The Fate of the Party

Italian Communist Party (PCI) offices in Venice.
"At one point in time, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was the largest communist party in the Western world, hitting 2.3 million members in 1947 and capturing nearly a third of the vote in the 1970s. Born out of a split, led by Antonio Gramsci and Amadeo Bordiga, from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), the party underwent a clandestine period during the Mussolini regime; played a historic role in the antifascist Resistance; and won the inscription of its values into Italy’s postwar constitution, which states that 'Italy is a democratic republic founded on labor.' Yet its institutional legacy reflects little of the party’s original radicalism. Its 1990s transformation into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) was the beginning of multiple splits and rebrandings which ultimately ended in today’s Democratic Party (PD), the center-left party led by Matteo Renzi and committed to liberalizing Italy’s labor relations. What accounts for this trajectory? ..."
Jacobin
W - Antonio Gramsci
W - Italian Communist Party
W - Amadeo Bordiga

2013 July: Gramsci Monument