The Bolognina shock wave

On 12 November 1989, Achille Occhetto participated in the commemoration of the Battle of Bolognina, a symbolic victory of Italian Resistance fighters over Nazis and Fascists. During the ceremony, he delivered a short speech that would irrevocably alter the future of the PCI, in which he claimed that the Party could no longer ‘follow old paths’, and that the time had come for ‘new directions to unify progressive forces’.Footnote ⁵ Occhetto had foreseen that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the collapse of the entire Soviet bloc and the failure of communism, ultimately providing the PCI with an opportunity for a clean break with the past. The audience seemed unable to grasp the full implications of Occhetto's speech. Many activists and even Party leaders learned of the PCI's new name from the media that evening. A number of informants reported initial disbelief, including Luciano Casadei, a former member of the secretariat of the Turinese Federation, who recalled: ‘I thought it was a joke … Once I understood a few hours later, I was stunned. Because after I saw the reaction of IngraoFootnote ⁶ and the supporters of the svolta […], I was really upset. You could even say I was furious, because I just couldn't believe such a thing was possible.’Footnote ⁷ Maria Grazia Sestero, a regional councillor and member of the Party's central committee (CC), described the move as ‘insanity, a liquidation, even a form of treason’.Footnote ⁸

Occhetto's announcement provoked diametrically opposed reactions, including relief among some Party officials. As Gaspare Enrico, a member of the Federation secretariat observed, ‘I was very pleased. Yes, the svolta was necessary. And we were late …’,Footnote ⁹ citing a series of warnings of the failure of communism in the preceding months (including the quelling of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing). The svolta also revived a desire to participate in the life of the Party. In December 1989, six secretaries of Party sections at the FIAT Mirafiori factory sent a letter to the Federation arguing that Occhetto's proposal had ‘instantly stirred stagnant waters’ and ‘raised new hopes’.Footnote ¹⁰

There was broad agreement, however, that the Party faced a bitter breakup. Reading Delfo Rafaschieri's notes from late 1989, it is difficult to believe that the supporters and opponents of the svolta still belonged to the same party: ‘The quality of the interventions is rather disconcerting, or rather the arguments that I heard in favour of the other motions, with a few exceptions, are quite disappointing. I was above all struck by the nonchalance of certain comrades who supported Motion 1, whose judgements swept away the history of the Party, as though it were an episode of little importance, with at best superficial analyses of the end of communism.’Footnote ¹¹ The CC approved Occhetto's proposal in late November, although widespread discontent caused the CC to convene an extraordinary congress that would vote on three competing motions in December 1989.

The agony of the PCI: the decomposition and re-formation of the Turinese party leadership

Motion 1, which was promoted by Party Secretary Occhetto, summarised views that he had supported since 12 November, centring on the need to create a new political entity. The second motion concurred with Occhetto regarding the need for change and innovation within the Party but its content differed from the first motion and its proposed steps, including the dissolution of the Party. Motion 3 completely opposed ‘liquidating’ the Party, instead proposing that it reaffirm an anti-capitalist focus that had allegedly weakened during the 1980s. The three motions were concrete proof of the divisions that had haunted the country's communists in the wake of Occhetto's dramatic November announcement. Pierino Crema, a senior official in the CGIL (a trade union close to the PCI), acknowledged that ‘what was feared was what actually happened. In other words, that in transforming the Party, parts of it would be lost in the process …’Footnote ¹²

The 19th Congress of the PCI was held in March 1990 in Bologna. After the first motion garnered 65.8% of the votes (with 30.8% supporting Motion 2 and Motion 3 earning 3.4%), the assembly pronounced itself in favour of opening up to the creation of a new political organisation. Some supporters of Motions 2 and 3 joined together in anticipation of a 20th Congress in Rimini in February 1991. Another faction rallied around the third motion, whose leading advocate was Antonio Bassolino. In the end, Motion 1 won 67.4% of the total vote, Motion 2, 27%, and Motion 3, 5.6%. Unsurprisingly, with substantial majority support, the Rimini Congress voted to organise a new political party under the name Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS, Democratic Party of the Left). Although, like the PCI's last meeting, the Rimini Congress proved to be somewhat perfunctory, it took place in a highly charged atmosphere that was punctuated by unusually heated exchanges. On the last day, one faction of delegates openly endorsed an already obvious split with the announcement of the setting up of the Movement for the Communist Refoundation, which would become the future PRC.

Thirteen of the study informants had supported the svolta and served as spokespersons for Occhetto's proposal to persuade Party militants of its merits before section votes. The Secretary of the Federation, Giorgio Ardito, acted accordingly: ‘Did we have to be divided about how we're supposed to call ourselves or should we not instead define values in such a way as to unite a democratic left based on bonds of solidarity and common actions? This second path seems preferable to me. […] Out of the crises that the country experienced, out of the crisis of the left, of the hopes and worries of Italians, is born a demand for a new, powerful, democratic, leftist political force that, with the support of Catholics and progressive secularists and ecologists, makes it possible to build an alternative to the power system built by the Christian Democrats.’Footnote ¹³

Our six remaining informants had resolved to oppose the Bolognina turning point. Maria Grazia Sestero proudly recalled that certain meetings of the opposition were notable successes: ‘Novelli and I were working to promote the second motion in Turin. We organised the first “no” protest and filled a three-thousand-seat theatre.’Footnote ¹⁴ Matters were more difficult for the third motion. In 1990, its lone representative among the informants, Delfo Rafaschieri, wrote: ‘The two major motions, through the different channels of power, reached the base, who had considerable means and influence, as well as a capacity to organise and mobilise; and the third had only its strong political motivation.’Footnote ¹⁵ In Party section votes, Occhetto's motion won 59.4% in Turin, six points lower than the national average, while the second motion gathered 36.2% of supporting votes, and the third motion received 4.4%.Footnote ¹⁶ In a Federation as powerful as that of Turin, the rejection of the svolta among some local leaders strengthened the opposition.

In the end, the debates surrounding the svolta coincided with the municipal election campaigns of May 1990, a first in the history of an Italian party. Indeed, the PCI campaigned under a name and a symbol that had been voted down at the 19th Party Congress in March. More importantly, the Party was divided between members who favoured the new orientation and those who struggled fiercely against it. The PCI promoted a candidate in Turin – Diego Novelli – who had opposed the Party's dissolution, while the campaign was headed by Federation Secretary Giorgio Ardito, who supported the svolta.Footnote ¹⁷ Although the PCI came first in the election, with 28 per cent, by comparison with the 1985 municipal election it lost seven points and failed to win the mayoral post. Despite attempting to hold together the various camps, the Party's campaign was undermined by its divisions.

Supporters and opponents: an experiment in interpretive sociography

Is there a correlation between a given socio-political variable (see Table 1) and the position adopted by the leaders with respect to Occhetto's proposal?

It is tempting to conclude that the oldest and most longstanding members were most likely to oppose the PCI's dissolution because their political and personal identities were closely linked. However, there appears to have been no convincing correlation between age and position. Occhetto's supporters included Party officials of all ages, and most of the older members of the local Party. This was equally true of social origins and socio-professional categories. Being a worker or the children of working-class parents did not necessarily mean that members either rejected, or supported, the svolta. Nor was gender a variable that predicted support or opposition to the transformation of the Party.

On the other hand, an informant's party rank does appear to have been correlated to their attitudes. Three political variables appear to be at play: the position of a party official (funzionario di partito), the public post that they held, when relevant, as well as the position of their rank in the Party. This latter criterion applies to 17 of the study informants who held a position in the Party for at least one term during their careers. Indeed, the higher an informant's position in the Party was, the more likely they were to support the svolta. This includes the three Turin Federation ex-Secretaries, who joined the ranks of supporters of Motion 1. Every informant who remained a member of the Federation secretariat or administration also supported the svolta. Interpreting the curricula vitæ of opponents corroborates that the opposite is also true: Delfo Rafaschieri and Marilde Provera, whose party responsibilities extended no further than leading their sections, both supported the ‘no’ vote, as did Vittorio De Martino, who held a position just above theirs in the federal committee. There were two exceptions among the informants, however: Maria Grazia Sestero and Diego Novelli, both of whom were members of the CC. These patterns confirm that the more of these variables combined, the more likely informants were to have supported the svolta. The two most predictive criteria for all informants, with the exception of Diego Novelli,Footnote ¹⁸ were funzionario status and a position in the Party hierarchy at least at the federal secretariat level. This could be due to the intermediate positions held by informants, high enough to develop a genuine bond – including a material connection – that contributed to their unwavering faithfulness to both the Party and its apparatus, but too low to consider themselves as legitimate protesters against the svolta. Local officials thus differed from some national Party leaders, who had access to political resources and even recognition within the Party that made it possible for them to oppose Occhetto's decisions.

A dominant memory

It would be unsuitable to make claims about an ‘official’ memory of the svolta in the same manner in which long-sustained memories of the Vichy Regime or the Algerian War were described in France. The organisations that succeeded the PCIFootnote ¹⁹ never sought to elicit a univocal version of a communist memory, preferring instead to simply suppress it (Lazar Reference Lazar, Bantigny and Baubérot2011). Perhaps it is preferable, as Henry Rousso (Reference Rousso1987, 12) recommends, to refer to a ‘dominant memory’ sustained by the majority of the leaders interviewed, who represent a numerically larger ‘yes’ camp.

As Occhetto declared after 1989, for its supporter, the svolta was the only response to the dilemma faced by the PCI after the Soviet Bloc collapse: either change or cease to exist. Although steeped in the Italian communist culture of ‘difference’ and pleased with Berlinguer's ‘strappo’ (his supposed break with the USSR), the study informants sought to resituate the PCI within the international communist movement. Ilaria Gritti, for example, who joined the Party only in 1989, observed: ‘I considered the name-change like a gesture of anticipation, a way of not being swept away by history. It is obviously tied to events in Europe, with the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even if there had already been genuine changes beginning with the Berlinguer period and with his declarations about the USSR.’Footnote ²⁰ By taking note of the agony suffered by international communism and metamorphising itself before becoming buried in the ruins of its Soviet home base, the PCI appears to have saved itself by engaging in a series of transformations (see below) that helped create a new party – the Partito Democratico (PD) that to this day remains one of Europe's most robust centre-left forces. The Soviet collapse also deprived the PCI of the parental model against which it had defined itself. Without a USSR as both model and deterrent, the question for the Party was how – and from whom – could Italian communists henceforth be ‘different’? The svolta thus seems to have served as a resource that allowed the Italian party to remain unique even after the demise of international communism.

Furthermore, according to most of the study informants, the 1989 turning point was the culmination of a longer-term process. Pierino Crema, for example, observed that ‘Berlinguer had already sent the signal announcing the “end of the vital momentum” of the Soviet Union in the course of the events taking place in Poland.Footnote ²¹ This was also true when Berlinguer declared that he felt more at peace with NATO.Footnote ²² Throughout the period of the Historic Compromise or Eurocommunism, with this communist who was a bit rigid in France, Marchais, and Carrillo in Spain.Footnote ²³ A few signs attracted attention.’Footnote ²⁴ The political changes – disregarding those that were merely nominal – that accompanied the birth of the PDS were more acceptable than the PCI's changes during its last few years, which some party officials interviewed believed would have rendered it more social-democratic than communist. Gaspare Enrico explicitly supports this position: ‘On a number of issues, the PCI was more moderate than the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany). … [Founding the PDS] meant responding to a pre-existing situation that had not been explicit.’Footnote ²⁵

Several informants also unhesitatingly referred to the existence of political ‘currents’ in the Party – although the term was taboo in a party defined by democratic centralism. They cited the opposition between Giorgio Amendola, who represented the ‘right wing’ of the PCI and Pietro Ingrao in the mid-1960s, as well as the ascent of the miglioristi (reformists who favoured an alliance with the PSI, the Partito Socialista Italiano) two decades later. Mentioning the presence of internal political variants prior to the svolta makes it possible to dodge accusations that the PCI's unity principle was disregarded in 1989. These pre-existing political strands thus allow Occhetto's supporters to minimise the divisive nature of the svolta, recast it simply as an update to an existing internal split. At the same time, the svolta's adversaries sought refuge behind Ingrao's interventions in order to legitimise their opposition.

Dissident memories

These informants’ recollections can be characterised as dissident because they are typically voiced by Occhetto's opponents as a radically different view on the 1989 turning point and its implications, although it is wise to interpret such a binary opposition with caution.

Some informants perceived the svolta as the first step in a power-grab motivated by the Party leaders’ eagerness to overturn the conventio ad excludendum that had prevented communists’ participation in the government since the beginning of the Cold War. They also called for the end to a half-century of Christian Democrat hegemony (within the context of coalitions with small centrist parties and the PSI). Delfo Rafaschieri continues to this day to express reservations about the question of power, traditionally a communist taboo. Rafaschieri began cryptically by observing that ‘if you want to rise to power, others will ask you certain things. You have to say no to this, to that … including the name. Obviously.’Footnote ²⁶ As he continued, he revealed more about his own thinking, explicitly asserting that ‘the majority chose the path of power, of neoliberal inspiration – look at the PD today – with a few minor exceptions. Even if PD members would naturally exclaim “but no! It's not true!’”Footnote ²⁷ This entrance ticket to the path to power would cost the PCI its political identity.

Opponents of the svolta were not the only figures to criticise the free-market turn promoted by Massimo D'Alema in the mid-1990s (and later by Walter Veltroni).Footnote ²⁸ Although he supported Occhetto in 1989, Giorgio Ardito expressed a similar view: ‘Who was it who spread Chicago School neoliberalism in progressive European circles? It was Blair! And D'Alema! And D'Alema's economic adviser, do you know who he was? Professor Nicola Rossi. Massimo D'Alema even helped him become a Senator. And D'Alema has enormous responsibility for Italian neoliberal politics. I could never stand Renzi. I don't like him. But D'Alema conducted a more neoliberal policy than Renzi. Unfortunately.’Footnote ²⁹

Finally, although opposing memories tend to highlight conflict between the supporters and opponents of the svolta, on closer inspection, certain aspects of the turning point blur the positions they adopted at the time. This is true, for example, of the question of how long the process lasted. Ilaria Gritti, a supporter of the turning point, deeply regrets the dismissive treatment of activists who were viscerally attached to the Party's name and symbol: ‘Liquidating the question in this way amounted to ignoring the feelings of those who were against the transition. And these activists did not receive sufficient attention at an emotional level.’Footnote ³⁰ Giancarlo Quagliotti, another representative of Motion 1, believes that prolonged debates weakened the operation because they undermined the initial effectiveness of the Bolognina announcement: ‘The debate, which as you know, lasted a long time – another error – and drove everyone's positions apart instead of reconciling them. It could have been managed with less bitterness. […] The problem lingered for almost two years, two congresses, and several Central Committees. It was agonising.’Footnote ³¹ Pierino Crema's response exemplifies mixed feelings concerning the timing of the svolta: ‘It went too fast. After that, it took at least two years … (Pause.) We probably could have managed it better.’.Footnote ³² The outcome of the svolta, tainted by the indelible stigma of fragmentation, plunged Party leaders into indecisiveness. Whether too slow or too short, the process ended with the single outcome – a schism – that communists had hoped at all costs to avoid.

The time factor: has the mourning period ended?

Former members observe that the PCI was more than a mere political organisation and that its dissolution forced them to experience a period of profound mourning. Even many of those who accepted the idea of a name-change in 1989 after decades of living amid the PCI found it difficult to turn the page. For Senator Lorenzo Gianotti, the change caused an identity problem. Gianotti, however, had supported the svolta from the very outset: ‘I must confess that for the first few years after the change of the Party, it was difficult for me to recognise myself as a non-communist. These were psychological, cultural problems.’Footnote ³³ They had also to mourn the disappearance of a human community. This is what Diego Novelli admitted, saying: ‘For me, it was … I'm not saying “everything”, but … (Pause.) It was a family. There was a spirit of solidarity and friendship.’Footnote ³⁴

Mourning can be defined as regret about the loss or absence of a missing person or entity, but some Party officials embraced the PCI's dissolution as an extension of a gradual ideological shift during the Party's final years. The change remained inconclusive as long as the Party retained its name and its membership in the International. As Sergio Chiamparino, a member of the Federation secretariat, recalled: ‘You had comrades with whom you had done things, for the love of God, obviously, it was emotional. But I remember a period that was personally liberating.’Footnote ³⁵

Although Luciano Casadei was the only informant who spontaneously referred to ‘nostalgia’, every party official interviewed expressed some degree of regret at the thought of an entire social world swept away by the dissolution of the Party. Does this suggest that Party officials interviewed for this study can be said to be nostalgic for the PCI? The answer to this question is complex, in part because some study informants, including Chiamparino, explicitly argued the opposite: ‘I don't feel any nostalgia. I have very nice memories from the period. I remember people … From a personal point of view, it was certainly a more beautiful period than those that followed. […] So, there are also pleasant memories. But that's as far as it goes …’Footnote ³⁶

Fragmented political paths

After 1991, comrades who had been previously united under the PCI banner splintered into at least three groups: those who chose the PDS, those who joined the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, and those who refused to join any new party. Some informants also decided to join a party with non-communist roots, such as Diego Novelli, who helped create La Rete, the product of a split in the DC.

Approximately two-thirds of Italian communists ultimately joined the PDS after the demise of the PCI, a proportion that is also reflected in the pool of informants for this study (13 out of 19 individuals). A number of supporters of the second motion, including Luciano Casadei, eventually joined the PDS: ‘I stayed with the PDS because for me, it was still the Party. People who stayed with the PDS were the ones who were in the PCI’.Footnote ³⁸ Moreover, although 13 informants registered for the PDS, only nine are currently still PD members.

The ebb and flow of former PCI officials in the aftermath of the Party's dissolution merit closer examination. The first wave of departures occurred during the transition from the DS to the PD: ‘When the Party became the Democratic Party, with leaders whom I have never appreciated, I said no. It was different because the PD included both former communists and Christian Democrats, and that changed everything.’Footnote ³⁹ Like Luciano Casadei, Iginio Ariemma and Ilaria Gritti, Maria Grazia Sestero also declined to join the PD. Sestero's motivations were identical to Casadei's, but for the other two, the problem was less related to the fusion with The Daisy (La Margherita) than the form of the new party, which replaced the previous coalitions, The Olive Tree (L'Ulivo) and The Union (L'Unione).Footnote ⁴⁰ Ilaria Gritti ultimately joined the PD in 2012, while Luciano Casadei currently supports Article One, a party formed in 2017 after the splitting of the PD's left wing.

The PD experienced a second wave of departures after 2016 that were linked to policies promoted by Matteo Renzi. For example, the former Resistance member and regional councillor Sante Bajardi did not renew his membership in 2017 and decided to adhere to Article One: ‘I left the PD because Renzi's policy was incomprehensible for a worker. You know, the world is like that – everyone has their own life. And it leaves traces. When you see somebody like Renzi, who thinks only of himself, arriving … From that point of view, my break with Renzi was immediate, because it was a profound separation from the interests of people that I thought I represented.’Footnote ⁴¹ He was followed by Armando Caruso, a former worker and trade union leader at the FIAT Mirafiori factory: ‘There had already been a radical change between the PDS and the DS. Between the DS and the PD, what a disappointment! I lost interest and didn't get a new party card after 2018.’Footnote ⁴²

The decision to join the PRC seemed longer-lasting. Delfo Rafaschieri proudly proclaims that he is still a member, ‘from ’91 until this morning’.Footnote ⁴³ Marilde Provera is similarly resolute: ‘I remain a member of the Refoundation. I am no longer a party leader. I go, I listen, and I rarely speak. At least there, there's still some debate.’Footnote ⁴⁴ Maria Grazia Sestero joined the PRC in 1991 after a 15-month period of opposition: ‘I made the decision during a kind of ethical upsurge linked to the suffering of the members and the sense of betrayal they felt. It was almost a problem of coherence.’Footnote ⁴⁵ She became aware that her profile clashed with the very different backgrounds represented in the PRC: ‘A more extremist component joined the party. And a somewhat authoritarian concept of the party emerged inside the Refoundation. So, the way of running the party was less open, a bit sectarian, a bit authoritarian, and that caused some of us to say we could no longer support something like that.’Footnote ⁴⁶ Maria Grazia Sestero left the PRC in 1995. By default? ‘[To join the PRC] was a forced choice if we wanted to stay involved in politics. It was the only real place that still existed, since Refoundation had backed positions that led it to receive 1.5 or 2 per cent of the vote …’Footnote ⁴⁷ Like a growing number of former Party leaders in the study sample, Sestero is presently not a member of any party.

Two informants made the same decision in 1991, including the trade union leader Vittorio De Martino and Andrea Liberatori, a former editor-in-chief of the Turin edition of L'Unità and a PCI member since 1945. By 2019, six informants no longer adhered to any party, although this does not suggest that they no longer vote in the different elections. Liberatori voted for the heir to the PCI, the PD: ‘It seems to me to be an organisation that's no longer “left left”, but I tell myself that it's the useful left.’Footnote ⁴⁸ In other words, a type of ‘useful vote’ or ‘vote by default’ came to replace the membership vote that had predominated during the PCI period. This also reflects the problems of the present-day Italian left, which one-third of the study informants believe lacks credibility.

Fragmented political careers

The svolta also constituted a turning point in the political careers of a number of former communists. As a result, the transition to the PDS marks the true beginning of the careers of some informants. Sergio Chiamparino is a typical example. After a single term as city councillor representing the PCI in the Turinese suburb of Moncalieri, he attained the principal elective functions in the Piedmont region with the PDS, DS, and PD. His official functions with the Turinese Federation ended in 1985, however, after he opposed a referendum promoted by the PCI about the sliding wage scale. In 1991, Chiamparino succeeded Giorgio Ardito as chief of the Turinese Federation of the PDS and later successfully ran for deputy in 1996. In 2001, he was elected mayor of Turin, earning a second five-year term before ultimately serving as President of the Piedmont region in 2014.

PRC representatives also won greater responsibilities in the wake of the PCI's dissolution. Maria Grazia Sestero (a regional councillor from 1985 to 1990) and Marilde Provera (who was neither elected nor a PCI candidate) successfully campaigned to serve as PRC deputies, respectively in 1992 and 2004. Their advancement resulted from a two-fold process in which, on the one hand, the PRC's modest size improved the exposure of those who joined it, while on the other, their experience with the PCI provided stature that was an asset to their new positions.

Other previous Party leaders became more involved in trade unions after 1989. The turning point allowed Vittorio De Martino, for example, to abandon politics in favour of union commitments: ‘I immediately decided I would no longer be a member of the Communist Party. I became free of the debates, which ultimately became hurtful. I lost interest. What interested me and continues to interest me is workers’ rights. Which is why I decided to devote myself entirely to overseeing the FIOM [a branch of the CGIL, which represents metallurgical workers and employees] and labourers.’Footnote ⁴⁹

Others abandoned the world of politics entirely in favour of new, and in some cases, very different careers. Among study informants, however, their decisions are unrelated to the disappearance of the PCI. Indeed, the career paths of Giancarlo Quagliotti, as director of a motorway management company, and Luciano Casadei, a concert organiser, had begun to evolve even prior to the events of 1989. Although they abandoned full-time political activity, however, even informants who completely changed professions never lost their passion for politics.

Politics at heart

Political sociology has demonstrated that political disengagement is a complex process that includes factors such as structural dynamics and an individual's psychology and personal itinerary (Fillieule Reference Fillieule2005). Giorgio Ardito's loss of interest in politics (he resigned from his rank – Secretary of the Federation – in 1991 after a confrontation with Massimo D'Alema) was ultimately short-lived: ‘Today, for the Turin PD, I promote – as a digital caveman – digital initiation classes for PD circles coordinating for peace, and I lend a hand in a few circles.’Footnote ⁵⁰ As Maria Grazia Sestero attests, politics remain important in the lives of these men and women: ‘I do not currently recognise any group, but my political passion has always been unwavering.’Footnote ⁵¹ Sestero remains president of the ANPI (National Association of Italian Partisans) of the province of Turin, a sign of the difficulty faced by former Communist Party members in leaving behind their political commitment. Those who have left politics refer to a subsequent sense of emptiness after this abrupt interruption: ‘Abandoning political activity, given the totalising prominence of the PCI, was traumatic in a number of respects that I gradually managed to overcome.’Footnote ⁵² Those who have new political or associative commitments are in part seeking to avoid such a vacuum or ‘trauma’, as Iginio Ariemma describes it. It is almost as if they have difficulty living without politics, while these new involvements may also provide distant contact with the era of the PCI.