The PCI between 1948 and 1956: Four perspectives on vol. VII of the storia del PCI

Abstract

Giovanni Gozzini and Renzo Martinelli (1998) Storia del Partito comunista ‘italiano. VII. Dall'attentato a Togliatti all'VIII Congresso (Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore), pp. i‐xviii, 1–659, 80,000 lire. The publication of the seventh volume of the ‘History of the Italian Communist Party’ is a noteworthy event. In the party's often tumultuous history, few periods were as difficult as the one covered in this volume: 1948–56 embraces the crushing defeat of the Left in the 1948 elections, and covers the depth of the Cold War, when the PCI's subjugation to the Soviets was never seriously in question. The Journal of Modern Italian Studies therefore believes that it is more than justified to devote more attention than usual to this volume. The result is a series of extended reviews by four students of various aspects of Italian Communism. Stephen Hellman underscores the insights that the work provides concerning the party organization, and notes how basically unflattering is the portrait of Palmiro Togliatti — the party's leader from the late 1920s until his death in 1964 — that emerges. Donald Sassoon's review makes some provocative historiographical observations, noting that many studies of Communism have tended to be ‘essentialist’, that is, they have tried to uncover the ‘real nature’ of the party (was it ‘really’ Stalinist? democratic? social‐democratic?). Sassoon considers this approach to be an obstacle to understanding a complex organization like the PCI, and argues persuasively that Gozzini and Martinelli avoid any such pitfalls. Franco Andreucci also emphasizes the importance of the PCI's massive organization for its successes during the Cold War, but emphasizes the ways in which the party obtained the fierce — even blind — loyalty not only of its mass membership but of its intellectual cadres as well. On both these counts, he finds that the volume leaves a good deal to be desired, and skirts central problems such as the roots of the party's deep identification with the USSR and Stalin. For Andreucci, the most serious shortcomings of the book arise from its failure to step outside an ‘insider's’ perspective — i.e. what did the Communists think of themselves? Piero Ignazi is appreciative of Gozzini and Martinelli's efforts, while making many critical observations similar to Andreucci. Ignazi, however, emphasizes how the authors’ ‘inside’ perspective often leaves the reader wondering what was going on in the context in which the PCI operated, and especially in Italian society and the Italian party system. As much as any of our reviewers, Ignazi also wishes there had been more emphasis on the rank and file, and less on the party's top leadership.