1.
Italian Communist Party
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The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played a part in the Italian resistance movement. It changed its name in 1943 to PCI and became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II, at the time it was the largest communist party in the West. The more radical members of the party left to form the Communist Refoundation Party, the PCI participated to its first general election in 1921, obtaining 4. 6% of the vote and 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1926, the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini outlawed the PCI, although forced underground, the PCI maintained a clandestine presence within Italy during the years of the Fascist regime. Many of its leaders were also active in exile, during its first year as a banned party, Antonio Gramsci defeated the partys left wing, led by Amadeo Bordiga. Gramsci replaced Bordigas leadership at a conference in Lyon, and issued a manifesto expressing the programmatic basis of the party, however, Gramsci soon found himself jailed by Mussolinis regime, and the leadership of the party passed to Palmiro Togliatti. Togliatti would lead the party until it emerged from suppression in 1944, the communists contribution to the new Italian democratic constitution was decisive. The Gullo decrees of 1944, for instance, sought to improve social, in the first general elections of 1948 the party joined the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front, but was defeated by the Christian Democracy party. The party gained considerable success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to centre-left governments. It successfully lobbied Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ car factory in the Soviet Union, the party did best in Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, where it regularly won the local administrative elections, and in some of the industrialized cities of Northern Italy. At the city government level during the course of the period, the PCI demonstrated their capacity for uncorrupt, efficient. After the elections of 1975, the PCI was the strongest force in all of the municipal councils of the great cities. The PCIs municipal showcase was Bologna, which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards, from 1946 to 1956, the Communist city council built 31 nursery schools,896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built, in 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri, introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a renewed concentration on cheap public transport. Bolognas social services continued to expand throughout the early and mid-Seventies, communists administrations at a local level also helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. The Soviet Unions brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 created a split within the PCI, the party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano, regarded the Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries, as reported at the time in lUnità, the official PCI newspaper
2.
Luigi Longo
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Luigi Longo, also known as Gallo, was an Italian communist politician and secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. Luigi Longo was born in Fubine, in the province of Alessandria, as a student at the Politecnico di Torino, he became active in the youth wing of the Italian Socialist Party, and engaged in political propaganda from a Marxist perspective. He was a visitor to the offices of Ordine Nuovo, the newspaper founded by Antonio Gramsci. In 1921, at the Livorno Congress of the PSI, he was one of the instigators of the split in the party and he became a leading figure in the new PCI along with Togliatti, Gramsci and others. Longo was a fervent anti-fascist, and, when Benito Mussolini established his Fascist regime in Italy in 1922, in the same year he was a member of a delegation to the Comintern Congress in Moscow, where he met Lenin. He would return to Moscow several times in the years to come, with an expertise in political ideology. In 1933 he became a member of the Cominterns political commission, after the defeat of the Second Spanish Republic by General Franco, he returned to France. Following the 1940 invasion of France, the Vichy-based collaborationist government was established under Philippe Pétain, Longo was arrested and detained in an internment camp at Vernet from 1939 to 1941. There he made the acquaintance of Leo Valiani, among other left-wing radicals, in 1941 he was handed over to the Italian fascist authorities and interned at Ventotene. When Mussolini fell from power on 25 July 1943, Longo was released, after Mussolini regained control of Northern Italy, Longo took command of the Garibaldi Brigades, the communist forces in the Italian partisan resistance. After the war he was a member of the National Congress and he was subsequently elected, and repeatedly re-elected, to the Italian Chamber of Deputies on the PCI list and was a member of the party leadership. In 1964, after the death of Palmiro Togliatti, he secretary of the PCI, declaring that he was a secretary. In this role, he continued Togliattis line, known as the Italian road to Socialism, in late 1968 Longo suffered of stroke, although partially recovering in the following months, from February 1969 he was assisted in most decisions by Enrico Berlinguer acting as cive-secretary. In 1972 Longo resigned the position of party secretary, supporting the choice of Berlinguer as his successor, from that year until his death, eight years later in Rome, he was honorary president of the PCI. In that capacity, he expressed his opposition to the national solidarity line the PCI was later to espouse, Longo was also a prolific writer. Aldo Agosti, ed. Luigi Longo, la politica e lazione, storia del Partito comunista italiano, 1921-1991
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Alessandro Natta
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Alessandro Natta, was an Italian politician and secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1984 to 1988. During World War II, he was sent to Greece, and in the chaos following Italys armistice with the Allies, captured, he refused to collaborate with the Germans and the Social Republic, and was interned in a prison camp on the island. Natta returned to Italy only in August 1945, and joined the PCI in Imperia, dedicating himself to the party full-time. He was in turn a Comune councillor, secretary of the local PCI federation, a strong supporter of the Italian road to Socialism, he was close to Enrico Berlinguer, and gained a position in the party Secretariat. In 1969, he drew up the report proposing the expulsion from the party of the Manifesto group, in 1984, after Berlinguers death, Natta was elected as party secretary. While still following Berlinguers party line, he tried to improve the partys relations with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To this end he supported a trip to the Soviet Union organised by Armando Cossutta, Natta was confirmed as leader during the Florence Congress in 1986, but in 1988 he was forced to resign by a heart attack and was succeeded by Achille Occhetto. Along with Cossutta, he strongly opposed Occhettos proposal in the historic Bolognina split to change the partys name, Natta, like Pietro Ingrao, chose to remain a member of the main party, as he was not optimistic about the prospects of the new communist party. Article by Luca Molinari at cronologia. leonardo. it
4.
Italian Communist Youth Federation
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The Italian Communist Youth Federation was the youth wing of the Partito Comunista Italiano, and the direct heir of the Federazione Giovanile Comunista dItalia of the PCdI. In 2016 it was refounded under the name as the young wing of the Italian Communist Party. Constituted in 1949, its peak was in the 1960s, when its membership reached 200,000, the Federations newsletters and publications thus assumed a more avant-garde role, most importantly La città futura and Nuova generazione. The proposal was passed, with 91 votes in favour,10 abstentions and 13 against. On 19 December 1990, the 25th and last congress of the FGCI opened at Pesaro, most of the FGCI moved to the new Partito Democratico della Sinistra, which in 1992 gave birth to the Sinistra Giovanile del PDS. A minority, which first adhered to the Movimento per la Rifondazione Comunista and then to the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, periodicals printed by the FGCI were Gioventù davanguardia, Il costruttore, Nuova generazione, La città futura
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Italian Chamber of Deputies
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The Chamber of Deputies is a house of the bicameral Parliament of Italy. The two houses form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately. Pursuant to article 56 of the Italian Constitution, the Chamber of Deputies has 630 seats, of which 618 are elected from Italian constituencies, Deputies are styled The Honourable and meet at Palazzo Montecitorio. Previously, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy had been briefly at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, from 1939 to 1943, the Chamber is composed of all members meeting in session at the Montecitorio. The assembly also has the right to meetings of the Government. If required, the Government is obligated to attend the session, conversely, the Government has the right to be heard every time it requires. The term of office of the House is five years,61.2 of the Constitution, states that representatives whose term has expired shall continue to exercise their functions until the first meeting of the new Chamber. An extension of the term, provided for by art,60.2, can be enacted only in case of war. Election of members to the Chamber of Deputies is by voluntary, universal, terms last for a total of five years, unless an early dissolution of the Chamber is called by the President of the Republic, at which point a snap election is held. Unlike the Senate, which members to be 40 years of age. The current system for elections to the Chamber of Deputies has been in operation since 2015, the territory of Italy is divided into 100 constituencies electing between 3 and 9 deputies depending on their size. For each constituency, the parties designate a list of candidates, head of list candidates can run in up to 10 constituencies, if two preference votes are expressed, they must be of a different sex, otherwise, the second preference is discarded. Only parties passing a 3% minimum threshold in the first round are assigned seats, if the party receiving the plurality of the votes passes a 40% threshold, it is attributed a minimum of 340 seats. The remaining 277 seats are allocated to the other parties using the largest remainder method. This provision was however rendered null and void by a Constitutional Courts judgment in January 2017, the President of the Chamber of Deputies performs the role of speaker of the house and is elected during the first session after the election. During this time the prerogatives of speaker are assumed by the vicepresident of Chamber of Deputies of the legislature who was elected first. If two were elected simultaneously, the oldest deputy serves as president of Chamber of Deputies, the President of Chamber of Deputies has also the role of President during the Parliament joint sessions, when the upper and lower houses have to vote together
6.
Sassari
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Sassari is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 222,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains a collection of art. As Sardinias second most populated city, and the fifth largest municipality in Italy, it has an amount of cultural, touristic. The citys economy relies on tourism and services, however also partially on research, construction, pharmaceuticals. Sassari is located in north-western Sardinia, at 225 metres above sea level, the area rises up on a wide karstic plateau that slopes gently down towards the Gulf of Asinara and the Nurra plain. The abundance of water, with about 400 springs and artesian wells, has made for development of horticulture over the centuries. According to a survey by Weatherwise, Sassari is the city with the fourth best climate in the world. Although Sassari was founded in the early Middle Ages, the area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, and throughout ancient history, by the Nuragics. In the locality of Fiume Santo is also found a site where an Oreopithecus bambolii. The origin of the city remains uncertain and it developed from the merger of a number of separate villages, such as San Pietro di Silki, San Giacomo di Taniga, and San Giovanni di Bosove. The oldest mention of the village is in an 1131 document in the archive of the Monastery of St. Peter in Silki where is cited a guy named Jordi de Sassaro, Sassari was sacked by the Genoese in 1166. Immigration continued until, in the early 13th century, it was the most populous city in the Giudicato of Torres, after the assassination of Michele Zanche, the latters last ruler in 1275, Sassari became subject to the Republic of Pisa with a semi-independent status. Its statutes of 1316 are remarkable for the leniency of the penalties imposed when compared with the laws of the Middle Ages. From 1323 the Republic of Sassari decided to side with the King of Aragon, in whose hands it remained for much of the following centuries, further attempts made by Genoa to conquer the city failed. In 1391 it was conquered by Brancaleone Doria and Marianus V of Arborea, of the independent Sardinian Giudicato of Arborea, of which it became the last capital. However, in 1420 the city was sold along with the territory for 100,000 florins to the Crown of Aragon, replaced by Spain after 1479 on the joining of the Aragonese. During the period of Aragonese and then Spanish domination the city was known as Sàsser in Catalan language, the Jesuits founded the first Sardinian university in Sassari in 1562. In the same year the first printing press was introduced and the ideals of Renaissance humanism became more widely known, several artists of the Mannerist and Flemish schools practiced their art in the city
7.
Kingdom of Italy
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The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. Fascist Italy is the era of National Fascist Party rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870, the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals
8.
Padova
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Padua is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic, the city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, which has a population of c. Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River,40 kilometres west of Venice and 29 km southeast of Vicenza, the Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain, to the citys south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley. It hosts the University of Padua, founded in 1222, where Galileo Galilei was a lecturer, Padua is the setting for most of the action in Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew. There is a play by the Victorian writer Oscar Wilde, titled The Duchess Of Padua, the original significance of the Roman name Patavium is uncertain. It may be connected with the ancient name of the River Po, additionally, the root pat-, in the Indo-European language may refer to a wide open plain as opposed to nearby hills. The ending -ium, signifies the presence of villages that have united themselves together, Padua claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. According to a tradition dated at least to the time of Virgils Aeneid and to Livys Ab Urbe Condita, Padua was founded in around 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor. After the Fall of Troy, Antenor led a group of Trojans and their Paphlagonian allies, the Eneti or Veneti, thus, when a large ancient stone sarcophagus was exhumed in the year 1274, officials of medieval commune declared the remains within to be those of Antenor. Nevertheless, archeological remains confirm a date for the foundation of the center of the town to between the 11th and 10th centuries BC. The Roman historian Livy records an invasion of the Spartan king Cleonimos around 302 BC. The Spartans came up the river but were defeated by the Veneti in a naval battle, still later, the Veneti of Padua successfully defended themselves against the aggression of Etruscans and Gauls. According to Livy and Silius Italicus, the Veneti, including those of Padua, formed an alliance with the Romans by 226 BC, against their common enemy, men from Padua fought and died besides the Romans at Cannae. As the Romans advanced northward, Padua was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic, in 175 BC, Padua requested the aid of Rome in putting down a local civil war. In 91 BC, Padua, along with cities of the Veneti. Around 49 BC, Padua was made a Roman municipium under the Lex Julia Municipalis and its citizens ascribed to the Roman tribe, at that time the population of the city was perhaps 40,000. The city was reputed for its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep, in fact, the poet Martial remarks on the thickness of the tunics made there
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
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Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
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Years of Lead (Italy)
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The left-wing autonomist Marxist movement in Italy which was involved in many events of the period lasted from 1968 until the end of the 1970s. There was widespread social conflict and unprecedented acts of terrorism carried out by both right- and left-wing paramilitary groups, an attempt to endorse the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement by the Tambroni Cabinet led to rioting and was short-lived. The Christian Democrats were instrumental in the Italian Socialist Party gaining power in the 1960s, the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 ended the strategy of historic compromise between the DC and the Italian Communist Party. The assassination was carried out by the Red Brigades, then led by Mario Moretti, between 1969 and 1981, nearly 2,000 murders were attributed to political violence in the form of bombings, assassinations, and street warfare between rival militant factions. Public protests shook Italy during 1969, with the autonomist student movement being particularly active, on 19 November 1969, Antonio Annarumma, a Milanese policeman, was killed during a riot by far-left demonstrators. He was the first civil servant to die in the wave of violence, the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Rome and the Banca Commerciale Italiana and the Banca Nazionale dellAgricoltura in Milan were bombed in December. Local police arrested 80 or so suspects from left-wing groups, including Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist initially blamed for the bombing, and Pietro Valpreda. Their guilt was denied by left-wing members, especially by members of the student movement, then prominent in Milans universities, as they believed that the bombing was carried out by fascists. In 1975 Calabresi and other officials were acquitted by judge Gerardo DAmbrosio who decided that Pinellis fall had been caused by his being taken ill. Meanwhile, the anarchist Valpreda and five others were convicted and jailed for the bombing and they were later released after three years of preventive detention. Then, two neo-fascists, Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura, were arrested accused of being the organizers of the massacre, in the 1990s, new investigations into the Piazza Fontana bombing, citing new witnesses testimony, implicated Freda and Ventura again. However, the pair cannot be put on again because of double jeopardy. The Red Brigades, the most prominent far-left terrorist organization, conducted an internal investigation that paralleled the official inquiry. They ordered that the inquiry remain secret, because of the light that it could shed on other terrorist organizations. The inquiry was discovered after a shootout between the Red Brigade and the Carabinieri at Robbiano di Mediglia in October 1974, the cover-up was exposed in 2000 by Giovanni Pellegrino, at the time President of the Commissione Stragi. The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970 by Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol, who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married, and Alberto Franceschini. The first action of the RB was burning the car of Giuseppe Leoni on 17 September 1970, the Black Prince, Junio Valerio Borghese, took part in it. The coup, called off at the last moment, was discovered by the newspaper Paese Sera, on March 26, Alessandro Floris was assassinated in Genoa by a unit of the October 22 Group, a far-left terrorist organization
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
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Eurocommunism
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Eurocommunism was a revisionist trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties. They claimed to be developing a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe, during the Cold War, they sought to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was especially prominent in Italy, Spain and France, the Eurocommunists came into conflict with the orthodox Marxist-Leninists in the various communist parties of the West. They sought to move the focus away from the class struggle politics of industrial workers, the origin of the term Eurocommunism was subject to great debate in the mid-1970s, being attributed to Zbigniew Brzezinski and Arrigo Levi, among others. Jean-François Revel once wrote that one of the amusements of political scientists is to search for the author of the term Eurocommunism. In April 1977, Deutschland Archiv decided that the word was first used in the summer of 1975 by Yugoslav journalist Frane Barbieri, outside Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as Neocommunism. They are sometimes called Gramscians because of their reliance on the theories of Antonio Gramsci rather than Vladimir Lenin, early inspirations can also be found in the Austromarxism and its seeking of a third democratic way to socialism. The Prague Spring and particularly its crushing by the Soviet Union in 1968 became a point for the Communist world. The usually very pro-Soviet Communist Party of Ireland initially condemned the invasion but later changed their stance, some Communist parties with strong popular support, notably the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Spain adopted Eurocommunism most enthusiastically. The Communist Party of Finland was dominated by Eurocommunists, in the 1980s the traditional, pro-Soviet faction broke away, calling the main party revisionist. The PCE and its Catalan referent, the United Socialist Party of Catalonia, had already committed to the liberal possibilist politics of the Popular Front during the Spanish Civil War. The Communist parties of Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, in 1975 the PCI and the PCE had made a declaration regarding the march toward socialism to be done in peace and freedom. The compromesso storico with Democrazia Cristiana, stopped by the kidnapping, the same happened and even more drastically when Finnish Peoples Democratic League changed its leadership also, with the reformist Ele Alenius leading it. In 1968 CPFI FPDL were the parties to directly oppose the actions of the Soviet militarship in Prague in 1968. Thus, the two organizations split de facto into two different parties, one reformist and one hard-line Soviet, what was peculiar was that the Youth was nearly completely Taistolaist. Finally in 1984 with a strong Eurocommunist majority the PCFI hard-line organizations were expelled from the already weakened party. Pro-Soviet hard-liners formed their own cover-organization, Democratic Movement, finally in 1990 the new Left Alliance integrated the CPFI/FPDL, FPDL, s ex-secretary Alenius chose not to be member of it because they also took hard-line Taistolaists. Western European communists came to Eurocommunism via a variety of routes, for some it was their direct experience of feminist and similar action
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Communist Party of Spain
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The Communist Party of Spain is a national political party in Spain. It is the largest member organization of the United Left electoral coalition and has influence in the largest trade union in Spain, the PCE was characterized by the struggle against the Franco dictatorship, during which period it was illegal. It was legalized in 1977 by Adolfo Suárez as one of the necessary to establish democracy in Spain. The youth organisation of PCE is the Communist Youth Union of Spain, the PCE was the result of a merger between two organisations, the original Spanish Communist Party and the Spanish Communist Workers Party. The two parties joined in the new Partido Comunista de España on 14 November 1921, the unified PCE became a member of the Third International and held its first congress in Sevilla in March 1922. In May, Jules Humbert-Droz, the top Comintern official in Western Europe, arrived in Spain to supervise the still fractious party, by the end of 1922 the party had approximately 5,000 members. The PCEs left-wing engaged in violence, especially in Bilbao. With the advent of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera in September 1923, political parties, the party continued to publish its weekly newspaper La Antorcha until 1927. However, Moscow urged a cautious approach and the CNT and Basque nationalists were reluctant to cooperate with communists, the PCE continued to suffer from repression and dissension. The partys second secretary general, José Bullejos, purged the party of politically suspect members, in 1930 the arguments over doctrine led the Catalan-Balearic Communist Federation to break from the party and associate with the International Right Opposition. Amid this infighting, Comintern official Dmitry Manuilsky reportedly stated that, while Spain had an excellent proletariat, it had only a few little groups, thus, the PCE was in a very debilitated state when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in 1931. On 3 December 1933 the first PCE parliamentarian, Cayetano Bolívar Escribano, was elected, Bolívar was jailed at the time of elections and left imprisonment to occupy his post in the parliament. The PCE leadership judged that while progressive laws could be passed, being a well-knit and highly disciplined organisation, the PCE could in spite of its numerical weakness play an important part in the war. In the first five months of the war, PCE grew from 30,000 members to 100,000 and it also founded a Spanish branch of the International Red Aid, which assisted the Republican cause considerably. In 1936, due to the political situation in Catalonia. Since then the PCE does not have an organization in Catalonia and this set-up has been imitated by many of the communist splinter groups in Spain. After the Republican defeat in April 1939, the PCE was persecuted by the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, during the initial years of the Franco regime, PCE organized guerrilla struggles in some parts of the country. Much like the identical positions of other Moscow-directed Stalinist parties, this position was changed immediately after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, a large part of the party membership was forced into exile
15.
Portuguese Communist Party
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The Portuguese Communist Party is a major left-wing political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist-Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism, the party also considers itself to be patriotic and internationalist. The party was founded in 1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International, made illegal after a coup in the late 1920s, the PCP played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which overthrew the 48-year regime, after the end of the dictatorship, the party became a major political force in the newly democratic state, mainly among the working class. The Party publishes the weekly Avante and its youth organization is the Portuguese Communist Youth, a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. At the end of World War I, in 1918, Portugal fell into an economic crisis. The Portuguese working classes responded to the deterioration in their standards with a wave of strikes. Supported by a labour movement, the workers achieved some of their objectives. The goal of FMP was to promote socialist and revolutionary ideas and to organize, after some time, members of the FMP began to feel the need for a revolutionary vanguard among Portuguese workers. The party opened its first headquarters in the Arco do Marquês do Alegrete Street in Lisbon, seven months after its creation, the first issue of O Comunista, the first newspaper of the party, was published. The first congress of the party took place in Lisbon in November 1923, after the military coup of 28 May 1926, the party was outlawed and had to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on the eve of the second congress, in 1927, the partys main office was closed. The party was first reorganized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves, adapting the its new illegal status, the party reorganized as a network of clandestine cells. Meanwhile, in 1938, the PCP had been expelled from the Comintern, the action against the PCP, signed by Georgi Dimitrov, was in part taken due to some persecution against Comintern member parties or persons led by Joseph Stalin. These series of events would, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in 1943, after the 1933 rise of Salazars dictatorial Estado Novo regime, suppression of the party grew. Many members were arrested, tortured, and executed, many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in the Cape Verde Islands. This included Bento Gonçalves, who would die there, the vast wave of arrests led to a major reorganization in 1940 and 1941, named the Reorganization of 40. The first congress held after these changes was held in 1943, another important conclusion was the need to increase the partys influence inside the Portuguese army
16.
French Communist Party
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The French Communist Party is a communist party in France. Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains an influence in French politics. In 2012, the PCF claimed 138,000 members including 70,000 who have paid their membership fees and this would make it the third largest party in France in terms of membership after the Republicans and the Socialist Party. It was also once the largest French left-wing party in a number of elections, from 1945 to 1960. The PCF has lost further ground to the Socialists since that time, since 2009 the PCF has been a leading member of the Left Front, alongside Jean-Luc Mélenchons Left Party. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, the new SFIC defined itself as revolutionary and democratic centralist. The 1920s saw a number of splits within the party over relations with other left-wing parties, the party entered the French parliament, but also promoted strike action and opposed colonialism. Pierre Sémard, leader from 1924 to 1928, sought party unity and alliances with other parties, with the rise of Fascism after 1934 the PCF supported the Popular Front, which came to power under Léon Blum in 1936. The party supported the Spanish Republicans, and opposed the 1938 Munich agreement with Hitler, PCFs Members of Parliament vote declaration of war against Germany in 1939. But the party was banned after German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact by the government of Édouard Daladier, the leadership, threatened with execution, fled abroad. After the German invasion of 1940 the party began to organise opposition to the occupation, at the same time the PCF began to work with de Gaulles Free France government in exile, and later took part in the National Council of the Resistance. By the time the German occupation ended in 1944, the party had become a force in many parts of France. It was among the parties in elections in 1945 and 1946, and entered into the governing Tripartite alliance. However, amid concerns within France and abroad over the extent of communist influence, under pressure from Moscow, the PCF thereafter distanced itself from other parties and focussed on agitation within its trade union base. For the rest of the Fourth Republic period the PCF, led by Thorez and Jacques Duclos, remained isolated, still taking a Stalinist line. Although the PCF opposed de Gaulles formation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, the years saw a rapprochement with other left-wing forces. With Waldeck Rochet as its new secretary-general, the party supported François Mitterrands unsuccessful presidential bid in 1965, during the student riots and strikes of May 1968, the party supported the strikes while denouncing the revolutionary student movements. Under the Common Programme, however, the PCF steadily lost ground to the PS, initially allotted a minor share in Mitterrands government, the PCF resigned in 1984 as the government turned towards fiscal orthodoxy
17.
Georges Marchais
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Georges René Louis Marchais was the head of the French Communist Party from 1972 to 1994, and a candidate in the French presidential elections of 1981. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became a mechanic, just before the beginning of World War II and he joined the party in 1947. In 1956, he was appointed a member of the extended Central Committee and lead the South-Seine PCF local federation, in the bastion of Maurice Thorez, three years later, he became a full member of the Central Committee and of the Politburo. His lightning promotion was explained by his origins and his devotion to Thorez. Indeed, he was part of the guard of the General Secretary which participated to the strengthening of Maurice Thorezs leadership. In 1961, after the ousting of these, he was nominated secretary for organization, then, he supported the new General Secretary Waldeck Rochet and in his policy of conciliation with the other left-wing parties. In reaction to the riots of May 1968, in a article published in the partys paper LHumanité. He accused some students of being false revolutionaries coming from the bourgeoisie, from then on, he was one of the personalities intervening in the media in the name of the PCF. When Rochet fell ill, in 1970, he was promoted junior General Secretary, in fact, he was at this moment the real leader of the PCF. In this, he co-signed the Common Programme with the Socialist Party, from 1973 to 1997, he was deputy of Val de Marne département, a southern Paris suburb. In December 1972, he became officially General Secretary, following Waldeck Rochets retirement, at first, he pursued the policy of his predecessor in favour of the Union of the Left. In this, the PCF sided with François Mitterrand s candidacy in the 1974 presidential election, at the beginning of his mandate of General Secretary, the PCF scored around 20% in the elections. But in mid-1970s, it lost its place of first left-wing party to François Mitterrands Socialist Party, at first, he faced with the reproaches of Soviet leaders. Then, faced with growing of the PS at the expense of his party. The left-wing parties failed to update their Common Programme and lost the 1978 legislative election, outside and inside the party, he was accused of being responsible for this defeat. One year later, he supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, judged the Communist governments fairly positive, in the 1981 presidential election, he came fourth in the first round, with 15% of votes, thereafter endorsing Mitterrand, who won the second round. He negotiated the entry of four PCFs politician in the cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, in 1984, after President Mitterrand renounced the lefts Common Programme and the electoral sanction in the European Parliament election the PCFs ministers resigned from the cabinet. An electoral decline ensued and Marchais faced internal dissent from figures such as Pierre Juquin, Claude Poperen, indeed, some party members, notably among the locally elected, accused him of leading a suicidal strategy
18.
Santiago Carrillo
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Santiago José Carrillo Solares was a Spanish politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1960 to 1982. He later came to embrace Eurocommunism and democratic socialism, born in Gijón, Asturias province, Carrillo was the son of the prominent Socialist leader Wenceslao Carrillo and María Rosalía Solares Martínez. When he was six years old, his family moved to Madrid, after attending school, he began to work in El Socialista, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party newspaper at the age of 13. At the same time, he joined the Socialist Union, the Workers General Union, in 1932, Carrillo joined the Executive Commission of the Socialist Youth and became editor of its newspaper, Renovación. Carrillo belonged to the wing of the organisation. In 1933, as the Socialist Youth was becoming more radical, from October 1934 to February 1936 he was jailed, due to his participation in the failed 1934 leftist coup. He was accompanied on the visit to Moscow by Leandro Carro, the result was the creation of the Unified Socialist Youth. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Carrillo joined the Communist Party, during the war, he was intensely pro-Soviet. On 7 November 1936 Carrillo was elected Councillor for Public Order in the Defence Council of Madrid, the dead were buried in common graves. Carrillo denied any knowledge of the massacres in his memoirs but some historians like César Vidal or Pío Moa maintain that Carrillo was involved, in an interview with the historian Ian Gibson, Carrillo set out his version of events concerning the massacre. Carrillos father, Wenceslao, a member of the PSOE, was among those who led the coup and was a member of Casados Junta, some weeks before, Carrillos mother had died. In his memoirs, Carrillo states that the letter was written on 7 March, however, journalist and historian Carlos Fernández published the letter in 1983, as it had been published in Correspondance International, it was dated 15 May. After the military collapse of the Republican Government, Carrillo fled to Paris, Carrillo spent 38 years in exile, most of the time in France, but also in the USSR and other countries. In 1944 Carrillo led the retreat of the communist guerrillas from the Aran Valley, according to Enrique Líster and de la Cierva, Carrillo also ordered the 1949 execution of fellow communist Joan Comorera, who was saved by the precautions he took. In 2005 Carrillo said yo he tenido que eliminar a alguna persona In August 1948, Carrillo became the General Secretary of the PCE in 1960, replacing Dolores Ibárruri, who was given the honorary post of Party Chairman. In 1968, when the Soviets and Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia, Carrillo returned secretly to Spain in 1976 after the death of long-time Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco. Arrested by the police, he was released within days, together with communist party leaders Georges Marchais of France and Enrico Berlinguer of Italy, he launched the Eurocommunist movement in a meeting held in Madrid on March 2,1977. It is widely acknowledged that this played a key role in making possible a peaceful transition to democracy
19.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
20.
Third Way
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The Third Way is promoted by some social democratic and social liberal movements. Major Third Way social democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from conceptions of socialism. Blair said My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice, socialism as a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and rightly. Blair in 2009 publicly declared support for a new capitalism, the Third Way has been criticized by some conservatives and libertarians who advocate laissez-faire capitalism. It has also heavily criticized by many social democrats, democratic socialists, anarchists and communists in particular as a betrayal of left-wing values. Specific definitions of Third Way policies may differ between Europe and America, the term Third Way has been used to explain a variety of political courses and ideologies in the last few centuries. These ideas were implemented by progressives in the early 20th century, the term Third Way was picked up again in the 1950s by German ordoliberal economists such as Wilhelm Röpke, resulting in the development of the concept of the social market economy. Later Röpke distanced himself from the term and located the market economy as first way in the sense of an advancement of the free market economy. Most significantly, Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, based his philosophy of government on what he entitled in a book, the Third Way has been defined as. Something different and distinct from liberal capitalism with its belief in the merits of the free market and democratic socialism with its demand management. Anthony Giddens of the LSE the Third Way rejects top down socialism as it rejects traditional neo liberalism, a variant of the Third Way exists which approaches the centre from a social democratic perspective. It advocates ethical socialism, reformism, gradualism - that includes advocating the humanization of capitalism, an economy, political pluralism. It has been advocated by proponents as a competition socialism - an ideology in between traditional socialism and capitalism, in defining the Third Way, Tony Blair once wrote “The Third Way stands for a modernized social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice. Keating also proposed a Goods and Services Tax in 1985, however this was scrapped due to its unpopularity amongst both Labor and electorate, the Whitlam government was first to use the term economic rationalism. The Gough Whitlam Labor government from 1972 to 1975 changed from a democratic socialism platform to social democracy, under the Whitlam government, tariffs across the board were cut by 25 percent after 23 years of Labor being in opposition. Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudds first speech to parliament in 1998 stated, Competitive markets are massive and they must therefore have a central place in the management of the economy. But markets sometimes fail, requiring direct government intervention through instruments such as industry policy, there are also areas where the public good dictates that there should be no market at all. We are not afraid of a vision in the Labor Party, parties of the Centre Left around the world are wrestling with a similar challenge—the creation of a competitive economy while advancing the overriding imperative of a just society
21.
Romano Prodi
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Romano Prodi, OMRI is an Italian former politician and economist. He twice served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and he was also the tenth President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He is nicknamed Il Professore due to his occupation as professor of Economics at the University of Bologna, following the victory of his coalition The Union over the House of Freedoms led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections, Prodi took power again. Up to this time, he has been the only one candidate of Italian Centre-left who won elections. On 14 October 2007, Prodi became the first President of the Democratic Party upon foundation of the party, on 12 September 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon selected Prodi as president of the African Union-UN peacekeeping panel. He is currently serving as the UN Special Envoy for the Sahel, Prodi was born in Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia. He is the eighth of nine children of Mario Prodi, an originally from a peasant family, and Enrica. He has two sisters and six brothers, five of them being like him university professors, Prodi married Flavia Franzoni in 1969. He was married by Camillo Ruini, now a well-known cardinal and they have two sons, Giorgio and Antonio. He and his family live in Bologna. He then carried out postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics, Prodi has also been a visiting professor at Harvard University and a researcher at the Stanford Research Institute. His research covers mainly competition regulations and the development of small and he is also interested in relations between states and markets, and the dynamics of the different capitalistic models. Prodi has received almost 20 honorary degrees from institutions in Italy, and from the rest of Europe, North America, Asia, in 1982–1989 Prodi was President of the influential state-owned industrial holding company Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale. After leaving his position, Prodi ran the Bologna based consulting company Analisi e Studi Economici, between 1990 and 1993 the company earned £1.4 million, most of which was paid by the investment bank Goldman Sachs. In 1993-1994 Prodi was again President of the IRI, where he oversaw extensive privatization of public assets, Prodis former employer Goldman Sachs was involved in both of the deals. In February 2007 the Italian Treasury Police raided the Milan office of Goldman Sachs, the case was however shut down within weeks by superiors, while Geremia was exiled to Sardinia. Prodis political career began as a left-of-centre reformist Christian Democrat and a disciple of Beniamino Andreatta, during the mid-1970s he was appointed Minister of Industry. During Giulio Andreottis government in 1978, he served as a Technical Minister, through the 1980s, Prodi claimed he had been given this tip-off by the founders of the Christian Democracy party, contacted from beyond the grave via a séance and a Ouija board
22.
Matteo Renzi
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Matteo Renzi is an Italian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from February 2014 until December 2016. His government is the fourth longest one in the history of Italy as a republic, Renzi served as President of the Province of Florence from 2004 to 2009 and as Mayor of Florence from 2009 to 2014. At the age of 39 years and 42 days upon assuming office and he was also the first serving Mayor to become Prime Minister. In 2014 the American magazine Fortune ranked Renzi as the third most influential person under 40 in the world, moreover, Renzi is nicknamed il Rottamatore due to his ambition of renovating the Italian political establishment. Renzi was born in 1975 in Florence, Tuscany, the second of four children and his father, Tiziano Renzi, was a small business owner and Christian Democratic municipal councillor in Rignano sullArno. During this time he was a Scout in the Association of Catholic Guides, in 1999 he graduated from the University of Florence with a degree in law, with a thesis on Giorgio La Pira, the former Christian Democratic Mayor of Florence. He then went on to work for CHIL Srl, a company owned by his family. During this time Renzi was also a referee at amateur level. In 1994, he participated as a competitor for five episodes in the television program La Ruota Della Fortuna hosted by Mike Bongiorno. Renzis interest in politics began in high school, in the same year he married Agnese Landini, with whom he later had three children. In 2001 he joined Francesco Rutellis The Daisy party, composed by members of the disbanded Peoples Party, on 13 June 2004 he was elected President of Florence Province with 59% of the vote, as the candidate of the centre-left coalition. He was the youngest person to become President of an Italian Province, after five years as the President of Florence Province, Renzi announced that he would seek election as the Mayor of Florence. On 9 June 2009, Renzi, by now a member of the Democratic Party, won the election on a second round vote with 60% of the votes, following this public meeting, the Italian media gave Renzi the nickname il Rottamatore, or The Scrapper. In 2011, Renzi organised a public meeting, also in Florence. After the first round of the December election, Renzi gained 35. 5% of the vote, finishing second behind Bersani and qualifying for the second ballot. Renzi eventually gained a total of 39% of the vote, against Bersanis 61%. 5% of the vote, despite opinion polls placing the party at almost 30%. Following the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani in April 2013, Renzi announced that he would stand for the position of Secretary of the Democratic Party, the PDs loss of seats led to party members doubts concerning Bersanis leadership abilities. Renzis impressive resume at such a young in age in combination with his reputation as political outsider thanks to his scrapping made him very electable in comparison
23.
Italian regional elections, 1975
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The Italian regional elections of 1975 were held on June 15. The fifteen ordinary regions, created in 1970, elected their second assemblies, following the 1971 census, Piedmont, Veneto and Latium had ten more seats each. The pure party-list proportional representation had become the electoral system of Italy. Each Italian province corresponded to a constituency electing a group of candidates, at constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Droop quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at regional level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, summary of the results of all the lists reaching at least a tenth of the suffrages. It was a big victory for Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer, the results were a shock for the DC which, even if remaining the majority party, saw the possibility of an historical defeat at national level in the next election. The secretary Amintore Fanfani was fired, and the government led by Aldo Moro began to more and more difficulties
24.
Italian general election, 1976
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General elections were held in Italy on June 20,1976. They were the first after the age was lowered to 18. All minor parties lost a lot of votes to the DC in the attempt to fight the Communist progress, between them, historic Italian Liberal Party was nearly annihilated. Two new leftist forces made their debut in this election, the ultra-liberal Radical Party, which had led a successful referendum on divorce, the pure party-list proportional representation had traditionally become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates, at constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, for the Senate,237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, although the 1970s in Italy was marked by violence, it was also a time of great social and economic progress. Following the civil disturbances of the 1960s, Christian Democracy and its allies in government introduced a range of political, social. Regional governments were introduced in the spring of 1970, with elected councils provided with the authority to legislate in areas like public works, town planning, social welfare, and health. Spending on the relatively poor South was significantly increased, while new laws relating to index-linked pay, public housing, in 1975, a law was passed entitling redundant workers to receive at least 80% of their previous salary for up to a year from a state insurance fund. Living standards also continued to rise, with going up by an average of about 25% a year from the early 1970s onwards. Various fringe benefits were raised to the extent that they amounted to an additional 50% to 60% on wages, in addition, working hours were reduced so that by the end of the decade they were lower than any other country apart from Belgium. Some categories of workers who were laid off received generous unemployment compensation which represented only a little less than full wages, in 1973, the Italian Communist Partys General Secretary Enrico Berlinguer launched a proposal for a democratic alliance with the Christian Democracy, embraced by Aldo Moro. This alliance was inspired by the Allende Government in Chile, that was composed by a left-wing coalition Popular Unity, after the Chilean coup of the same year, there was an approach between PCI and DC, that became a political alliance in 1976. In this time, the Berlinguers PCI attempted also a parting from the USSR, with the launch of the Eurocommunism along with the Spanish Communist Party, in July 1975, a Christian leftist, Benigno Zaccagnini, became the new Secretary of Christian Democracy. So the DC leadership thought to involve the Communists into the governmental policies so to moderate their requests. Its first government ended in 1978, when the PCI decided to grant its external support, however this process, called National Solidarity, was dramatically stopped by the terroristic attacks of the Red Brigades, which kidnapped and killed former-PM Aldo Moro
25.
Historic Compromise
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The call for this alliance was inspired by the overthrow of the Allende Government in Chile. For Berlinguer, the events in Chile proved that the Marxist left could not aspire to govern in democratic countries without establishing alliances with more moderate forces, after the 1973 Chilean coup, there was cooperation between the PCI and DC that became a political alliance in 1976. Then Berlinguers PCI attempted to distance itself from the USSR, with the launching of Eurocommunism along with the Spanish Communist Party and the French Communist Party. However, the Compromise was unpopular among the other centre-leftist groups like the Italian Republican Party and Italian Socialist Party, led respectively by Ugo La Malfa, also the rightist Christian Democrat Giulio Andreotti had doubts about the accommodation. Finally, the PCI started to provide support to a Christian Democratic one-party government led by Andreotti. Despite this, several radical communists in the PCI boycotted the government, there was an increase in far-left terrorism, the BR kidnapped Aldo Moro, the then Party President of DC, on 16 March 1978. After several consultations in the Italian Parliament, the government refused the terrorists conditions, a strong anti-communist sentiment raised, and the PSI, along with the far-right Italian Social Movement increased their votes in the 1979 general election. Nevertheless, the Compromise continued but it was in decline, the new DC Secretary became Flaminio Piccoli, a Dorothean, and the Compromise was discontinued. On November 1980 Berlinguer announced the end of the Historic Compromise, grand coalition Strategy of tension Years of lead
26.
Christian Democracy (Italy)
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Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded in 1943 as the successor of the Italian Peoples Party, which had the same symbol. The party was nicknamed the White Whale, from 1946 until 1994 the DC was the largest party in Parliament, governing in successive coalitions. It originally supported governments based on political positions, before moving to centre-left coalitions. The party was succeeded by a string of parties, including the Italian Peoples Party, the Christian Democratic Centre, the United Christian Democrats. Former Christian Democrats are also spread among other parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia and the New Centre-Right, the DC was a founding member of the European Peoples Party in 1976. The party was founded as the revival of the Italian Peoples Party, a party created in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo. In December 1945 Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi was appointed Prime Minister of Italy, in the 1946 general election the DC won 35. 2% of the vote. In May 1947 De Gasperi broke decisively with his Communist and Socialist coalition partners under pressure from U. S. President Harry Truman. This opened the way for a centrist coalition that included the Italian Workers Socialist Party, a centrist break-away from the PSI, as well as its allies, the PLI. In the 1948 general election the DC went on to win a victory, with the support of the Catholic Church and the United States. Under De Gasperi, major reforms were carried out in the poorer rural regions in the early postwar years, with farms appropriated from the large landowners. De Gasperi served as Prime Minister until 1953 and would die a year later. No Christian Democrat would match his longevity in office and, despite the fact that DCs share of vote was always between 38 and 43% from 1953 to 1979, the party was more and more fractious, as a result, Prime Ministers changed more frequently. From 1954 the DC was led by progressive Christian Democrats, such as Amintore Fanfani, Aldo Moro and Benigno Zaccagnini, supported by the influential left-wing factions. In 1963 the party, under Prime Minister Aldo Moro, formed a coalition with the PSI, which returned to ministerial roles after 16 years, the PSDI, similar Organic Centre-left governments became usual through the 1960s and the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 the DC governed with the support of the PCI. Moro, who was the party leader and who had inspired the Compromise, was abducted and murdered by the Red Brigades
27.
Aldo Moro
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Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro was an Italian statesman and politician, and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy party. He served as 38th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968 and he was one of Italys longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than seven years. A leader of Christian Democracy, Moro was considered an intellectual and he was kidnapped on 16 March 1978 by the Red Brigades and killed after 55 days of captivity. Moro was born in Maglie, in the province of Lecce, at age 4, he moved with his family to Milan, but they soon moved back to Apulia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. Until 1939, he studied Law at the University of Bari, in 1935, he joined the Catholic university students association of Bari. In 1939, under approval of Giovanni Battista Montini whom he had befriended, Moro was chosen as president of the association, he kept the post till 1942, succeeded by Giulio Andreotti. During his university years, Italy was under the Fascist government and he then founded the periodical La Rassegna, published in 1943–1945. In 1945, he married Eleonora Chiavarelli, with whom he had four children, Maria Fida, Agnese, Anna, Moro developed his interest in politics between 1943 and 1945. Initially, he seemed to be interested in the social-democratic component of the Italian Socialist Party. In the DC, he took part in the work of the leftist trend, in 1945 he became director of the magazine Studium and president of the Graduated Movement of the Azione Cattolica. In 1946, he was nominated vice-president of the Democrazia Cristiana and elected member of the Constitutional Assembly, in 1948 he was elected to the Italian Parliament and nominated vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in the 5th De Gasperi cabinet. In 1953 Moro, was re-elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies and he was chosen as Minister of Grace and Justice in the Antonio Segni 1st cabinet in 1955. Minister of Education in the following Adone Zoli and Amintore Fanfani-II cabinets, in 1959, at the 6th partys congress he gained the post of National Secretary of the DC. In 1963, he was nominated Prime Minister of Italy for the first time and his government was unevenly supported by the DC, but also by the Italian Socialist Party, along with the minor Italian Republican Party and Italian Democratic Socialist Party. The centre-left coalition, a first for the Italian post-war political panorama and his 3rd cabinet stayed in power for 833 days, a record for Italys so-called First Republic. In the 1968 DCs congress, Moro yielded the Secretariat and passed to internal opposition, from 1974 to 1976, he re-gained the post of Prime Minister, and concluded the Osimo Treaty with Yugoslavia, defining the official partition of the Free Territory of Trieste. In 1976 he was elected President of the DC National Council, a wide range of social reforms were carried out during Moros periods as prime minister. The 1967 Ponte Law introduced urgent housing provisions as part of a reform of the entire sector, such as the introduction of minimum standards for housing
28.
1973 oil crisis
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The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo occurred in response to United States support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, by the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen from US$3 per barrel to nearly $12 globally, US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an oil crisis, or shock, with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and it was later called the first oil shock, followed by the 1979 oil crisis, termed the second oil shock. The embargo was a response to American involvement in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, six days after Egypt and Syria launched a surprise military campaign against Israel, the US supplied Israel with arms. In response to this, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an oil embargo against Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the crisis had a major impact on international relations and created a rift within NATO. Some European nations and Japan sought to disassociate themselves from United States foreign policy in the Middle East to avoid being targeted by the boycott, Arab oil producers linked any future policy changes to peace between the belligerents. To address this, the Nixon Administration began multilateral negotiations with the combatants and they arranged for Israel to pull back from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. By January 18,1974, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had negotiated an Israeli troop withdrawal from parts of the Sinai Peninsula, the promise of a negotiated settlement between Israel and Syria was enough to convince Arab oil producers to lift the embargo in March 1974. The embargo occurred at a time of rising petroleum consumption by industrialized countries and coincided with an increase in oil imports by the worlds largest oil consumer. In the aftermath, targeted countries initiated a variety of policies to contain their future dependency. The 1973 oil price shock, with the accompanying 1973–74 stock market crash, was regarded as the first discrete event since the Great Depression to have a persistent effect on the US economy, the embargos success demonstrated Saudi Arabias diplomatic and economic power. It was the largest oil exporter and a politically and religiously conservative kingdom, in 1970, US oil production started to decline, exacerbating the embargos impact. Following this, Nixon named James E. Akins as US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia to audit US production capacity, the confidential results were alarming—no spare capacity was available and production could only decrease. The oil embargo had little effect on supply, according to Akins. OPEC was organized to resist pressure by the Seven Sisters to reduce oil prices, at first, OPEC operated as an informal bargaining unit for resource-rich third-world countries. OPEC confined its activities to gaining a share of the profits generated by oil companies. In the early 1970s it began to exert economic and political strength, on August 15,1971, the United States unilaterally pulled out of the Bretton Woods Accord. The US abandoned the Gold Exchange Standard whereby the value of the dollar had been pegged to the price of gold and all other currencies were pegged to the dollar, shortly thereafter, Britain followed, floating the pound sterling
29.
Giulio Andreotti
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Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic. In foreign policy, he guided Italys European Union integration, admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the fifth-biggest economy in the world. Critics said he had nothing against a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption. At the height of his prestige as a statesman, Andreotti was subjected to damaging criminal prosecutions, charged with colluding with Cosa Nostra, courts found he had broken the links by the 1980s, and ruled the case out of time. The most sensational allegation came from prosecutors in Perugia, who charged him with ordering the murder of a journalist and he was found guilty at a trial, which led to complaints that the justice system had gone mad. Definitively acquitted by the court, Andreotti remarked, Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young. Andreotti served as the 41st Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and he also served as Minister of the Interior, Defence Minister and Foreign Minister and was a Senator for life from 1991 until his death in 2013. He was also a journalist and author, Andreotti was sometimes called Divo Giulio. During the 16th term of the Senate in 2008–13, he opted to join the parliamentary group UDC – independence, Giulio Andreotti, the youngest of three children, was born on 14 January 1919 in Rome. His father was a school teacher from Segni, a small town in Lazio. Andreotti attended the Liceo Torquato Tasso in Rome and graduated in Law at the University of Rome and he showed some ferocity as a youth, once stubbing out a lit taper in the eye of another altar boy who was ridiculing him. His mother was described as not very affectionate, and an aunt is said to have advised him to remember that few things in life are important, as an adult he was described as having a somewhat unusual demeanor for an Italian politician, being mild-mannered and unassuming. Andreotti did not use his influence to advance his children to prominence, see all, tolerate much, and correct one thing at a time, was a quote that emphasised what has been called his art of the possible view of politics. Andreotti was known for his discretion and retentive memory, and also a sense of humour, Andreotti did not shine at his school and started work in a tax office while studying law at the University of Rome. In this period he became a member of the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students and its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Christian Democracy. In 1938 while researching the papal navy in the Vatican library, he met Alcide De Gasperi, De Gasperi asked Andreotti if he had nothing better to do with his time, inspiring him to become politically active. Speaking of De Gasperi, Andreotti said, He taught us to search for compromise, in July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI, Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, during his early years Andreotti suffered violent migraines that forced him to sporadically make use of psychoactive drugs and opiates
30.
Red Brigades
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Formed in 1970, the organization sought to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Red Brigades attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent attempts to destabilise Italy by acts of sabotage, bank robberies, kidnappings, models for the Red Brigades included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements. The kidnappers killed five members of Moros entourage, and murdered Moro himself 54 days later, in the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turned pentito and assisted the authorities in capturing the other members. After the mass arrests in the late 1980s, the group slowly faded into insignificance, a majority of those leaders took advantage of a law that gave credits for renouncing the doctrine and contributing to efforts by police and judiciary to prosecute its members. The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970 by Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol, who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married, and Alberto Franceschini. Franceschinis grandmother had been a leader of the peasant leagues, his father a worker, in the beginning the Red Brigades were mainly active in Reggio Emilia, and in large factories in Milan, and in Turin. Members sabotaged factory equipment and broke into offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their first kidnapping, a foreman for Sit Siemens was held for around 20 minutes whilst pictures were taken of him wearing a placard declaring him to be a fascist. The foreman was then released unharmed, during this time the Red Brigades activities were denounced by far left political groups such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio. In June 1974, the Red Brigades committed their first homicide, two members of the Italian neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano were killed in Padua during a raid on the MSI headquarters. Most of the Italian leftish political parties of the time, including the Italian Communist Party, denied the Red Brigades involvement in the murder and even the Red Brigades existence itself. In September 1974, Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini were arrested by General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, the arrest was made possible by Frate Mitra, alias Silvano Girotto, a former monk who had infiltrated the BR for the Italian security services. Curcio was freed from prison by a commando of the Red Brigades, led by his wife Mara Cagol. The Red Brigades then operated some high-profile political kidnappings and kidnapped industrialists in order to obtain ransom money which were their source of income. After 1974, the Red Brigades expanded into Rome, Genoa, bank robberies, kidnappings, drugs and arms trafficking were the major crimes. Its 1975 manifesto stated that its goal was a strike against the heart of the State. The SIM became a primary target, in 1975, the Italian police discovered the farmhouse where industrialist Vallarino Gancia was kept prisoner by the Brigades. In the ensuing gunfight, two officers were killed, as was Mara Cagol, Curcios wife
31.
Italian general election, 1979
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General elections were held in Italy on June 3,1979. This election was called just a week before the European vote, however, the catholic party remained stable, while neo-fascist Italian Social Movement was weakened by its spin-off National Democracy. The pure party-list proportional representation had become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates, at constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, for the Senate,237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, on 16 July 1976, Bettino Craxi was elected to the vacant Italian Socialist Party chairman position, ending years of factional fighting within the party. Ironically, the old guard saw him as short-lived leader, allowing each faction time to regroup, however, he was able to hold on to power and implement his policies. On 16 March 1978, former Prime Minister and Christian Democratic leader Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, the Red Brigades were a militant leftist group, then led by Mario Moretti. Aldo Moro was a left-leaning Christian Democrat who served several times as Prime Minister, before his murder he was trying to include the Italian Communist Party, headed by Enrico Berlinguer, in the government through a deal called the Historic Compromise. The PCI was the largest communist party in western Europe and this was largely because of its non-extremist and pragmatic stance, its growing independence from Moscow and its eurocommunist doctrine. The Red Brigades were fiercely opposed by the Communist Party and trade unions, the circumstances surrounding Aldo Moros murder have never been made clear, but the consequences included the fact that PCI did not gain executive power. Investigative journalist Carmine Pecorelli was assassinated on March 20,1979, in a May 1978 article, he had drawn connections between Aldo Moros kidnapping and Gladio. However, the Communists never took part in the Government itself, even this eighth legislature of the Italian Republic was a period of great instability. However, Cossiga later fell on a project, and a traditional centre-left government led by Arnaldo Forlani was formed. The great scandal of the masonic lodge P2 sank Forlani in 1981, but the Pentapartito pact had another important condition, the DC accepted to recognize a pair role with the other four parties, alternating into the government leadership. The Secretary of the Italian Republican Party, Giovanni Spadolini, so became the first non-DC Prime Minister of Italy since 1945. However, his party was unable to stop the quarrels between their great allies, and after a little crisis during summer 1982, Spadolini resigned in autumn of the same year
32.
Italian general election, 1983
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General elections were held in Italy on 26 June 1983. The Pentaparty formula, the alliance between five centrist parties, caused unexpected problems to Christian Democracy. The alliance was fixed and universal, extended both to the government and to the local administrations. More, voting for one of the four parties of the alliance was seen as a form of moderate protest against the government without giving advantages to the PCI. Other minor effects of this election were a reduction of the referendarian Radical Party, the pure party-list proportional representation had traditionally become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates, at constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, for the Senate,237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, on 2 August 1980, a bomb killed 85 people and wounded more than 200 in Bologna. Known as the Bologna massacre, the blast destroyed a portion of the citys railway station. This was found to be a fascist bombing, mainly organized by the NAR, because the agreement was signed in a trailer, it was called the pact of the camper. The pact was also called CAF for the initials of the signers, with this agreement, the DC party recognized the equal dignity of the so-called secular parties of the majority and also guaranteed an alternation of government. With the birth of the Pentapartito, the possibility of the growth of the majority toward the Italian Communist Party was finally dismissed, the Christian Democrats remained the leaders of the coalition, and managed several times to prevent representatives of the secular parties from becoming President of the Councill. The DC respected the pact of an alternance of leadership between the parties of the alliance and accepted the Socialist secretary, Bettino Craxi, as the new Prime Minister of Italy, the Christian Democrats hoped that their minor responsibility could drive away some popular discontent from their party. The Italian Socialist Party so arrived to the highest office of the government for the first time in history
33.
Sardinian people
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The Sardinians, or also the Sards, are the native people and indigenous ethnic group from which Sardinia, a western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy, derives its name. The ethnonym Srd belongs to the Pre-Indo-European linguistic substratum and it makes its first appearance on the Nora stone, where the word Šrdn testifies to the names existence when the Phoenician merchants first arrived. According to Timaeus, one of Platos dialogues, Sardinia and its people as well might have named after Sardò. Pausanias and Sallust reported instead that it was a Libyan hero, Sardus Pater son of Hercules, there has also been speculation that identifies the ancient Nuragic Sards with the Sherden, one of the Sea Peoples. The ethnonym was then romanised as sardus, Sardinia was first colonized in a stable manner during the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic by people from the Iberian and/or the Italian peninsula. During the Neolithic period and the Early Eneolithic, people from Italy, Spain, the Nuragic civilization arose in the Middle Bronze Age, during the Late Bonnanaro culture, which shown connections with the previous Beaker culture and the Polada culture of northern Italy. Nuragic Sardinians have been connected by some scholars to the Sherden, the language spoken in Sardinia during the Bronze Age is unknown since there are no written records of that period. According to Eduardo Blasco Ferrer the Proto-Sardinian language was akin to Proto-Basque, other scholars theorize that there were actually various linguistic areas in Nuragic Sardinia, possibly Pre-Indoeuropeans and Indoeuropeans. In the 9th century BC, the Phoenicians founded cities and ports along the south-west coast, such as Karalis, Bithia, Sulki and Tharros. The south and west part of Sardinia was conquered by the Carthaginians in the late 6th century BC and later the island by the Romans in the 3rd century BC. Roman colonies were established in Porto Torres and Usellus. The prefects sent sometimes resist them, but at times leave them alone. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Sardinia was ruled in succession by the Vandals, the Byzantines. The Aragonese repopulated the cities of Castel di Castro and Alghero with Iberian colonists, a local dialect of Catalan is still spoken by a minority of people in the city of Alghero. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the main Sardinian cities of Cagliari, Alghero, the cosmopolitan composition of its people provides evidence of it, the population was not only indigenous, but also hailing from Spain, Liguria, France and Corsica in particular. Especially in Sassari and across the strip of territory that goes from Anglona to Gallura and this migration from the neighboring island, which is likely to have led to the birth of the Tuscan-sounding Sassarese and Gallurese dialects, went on continuously until the 19th century. Then, the Piedmontese Kingdom of Sardinia annexed the whole Italian peninsula and Sicily in 1861 after the Risorgimento, becoming the Kingdom of Italy. At the end of the 19th century, communities of fishermen from Sicily, Torre del Greco and Ponza migrated on the east coasts of the island, in the towns of Arbatax/Tortolì, Siniscola and La Maddalena
34.
Catalan language
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Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands. It also has status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries. 4% with Catalan and 47. 5% only Spanish, in order to integrate newcomers, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories. Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees, during the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century, 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the official status of the language during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the Francoist dictatorship banned the use of Catalan in schools and in the public administration, there is no parallel in Europe for such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community. Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible and they are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community. Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages, thus, the similarities are naturally most notable with eastern Occitan. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers, pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, in terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages. The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology, in English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652, Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/. The endonym is pronounced /kə. təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, in the Valencian Community, the term valencià is frequently used instead. The names Catalan and Valencian are two names for the same language, see also status of Valencian below. By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south
35.
Crown of Aragon
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Put in contemporary terms, it has sometimes been considered that the different lands of the Crown of Aragon functioned more as a confederation than as a single kingdom. In this sense, the larger Crown of Aragon must not be confused with one of its constituent parts, formally, the political center of the Crown of Aragon was Zaragoza, where kings were crowned at La Seo Cathedral. The de facto capital and leading cultural, administrative and economic centre of the Crown of Aragon was Barcelona followed by Valencia, finally, Palma was an additional important city and seaport. For brief periods the Crown of Aragon also controlled Montpellier, Provence, Corsica, the countries that are today known as Spain and Portugal spent the Middle Ages after 722 in an intermittent struggle called the Reconquista. This struggle pitted the northern Christian kingdoms against the Islamic taifa petty kingdoms of the South, in the Late Middle Ages, the expansion of the Aragonese Crown southwards met with the Castilian advance eastward in the region of Murcia. Afterward, the Aragonese Crown focused on the Mediterranean, acting as far as Greece and Barbary, whereas Portugal, mercenaries from the territories in the Crown, known as almogàvers participated in the creation of this Mediterranean empire, and later found employment in countries all across southern Europe. The Crown of Aragon has been considered by some as an empire which ruled in the Mediterranean for hundreds of years and it was indeed, at its height, one of the major powers in Europe. However, its different territories were connected through the person of the monarch. A modern historian, Juan de Contreras y Lopez de Ayala, Marqués de Lozoya described the Crown of Aragon as being more like a confederacy than a centralised kingdom, let alone an empire. Nor did official documents refer to it as an empire, instead. This union respected the institutions and parliaments of both territories. This was due to the loss of Catalan influence, the renunciation of the family rights of the counts of Barcelona in Occitania. Petronillas father King Ramiro, The Monk who was raised in the Saint Pons de Thomières Monastery and his brothers Peter I and Alfonso I El Batallador had bravely fought against Castile for hegemony in the Iberian peninsula. After the death of Alfonso I, the Aragonese nobility that campaigned close him feared being overwhelmed by the influence of Castile, and so, Ramiro was forced to leave his monastic life and proclaim himself King of Aragon. He married Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine and betrothed his daughter to Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. The wedding agreement provided Raymond Berengar IV the title of Princeps Aragonum and Dominator Aragonenesis and kept the title, Raymond Berengar IV, the first ruler of the united dynasty, called himself Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon. Alfonso II inherited two realms and with them, two different expansion processes, the House of Jiménez looked south in a battle against Castile for the control of the Mediterranean coast in the Iberian peninsula. The House of Barcelona looked north to its origins, Occitania, soon, Alfonso II of Aragon and Barcelona committed himself to conquer Valencia as the Aragonese nobility demanded
36.
Francesco Cossiga
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Francesco Cossiga, OMRI was an Italian politician of the Christian Democracy party. He was the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1979 to 1980 and he was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari. Cossiga was born in Sassari in northern Sardinia and he started his political career during World War II. His name is now pronounced, but it was originally pronounced, with the stress on the first syllable, meaning Corsica in Sardinian. He was the cousin of Enrico Berlinguer and he was a minister several times for the Democrazia Cristiana party, notably during his stay at Viminale where he re-structured the Italian police, civil protection and secret services. He was in office at the time of the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro by Red Brigades, and resigned as Minister of the Interior when Moro was found dead in 1978. According to Italian journalist Enrico Deaglio, Cossiga, to justify his lack of action, accused the leaders of CGIL, Cossiga was also minister of internal affairs when Fascist terrorists bombed Bologna station in 1980. Francesco Cossiga first assumed the explosion to have been caused by an accident, Cossiga was elected President of the Italian Senate 12 July 1983, a position he held until 24 June 1985, when he became the President of Italy. Following his resignation as president of the Senate in 1985, Cossiga was elected as President of Italy and this was the first time an Italian presidential candidate had won on the first ballot. It was not until his last two years as President that Cossiga began to some unusual opinions regarding the Italian political system. He opined that the Italian parties, especially the DC and Italian Communist Party, had to take account the deep changes brought about by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Cossiga suffered from bipolar disorder and depression in the last years of his life, tension developed between Cossiga and Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Cossiga acknowledged his involvement in the establishment of the organization, the Democratic Party of the Left started the procedure of impeachment. Although he threatened to prevent the impeachment procedure by dissolving Parliament, Cossiga resigned two months before the end of his term, on 25 April 1992. In February 1998, Cossiga created the Unione Democratica per la Repubblica, the UDR was a crucial component of the majority that supported the DAlema government in October 1998, after the fall of the Prodi government which lost a vote of confidence. Cossiga declared that his support for DAlema was intended to end the exclusion of the former Communist Party leaders from the premiership in Italy. In 1999 UDR was dissolved and Cossiga returned to his activities as a senator, on 27 November 2006, he resigned from his position as a lifetime senator. His resignation was, however, rejected on 31 January 2007 by a vote of the Senate, Cossiga died on 17 August 2010 from respiratory problems
37.
Democrazia Cristiana
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Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded in 1943 as the successor of the Italian Peoples Party, which had the same symbol. The party was nicknamed the White Whale, from 1946 until 1994 the DC was the largest party in Parliament, governing in successive coalitions. It originally supported governments based on political positions, before moving to centre-left coalitions. The party was succeeded by a string of parties, including the Italian Peoples Party, the Christian Democratic Centre, the United Christian Democrats. Former Christian Democrats are also spread among other parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia and the New Centre-Right, the DC was a founding member of the European Peoples Party in 1976. The party was founded as the revival of the Italian Peoples Party, a party created in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo. In December 1945 Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi was appointed Prime Minister of Italy, in the 1946 general election the DC won 35. 2% of the vote. In May 1947 De Gasperi broke decisively with his Communist and Socialist coalition partners under pressure from U. S. President Harry Truman. This opened the way for a centrist coalition that included the Italian Workers Socialist Party, a centrist break-away from the PSI, as well as its allies, the PLI. In the 1948 general election the DC went on to win a victory, with the support of the Catholic Church and the United States. Under De Gasperi, major reforms were carried out in the poorer rural regions in the early postwar years, with farms appropriated from the large landowners. De Gasperi served as Prime Minister until 1953 and would die a year later. No Christian Democrat would match his longevity in office and, despite the fact that DCs share of vote was always between 38 and 43% from 1953 to 1979, the party was more and more fractious, as a result, Prime Ministers changed more frequently. From 1954 the DC was led by progressive Christian Democrats, such as Amintore Fanfani, Aldo Moro and Benigno Zaccagnini, supported by the influential left-wing factions. In 1963 the party, under Prime Minister Aldo Moro, formed a coalition with the PSI, which returned to ministerial roles after 16 years, the PSDI, similar Organic Centre-left governments became usual through the 1960s and the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 the DC governed with the support of the PCI. Moro, who was the party leader and who had inspired the Compromise, was abducted and murdered by the Red Brigades
38.
List of Presidents of the Italian Republic
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This is the list of the Presidents of the Italian Republic with the title Presidente della Repubblica since 1948. The Quirinal Palace in Rome is the residence of the President of the Italian Republic. The twelve Presidents came from six of the twenty Regions. The President of the Republic is elected by Parliament in a joint session of the Chamber of Deputies, in addition, the 20 regions of Italy appoint 58 representatives as special electors. Three representatives come from each region, save for the small Aosta Valley which appoints one, according to the Constitution, the election must be held in the form of secret ballot, with the 315 Senators, the 630 Deputies and the 58 regional representatives all voting. A two-thirds vote is required to elect on any of the first three rounds of balloting, after that, a majority suffices, the election is presided over by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, who calls for the public counting of the votes. The vote is held in the Palazzo Montecitorio, home of the Chamber of Deputies, the President assumes office after having taken an oath before Parliament and delivering a presidential address. Parties Traditionally, Presidents have not been members of any political party during their tenure, the parties shown are those to which the President belonged at the time they took office. Only Enrico De Nicola, who was elected as Provisional Head of State by the Constitutional Assembly on 28 June 1946, had an official title, all the other men took only the powers, but not the title, of Head of State. After the adoption of the Italian Constitution in 1948, the President of the Senate is eligible to take the powers of Head of State in case of absence of the President of the Republic. Enrico De Nicola was the man who had the title. He assumed the office on 1 July 1946, and became officially the President of the Republic on 1 January 1948, amintore Fanfani, as President of the Senate, assumed powers from President Leone after his resignation for a bribery scandal on 15 June 1978. He exercised the powers until 9 July 1978, francesco Cossiga, as President of the Senate, assumed powers from President Pertini on 29 June 1985, just four days before taking office as President. Giovanni Spadolini, as President of the Senate, assumed powers from President Cossiga on 28 April 1992 and he exercised the powers until 28 May 1992. Nicola Mancino, as President of the Senate, assumed powers from President Scalfaro on 15 May 1999 and he exercised the powers until 18 May 1999. Pietro Grasso, as President of the Senate, assumed powers from President Napolitano on 14 January 2015 and he exercised the powers until 3 February 2015
39.
Antonio Segni
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Antonio Segni was an Italian politician who was the 34th Prime Minister of Italy, and the fourth President of the Italian Republic from 1962 to 1964. Adhering to the centrist Christian Democratic party, he was the first Sardinian ever to become Prime Minister of Italy, the son of a Sardinian landowning family, born in Sassari, Sardinia, he studied to become a lawyer with a degree in agricultural and commercial law. Segni joined the Italian Peoples Party – the predecessor of the Christian Democratic Party – in 1919, in 1924 he was a member of the party’s national council, until all political organizations were dissolved by Benito Mussolini two years later in 1926. For the next 17 years Segni taught Agrarian Law for at the Universities of Pavia, Perugia, in 1943 Segni was one of the organizers of the new Christian Democratic Party in Sardinia. He held ministerial positions in many Christian Democrat governments from 1944 onward, time Magazine once quoted a friend, He is like the Colosseum, he looks like a ruin but hell be around for a long time. In 1946, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly after World War II, Segni made his reputation as Minister of Agriculture under Alcide de Gasperi. He favoured land reform legislation and ordered the expropriation of most of his own estate in Sardinia and he became known as a white Bolshevik for his introduction of agrarian reform. He became Prime Minister in 1955, succeeding Mario Scelba, during Segni’s government the treaties instituting the European Economic Community were signed on 25 March 1957, and Italy co-founded the community. In March 1959, he became Prime Minister again, succeeding Amintore Fanfani, in social policy, various reforms in social welfare were carried out. A law of 21 March 1959 extended insurance against occupational diseases to agricultural workers, a law of 17 May 1959 introduced a special additional indemnity for retired civil servants, a monthly supplement, indexed to the cost of living. A law of 4 July 1959 extended pension insurance to artisans, Segni was elected President of the Italian Republic on 6 May 1962. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while working at the presidential palace on 7 August 1964. At the time he was 73 years old and the first prognosis was not positive and he only partially recovered, and he retired from office on 6 December 1964. In the interim, the President of the Senate Cesare Merzagora served as acting president, politically, Segni was a moderate conservative opposed to opening to the centre-left enabling coalition governments between the Italian Socialist Party and the Christian Democrats. Segni was later accused of having tried to instigate a coup détat along with General Giovanni De Lorenzo during his presidency to frustrate the opening to the left, Segni was also a professor of law at University of Sassari. Straightforward, witty and courteous, Segni was more at ease in the classroom or the law court than in the rooms of Italian politics. He died on 1 December 1972, in Rome, the frail, often ailing Segni, was affectionately called malato di ferro—the invalid with the iron constitution. Segnis son, Mariotto Segni, is also a prominent Italian politician
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La Nuova Sardegna
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La Nuova Sardegna is an Italian regional daily newspaper for the island of Sardinia. La Nuova Sardegna was founded in 1891 by Enrico Berlinguer, grandfather and namesake of Enrico Berlinguer, the paper has its headquarters in Sassari. La Nuova Sardegna was acquired by Gruppo Editoriale LEspresso in 1980, the 2008 circulation of La Nuova Sardegna was 59,819 copies. The Espresso Group reported that the circulation of the paper was 42,300 copies in 2014
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Giuseppe Garibaldi
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Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian general, politician and nationalist who played a large role in the history of Italy. He is considered, with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini, Garibaldi personally commanded and fought in many military campaigns that led eventually to the Italian unification. He has been called the Hero of Two Worlds because of his enterprises in Brazil, Uruguay. These earned him a reputation in Italy and abroad, aided by exceptional international media coverage at the time. Many of the greatest intellectuals of his time, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, the United Kingdom and the United States helped him a great deal, offering him financial and military support in difficult circumstances. In the popular telling of his story, he is associated with the red worn by his volunteers in lieu of a uniform. In 1814, the Congress of Vienna returned Nice to Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, Garibaldis familys involvement in coastal trade drew him to a life at sea. He participated actively in the Niçois community and was certified in 1832 as a merchant navy captain, in April 1833 he travelled to Taganrog, Russia, in the schooner Clorinda with a shipment of oranges. During ten days in port he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo from Oneglia, Mazzini was an impassioned proponent of Italian unification as a liberal republic through political and social reform. Garibaldi joined the society and took an oath dedicating himself to the struggle to liberate, in Geneva during November 1833, Garibaldi met Mazzini, starting a long relationship that later became troublesome. He joined the Carbonari revolutionary association, and in February 1834 participated in a failed Mazzinian insurrection in Piedmont, a Genoese court sentenced him to death in absentia, and he fled across the border to Marseille. Garibaldi first sailed to Tunisia before eventually finding his way to the Empire of Brazil, once there he took up the cause of Republic of Rio Grande do Sul in its attempt to separate from Brazil, joining the rebels known as the Ragamuffins in the Ragamuffin War. During this war he met Ana Ribeiro da Silva, commonly known as Anita, in 1841, Garibaldi and Anita moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Garibaldi worked as a trader and schoolmaster. The couple married in Montevideo the following year and they had four children – Menotti, Rosita, Teresita, and Ricciotti. A skilled horsewoman, Anita is said to have taught Giuseppe about the culture of southern Brazil. Around this time, he adopted his trademark clothing, which consisted of the red shirt, poncho, and sombrero commonly worn by the gauchos. In 1842 Garibaldi took command of the Uruguayan fleet and raised an Italian Legion, of known as Redshirts. He aligned his forces with a composed of the Uruguayan Colorados led by Fructuoso Rivera
listen (help·info); 15 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano or PCI) from 1972 until his death.
