Mourning the demise of the Italian Communist Party: Turinese memories of the PCI

Abstract

Abstract On 12 November 1989, three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Achille Occhetto, the Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), announced that the Party needed to transform itself, implicitly including changing its name. His announcement launched a 15-month-long process that culminated in the dissolution of the PCI and the rise of a new political organisation, which became a member of the Socialist International. Drawing on the individual and collective memories of former Turinese PCI officials, this essay examines the complex, tortuous abandonment of the communist reference and the disintegration of the political community surrounding the Party. Because of their highly varied reactions, the dissolution of the PCI caused fragmentation of the subsequent careers and paths of former Party ‘comrades’. To this day, the 1989 turning point continues to inspire highly diverse memories among former Italian communists.