In this same document, Togliatti insisted that “Each party therefore knows how to march in an autonomous fashion. Autonomy of the parties is not only an internal necessity of our movement but an essential condition of our development in present conditions.”
The Origins of Italian Maoism
There were, both during and after Togliatti’s hegemony in the Italian Communist Party, elements that were strongly opposed to the direction in which it was being led, including some who sympathized with the Chinese. Togliatti himself recognized this. In his final document, he wrote that “We have in the parry and its periphery some small groups of comrades and sympathizers favorable to the Chinese positions and who defend those positions. Some members of our party have had to be expelled because they were responsible for factional activities and lack of discipline. But, in general, we discuss all aspects of the polemic with the Chinese in cell and section meetings on a municipal level.”[281]
There was apparently a pro-Chinese group, separate from the Italian Communist Party, as early as 1964—perhaps made up of the people whom Togliatti noted had been expelled from the PCI. Although I was told by local Socialist leaders in Florence in 1964 that there were Maoists in the PCI who had not as yet dared to challenge the party leadership,[282] I was informed by a Florentine Communist trade union leader that there did exist a Maoist party, which he estimated had perhaps a thousand members and had its own publication.[283]
The Washington Post reported in October 1966 that “The dissident pro-Chinese group first emerged in northern Italy three years ago. They were quickly isolated by the late Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti’s efforts to couple substantial loyalty to the Soviet line with steady opposition to any open break with the Communist Chinese.”
The Washington Post article continued, “Now, however, the current ‘cultural revolution’ in China has left the Party leadership no choice but to go along with Moscow’s counter-attacks against Peking. This has provided more room and support for the pro-Chinese, who have now surfaced in most areas of Italy. Most of the pro-Chinese groups are planning a meeting in Leghorn, where the Italian Communist Party was founded 45 years ago, to organize a nationwide ‘Communist Party of Italy (Marxist-Leninist)’ It will be dedicated to fighting ‘revisionist and bourgeois’ tendencies in the Italian Communist leadership.”[284]
A couple of years later, a United States State Department source claimed that “Despite the large domestic and international press attention” given to the founding congress of the Partito Comunista d’ltalia-Marxisti-Leninisti, “the new ‘pro-Chinese’ party appears increasingly to have all the characteristics of still-born. Its present membership is not believed to be higher than a couple of thousands … the new party does not seem to cause the PCI undue alarm.”[285]
By 1970, there were at least three recognizable Maoist parties in Italy. According to a local leader (in Venice) of one of these, the Partito Comunista d’ltalia (Marxisti-Leninisti) had at its inception been officially recognized by the Chinese, but when it split shortly after its establishment (with both factions claiming the original name) this recognition had been withdrawn. The third Maoist group was the Unione dei Comunisti (Marxisti-Leninisti), which had been established principally by former members of the youth group of the PCI, and had a following mainly among the students.[286]
By the mid-1970s there were still three recognizable Maoist parties in Italy, apparently the same three we had encountered four years before. These were the Partito Comunista d’ltalia Marxisti-Leninisti, the Organizazione dei Comunisti Marxisti-Leninisti) which in April 1973 changed its name to Partito Comunista Italiano (Marxisti-Leninisti), and the Unione dei Comunisti (Marxisti-Leninisti).[287]
The most important of these parties was the Partito Comunista d’ltalia Marxisti-Leninisti. It was led by Fosco Dinucci, its secretary general. It held its second congress in secret in Parma in January 1973. That congress decided to convert its periodical Nuova Unita from a monthly to a weekly.[288] By 1977, Nuova Unita had become a daily newspaper, and Voce delta Cello, a weekly.[289]
As early as 1974, Judith Chubb noted that the Partito Comunista d’ltalia M-L was indicating “a shift of emphasis from China to Albania (perhaps due to recent Chinese foreign policy).”[290] However, two years later it was reported that the party “regularly exchanges visits and messages with China … Albania … and Maoist groups around the world (e.g. the joint declaration with the Communist Party of Brazil.”[291]
Nevertheless, as the split developed between the Albanian Party of Labor and the successors to Mao Tse-tung in China, the Partito Comunista d’ltalia Marxisti-Leninisti shifted its allegiance to the Albanian party. Angelo Codovilla reported in 1979 that in 1976—1977 “the party shifted its allegiance from Peking to Tirana. A delegation from the Albanian Party of Labor took part in the CPI (M-L) congress—the first time it has sent a delegation to a West European gathering.”[292] A year later, the party was reported to be “strongly pro-Albania.”[293]
Although the Partito Comunista d’ltalia Marxisti-Leninisti preached the need for the violent road to power, there is no indication that it ever sought to launch any kind of guerrilla war. However, Renato Curcio, the founder of the Red Brigades, which carried out many terrorist activities in the 1970s, including the kidnapping and murdering of ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro, was for a time a member of the party in the late 1960s.[294]
The second Maoist party, the Partito Comunista Italiano (Marxisti-Leninisti) was led by Also Brandirali. Its journal was Servire it Popolo. Unlike the other Maoist groups, it apparently participated in elections, at least on one occasion. It did so in the 1972 parliamentary election, and was reported as receiving about 85,000 votes.[295]
With the splintering of International Maoism after the death of Mao, Branderinelli’s PCI (M-L) was characterized by the East German Communists (who kept close track of such matters) as one of the three “Left Radical Maoist” groups in Italy. The other two were the Movimento Lavoratori per il Socialismo (Workers Movement for Socialism) and the Partito Comunista Linea Rosse (Communist Party Red Line).[296]
The third major Maoist group, the Organizazione dei Comunisti Marxisti-Leninisti, was led by Osvaldo Pesce. In May 1977 it merged with two other small groups to form the Unified Communist Party of Italy, of which Pesce was Secretary General.[297] That party stayed loyal to the Chinese leadership after the death of Mao Tse-tung. It endorsed the Three Worlds Theory and sent delegations to China in 1977 and 1978.[298]
A small group of Italian Maoists came to be affiliated with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), the international organization of those who continued to support the Maoism of the Great Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four. In an early (1980) document of this group, its Italian affiliate was said to be the Organizazione Comunista Proletaria Marxista-Leninista.[299] In signing the formal “Declaration” announcing the establishment of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the Organizazione was joined by the Communist Collective of Agit/Prop and the Communist Committee of Trento.[300] In the RIM magazine A World to Win in December 1966, the Italian affiliate was listed as the Red Worker Communist Organization.[301] We have no further information concerning these groups.
281
See Rinascita, weekly periodical of Italian Communist Party, Rome, September 5, 1964, and he Monde, Paris, September 5, 1964, pages 1 and 4.
282
Interviews with Angelo Luchi, Provincial Vice Secretary of Partito Socialists Democratico Italiano, in Florence, September 10, 1964, and with Franco Procopi, member of Regional Committee, Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano, in Florence, September 10, 1964.
283
Interview with Gianfranco Rastrelli, member of Secretariat of CGIL labor federation of Florence, Communist Parry member, in Florence, September 11, 1964.
284
Leo J. Wollenberg, “Italian Reds Plagued by Dissidents,” Washington Post, October 9, 1966.
285
World Strength of Communist Party Organizations, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, Washington, DC, 1968 edition, page 33.
286
Interview with Uderico Moscatelli, local leader in Venice of Unione dei Communisti (Marxisti-Leninisti) in Venice, July 21, 1970.
287
Carla Liverani, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1973, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 196.
288
Angelo Codevilla in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1978, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 193.
290
Judith A. Chubb, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1974, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 190.
291
Angelo Codevilla, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1976, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., page 193.
293
Giacomo Sani, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1979, Hoover Institution, Calif., page 182.
294
Curtis Bill Pepper, “The Possessed,” New York Times Magazine, February 18, 1979, page 32.
299
Basic Principles for the Unity of Marxist-Leninists and for the Line of the International Communist Movement, RCP Publications, Chicago, 1981, page 45.
300
Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, March 1984, published in 1987, page 3.