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Italy: A Clean‐up after the Cold War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Franceso Sidoti
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In These Pages We Will Discuss The Thesis That in order to understand the present problems of Italy, one must look back on an era of international politics dominated by the bipolar and conflictual relationship between East and West. This came to an end finally after the failed Moscow coup in mid-1991.

From 1946, without interruption, in a Europe divided by the iron curtain, Italy was the frontier country where the cold war was most bitterly fought, because the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was the strongest communist party in the world outside the Soviet empire. From many viewpoints, the Italian Communists were ordinary politicians peacefully involved in cooperatives and in the trade unions. Their management of some important regions and municipalities was judged very favourably by many scholars. In public declarations they stated their preference for a peaceful way to socialism, conversion to liberty, independence from Soviet influence, and acceptance of a democratic system. In fact they shared Moscow's orientations in every international problem where East and West were opposed. Now we understand why: they were heavily financed, directly and indirectly, by the Soviets. But after Yeltsin had thrown out many skeletons from the Kremlin closets, we had the proof that the staunch anti-communists were right. The big lie about Bolshevism concerned Italy also, where the PCI had been helped from Stalin to Gorbachev. This is why still in 1985 the Italian Communists declared the USA to be the only imperialist state in the world.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1993 , pp. 105 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

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References

1 For more information on these themes, see Sidoti, F., ‘Terrorism Supporters in the West’, in Galor, N., Tolerating Terrorism in the West, London, Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar

2 It is very important to remark that besides being ‘the price for democracy’, many kick‐backs were taken for personal enrichment and caused serious misgovernment. For these reasons the magistrates become popular idols. A rampant corruption had great benefits and little costs: the political class organized an appropriate system of impunity for political graft (parliamentary immunity, frequent amnesties, control over the judiciary, and so on). See Pizzorno, A. and Delia Porta, D., Loscambio occulta. Cast di corruzimupolitica in Italia, Bologna, II Mulino, 1992.Google Scholar

3 Sacco, G., ‘Italy After Communism’, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1992, p. 29.Google Scholar

4 The Economist, 18 July 1992, p. 69.

5 Codevilla, A., ‘A Second Italian Republic?’, in Foreign Affairs, Summer 1992, p. 164.Google Scholar

6 The best study on the Italian political system and on differences among local governments is Putnam, R., Leonardi, R. and Nanetti, R., La pianta t U radici, II Mulino, Bologna 1992;Google Scholar for an analysis of the same problems in a wider perspective on the general democratic theory see Putnam, R., Leonardi, R. and Nannetti, R., Making Democracy Work, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1993.Google Scholar