Bogdan ŽIVKOVIĆ

Institute for Balkan Studies, SASА

bogdanzivkovic@live.com

Inspiring Dissent: Yugoslavia and the Italian Communist Party during 1956

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the relations between the communist parties of Yugoslavia and Italy during 1956, one of the most important years of the history of communism. The dissenting nature of those relations, which were based on the mutual wish to limit the Soviet hegemony within the global communist movement, is in the focus of this analysis. Finally, this paper aims to demonstrate how the roots of the close friendship between the two parties during the sixties and seventies can be traced back to 1956, and how the Yugoslav communists influenced or tried to influence their Italian counterparts.

Key words: communism, Yugoslavia, Italian Communist Party (PCI), 1956, Cold War, dissent

Summary

The Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, held in February 1956, initiated the process of de-Stalinization within the global communist movement. Such political climate favored a stronger contact between the Yugoslav and Italian communists. The Yugoslavs were known for their autonomy and defiance to Moscow, thus an attractive interlocutor for the Italian communists, who, under the leadership of their general secretary Palmiro Togliatti, started to strongly demonstrate similar aspirations. Hence, with the Yugoslav encouragement and impact, the PCI and its leader started to act more independently, questioning Soviet dogmas and hegemony. Togliatti’s Theory of Polycentrism was the most important act in that direction, and it was impacted by the Yugoslav-Soviet agreement on equally based inter-party relations, i.e. the Moscow Declaration, signed between the two parties in June 1956. However, the Yugoslav impact on the PCI was somewhat limited. Still distant from a radical rethinking of their policies, the Italian communists were reluctant to adopt certain Yugoslav ideas, like the one of closer collaboration with the non-communist left. On the other hand, the inner-party PCI opposition was more attracted by the Yugoslav foreign policy, adopting it almost completely.

Still, the Yugoslav decision was not to engage in a closer collaboration with the inner-party opposition, but to give its support to Palmiro Togliatti. Belgrade had a certain level of understanding for Togliatti’s wish not to dissent radically for Moscow. Hence, when in the early sixties Togliatti continued on his path of ideological evolution and greater autonomy, Yugoslavia became once more an important ally for the PCI. Thus, it was a choice that payed of to Belgrade. In the long-term, Yugoslavia managed not only to establish closer relations with the Italian communists, but also witnessed a stronger ideological transformation of the PCI which led it to adopt the aforementioned principle propagated by Belgrade – collaboration with the non-communist left. Although the results of the collaboration between the Yugoslav and Italian communists during 1956 were ambiguous, Yugoslavia undoubtedly managed to exert a certain level of ideological influence on the PCI. The 1956 collaboration and the Yugoslav influence on the PCI were the foundation for the future alliance between the two parties, which came to life in the sixties, and achieved its pinnacle in the seventies, during the years when Enrico Berlinguer was at the head of the PCI.