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From Socialist Unification to Socialist Scission 1966–69: Socialist Unification and the Italian Party System*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Felice Rizzi
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Extract

A FEW YEARS AGO, GALL1 AND PRANDI WROTE THAT THE UNIFICATION of the socialists represented a phase of rationalization of the Italian political system. Not only did the re-unification of the PSI (Socialist Party of Italy) and the PSDI (Social Democratic Party of Italy) lead to a simplification of the party subsystem (by reducing its excessive numbers), thus rendering the choice between alternatives easier for the electorate. But at last a single voice seemed to emerge which could undertake the task of opposing the twenty years of Christian Democrat predominance, which had been responsible for so many aspects of political ‘immobilism’. Moreover it was possible to discern a strategic design in the socialist plans — an optimistic design perhaps, but entailing possible innovations. The formation of a strong Socialist Party might have led to the overcoming of one of the principal - if not the greatest - defects of the Italian party system: the absence of a mechanism of rewards and punishments.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1974 , pp. 146 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1974

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References

1 Galli, G. and Prandi, A., Patterns of Political Participation in Italy, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1970 Google Scholar.

2 G. Sartori has devoted several works to an acute analysis of the Italian party system, notably Partiti e sistemi di partito, Editrice Universitaria, Florence, 1965; ‘European Political Parties: The Case of Polarized Pluralism’ in La Palombara, J. and Weiner, M. (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1966, pp. 157–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Bipaititismo imperfetto o pluralismo polarizzato?’ in Tempi Moderni, X, No. 31, 1967, pp. 4–34; ‘Tipologia dei sistemi di partito’ in Quaderni di Sociologia, XVII, 1968, pp. 187–217.

3 Galli, G., Il bipartismo imperfetto, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1966, final chapterGoogle Scholar.

4 La Rocca, F., ‘Agenda politica’, Tempi Moderni, XI, No. 32, 1968, p. 93.Google Scholar

5 Spreafico e, A. Cazzola, F., ‘Correnti di partito e processi di identificazione’, Il Politico, XXV, 1970, pp. 695–718.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 699.

7 Cf. Sartori, G., ‘Proporzionalismo, frazionismo e crisi dei partiti’ in Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, No. I, 1971, p. 639.Google Scholar

8 In support of this, see Pasquino, G., ‘Le radici del fraaionismo e il voto di preferenza’ in op. cit., No. 2, 1972, pp. 353–68Google Scholar; G. Zincone ‘Accesso autonomo alle risorse: le determinate del frazionismo’, ibid., pp. 139–60.

9 For a well documented account of post‐war socialism see the two volumes edited by Benzoni, A. and Tedesco, V., I, Il movimento socialista nel dopoguerra, and II, Documenti del socialismo italiano, Marsilia, Padua, 1968 Google Scholar. For a detailed analysis of the socialist fractions between 1956 and 1961, see Zariski, R., ‘The Italian Socialist Party: A Case Study in Fractional Conflict’ in American Political Science Review, No. 56, 1962, pp. 372–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for an empirical analysis of the Socialist Party and fractions up to 1963 in a provincial federation directed by the left‐wing faction, see Barnes, S. H., Party Democracy: Politics in an Italian Socialist Federation, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967 Google Scholar.

10 Saragat, G., ‘Centro‐Sinistra’ in La Giustizia, 28 07 1963.Google Scholar

11 See the White Book of Lombardi, R. in Fatti e documenti, Rome, 1963.Google Scholar

12 This incisive statement of Nenni’s is also quoted in Tamburrano, G., Storia e cronaca del centro‐sinistra, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1971, p. 320.Google Scholar

13 On this see the Lettera ai compagni prepared by Nenni for the 38th Congress of the PSI, 1965.

14 See on this point the interesting study by Forbice, A. and Favero, P., preface by Mosca, G., I socialisti e il sindacato, Palazzi, Milan, 1968 Google Scholar.

15 On spatial models in party alignments see Sartori, G. ‘Modelli spaziali di competizione partitica’ in Rassegna Italians di Sociologia, Vol. VI, 1965, pp. 7–29.Google Scholar

16 Sartori, G., ‘Alla ricerca della sociologia politica’, in ibid., Vol. IX, 1968, p. 631.Google Scholar

17 Passigli, S., ‘Proporzionalismo, frazionismo e crisi dei partiti: quid prior?’ in Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politico, No. 2, 1972, p. 129 Google Scholar.

18 For an illustration of the concept of the extra‐legal system of conflict solution, see Crozier, M., Le phénomène bureaucratique, Seuil, Paris, 1963.Google Scholar

19 Apart from the article quoted in n. 5, see Cazzola, F., Il partito come organizzazione. Studio di un caso: il PSI, Edizioni del Tritone, Rome, 1970 Google Scholar.

20 Rinnovamento socialists; Autonomia socialista; Riscossa e Unità socialista, Impegno socialista, Sinistra socialista.

21 A. Spreafico and F. Cazzola, op. cit., p. 704.

22 D’Amanto, L., Il voto di preferenza in Italia (1946–1963), Giuffrè, Milan, 1964.Google Scholar

23 As regards members of the PSDI, data refer to 1962 (139,722) and to 1965 (200,000, rounded down) (cf. Annuario Politico Italiano, Communità, Milan, 1964 and 1966); for the PSI there are official figures for the whole period 1962–65: 1962 (491,216), 1963 (491,676), 1964 (446,250), 1965 (437,458).

24 Landolfi, A., Il socialismo italiano, Lerici, Rome, 1968, p. 172.Google Scholar

25 ARCI—Italian Association for Culture and Recreation; AIMA—Agency for Price Interventions on the Agricultural Market; AICS—Italian Association of Sporting Clubs.

26 Giuseppe Mammarella, who can certainly not be charged with partiality on this point, writes that at the time of unification, the organizational apparatus of the PSI was fairly solid, whereas that of the PSDI was ‘weak and of very small dimensions’. Cf. Mammarella, G., L’ltalia dopo il fascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1970, p. 371.Google Scholar

27 A circumstance which may help to explain the defeat of Socialist Renewal is the partial dispersal of the social democrats at the time of unification. But we must note that only a part of the minority of the old PSDI, following Preti and Ariosto, joined up with fractions other than Socialist Renewal. Moreover, the followers of Preti and Ariosto did not feel secure in their new positions, to the point that when the split occurred they followed Tanassi.

28 Sartori, G., in his essay ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Polities’ (American Political Science Review, Vol. LXIV, 1970, pp. 1048–9)Google Scholar distinguishes twenty‐seven functions which may be attributed to political parties; on types of parties see G. Sartori, Partiti e sistemi di partito, op. cit., n. 2, pp. 38–57.

29 According to the polls carried out by Barnes and Pierce in 1967–68, ‘the principal allies of the Christian Democrats, the followers of the largest Italian Socialist Party (PSI‐PSDI) harbour views on foreign policy closer to those of the Christian Democrats than to those of the communists’. Cf. Barnes, S. H., and Pierce, R., ‘Le preferenze politiche in Italia e in Francia’ in Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, No. 2, 1972, p. 547.Google Scholar

30 The original saying is: ‘Goverments change but bureaucracies remain’. Diamant, A. has helped to give it currency in his essay ‘The French Administrative System. The Republic Passes but the Administration Remains’, in Siffin, W. J., Toward the Comparative Study of Public Administration, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1957, pp. 182–218 Google Scholar.

31 On the interests of professional politicians and party bureaucracies, Michels’s, R. Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie, Leipzig, 1912 Google Scholar, remains unsurpassed.

32 In the same sense, see La Rocca, F., ‘Il difficile settennato di Saragat:’ in Il Mulino, Vol. XX, 1971, pp. 998–1014 Google Scholar; and Indrio, U., La presidenza Saragat, Milan, 1971, p. 184.Google Scholar