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ABSTRACT
This paper explores the Italian Communist Party (PCI)’s interactions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the years immediately preceding the normalisation of Sino-Italian relations. The present work highlights three aspects of this dynamic: the PCI’s rewriting of its identity as a foreign policy making actor independent of the US and the USSR, and neither dismissive nor laudatory of Mao; the PCI’s establishment of partnerships with actors at home and abroad to allow for its China-policy blueprints to come to fruition; and the efforts of PCI-affiliated intellectuals toward making a rapprochement between the PCI and the CCP possible.
KEYWORDS:
Notes
1 The Editorial Department of Hongqi [Red Flag], Zai lun Taoliyadi tongshi yu women de fenqi – guanyu Liening zhuyi zai dangdai de ruogan zhongda wenti [More on the differences between comrade Togliatti and us – Some important problems of Leninism in the contemporary world] (Beijing, 1963), 13–14.
2 Ibid., 15.
3 Ibid., 18–19.
4 Sylvia Sprigge, ''De-Stalinization in the Italian Communist Party,'' The World Today 18, no. 1 (1962): 23–9.
5 Ennio Di Nolfo, La Normalizzazione delle Relazioni Diplomatiche tra la Repubblica Italiana e la Repubblica Popolare Cinese (Rubbettino: Soveria Mannelli, 2010), 1–58; Enrico Fardella, “The Normalization of Relations between Italy and the People’s Republic of China,” in Italy's Encounters with Modern China: Civilizational Exchanges, Imperial Dreams, Strategic Ambitions, ed. Giovanni B. Andornino and Maurizio Marinelli (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014), 117– 46.
6 Enrico Fardella, “A Significant Periphery of the Cold War: Italy-China Bilateral Relations, 1949–1989,” Cold War History 2, no. 17 (2016): 181–97.
7 Paolo Borruso, Il PCI e l’Indipendenza Africana. Apogeo e Crisi di un’Utopia Socialista (Florence: Le Monnier, 2009); Luca Riccardi, Il “Problema Israele”: Diplomazia Italiana e PCI di Fronte allo Stato Ebraico (1948–1973) (Rome : GueriniStudio, 2006); Onofrio Pappagallo, Il PCI e la Rivoluzione Cubana. La “Via Latino-Americana al Socialismo” tra Mosca e Pechino,1959–1965 (Rom e: Carocci, 2009); Elisa Giunipero, Il Contributo Italiano alla Pace in Vietnam (Milan: EDUCatt Università Cattolica, 2012).
8 Marco Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati, 1955–1975 (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2011).
9 Guido Samarani and Sofia Graziani, “Yidali gongchandang yu Zhonghua renmin gongheguo: zhengzhi lianxi yu jiaoliu, 1949–1965” [The Italian Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China: political ties and exchanges, 1949–1965], Lengzhan guoji shi yanjiu [Cold War International History Studies] 1 (2015): 5–29.
10 Marie-Claire Bergère, La Cina dal 1949 ai Giorni Nostri, trans. Giorgia Viano Marogna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003),171– 2; Giovanni Mario Ceci, Moro e il PCI: la Strategia dell’Attenzione e il Dibattito Politico Italiano, 1967–1969 (Rome :Carocci, 2013), 66.
11 Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: the Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, 1999), 399; Joseph Yu-Shek Cheng and Franklin Wankun Zhang, “Chinese Foreign Relations Strategies Under Mao and Deng: a Systematic and Comparative Analysis,” Politics and Governance 14, no. 3 (1999): 96.
12 See: Luigi Longo, “Per la Pace, per Avanzare sulla Via Italiana al Socialismo per una Nuova Maggioranza Democratica e l’Unità delle Forze Operaie e Socialiste,” in Da Gramsci a Berlinguer: la Via Italiana al Socialismo Attraverso i Congressi del Partito Comunista Italiano, IV, 1946–1975, ed. Daniele Pugliese and Orazio Pugliese (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1985), 20–3.
13 Mimmo Scarano, “Un Articolo di ‘Rinascita’: Tre Posizioni del PCI di Fronte a Mao,” Il Giorno, 24 September 1966.
14 In the early 1950s, Mao integrated his nationalistic agenda with the CCP’s commitment to socialist internationalism. As a result of having attained greater confidence in the 1950s, however, Mao grew ‘more reluctant to accept the new leadership in Moscow within the socialist camp.’ See: Zhimin Chen, “Nationalism, Internationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy,” Journal of Contemporary China 14, no. 42 (2005): 41–2.
15 Scarano, “Un Articolo di ‘Rinascita’,” 1966.
16 Sprigge, “De-Stalinization in the Italian Communist Party,” 28.
17 Luigi Barzini, “Communism, Italian Style, Has Nowhere to Go,” The New York Times, 13 February 1966.
18 Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati, 149.
19 I’m here referring to the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP).
20 Enrico Berlinguer, “La Coesistenza Pacifica,” Rinascita, 1, 1 January 1966.
21 Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati, 15; Gian Carlo Pajetta believed the PCI to have been conditioned by “illusions” that the DC “harboured” about the domestic and foreign policy isolation of the Italian Communists. See: Gian Carlo Pajetta’s report to the PCI Central Committee (CC), l’Unità, 15 February 1968.
22 “Una Maggioranza Compatta e Leale – dice Moro Accettando l’Incarico,” Avanti, 26 January 1966.
23 Lucio Magri, Alla Ricerca di un Altro Comunismo: Saggi sulla Sinistra Italiana (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 2012), 54. While members of the former faction strove to overthrow capitalism in Italy and covertly challenged Longo’s leadership,Robert C. Doty, “Italy’s Reds Face Threat of a Split,” The New York Times, 23 January 1966; Magri, Alla Ricerca di un Altro Comunismo, 55.
24 Robert C. Doty, “Italy’s Reds Face Threat of a Split,” The New York Times, 23 January 1966; Magri, Alla Ricerca di un Altro Comunismo, 55; “Il PCI Non Sopporta Alcun Dissenso – Ribadito il Monolitismo Comunista,” Corriere della Sera, 29 January 1966.
25 Extracts from Cankao Xiaoxi, 1966, Partito, Estero, 0536/1408, Fondazione Gramsci (FG), Archivio Partito Comunista (APC).
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid. See also: Marco Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2011), 149.
29 This is reflective of another PCI debate that took place in 1966. It concerned the PCI’s foreign policy designs vis-à-vis the communist parties of countries belonging to the NAM. See: Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi non Allineati, 148–9.
30 PCI CC to CCP CC, 7 July 1966, Partito, Estero, 0536/1571, FG, APC.
31 Giancarlo Pajetta, “Il Congresso di Mosca,” Rinascita, 14, 2 April 1966.
32 Mario Alicata, “La Cina e noi,” l’Unità, 25 September 1966.
33 Aldo Passigli, August 1966, “Report from China,” Partito, Estero, 0536/1604-1611, FG, APC.
34 “Mosca: Articolo della Pravda sul Socialismo e l’Eredità Culturale,” l’Unità, 17 September 1966.
35 Matthew E. Lenoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Scarano, “Un articolo di ‘Rinascita’,” 1966.
36 “Furioso attacco di Nuova Cina: Pechino ingiuria il Papa, U Thant e Fanfani,” Il Tempo, 23 September 1966.
37 Augusto Livi, October 1966, “Additional Letter,” Partito, Estero, 0536/1639-1652, FG, APC.
38 Ibid., 1651.
39 Ibid., 1651–2.
40 Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi non Allineati, 148–57.
41 Sprigge, “De-Stalinization in the Italian Communist Party,” 25.
42 Togliatti was the first Italian politician to send an envoy to Beijing after it became clear that the Communists had won the Chinese Civil War. See: Letter of Introduction for Velio Spano, 29 July 1949, FG, FPT, Corrispondenza Politica; For commentary on China's schism, see: “Un discorso di Novotný – Praga con Mosca contro Pechino,” Corriere della Sera, 26 September 1966, Archivio storico del Senato; Chinese archival resources reveal that this strategy had merely consisted of getting Mayor of Florence Giorgio La Pira to send one letter and one telegram to Zhou Enlai to wish him a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. See: “1964 nian shengdan jie Yidali Foluolunsa shizhang zhi Zhou Enlai zongli hedian chuli yijian” [Processing advice on the Christmas 1964 telegram by the mayor of Florence Giorgio La Pira to Premier Zhou Enlai], Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaobu dang’an guan, 24 December 1964, 117-01228-03, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, DAG FMPRC. See also: “Yidali Foluolunsa shizhang zhi Zhou Enlai zongli de dianbao” [Telegram from mayor of Florence Giorgio La Pira to Premier Zhou Enlai], Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaobu dang’an guan, 5 January 1965, 117-01450-01, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, DAG FMPRC.
43 Roberto Gualtieri, “Moro e Berlinguer: Alleanze Asimmetriche nel Decennio della Distensione,” in L’Italia dal 1943al 1992: DC e PCI nella Storia della Repubblica, ed. Roberto Gualtieri (Rome: Carocci, 2006), 165–203; Michele Rossi, Note on the meeting with Comrade O Man Soh, 23 April 1969, Partito Estero, 0308/1171, FG, APC.
44 PCI Directorate to CCP CC, 14 December 1966, Partito, Estero, 0536/1656, FG, APC.
45 See: Elisa Giunipero, Il contributo italiano alla pace in Vietnam, (Milan: EDUCatt, 2012), 47.
46 In his “Report from China” (August 1966), Aldo Passigli complained about the PCC’s lack of understanding ofwhat he referred to as ‘the most basic terms of our situation, including the influence of the [Catholic] Church’ (0536/1608). This was testament to the idea by which the Italian Communists had come to accept the influence that theRoman Catholic Church exerted over Italian society, and had started deeming it acceptable for a large share of theirelectorate to be both communist and of Catholic faith. See: Passigli, Report from China, 1608. In addition, a translation of an article from Süddeutsche Zeitung, “Il Papa e i comunisti italiani”, Partito, 0551/2636-2637, FG, APC; Quotes Secretary Luigi Longo’s call for the Catholics to join forces with the communists in the run-up to the Congress of the PCI of 1966. For a glimpse of the broader debate on how ‘the Italian way of Socialism’ did not coincide with the implementation of “state ateism,” see the position upheld by Lucio Lombardo Radice during the 1966 XI PCI Congress in: XI Congresso Nazionale, “Il Dibattito”, in: Da Gramsci a Berlinguer: la Via Italiana al Socialismo Attraverso i Congressi del Partito Comunista Italiano IV, 1965–1975 by Daniele Pugliese and Orazio Pugliese (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1985), 64–5. See also: “ ‘È Possibile ’ il Dialogo Cattolici-Comunisti,” l’Unità, 2 October 1968. For a document quoting parts of an Enrico Berlinguer interview for Rinascita in which he mentioned having been contacted by high-ranking figures of the Holy See who had “specific requests [for the PCI] to transmit to the Hanoi government,” see: Partito, Estero, 0551/2646, FG, APC. See also: Holy See Secretariat of State to Antonello Trombadori, 21 November 1966, Partito, Estero, 0537/969. In: Elisa Giunipero, Il Contributo Italiano alla Pace in Vietnam (Milan : EDUCatt, 2012), FG, APC; Carlo Galluzzi, La Svolta. Gli Anni Cruciali del Partito Comunista Italiano (Milan: Sperling & Kupfer 1983), 122–5.
47 As an example, see: “Sull’organo del Partito Nord-Coreano: Duro Attacco agli ‘Scissionisti Trotskisti’,” l’Unità, 19 September 1966.
48 Enrico Berlinguer, 19 December 1966, “Report on the First Meeting with the Korean Comrades,”Partito, Estero, 0536/1737, FG, APC.
49 Ibid.
50 Enrico Berlinguer, 20 December 1966, “Meeting with Kim Il-sung in his Private Residence,”Partito, Estero, 0536/1738-1748, FG, APC.
51 Ibid., 1743.
52 Ibid., 1748.
53 Ibid., 1748.
54 Franco Bertone, “Partito, Esercito e ‘Guardie Rosse’ – Inquietante Aggravarsi della Lotta Politica in Cina,” Rinascita 2, 13 January 1967, 4.
55 Bertone was a progressive communist, after all, which allowed him to be more explicit in his denunciations.
56 Luigi Longo, “Non Mentori Estranei ma Protagonisti,” Rinascita 43, 3 November 1967, 4.
57 Bensasson to PCI Secretariat, 15 March 1968, Partito, Estero, 0552/1032, FG, APC.
58 PCI Secretariat, 27 April 1967, Partito, Estero, 0545/1110, FG, APC.
59 PCI Directorate to President of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, 12 December 1966, Partito, Estero, 0536/1653-4, FG, APC.
60 Alberto Cavallari, “Il PCI Punta sulla Politica Estera,” Corriere della Sera, 30 January 1966.
61 An intervention which marked the PCI’s political departure away from the CPSU, once and for all. See: Gualtieri, L’Italia dal 1943 al 1992, 166.
62 For more on upheavals and labour protests, see: Sergio Turone, Storia del Sindacato in Italia (1943–1969): dalla Resistenza all’ “Autunno Caldo” (Bari: Laterza, 1973).
63 Peter Lange, “What Is to Be Done About Italian Communism?” Foreign Policy 21 (Winter 1975–76): 237; Giovanni Mario Ceci, Moro e il PCI: la Strategia dell’Attenzione e il Dibattito Politico Italiano, 1969–1969 (Rome: Carocci, 2013), 25–7.
64 Gualtieri, L’Italia dal 1943 al 1992, 169.
65 Luigi Longo, “Nuove Forme di Unità e di Collaborazione Internazionale,” Rinascita 44, 10 November 1967.
66 Silvano Bacicchi to PCI Secretary Office, 14 May 1969, Partito, DC, 0307/2779-2781, FG, APC.
67 Ibid., 2781.
68 Ibid., 2780.
69 Ibid.
70 Renato Sandri to Armando Cossutta, 17 January 1969, “Note on Sandri’s Visit to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China,” Partito, Estero, 0308/1113-1115, FG, APC.
71 Ibid., 1114.
72 Ibid.
73 Crema to Nenni, 26 June 1969, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116468 (accessed 11 April 2017).
74 Ambassador Caruso to Ambassador Vinci, 14 July 1969, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116469 (accessed 11 April 2017); “Italian Policy towards the People’s Republic of China,” 27 November 1968, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116465 (accessed 11 April 2017).
75 Pons, Berlinguer e la Fine del Comunismo, 38–9.
76 Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the Italian Republic and the People’s Republic of China, 28 November 1970, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116477 (accessed 11 April, 2017).
77 Fardella, “Negotiating Sino-Italian Normalization.”
78 Moro to Saragat, 2 November 1970, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116475 (accessed 7 June 2017). In a letter from 9 May 1970, the PCI and PSIUP leadership jointly provided a list of their most imminent policypriorities, indicating only domestic and regional ones. See: Co-signed PCI-PSIUP Letter on International Matters, 9 May 1970, Partito, Estero, 067/499, 503, FG, APC.
79 Signorini to Berlinguer, 29 April 1970, Note on Signorini’s meeting with Wang Shoutao in Canton, Partito, Estero, 070/1461 bis, FG, APC.
80 As an indication of the Party’s early recognition of the value of Jacoviello’s inquiries abroad for the fulfillment of the PCI’s foreign policy objectives, see: Meeting to discuss about the PCI’s policies towards Arab and African countries, speech by Maurizio Valenzi, 1 March 1960, Partito, Estero 0468/2295-2303. Referring to liberation movements across the Third World, Valenzi noted that Arab and African countries could rely on the PCI’s help, also adding: ‘… us Italians can provide them with help as anyone else. As an example of our contribution, take: the inquiries of Jacoviello – our comrades’ trips to Tunisia and other African countries – Palermo and Luzzatto joining the Mogadishu process – Spano’s meeting with Nasser – the Belgrade conference,’ FG, APC.
81 Jacoviello to Longo, 16 June 1970, Partito, Estero, 070/1463, FG, APC.
82 Ibid., 1464–5.
83 Ibid., 1465–6.
84 Ibid.
85 Guido Formigoni, “Marcora, i Problemi della Pace e della Politica Internazionale,” in Giovanni Marcora: Milano, l’Italia e l’Europa, ed. Emanuele Bernardi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010), 214.
86 Conversation between Jacoviello and Fanfani, 14 July 1970, Partito, Estero, 070/581, FG, APC.
87 Ibid.
88 Moro to Saragat, 2 November 1970, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116475 (accessed 7 June 2017).
89 PCI CC to CCP CC, 6 November 1970, Partito, Estero, 070/1471, FG, APC.
90 See: Sergio Segre to the PCI Secretariat, 31 October 1970, Partito, Estero, 070/1469, FG, APC; Moro to Saragat, 2 November 1970, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116475 (accessed 7 June 2017); Romano Ledda, “C’è una Sola Cina: i Diritti della Repubblica Popolare Cinese alle Nazioni Unite,” Rinascita 39,1 October 1971; “Dichiarazione di Berlinguer,” l’Unità, 6 November 1970.
91 Aldo Tortorella, “Appunti sugli Articoli di A. Jacoviello di Ritorno dalla Cina,” Partito, Estero 070/1622, FG, APC.
92 Jacoviello to Longo, 17 November 1970, Partito, Estero 070/1477-1478, FG, APC.
93 Sarzi Amadé to Tortorella, November 1970, Partito, Estero, 070/1470, FG, APC; Cossutta to PCI, 23 April 1971, Partito, Estero, 0158/0660, FG, APC.
94 Romano Ledda, “C’è una Sola Cina: i Diritti della Repubblica Popolare Cinese alle Nazioni Unite,” Rinascita 39, 1 October 1971.
95 Ibid.
96 Marco Galeazzi notes that the PCI ‘seen by many as almost like a State’, had caught ‘the interest and the consideration of the West as well as that of the the extra-European world …’ See: Marco Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati, 192. See also Antonio Varsori, “Prefazione.” Preface to Marco Galeazzi, Il PCI e il Movimento dei Paesi Non Allineati, 7.
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Carlotta Clivio
Carlotta Clivio is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She is also a junior research fellow of the Torino World Affairs Institute (T.wai). Research for the present article was conducted during her time at the International History department of the LSE, where she completed a master's degree in International Affairs.