The PSI was a willing participant in yay-45 years of a corrupt system designed to keep the largest party by number of militants and votes, the Communist Party, from sharing in the national government.
The Italian Communists' saintly patience was rewarded when they became the only major party to survive Mani Pulite, and its descendant parties now make the bulk of the left, the old Socialists having joined ranks with the Christian Democrats behind Berlusconi. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
The PSI was occasionally a party in coalition governments until 1981, but not as often as the splinter party, PSDI. In the 80's with the advent of Craxi and the craxi boys government coalitions were formed around the axis of the conservative DC factions in alliance with the socialists. This period was characterized by massive corruption and diffused illegality at all levels of government, collusion with subversive Masonic lodges and organized criminality. Despite Craxi's charisma the PSI remained stable throughout the decade with an average membership of approximately 600.000. With the demise of the PSDI in 1989 for corruption, PSI membership rose slightly without absorbing entirely the PSDI orphans. After Craxi's whining "Tommy did it, too" speech in 1991, the PSI collapsed to no more than 50.000 members and has never recovered.
The vestiges of the party are divided between the two major coalitions. Both coalitions trip over each other in their praise of Craxi as some sort of statesman. The left, by doing so, may make a few craxi boys and girls gaga with glee but render a disservice to the PSI and law-abiding citizens.
Yes, I know that Togliatti paid lip service to democracy after 1944, I don't believe it. He made it alive through the thirties living in Moscow, no senior Communist from a non-democratic country did that without being an absolutely loyal Stalinist (and a dose of luck as well). His periods outside the USSR were as head of Comintern operations in Spain. That was a pretty ruthless organization. He also spent some time as the person responsible for Comintern's Eastern Europe operations when Stalin, working through the Conintern, decided that entire Polish Communist Party was a Trotskyist/fascist organization and proceeded to have every single senior activist killed.
Marek, tell me again how Franco was better than Jaruzelski? guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
I'd say keeping the Communists out of power would be a positive accomplishment.
The PCI was traumatised by the 1956 Hungarian invasion. The Socialist party broke up the alliance, and many intellectuals abandoned the party in protest. The gradual evolution of the PCI from an openly anti-Atlantic position to a pro-Europe stance of constructive criticism of the two blocks led to the radical break with the Comintern over the Prague Spring in 1969. The PCI actively encouraged Dubcek with Longo in Prague as early as May 5th, and denounced the invasion in no uncertain terms (Luigi Longo, not Berlinguer, was secretary at the time).
The sharing of national political power came after the years of international tension and civil unrest (call it low intensity war, if you will) that characterized the seventies. Moro had attempted an historical compromise with the PCI which was decisively sabotaged by Washington. Throughout the national emergency, there was a de facto collaboration between the two major parties, the DC and the PCI which became de jure when the PCI voted the Andreotti government and its program in 1976. Although there were no communists in the executive, the PCI's role in parliament as allies was crucial throughout the national emergency. The Andreotti government fell in 1979 when the communist withdrew their support. The PCI was punished in the ensuing elections, which opened the way for the DC-PSI eighties.
The PCI was the first communist party to condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, as well as the coup d'état in Poland in 1981. The first official comment by the Russians on that occasion was an attack on the PCI. Not surprisingly neither the Russians nor the Americans wanted the PCI in power throughout the cold war, and it was only until Clinton gave the green light did the Americans start, timidly, to refrain from meddling in Italian internal politics.
