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The Long Path of the Italian Communist Party in the European Integration Process

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The Long Path of the Italian Communist Party in the European Integration Process VALENTINE LOMELLINI The Long Path of the Italian Communist Party in the European Integration Process Giorgio Napolitano, one of the most prominent former leaders of the »right wing« of the Italian Communist Party (the so-called corrente migliorista) and current president of the Italian Republic, made Europeanism one of the main pillars of his political life.1 Recently, in an official discourse held on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Istituto per gli studi di politica internazionale in Milan, he announced: [In the 1940s, the opposition in Italy] »identified itself in the double initial refusal of the plan of European integration and the alliance with the United States. That refusal […] was to be a heavy ball and chain (palla di piombo al piede) for the hegemonic party of the Left.«2 Napolitano argues here that the PCI (Partito Comunista Italiano) began significantly changing its mind about European integration in 1968, when it for the first time condemned a Soviet invasion, that of Czechoslovakia, but the definitive evolution – according to the president – was in the autumn-winter of 1977, when the PCI voted for a parliamentary resolution that recognized both Atlantic alliance and European Community commitments as pillars of Italian foreign policy.3 Political developments in the 1990s seem to confirm this opinion. The heirs of the PCI – the PDS (Partito Democratico della Sinistra) – and its following evolutions through the PD (Partito Democratico), made the European integra- tion process one of the cores of their international strategy,4 but, at that point, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Europeanist choice had become easier and part of the political legacy of the party. No more Cold War, but a new international scenario took place. This evolution led the PCI to partially substitute the Soviet frame of reference with the European construction.5 What still remains to be defined is what happened in the 1980s, when the gale of the Second Cold War was still blowing. 1 G. Napolitano, Dal PCI al socialismo europeo. Un’autobiografia politica, Bari 2005. 2 G. Napolitano, Quell’ostracismo a Sinistra poi la svolta atlantica, in: Corriere della sera, Feb- ruary 7, 2013, 5. 3 Ibid. 4 A. Possieri, Il peso della storia: memoria, identità e rimozione dal PCI al PDS (1970-1991), Bologna 2007; E. Morando, Riformisti e comunisti? Dal PCI al PD: i »miglioristi« nella polit- ica italiana, Roma 2010. 5 A. Varsori, La cenerentola d’Europa? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi, Soveria Mannelli 2010. The Long Path of the Italian Communist Party 181 This chapter6 will present the path of the Italian communists’ policy toward the European integration process since the 1950s, explaining briefly the key turning points, and will then focus on the 1980s as the key period of redefini- tion of the Europeanist political culture of the PCI. In analysing the idea of Europe in the Italian communists’ political culture, two tools will be used: first, confidential debates among leaders; and second, the communist press and of- ficial statements. Archival sources recently made available and an accurate analysis of the press and public statements will be used to understand the issue mentioned above. Italian Communists and the Dawn of European Integration. From Anti-Europeanism to the Turning Point of the Seventies In Italian popular opinion, the European integration was heritage of Alcide De Gasperi,7 the Christian Democratic statesman who navigated the country out of the Second World War and whose governments coincided with the first steps in the war’s difficult aftermath. Generally speaking, the Italian Communist Party – led by Palmiro Togliatti, the partisan and uncontested communist leader known under the name of Il Migliore – was seen as the main party of opposition to the European integration. The PCI was the biggest and best organized communist party of the Western bloc, able to collect consensus around a significant anti-Europeanism. Togliatti’s party stressed its peculiarity as being both patriotic and internationalist. It denounced the submission of the Italian governments under the Atlantic alliance as jeopardizing national inter- ests.8 From its inception, the PCI harshly criticized the European integration process.9 From the early 1950s, it was depicted as a tool of American foreign policy, a non-acceptable intervention in the Western European geopolitical situation.10 It must be stressed that the Italian political scenario was strongly influenced by the Cold War: Socialists and communists were both informally banned from the government after 1947.11 Since Italy was part of the Atlantic alliance, it could not be led by a coalition of two pro-Soviet parties. 6 The present article is partially based on a paper presented at the conference »European Political Culture and Parties and the European Integration Process, 1945-1992«, held in Lucca, Novem- ber 11-12, 2011. 7 M.R. De Gasperi/P. L. Ballini (eds.), Alcide De Gasperi. Un europeo venuto dal futuro, Soveria Manelli 2009; P. Craveri, De Gasperi, Milano 2012. 8 Silvio Pons, L’impossibile egemonia. L’URSS, il PCI e le origini della guerra fredda (1943-1948), Rome 1999. 9 S. Galante, Il Partito comunista italiano e il decennio del rifiuto (1947-1957), Padova 1987. 10 S. Galante, Il Partito comunista italiano… ; S. Cruciani, L’Europa delle sinistre: la nascita del Mercato Comune europeo attraverso i casi francese e italiano, 1955-1957, Roma 2007. About the European integration and its relationship with the Atlantic choice for Italy: A. Brogi, A question of self-esteem: the United States and the Cold War choices in France and Italy, London 2002; Id., L’Italia e l’egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo, Scandicci 1996. 11 M. Del Pero, L’alleato scomodo: gli USA e la DC negli anni del centrismo, Roma 2001..
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