Communist Party (Italy)

History

The party was founded on 3 July 2009 by Marco Rizzo as Communists – Popular Left (Comunisti – Sinistra Popolare). On 21 January 2012 the party changed its name to Communists Popular Left – Communist Party (Comunisti Sinistra Popolare – Partito Comunista). On 17 January 2014 the party finally took the current name.

The PC presented its lists of candidates in some municipalities for the 2016 Italian local elections. At the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, the PC took the side of "No", considering the constitutional reform as an attempt functionally driven by the interests of investors since it was clearly aimed at easing the anti-popular measures operated by governments.

On 21 January 2017, it was held in Rome the II National Congress in which Rizzo was confirmed as general secretary. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome on 25 March 2017, the PC organized in Rome a demonstration during the summit of European heads of the states, reaffirming its opposition to the European Union (EU). On 11 November 2017 the party organized a demonstration in Rome on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution.

On 26 May 2019 it participated in the European elections, where it won 0.88% of the vote. Exactly one month after the Conte II Cabinet took office, the party organized a protest in Rome involving hundreds of people. On 12 March 2020 the Front of Communist Youth, which had been affiliated with the Communist Party since its founding, split and ceased affiliation.

In November 2021 senator Emanuele Dessì, elected with the Five Star Movement, joined the party, giving it representation in the Italian Parliament.

In the run-up of the 2022 general election the party was a founding member of Sovereign and Popular Italy (ISP).

In January 2023 Rizzo was replaced by Alberto Lombardo as the party's general secretary. In July 2024 Rizzo resigned from honorary president too.

Ideology

The PC is grounded on Marxism–Leninism. It assumes a political line openly revolutionary, supporting the need for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the transformation of Italy into a socialist country, rejecting both reformist and revisionist theories. The PC stands for the unity of communists in Italy under a solid Marxist–Leninist vision and its watchwords.

The PC refuses the merely electoral political practices that have characterized many communist parties and it considers the participation at the elections just as a mean to spread its ideas and strengthen its entrenchment on local contexts and not at all as the final goal of its political activity.

With regards to the history of the communist movement in Italy, the PC recognizes as leading figures Antonio Gramsci and Pietro Secchia while it takes a highly critical stand on Palmiro Togliatti and Enrico Berlinguer. Unlike other Italian communist organizations, the PC welcomes the historical figure of Joseph Stalin, though rejecting the definition of "stalinism". It considers such a definition politically meaningless since during Stalin's leadership there is no trace of elements of discontinuity or attempts of overcoming the Marxist–Leninist theory. Indeed, the PC reckons the instrumental use of the term Stalinism as a functional anti-communist definition developed following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In celebrating the memory of the liberation war, the PC holds that the ideas inspiring the Italian resistance movement have been widely betrayed by the bourgeois Italian Republic established just after the war although many partisans fought for social renewal and a socialist Italy. The PC underlines that the role of those communist fighters in the partisan armed struggle has been progressively diminished and concealed in contemporary historiography.

The PC affirms that the EU is basically unreformable and therefore sustains the needs for an immediate and unilateral exit from the EU and NATO, distancing likewise with "sovereignistic" positions. The PC claims the historical opposition of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) to the EU, the only Italian party openly against the Treaty of Rome of 1957, sustaining that opposition to the EU will be perceived again as a communist watchword and it is misappropriated by the far-right (the Italian Social Movement voted in favor to the Treaty of Rome). Party leader Marco Rizzo has criticized communist leader Enrico Berlinguer due to, among many things, his support to the European Economic Community.

International relations

The Communist Party is member of the Initiative of Communist and Workers' Parties, organization of European Marxist–Leninist parties, of which it is a founding member. It used to be the only Italian political force having solid and reciprocal relationships with the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE), though after PCPE's split and the formation of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE), there has been no sign of contact between them. Since 2022, the party has also cut ties from the KKE after a series of ideological differences were presented in an exchange of letters from both parties regarding the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and each party's definition of imperialism.

The PC maintains and develops relations with ruling parties in socialist countries, including the Communist Party of Cuba and the Workers' Party of Korea. It also has relations of solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela, condemning the imperialists' campaign and the subversive efforts against the country, although remaining critical on socialism of the 21st century since the PC affirms the needs for the final destruction of the bourgeois state-machine and its apparatus in order to actually establish socialism.

Popular support

Support for the Communist Party is stronger in central Italy in particular in Tuscany and Umbria (part of the "Red Belt"). The party ran in all the constituencies of Italy for the first time in the 2019 European Parliament election. It made its best results in Tuscany (1.68%), in particular in the province of Livorno (2.82%) and in the province of Siena (1.89%), while it was weaker in South Tyrol (0.21%), Trentino (0.49%), and Sicily (0.46%).

Electoral results

Italian Parliament

European Parliament

Regional Councils

Symbols

File:Comunisti – Sinistra Popolare.svg|2009–2012 File:Comunisti Sinistra Popolare – Partito Comunista.svg|2012–2013 File:Logo of the Communist Party (Italy).svg|2013–present

Electoral symbols

File:Logo of the Communist Party (Italy, electoral symbol).svg|2018 general election File:Logo Partito Comunista (europee 2019).png|2019 European election

Leadership

• General Secretary: Marco Rizzo (2009–2023), Alberto Lombardo (2023–present)
• President: Canzio Visentin (2020–present)
• Honorary President: Marco Rizzo (2023–2024)

References

References

1. "Declaration of transparency".
2. (14 October 2022). "Paris Declaration: The rising tide of global war and the tasks of anti-imperialists". World Anti-Imperialist Platform.
3. [https://www.ilmessaggero.it/video/invista/nasce_organizzazione_giovanile_partito_comunista_si_puo_aderire_dai_14_anni-5887416.html "Is founded the Youth wing of the Communist Party"] from ''Il Messaggero'', 9 april 2021.
4. ""Statute of the Communist Party approved at the II Congress (2017)"".
5. (2 December 2013). "In Brussels for the Communist International. The initiative of the communist parties and workers of Europe is born".
6. (21 January 2016). "Marco Rizzo: here is the Mayor candidate of the Communist Party".
7. (2 December 2016). "Interview with Marco Rizzo on constitutional referendum".
8. "A Communist "NO" to Constitutional Reform".
9. "Communist Party at Congress. Rizzo confirmed secretary".
10. "The Communist Party and the Workers in the streets: The EU can not be reformed".
11. (11 November 2017). "Rivoluzione d'Ottobre: 5 mila Comunisti italiani sfilano per le vie di Roma".
12. "Ministerio Dell'Interno".
13. Sweeney, Steve. (2019-10-06). "Italian communists protest against EU moves to rewrite history".
14. "Avanti, Avanti, Giovinezza Rossa".
15. (25 November 2021). "Il ritorno dei comunisti in Parlamento (grazie al M5S)". la Repubblica.
16. (24 January 2023). "Rizzo perde la segreteria del Partito comunista. Scontro con Bonaccini: "Totalitarista"".
17. (23 January 2023). ""Rizzo non sarà più segretario": Il giallo nel Partito comunista".
18. (24 January 2023). "Marco Rizzo non è più il segretario del Partito Comunista, che lui stesso aveva fondato nel 2009".
19. (24 January 2023). "Marco Rizzo non è più segretario del Partito Comunista: «Io epurato dai compagni? Macché»".
20. (9 July 2024). "Dispositivo approvato dal Comitato Centrale il 6 luglio 2024".
21. "Communist Unity. The points of discussion".
22. "Building the Communist Party Using 'Elections'".
23. "January 22, 1891 - January 22, 2013. In honor of comrade Antonio Gramsci: we will not cede to the illusions".
24. "Peter Secchia, another point of view in the PCI".
25. "Political document and regulations".
26. ""Berlinguer, a good person but not communist." Article by Marco Rizzo on Unità".
27. "Overcoming Anti-Stalinism, Kurt Gossweiler, Presentation in Turin with Marco Rizzo".
28. (26 April 2015). "The Role of Communists in Resistance".
29. "No to the maneuver of war. Out of Italy by NATO, out of NATO from Italy!".
30. "Bourgeois Theories Against the Proletariat: From Sovereignty to "Redbrownism"".
31. "March 25, The Reasons for the Communist "NO" to the European Union".
32. Rizzo, Marco. (11 November 2015). "Berlinguer, una brava persona ma non comunista".
33. "Dimitris Koutsoumpas - KKE Speech in Rome November 7, 2015".
34. "Interview of comrade Marco Rizzo at PCPE Congress, Madrid 10/12 June 2016".
35. "PC in Cuba for funerals of Fidel Castro".
36. "Communist Party Meeting with the Korean Work Party".
37. "Solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela".
38. "2019 European Election".