A European road to socialism? The P.C.I., the E.E.C. and Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War

Abstract

ABSTRACT After years of struggling both on domestic and international scenario, during the late 1980s the Italian Communist Party (P.C.I.) promoted an ambitious European agenda, aiming at ‘overcoming’ the bloc policy and recomposing European unity, following Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘Common European Home’ project. Thus, the P.C.I. intensified its diplomatic efforts towards both the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) and Central and Eastern Europe (C.E.E.) countries, proposing itself as a link between the Western Socialists and the most change-oriented Communist parties towards a renewed and unified ‘European Left’. During the 18th Party Congress, held in March 1989, the P.C.I. launched the ‘European Road to Socialism’, supporting European integration as the only possible way to maintain the social achievements of the workers’ movement. The sudden transition of Central and Eastern Europe countries towards a Western-style market economy stopped this project, accelerating the P.C.I.’s own transition towards post-Communism.