, it's better to just clarify the difference in the respective articles instead of merging them.Sum (talk) 11:48, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

  There are no differences actually or, at least, no such differences to justify two separate articles. --Checco (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

It only matters what the sources say, users opinion doesn't count.--Sum (talk) 17:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. There are no sources telling us that they were two different parties. PCd'I/PCI was the same identical party, which simply underwent some organizational changes during World War II and that eventually changed its name. --Checco (talk) 12:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose ~ Legally they were two different parties and I agree with Harrypotter, both articles should be improved. Some other wikipedias in other languages have them as separate articles. Please, see: fr:Parti communiste d'Italie, hr:Komunistička partija Italije, it:Partito Comunista d'Italia, and sh:Komunistička partija Italije. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 12:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

  Also post-WWII Italian Socialist Party was legally a different party (it even changed its name at least twice during its history), hence we have a single article in en.Wiki. The same is to say about the Italian Republican Party and the Italian Liberal Party, which have a single article too. Why does the PCd'I/PCI deserve a different treatment? It is simply non-sense. --Checco (talk) 09:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the history of the PCI before it became the Italian Communist Party is worthy of a separate article. Haigee2007 (talk) 23:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Two totally different parties. --Enok (talk) 07:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

As the person who originally proposed a merger, I've removed the merger templates since there doesn't seem to be consensus on merging the two articles. Ltwin (talk) 15:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Left-wing?

The Italian Communist Party is "Left wing"? Surely Far Left is more accurate.Royalcourtier (talk) 07:08, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

PCI was by no means a far-left party. It was a party of 1.8 million members, very much a mainstream party in post-WWII Italy. There were various far left groups in Italy at the time, in violent opposition to PCI. --Soman (talk) 10:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The PCI was a far-left party, but in relative terms it was left-wing and Soman is correct to highlight the PCI's mainstream status. --Checco (talk) 14:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

The capability to establish an agreement with other non-communist parties by the PCI clearly makes this party not being in the far-left, as they even made the historic compromise with centre-right Christian democrats. – B.Lameira (talk) 23:46, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Btw, Christian Democracy was not centre-right. It was a centrist party, including both right-wing and left-wing elements and individuals. In fact, some former Christian Democrats eventually joined the PCI/PDS into the Democrats of the Left. --Checco (talk) 10:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I keep repeating that "position" ought to be removed from infoboxes. It is always relative and always subjective. For PCI, which is a historical party, its even more ambigous. Clearly PC(d')I 1928 and PCI 1989 had quite different roles in Italian society. --Soman (talk) 11:05, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

It may be ambiguous, but it is always very useful for readers. I'm for keeping it in each and every infobox. --Checco (talk) 11:12, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

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Journal of Cold War studies

Re this edit, can we get a quote from the article which supports the claim that "Declassified information shows this to be exaggerated" rather than "Declassified information from Soviet archives states that the PCI relied on Soviet financial assistance, more so than any other Communist party supported by Moscow"?

Can we also get an explanation for why the sentence "The party received perhaps as much as $60 million from the end of World War II until the PCI’s break with Moscow in the early 1980s" is being removed? Volunteer Marek 02:26, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

undo of my edit about dissolution of PCI

in the section Dissolution I corrected a wrong date and my edit was immediately undo. why?

then I added more information regarding the changing of the name and again my edit was immediately undo. why?

no problem to add source of my information. Occhetto wrote his own book to narrate how he talked to Kinnock while the wall was falling and the interview has also been aired on channel RAI Storia years ago

what upsets me more is these editors reverted my text without any explainin note

Listerbulow (talk) 21:29, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Listerbulow: Welcome to Wikipedia. First of all, on Wikipedia one should use third-party sources. A book written by Occhetto is not a third-party source about the PCI of the '80s. Second: if someone reverts an edit of yours, you don't revert back, but discuss and wait for WP:CONSENSUS to be built. Your edits have bad grammar, bad English, bad linking (you put links on years like 1984 per WP:DATELINK), and bad sourcing, as per what I wrote above. That's why I reverted them again. So now since multiple users reverted your edits, please do not start an edit war and wait for consensus. As I said, a book by Occhetto is not enough for sourcing statements about the PCI. --Ritchie92 (talk) 08:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Bad or good English is a matter of opinion, the date 1991 is wrong because Occhetto started his turning point on November 12, 1989 not in 1991 (this you can read on every newspaper of the time, in any history book and even in youtube you can see the interviews) so at least do not change that. The other information are of public domain, I put references to Berlinguer funeral, to the name of former secretary Natta, to the PES; I do not think you can discuss those as bad information. I quoted the book of Occhetto because it is where he talks about the facts in Bolognina, it's not a political book. I will quote more books if necessary, but please do not give me this types of snotty answer.

Listerbulow (talk) 09:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Listerbulow: On Wikipedia, competence is required. So don't say that "good English is a matter of opinion" because it is not. Anyway, I still don't see the sources that you claim are there. You are just mentioning facts without properly sourcing them. I shall be happy if you shared the sources of your information. And again, a book by Occhetto is not a good third-party source, period. --Ritchie92 (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

piece of cake... I offer you these two: "Rifondazione Comunista Storia e organizzazione" author: Simone Bertolino publisher: il Mulino year: 2004 ISBN 88-15-09917-4 "Storia del PCI" author: Albertina Vittoria publisher: Carocci ISBN 88-430-3894-X

in the first chapter of the first book you can find the date of November 12, 1989

wait for your answer Listerbulow (talk) 10:45, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Listerbulow: Please use indentation to mark the talk page flow. I don't have the books so I cannot verify those sentences like the one you wrote here: "On November 12, 1989 he gave an improvised speech to a group of old partisans and communist militants in Bologna, saying that to save their ideals once again it would be necessary to change everything, even the name of the party" and other sentences added there. There must be a reliable and verifiable source (and preferably also a good English-language source) for an event such as the Bolognina. --Ritchie92 (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

please look at the Italian page about Bolognina with all the sources, you will find the right date and all information (no need to know Italian for that). Reliable sources can be in any given language and since we are dealing with Italian history I would say that Italian sources are at least necessary. The references cited in your article anyway are also mainly Italian sources. You can amend the speech of Occhetto if you feel you cannot verify that, but you must amend the date from 1991 to 1989, otherwise you give the wrong information and that's not right for the readers. It should also be pointed out that the debate lasted since November 1989 until March 1990, when it was decided to change the name, but only in February 1991 PCI became PDS. Ps. Reference number 33 in your article is the book by David Kertzer (in English), so I quote from the back cover: "In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and with the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsing, Italian Communist Party (PCI) head Achille Occhetto shocked his party in 1989 by insisting that the PCI jettison its old name and become something new."

Listerbulow (talk) 12:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Listerbulow: Other Wikipedia pages, and also Wikipedia pages from other languages, do not count as reliable sources, so please do not use them to justify your statements. Please provide every statement you want to add to the text with a reliable and accessible source. Also, the article is not "mine", I don't know what you're talking about. For the indentation, I suggest you to read the page WP:INDENT, where it is explained how to indent text. --Ritchie92 (talk) 13:20, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have seen that in the past there has already been a similar proposal, but I have read untrue reasons: the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Italy are the same party, it is not an opinion, it is a fact. In it.wikipedia there are those who opposed the merge for reasons of weight of the final page and proposed the modification of the Communist Party of Italy's page. In reality, the final page would not be too heavy even in it.wikipedia, but here, being the two pages much shorter, the problem does not exist in the least. Since the Italian Communist Party was born in 1921 as "Communist Party of Italy" and changed its name in 1943, I propose that the two pages should be definitively united. --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support, as stated above. --Checco (talk) 18:18, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

After a month there was no opposition, so I proceed to unify the two pages. --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 20:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)