The main goal of this article is to analyse the relationship between the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) – a party that followed a different trajectory from other Western social democratic parties following the Second World War – and the October Revolution and the USSR from the 1940s to the 1960s. In particular, given the political context of postwar Europe, it aims to use this relationship to understand the party's political and programmatic evolution from a new perspective. To this end, the article is largely based on archival investigation and on a wide examination of press sources from the period.