Palmiro Togliatti Research Articles

Antonio Gramsci: the roots of Italian communism

Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, based on the importance ofconsensus, is the antecedent of the recognition of the democracy bythe Italian Communist Party (terrain that would be fully acquired by itssuccessors, Togliatti and Berlinguer). Gramsci takes the word and theconcept from the debates at the top of international communism and–adapting it to his theory of the “revolution in the West” – changes andinnovates it profoundly in the Prison Notebooks, making it an idea thatis today widespread and used throughout the world. Palmiro Togliatti,who returned to Italy in 1944, became a protagonist in the writing ofthe post-war democratic Constitution and theorized on the “nationalways” to socialism and polycentrism; Enrico Berlinguer theorized onthe universal value of democracy and the acceptance of many liberalprinciples for the construction of an idea of “communism in freedom”.

From the ‘New Party’ to the Party of Nuovismo: The Decline of the Political and Institutional Culture of Italian Communists

Abstract This article uses a comparative framework to study the two party models that characterised the early years of the Italian Communist Party and its dissolution: the ‘New Party’ outlined by Palmiro Togliatti and the ‘nuovismo’ introduced in the 1980s by the post-’68 leadership. The analysis focuses on the aspects of political culture, the idea of party organisation, the role of the party within the democratic system, the concept of democracy in the Italian political system, and the role of the party leadership. This analysis brings to light the great foresight of Togliatti, in addition to the constructive role entrusted to the party within the democratic system and the destructive role of later leaders of the party, which resulted in a broader collapse of the Italian political system and the total marginalisation of the heirs of Gramsci.

Gramsci after the ‘Unforgettable ’56’

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyse the rediscovery of two Gramscian themes from 1956: Factory Councils and Americanism and Fordism (1949). It explains their importance, not only in allowing us to better understand the changes taking place at that time, but also in outlining a new conception of Marxism, one that was different from the historicism of Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964). In particular, the paper focuses on Raniero Panzieri (1921–64) whose theoretical and political research closely resembled that of Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937).

The pci: The Communist Giraffe

Abstract This commentary offers an insight into ‘the Gramsci genome’, the concept typically used to underline Gramsci’s influence on the historical experience of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano; pci). Drawing on a personal and specific experience of political militancy within the party, this contribution explores how the pci, by assuming the role of a collective subject in Gramscian terms, pursued the Gramscian line of revolution as a protracted process of democratic expansion and conquest of essential forms of power in civil society. The article underlines the pivotal role played in this endeavour by party leadership until the death of Palmiro Togliatti; it assesses the events that led to the end of pci – including Berlinguer’s failed attempt to revive a left alternative after the historic compromise position; and underlines the persistent need for communism (a ‘more robust communism’) in view of the disaster caused by capitalism over the last 40 years.

Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933–1943

Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933–1943

Whoʼs afraid of comics? When Gianni Rodari was the ‘devil’ and when he ‘desecrated’ childhood

In order to understand Gianni Rodariʼs originality one must retrace his biography and his work, and take into account that he was proudly a factious man, a politically committed journalist and an expression of primordial Italian post-war left-wing culture. An essential ingredient of his poetry is, therefore, that civil passion that always inspired him. Due to such ‘passionʼ that appears clearly in the first phase of his production, his work was initially opposed by conservatives, clerics and the left-wing party itself. It was the 1950s ‘quando Rodari era il diavoloʼ and even comic strips were considered misguiding and immoral from the point of view of the Communist leaders, as well as the Pope and the Democrats. Rodari tried to change that and, countering Nilde Jotti and Palmiro Togliatti, claimed that comics had the power to conquer a new expressive autonomy useful for spreading progressive ideas among the masses.

International Communism and the Cult of the Individual: Leaders, Tribunes and Martyrs under Lenin and Stalin, by Kevin Morgan

Kevin Morgan has performed an inestimable service for students of international communism. His investigation of the cults erected by the leaders of Western European communist parties helps one understand why these parties gained support. But his efforts also demonstrate why the support they gained was never sufficient, during the Cold War, for them to form a government. And since in Western Europe there was never the anarchy caused by war that enabled the Bolsheviks in Russia to carry out an insurrection successfully, coups d’état were equally out of reach. One of the many virtues of Morgan’s book (a writing style that is always lucid and sometimes elegant is another) is that one finishes it with a much greater sense of why communism in Western Europe failed to provide a credible alternative not only to conservative parties but also, more critically, to Social Democracy. Morgan’s task, as he sees it, is to understand what he calls ‘the politics of personality’, by which he means the personalisation of communist parties—mostly in Western Europe, although his book contains useful insights into several in Latin America and Asia—through the establishment of cults based more on the leader’s charisma, in the Weberian sense of the word, than on the programmatic objectives or the ideological aspirations of the party itself. Morgan rightly describes the sacralisation of communist party leaders as the result of ‘[a] craving to personify a cause’. He is especially insightful on Maurice Thorez and the French Communist Party, but he also has intelligent things to say about Harry Pollitt and William Gallacher in Great Britain, Ernst Thällman in Germany, Palmiro Togliatti in Italy and Dolores Ibárurri in Spain—perhaps the most charismatic communist luminary of them all. While Morgan shows that the cults that were created around these communists shared certain features, he provides copious evidence of the distinctiveness of their parties and, by implication, of the national cultures with which these parties had to come to terms if they were to have any chance of success. In the same context, Morgan properly distinguishes the cult of the Bulgarian, Georgi Dimitrov, from the others he writes about; Dimitrov’s notoriety, both from his leadership of the Comintern and as the defendant acquitted in Nazi Germany of the charge of incinerating the Reichstag, was pan-European.

Reading Dante Impolitically: Gramsci’s Contrapuntal Criticism of Inferno 10

Reading Dante ImpoliticallyGramsci’s Contrapuntal Criticism of Inferno 10 Stefano Selenu “Se per questo cieco carcere vai per altezza d’ingegno…” —Dante, Inferno 10.58–59 “from those who want to consciously and explicitly profess it, this historical materialism requires a certain curious manner of humility” —Antonio Labriola The relevance of Dante’s position in Gramsci’s thought has not been adequately clarified by scholars. There is no extended research on the role and meaning of Dante in the larger framework of Gramsci’s writings. Most discussions focus on Gramsci’s reading of Inferno 10 and are limited to why and how Gramsci read that canto, or what his reading could suggest to us about his aesthetics, hermeneutic philosophy, and theory of art.1 Recently, new hypotheses have been proposed to look at Gramsci’s notes on Canto 10 from a political perspective. According to Italian scholars Angelo Rossi and Giuseppe Vacca, in order to avoid surveillance, Gramsci—in secret cooperation with Palmiro Togliatti (the leading figure of the Italian Communists), Tania Schucht (Gramsci’s sister-in-law), and his friend Piero Sraffa (then professor of economics at Cambridge University)—had to find new means of political communication with Togliatti and the Party while in exile. Even his interest in Inferno 10 has been seen as an encrypted code for communicating with the communists abroad.2 [End Page 209] The key used by proponents of this interpretation is a letter that Sraffa sent to Togliatti on May 4, 1932, which opens by referring to Gramsci’s reflections on Inferno 10 and closes by saying that they should find new topics “whose political content could be allowed to pass under the veil of literature.”3 The cryptological hypothesis warrants debate. Giuseppe Vacca, himself a sustainer of this approach, appears to fear falling into a storiografia del fatto (historiography of facts)4 that would reduce Gramsci’s complex body of writings to a completely pragmatic reading. Indeed, Vacca claims, “Gramsci’s letters deal with complex topics of history of culture and philosophy of praxis, and it would be a mistake to reduce their importance and depth to politics in the strict sense.”5 Gramsci’s writings entail “a mobile and complex thought that discourages every form of ‘essayism’ aimed at turning it to the necessities of the immediate political and cultural struggles.”6 This is certainly true for the few—but extremely rich—pages on Dante that he left both in his Prison Notebooks and Letters. The advocates of the cryptological approach have found in Gramsci’s reading of Dante a scheme through which the prisoner wanted to communicate to Togliatti that he should not be considered similar to Farinata. The most evident reason for them is political: “Egli aveva ben presente la tentazione del partito di imporgli il paradigma Farinata, cioè di presentarlo come quegli che di fronte al fascismo ‘non mutò aspetto, né mosse collo, né piegò sua costa’ [Gramsci was well aware of his party’s temptation to impose the Farinata paradigm on him, to present him as one who, faced with Fascism, ‘did not change aspect and stayed still and impassible’].”7 In addition, Vacca and Rossi have argued that the notes on Dante were inserted in a context “certainly not dedicated to the exegesis of Dante.”8 Yet no previous contextual framework encloses Gramsci’s notes on Inferno 10. In fact, they do not follow other notes, but instead open Notebook 4. The appearance of Notebook 4 in current editions of Gramsci’s writings that follow Valentino Gerratana’s critical edition (Q 4, §78–88) might mislead readers in this regard.9 Its current presentation can prevent readers from grasping the innovative and unique aspects of those notes. From a compositional standpoint, they are critical because, for the first time, Gramsci appears to have a clear idea of how to organize the notebook. He divides it into two parts, the first on Dante (pages 1r–7v), the second on miscellaneous [End Page 210] topics (page 8r and following).10 Gramsci’s singular decisiveness here suggests that his ideas on Dante were well prepared beforehand. Executed as an organized unity, these notes are multilayered in terms of...

The misadventures of socialist anticommunism from the end of the war to the collapse of the Berlin Wall

The article aims to highlight the features of socialist anticommunism in Italy from 1945 to 1991, with particular reference to Giuseppe Saragat and Bettino Craxi, and with regard to the intellectual activity of Ignazio Silone. Anticommunist socialists aimed at delegitimizing the communists, but they themselves were also delegitimized by the communist party of Palmiro Togliatti and Enrico Berlinguer. Naturally, the form of delegitimation changed over the years, from Saragat’s stance in the 1940s and early 1950s to his position later on. The kind of delegitimation carried on by Bettino Craxi’s socialist party was more successful, however, compared to the one implemented by Saragat’s small party. For this reason, it was fiercely opposed by Berlinguer and the communist party.

Verso un «giudizio equanime» su Palmiro Togliatti?

This survey examines the debate which took place both in the public arena and among historians in the 50th anniversary of Palmiro Togliatti’s death. This debate overlapped, more than in other circumstances, with the publication of many of Togliatti’s writings, including a selection of his correspondence and a large anthology of speeches and writings - remarkably, this was published in a «classics of political thought» series. On the whole, a certain tendency to «demonize» Togliatti is still alive, but it seems to us that - especially through the most authoritative press and some radio and tv cultural programmes - a more balanced appraisal of Togliatti is emerging.

Gramsci, Catholicism and Secular Religion

The article considers Antonio Gramsci's views of religion, the relation of Marxism and religion, secularisation, and secular religion as an overcoming of traditional religions in order to probe his assessment, while he was in prison in the 1930s, of the concrete prospects for a Marxist overcoming of Christianity in the West and, specifically, of the Catholic Church in Italy. It shows that Gramsci had a well-developed and sophisticated historical analysis of secularisation in the West, which he presented in relation to a history of the Catholic Church understood as both a clerical organisation and a community of the faithful. It argues that this analysis led him to conclude that the Church had remained remarkably strong in interwar Italy and, thus, that the immediate prospects for the triumph of secular religion there were remote. However, it also explains why his historical analysis of secularisation left him relatively confident about the long-term prospects of a Marxist secular religion. The article argues that we cannot know if Gramsci would have concurred with the secular-religious strategy pursued by the postwar Italian Communist Party under Palmiro Togliatti and his successors, but it suggests that the very notion of a society based on a common religious worldview is no longer historically plausible.

The family, sexual morality and gender identity in the communist tradition in Italy (1921–1956)

This essay will compare the model of the communist family during the era of Palmiro Togliatti's ‘partito nuovo’, beginning with the famous ‘svolta di Salerno’ in 1944, with the model outlined when the Italian Communist Party (PCdI) was first founded in 1921. The sources used vary, spanning memoirs, literature, the press and autobiographies of political activists. The aim of this essay is to expand the research on the ‘communist tradition’; to examine the characteristics of both its theoretical thinking and pedagogic structure; to explore the nature of its propaganda; and to study the individual experiences of activists.

The Paradoxes of Post-War Italian Political Thought

Summary This article examines the complex nature of post-war Italian political thought, stressing the importance of Italy's unusual institutional and historical political arrangements, but also the vibrancy of its political ideologies in this period. In the past it has often been argued that the dysfunctional nature of post-war Italian democracy with its rapidly changing governments, and widespread corruption—which nonetheless coexisted with the one party, the Christian Democrats, being constantly in power—led to the atrophying of political theory in general, and political ideologies in particular. But this picture is strongly disputed here—on the contrary it is argued that Christian Democratic, Left and liberal political ideologies were all complex and interesting. Thus if Christian democracy should ultimately be seen as an ‘ideology of transition’ which existed to help Catholicism adapt to the parameters of modern mass democracy, and which lacked a thinker of the calibre of Jacques Maritain, it nevertheless contained within it important debates on the role of the state, between such interesting thinkers as Giuseppe Dossetti and Alcide De Gasperi. And if anything, political thinking on the Left in the post-war period was even more complex, with visceral debates within the (large) Communist Party (PCI) over whether to work within the law—between such thinkers as Palmiro Togliatti and the Il Manifesto group. Equally on the more revolutionary Left, there were important debates about how quickly capitalism could be made to collapse through revolutionary action between thinkers such as Raniero Panzieri and his more radical disciples, Mario Tronti and Antonio Negri, while later, due to the general failure of these revolutionary efforts, post-modern thinkers such as Gianni Vattimo sought to abandon grand metaphysical narratives, whilst retaining a commitment to Left of centre political commitments. Finally, although not part of a widespread mass movement, the liberal thought of Norberto Bobbio was also highly interesting and sophisticated—borrowing from Hobbes and Kelsen, he sought to advocate a modest form of liberal democracy which allowed for civilised forms of conflict, and the protection of minorities, and which rejected the contention of Marxists that civil rights could not be distinguished from economic ones. Overall, if normative aspirations in post-war Italian politics were often frustrated in practice, this was certainly not due to any lack of theoretical vibrancy.

Stalin and Togliatti: Italy and the origins of the Cold War

Stalin and Togliatti reveals the dependence of the Italian Communist Party on Soviet decisionmaking in the early Cold War and the willingness of Stalin to sacrifice the interests of the Italian Communist Party to Soviet foreign interests. It explores the connection between the domestic Italian politics and the international affairs during the final phases of the Second World War and in the first years of the Cold War. The authors employ previously classified documents in Russian and Italian archives, including reports to Stalin on the virtually daily meetings of Palmiro Togliatti, head of the Italian Communist Party, with Soviet diplomats. This recent, post-revisionist scholarship underscores the role of Stalin's ambitions and their incompatibility with liberal-democratic systems in the development of the Cold War. Stalin and Togliatti come out as shrewd politicians, implacable enemies of the capitalist West, yet acutely aware of the limits of their power. Stalin and Togliatti is a translation and expansion of a prizewinning book published in Italian in 1997 and updated in 2007.

"Insieme con Gramsci". Note sulla politica culturale di Togliatti (1947-1964)

The Author examines how the Italian Communist Party made use of the political and literary legacy of Antonio Gramsci after the war, in particular through the interpretations of its Secretary, Palmiro Togliatti, who was the leader of the Party until his death, in August 1964. Thus we can map the political strategy of the Italian Communist Party in those years; a strategy which always had as one of its priorities the engagement of intellectuals and therefore a special emphasis on cultural policy. Through the publication of Gramsci’s works (Letters from Prison, 1947, The Prison Notebooks, 1958-1951) and through the inspiration derived from his teachings, Togliatti was able to give to the Italian Communist Party a democratic national footprint, despite its ties with the Soviet Union. Even after the great exodus of militants and Party sympathizers in 1956, Togliatti identified his old comrade, as the example to follow in order to emphasize the unique identity of the Italian Communist Party, which - it should be remembered - was the largest party in the western world.

Trials of partisans in the Italian Republic: the consequences of the elections of 18 April 1948

This article suggests some new interpretations of the significance of the general elections of 18 April 1948 by examining the prosecution of Italian ex-partisans in the Republican era. A reappraisal of those trials – which took place from the summer of 1945 to the early 1950s – is offered through examination of the documents of the National Committee of Democratic Solidarity, set up after the assassination attempt on Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti on 14 July 1948, and the sentences of the Corti d'Assise (High Courts) and Military Tribunals. The papers of both Umberto Terracini and Lelio Basso, promoters of the Pro-partisans Defence Committee, show how judicial repression had its roots not only in the failed purge of former Fascists from the judicial system, which was unsuccessful because of a desire for continuity within the bureaucratic apparatus of the State, but most of all thanks to the ideological position and anti-communist policies of the political elites of that period.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. The Doubting President SELINA CHEN The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama. Old age and new economics David Metz The Age of Aging: How Demographics are Changing the Global Economy and Our World, by George Magnus. Vindicating the state Gianfranco Pasquino In Government We Trust: Market Failure and the Delusions of Privatisation, by Warvick Funnell, Robert Jupe and Jane Andrew. Italian communists and the USSR Maud Anne Bracke Palmiro Togliatti: A Biography, by Aldo Agosti. Antisemitism in the hall of mirrors Brian Klug Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism, by Denis MacShane. Taking on the sceptics Rosemary Bechler Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Approach, by Gillian Brock. Financial scandals: the lessons from France Robert Boyce Shades of Indignation: Political Scandals in France, Past and Present, by Paul Jankowski: Berghahn. Fewer Willys but more consensus Matthew Grant Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951–1970, by Brian Harrison. The crunching of classical economics Paul Auerbach The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do about It, by Robert J Shiller. Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller.

Palmiro Togliatti: a biography

Palmiro Togliatti could not have become leader of the Italian Communist Party at a more difficult time in the Party's history. In 1926, while he was away from Italy representing the Party in Moscow, Mussolini's Fascist government outlawed the organisation and arrested all the other leading Communists, including Antonio Gramsci, and Togliatti became leader - but at the cost of living in exile for nearly twenty years.Drawing on unprecedented access to private correspondence and newly available archives, this is the first full biography of this important Communist politician and intellectual. Like many successful politicians, Togliatti was a man of contradictions - the dedicated Party man who was also instrumental in creating the constitution of Republican Italy - whose personal charisma and political acumen kept him at the forefront of Italian politics for nearly forty years. Aldo Agosti explores Togliatti's intellectual development; his achievements and his sometimes criminal mistakes as the leading member of the Comintern; his complex relationship with Moscow; and his lasting impact on Italian politics. The result is a meticulous and fascinating life of one of Western Europe's most successful Communist leaders, which at the same time casts fresh light on the internal politics of the Comintern.

Stephen Gundle, Between Moscow and Hollywood: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943–1991. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 269 pp. $64.95 cloth; $21.95 paper.

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) after 1943, writes Stephen Gundle, managed to construct “the last great left-wing subculture in Western Europe” (7). Given the unusual interest in “culture” in the broadest sense of the term exhibited by Palmiro Togliatti, the undisputed key figure in post-war Italian Communist politics, an English-language study of the PCI's cultural policies is thus highly welcome and long overdue. Stephen Gundle manages to present an informative and authoritative account, which is highly recommended for anyone interested in the politics of culture and the culture of politics within the European Left.

Italian Communism and Soviet Terror

The declassification of materials from the Russian archives has provided a good deal of new evidence about the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Soviet Union both before and after World War II. Two newly published collections of documents leave no doubt that, contrary to arguments made by supporters of the PCI, the Italian party was in fact strictly subservient to the dictates of Josif Stalin. The documents reveal the unsavory role of the PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, in the destruction of large sections of the Italian Communist movement and in the tragic fate of Italian prisoners of war who were held in the Soviet Union during and after World War II. Togliatti's legacy, as these documents make clear, was one of terror and the Stalinization of the PCI.