ABSTRACT: This paper examines the changes of the attitudes expressed by the leading Yugoslav communists about the concept of a historic compromise as defined by their Italian counterparts from 1972 to 1980. It aims at bringing these constantly evolving attitudes, closely related to the internal ideological changes within the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, into correlation with the gradual abandonment of the party policies adopted in the endeavor to influence the development of cooperation between the Italian Communist Party and Christian Democracy. In order to position these changes in an adequate historical and social context, this paper relies on comparing the results of archival research with those found within a wide spectrum of relevant literature from various fields of social science and the humanities.

KEYWORDS: Historic compromise, League of Communists of Yugoslavia, Communist Party of Italy, Josip Broz Tito, Enrico Berlinguer

SUMMARY: The positions of the Yugoslav communists on the cooperation between the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrats changed radically during the period from 1972 to 1980. At the same time, the implicit framework of the concept of historical compromise – a central idea in the plans for cooperation between the Italian communists and the Christian Democrats – also shifted. The consequences of the second political crisis, along with new social and cultural phenomena of the late 1960s and early 1970s, altered the political positions of Italy’s two largest parties and their views on the possibilities for achieving or expanding compromise. Significant changes also occurred in the party ideology of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. These ideological shifts, along with other factors, may have contributed to changes in the dominant perceptions among Yugoslav communists regarding the programs of historical compromise and their own participation in their implementation. At the beginning of the decade, the Yugoslav party was prepared to define financial assistance programs to influence the development of political factors in Italy. By the end of the decade, however, it had almost completely abandoned such efforts and, to some extent, its interest in the outcome of the political crisis in Italy. Meanwhile, Yugoslav communists developed critical attitudes toward the idea of Italian communists collaborating with moderate left- or right-wing parties in Western Europe, and instead sought to act as mediators in bringing Italian communists back into alignment with the ruling parties of the Eastern Bloc.