Socialists and communists in Italy—reversing roles?

Abstract

Since the late ‘sixties the Italian Socialist Party has abandoned its attempt to isolate the Communist Party and instead has sought to re‐integrate it into the group of so‐called ‘democratic’ parties. This process has culminated in the P.S.I.’s proposal for a ‘Socialist Alternative’ government, to replace Christian‐Democrat rule. The Communist response has been to accept the legitimacy thus bestowed, but to use it to impose its own solution: the Historic Compromise—a grand coalition of Communists, Socialists and Christian Democrats. The consequence has been a partial reversal of the conventional roles of the two parties of the Left.