XI – The Crisis of the Late 1980s and the Birth of the PDS (1985‑1991)
Alessandro Natta, a representative of the Berlinguerian center, succeeded Enrico Berlinguer as General Secretary, and the regional and administrative elections of May 12, 1985, after the result of the previous year, were interpreted as a decisive showdown, as the PCI would have demanded the Premiership for itself if the "overtaking" had been repeated as in the previous year[1]. But the usual "fear of communism" appealed to by the DC constituted an unbeatable weapon for the "White Whale" (DC), which obtained a sensational success, reaching 35% of the votes. Pentapartito councils were formed almost everywhere, and the DC managed to snatch the Piedmont Region and the Municipality of Rome, the last bulwarks of the powerful 1975 advance, from the opposition. The PCI, stalled at 30.2%, had no choice but to acknowledge the end of the "red decade" in local administrations and the start of a crisis, also confirmed by the defeat in the referendum on the "scala mobile," which was, at this point, irreversible.
In April 1986, the XVII National Congress of the PCI was held, prematurely due to the previous year's defeat. In response to the crisis, the Party's leadership group attempted, thanks to the decisive push of Napolitano's "migliorista" area, an international repositioning of the PCI, proposing a total detachment from the communist movement[2] to become, in all respects, part of the European socialist, social democratic, and labour left. A small group organized by Cossutta strongly opposed this line; though a minority within the Party, it had given rise to a genuinely organized faction[3]. Alessandro Natta, prioritizing a sort of political continuity with Berlinguer, did not want to commit to the turning point, which Achille Occhetto reached a few years later.
The negative trend of the PCI continued in the subsequent early political elections of 1987[4], where the Party lost another 3.3% of votes compared to the previous electoral consultations, which made it return to the results of the years preceding the great advance. The DC, on the other hand, with 1.4% more votes than in 1983, could consider the crisis overcome and strongly demanded the restitution of the office of Prime Minister from the PSI. The umpteenth failure in the administrative elections of 1988 forced Alessandro Natta to resign. The Ligurian politician had lost the confidence of the majority of the PCI's leadership group, now firmly in the hands of Achille Occhetto, who succeeded him as General Secretary. Behind Occhetto was a group of young leaders, the so-called "forty-year-olds," and the most important of these was undoubtedly D'Alema. Massimo D'Alema, who would hold the position of secretariat coordinator in the PCI, had already been National Secretary of the FGCI at the time of Enrico Berlinguer, who was the first to hold the same position in 1949.
In the XVIII Congress of the PCI, in March 1989, Occhetto tried to open a new phase for the PCI, sanctioning the end of "consociativismo" (power sharing), the recognition of the universal value of democracy, and making numerous openings towards the capitalist system and the "market," seen as a measure of efficiency and a propulsive factor of the economic system[5]. Occhetto's new course seemed to immediately bear fruit as the European elections of June 1989[6] marked a reversal of the trend in the PCI's results of recent years.
But "Real Socialism" was disintegrating, and the event that best represented that collapse in the collective imagination was the "fall of the Berlin Wall" on the night between November 9 and 10, 1989. The consequences in Italy were also immediate; on November 12, 1989, Achille Occhetto, speaking before an audience of former partisans in the historic Bolognina section, announced "great changes." The Party leader proposed, taking the decision alone, to proceed to a genuine "turning point" that would prelude the overcoming of the PCI and the birth of a new party[7]. A discussion erupted in the Party, and the dissent, for the first time, was considerable and involved broad sections of the grassroots. National leaders of primary importance such as Ingrao, Natta, and Tortorella, as well as Cossutta, firmly opposed the turning point.
To decide on Occhetto's proposal, an extraordinary Party Congress, the XIX, was called, held in Bologna in March 1990. Three motions opposed each other:
The first motion, entitled "Giving life to the constituent phase of a new political formation," was Occhetto's, which proposed the construction of a new democratic, reformist political formation, open to secular and Catholic components, that would overcome democratic centralism. The 67% consensus obtained by the motion allowed Occhetto's re-election as General Secretary and the confirmation of his political line.
The second motion, entitled "For a true renewal of the PCI and the left," was signed by Ingrao and, among others, by Angius, Castellina, Chiarante, and Tortorella. According to the supporters of this motion, the PCI had to renew itself, in politics and organization, but without losing itself. This motion was defeated, obtaining 30% of the consensus.
The third motion, entitled "For a socialist democracy in Europe," was presented by Cossutta's group. Built on a profoundly orthodox structure, it obtained only 3% of the consensus.
The turning point had passed. In the following months, Occhetto bolstered his proposal by choosing the name and symbol of the new Party in October: it would be called the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), and its symbol would be an oak tree with the PCI symbol at its base. The PCI suffered, in its last months, a collapse in both membership and electoral support, obtaining only 23.4% in the regional elections of May 6, 1990, compared to 33.4% for the DC.
The XX Congress, held in Rimini in February 1991, was the last of the PCI and the first of the PDS. The motions that opposed each other in this Congress were still three: the first, which obtained 72%, by Occhetto, D'Alema, and many other leaders, was in favor of the new Party; an intermediate motion, led by Bassolino; and a third contrary motion, born from the merging of the motions of Ingrao and Cossutta presented at the previous Congress. On February 3, 1991, after seventy years of history, the history of the Italian Communist Party concluded, and the PDS was born. Some of the leaders who had opposed the turning point, including Armando Cossutta, Sergio Garavini, Lucio Libertini, Ersilia Salvato, Rino Serri, and Nichi Vendola, did not join the new Party and gave rise to Communist Refoundation (Rifondazione Comunista).
[1] Cf. Colarizi op. cit.
[2] However, the position of those who believed in the real possibility of reforming global communism with Gorbachev’s rise to the CPSU leadership was not a minority.
[3] Cf. Cossutta op. cit.
[4] Results of the main parties in the parliamentary elections of June 14, 1987: PCI 26.6% – DC 34.3% – PSI 14.3%. PCI obtained 177 seats in the Chamber and 101 in the Senate.
[5] Cf. Agosti op. cit.
[6] Results of the main parties in the European elections of June 18, 1989: PCI 27.6% – DC 32.9%. PCI obtained 22 seats in the European Parliament.
[7] Cf. Zavoli, C’era una volta la Prima Repubblica, Mondadori.
