When the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party met in February, 1973, PCI Secretary Enrico Berlinguer reported that “membership in the party and, to a less satisfactory extent, in the Youth Federation (FGCI), shows a constant increase.” During the past several years the PCI has again become a point of reference for an increasingly high number of people who either join the Party or at least gravitate around it. Such a “return”— to be understood literally in some cases—is particularly interesting because it involves a high proportion of Italian youth, especially students, and some prestigious representatives of the Italian cultural world.