Word: communisms
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...after the DC triumphed in the crucial 1948 election against the combined "popular front" forces of the left, the direction of post-war Italian politics changed. The U.S.-backed DC founded their government on an anti-communism platform and drew the lines of political onflict that have continued to the present. And since that time, American foreign policy has pivoted around the central theme of anti-Communism; as long as the PC was excluded from power, American policy makers eyed the Italian peninsula contentedly...
Though unforseen, the rise of the Communist Party is not accidental. Since the late fifties, the party has steadily forged its own particular brand of Communism, substituting gradualist mass politics and a broad electoral appeal in place of proletarian revolution. Since the late fifties--especially after Hungary--the IC has shown increasing independence from Moscow, to the point of regularly denouncing Soviet policies. The grand political design of the party, nurtured by its first post war leader Pamiro Togliatti and continued by current party secretary Enrico Berlinguer, pointed toward the attainment of political power by democratic means. And in June...
This tactic makes even less sense since anti-Communism itself soon will become entirely obsolete in the Italian context. Barring a miracle (and no doubt the fervent anti-Communist Pope Paul prays for this nightly) the PC will receive a plurality in the national elections next year. The Italian weekly Expresso recently released a poll indicating that an election at the present time would give the PC such a victory. In that case, the PC could not be denied participation--of some variety--in the government. It is clear then that anti-Communism will soon cease to be a viable...
...realities, the U.S. turns the other way, thinking that dogmatism and intransigence can somehow dissipate the spectre. Secretary of State Kissinger has continually repeated that Communist participation in the government will be "unacceptable." What Kissinger probably hopes for is the "portugalization" of Italy, the substitution of social democracy for communism. But the Italian Socialists have much less support than the PC. Ironically, though, the policies of the PC are very similar to those of most Western European socialist parties, whose participation in power the U.S. tolerates. In fact, much of the tension between the U.S. and the PC stems from...
...public role has increased. Last September he led an important government delegation to Tibet. Soon after, he presided over the highly publicized agriculture meetings held in Shansi province and later Peking, where he gave the keynote speech. It was very Maoist, emphasizing that China must continue to advance toward Communism since the present system of wages and material incentives is "unegalitarian...