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91-614: Alessandria ( Italian: [alesˈsandrja] ; Piedmontese : Lissandria [liˈsɑŋdrja] ) is a city and commune in Piedmont , Italy , and the capital of the Province of Alessandria . It is also the largest municipality of the region. The city is sited on the alluvial plain between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, about 90 kilometres (56 miles) east of Turin . Alessandria

182-589: A candidate, emphasising the need to clean the party of corruption and make it electable. Although he had many supporters, Martelli and Craxi were both caught in a scandal dating back to 1982, when the Banco Ambrosiano gave to the two of them around 7 million dollars. Martelli subsequently resigned from the party and from the government. Giuliano Amato , a member of the PSI, resigned as Prime Minister in April 1993. His government

273-525: A centre-right party, many of those who did so felt that the centre-left was by now dominated by former Communists and the best way to fight for mainstream social democracy was through FI/PdL. Valdo Spini , Giorgio Benvenuto , Gianni Pittella and Guglielmo Epifani joined the DS, while Enrico Manca , Tiziano Treu , Laura Fincato , and Linda Lanzillotta joined DL. Giuliano Amato joined The Olive Tree as an independent. In 2007, some former Socialists, including

364-483: A conflict with the other parties of the coalition over the proposed budget for 1987. In the 1987 Italian general election , the PSI won 14.3% of the vote and this time it was Christian Democrats' turn to govern. From 1987 to 1992, the PSI participated in four governments, allowing Giulio Andreotti to take power in 1989 and to govern until 1992. Socialists held a strong balance of power, which made them more powerful than Christian Democrats, who had to depend on it to form

455-470: A disappointing loss in the 1968 Italian general election in which the PSU gained far fewer seats in total than each of the two parties had obtained separately in 1963, it disbanded. The 1972 Italian general election underlined the PSI's precipitate decline as the party received less than 10% of the vote compared to 14.2% in 1958, when Nenni assumed the leadership of the autonomist faction. In 1976, Bettino Craxi

546-465: A large sum owed him by the government. Of the 230 Jews living in the city in 1684, 170 were members of the Vitale family. The Jewish Ghetto was established in 1724. Between 1796 and 1814, among the rest of Italian Jewry, the city Jewish congregation was emancipated, under French influence. According to Benito Mussolini 's census in 1938, the town had 101 Jews. On 13 December 1943 the synagogue on Via Milano

637-544: A majority in Parliament. The PSI kept tight control of this advantage. The alternative that Craxi had wanted so much was taking shape, namely the idea of a Socialist Unity with the other left-wing political parties, including the PCI, proposed by Craxi in 1989. He believed that the Fall of Communism in eastern Europe had undermined the PCI and made Socialist Unity inevitable. In fact, the PSI

728-556: A new big Cittadella on the left side of the river Tanaro, across from the city. With Napoleon's success at the Battle of Marengo (1800) , Alessandria fell to France and became the capital of the Napoleonic Département of Marengo . During this period another substantial fort was built to the north of the city containing impressive and substantial barracks which are still used as military headquarters and stores (2006). The remains of

819-450: A recent survey. On the other hand, the same survey showed Piedmontese is still spoken by over half the population, alongside Italian. Authoritative sources confirm this result, putting the figure between 2 million and 3 million speakers out of a population of 4.2 million people. Efforts to make it one of the official languages of the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics were unsuccessful. Piedmontese

910-571: A rise of its public debt. While associated with neoliberal policies, as the post-war consensus around social democracy was on the defensive amid the crisis of the 1970s, others argue that the PSI and Craxi, along with the DC's left-wing when they governed, maintained dirigisme in contrast to the neoliberal and privatisation trends. The PSI was disbanded in 1994 as a result of the Tangentopoli scandals. A series of legal successors followed, including

1001-504: A second fort to the south of the city (Cristo quarter) have been sliced in two by a railway (Forte ferrovia); a third one still remains in the middle of the same quarter (Forte Acqui). From 1814 Alessandria was Savoyard territory once more, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia . During the years of the Risorgimento , Alessandria was an active centre of the liberals. In a suburb, Spinetta Marengo,

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1092-431: A serious electoral challenger either to the PCI or the DC, its pivotal position in the political arena allowed it to claim the post of Prime Minister for Craxi after the 1983 Italian general election . The electoral support for DC was significantly weakened, leaving it with 32.9% of the vote, compared to the 38.3% it gained in 1979. The PSI that had obtained only 11% threatened to leave the parliamentary majority unless Craxi

1183-523: A split in PSI. Socialists led by Pietro Nenni chose to take part in the Popular Democratic Front along with the PCI, while Giuseppe Saragat launched the Italian Workers' Socialist Party . The PSI was weakened by the split and was far less organised than the PCI, so Communist candidates were far more competitive. As a result, the PSI parliamentary delegation was cut by a half. Nonetheless,

1274-528: A standardized writing system. Lexical comparison with other Romance languages and English: Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party ( Italian : Partito Socialista Italiano , PSI ) was a social democratic and democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 1892,

1365-701: A wave of new socialist parties at the end of the 19th century and had to endure persecution by the Italian government during its early years. It modelled on the Social Democratic Party of Germany . While in Sicily the Fasci Siciliani were spreading as a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, the party was celebrating on 8 September 1893 its second congress in Reggio Emilia and changed its name to

1456-522: Is also a major railway hub . Alessandria was founded in 1168 with a charter as a free comune; it was sited upon a preexisting urban nucleus, to serve as a stronghold for the Lombard League , defending the traditional liberties of the communes of northern Italy against the Imperial forces of Frederick Barbarossa . Alessandria stood in the territories of the marchese of Montferrat , a staunch ally of

1547-720: Is also spoken in some states of Brazil, along with the Venetian language . The first documents in the Piedmontese language were written in the 12th century, the sermones subalpini  [ it ] , when it was extremely close to Occitan , dating from the 12th century, a document devoted to the education of the Knights Templar stationed in Piedmont. During the Renaissance, the oldest Piedmontese literary work of secular character, are

1638-423: Is divided into three major groups The variants can be detected in the variation of the accent and variation of words. It is sometimes difficult to understand a person that speaks a different Piedmontese from the one you are used to, as the words or accents are not the same. The Eastern Piedmontese group is more phonologically evolved than its western counterpart. The words that in the west end with jt, jd or t in

1729-492: Is moderate, with two minimums (summer and winter) and two maximums in autumn and spring. Alessandria railway station , opened in 1850, forms part of the Turin–Genoa railway . It is also a junction for six other lines, to Piacenza , Novara , Pavia , Cavallermaggiore , Ovada and San Giuseppe di Cairo , respectively. The town's professional football team is US Alessandria . Their stadium also hosts Juventus Next Gen ,

1820-591: Is pronounced separately, /ˈya/ . Some of the characteristics of the Piedmontese language are: Piedmontese has a number of varieties that may vary from its basic koiné to quite a large extent. Variation includes not only departures from the literary grammar, but also a wide variety in dictionary entries, as different regions maintain words of Frankish or Lombard origin, as well as differences in native Romance terminology. Words imported from various languages are also present, while more recent imports tend to come from France and from Italian. A variety of Piedmontese

1911-460: Is shared partially (in the case of the infinitive time) also by most of the western dialects, including the Turin one, that is the most spoken dialect of western piedmontese (and also of the whole piedmontese language). A morphological variation that sharply divides east and west is the indicative imperfect conjugation of irregular verbs. In the east, the suffix ava/iva is used, while in the west asìa/isìa

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2002-417: Is used. The groups are also distinguished by differing conjugation of the present simple of the irregular verbs: dé , andé , sté (to give, to go, to stay). /v/ is realized as labio-velar [ w ] between /a/ and /u/ and as [ w ] or [ f ] when in word-final position. Allophones of / a / are [ ɑ, ɒ ] in stressed syllables and as [ɐ] when in unstressed position and at end of the word. Piedmontese

2093-430: Is written with a modified Latin alphabet. The letters, along with their IPA equivalent, are shown in the table below. Certain digraphs are used to regularly represent specific sounds as shown below. All other combinations of letters are pronounced as written. Grave accent marks stress (except for o which is marked by an acute to distinguish it from ò ) and breaks diphthongs, so ua and uà are /wa/ , but ùa

2184-540: The 1921 Italian general election and after the split of the Communist Party of Italy , the PSI was reduced to 24.5% and was particularly damaged in Piedmont and Tuscany, where Communists got more than 10% of the vote. During the Italian Resistance , which was fought mostly in Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, and Central Italy , Communists were able to take roots and organise people much better than Socialists so that at

2275-419: The 1992 Italian general election to take place in an uninfluenced atmosphere and the PSI managed to garner 13.6% of the vote in spite of the corruption scandals. Many in the party thought the scandal had been brought under control; they failed to realise that investigations would eventually be launched against ministers and party leaders. Furthermore, as early as May 1992, public opinion unconditionally supported

2366-776: The 1992 Italian general election , this trend toward the South was even more evident, and is also reflected in the PSI's main successors, the Italian Socialists , the Italian Democratic Socialists , the New Italian Socialist Party , and the modern-day Italian Socialist Party , all of which had always been stronger in those Southern regions. While Socialists, like Communists and Christian Democrats, had lost votes to Lega Nord , especially in Lombardy, they gained in

2457-671: The Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in 1998, while the FL merged with PDS to form the Democrats of the Left (DS) later on that year. Between 1994 and 1996, many former Socialists joined Forza Italia (FI), as did Giulio Tremonti , Franco Frattini , Massimo Baldini , and Luigi Cesaro . Gianni De Michelis , Ugo Intini and several politicians close to Craxi formed the Socialist Party , while others like Fabrizio Cicchitto and Enrico Manca launched

2548-572: The Italian Liberal Party ) were experiencing. In the 1987 Italian general election , the PSI gained 14.3% of the vote, which was below expectations after four years of government led by Craxi. Alongside the high shares of vote in north-western Lombardy and the North-East (both around 18–20%), the PSI did fairly well in Campania (14.9%), Apulia (15.3%), Calabria (16.9%), and Sicily (14.9%). In

2639-521: The Italian Socialists (1994–1998), the Italian Democratic Socialists (1998–2007) and the Socialist Party (formed in 2007, it took the PSI name in October 2009) within the centre-left coalition , and a string of minor parties and the New Italian Socialist Party (formed in 2001) within the centre-right coalition . These parties have never reached the popularity of the old PSI. Former PSI leading members and voters have joined quite different parties, from

2730-701: The London Bureau of socialist groups, an international association of left-wing socialist parties. In 1912, the Maximalists led by Benito Mussolini prevailed at the party convention, which led to the split of the Italian Reformist Socialist Party . In 1914, the party obtained good success in local elections, especially in the industrialised northern Italy, and Mussolini became leader of the City Council of Milan . From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini headed up

2821-780: The National Fascist Party . After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the PSI quickly aligned itself in support of the Bolshevik movement in Russia and supported its call for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. In the 1919 Italian general election , the PSI, led by Nicola Bombacci , reached its highest result ever: 32.0% and 156 seats in the country's Chamber of Deputies . From 1919 to the 1920s, Socialists and Fascists emerged as prominent rival movements in Italy's urban centres, often resorting to political violence in their clashes. In 1919,

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2912-735: The Reformist Socialist Party . In the 2000s, two outfits claimed to be the party's successor, namely the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) that evolved from the Italian Socialists (SI) and the New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI) founded by Gianni De Michelis , Claudio Martelli , and Bobo Craxi in 2001. Both the SDI and the NPSI were minor political forces. A number of Socialist members and voters joined FI, while others joined

3003-462: The Socialist Party of Italian Workers ( Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani ). During the third congress on 13 January 1895 in Parma , it decided to adopt the name of Italian Socialist Party and Filippo Turati was elected its secretary. At the start of the 20th century, the PSI chose not to strongly oppose the governments led by five-time prime minister Giovanni Giolitti . This conciliation with

3094-516: The hammer and sickle in favour of a carnation , a symbol popularly associated with democratic socialism and social democracy, which the party was by then fully embracing, and re-branded it as liberal-socialist —some observers compared this to the Third Way developments of social democracy and described these events as being twenty years ahead of New Labour in the United Kingdom . By that time,

3185-561: The post-Communist incarnation of the PCI, the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). Del Turco had quickly changed the party symbol to reinforce the idea of innovation, which did not stop the PSI gaining only 2.2% of the votes compared to 13.6% in 1992. The PSI elected 16 deputies, as well as 14 senators, down from 92 deputies and 49 senators of 1992. Most of them came from the left-wing of the party as Del Turco himself did. Most Socialists joined other political forces, mainly Forza Italia ,

3276-515: The 1910s, Socialists had broadened their organisation to all the regions of Italy but were stronger in Northern Italy , where they emerged earlier and where they had their constituency. In the 1919 Italian general election , thanks to the electoral reforms of the previous decade and especially the introduction of proportional representation in place of the old first-past-the-post system, they had their best result ever: 32.0% and 156 seats. The PSI

3367-542: The Battle of Marengo is reenacted annually, on 14 June. Alessandria was the first capital of an Italian province to be governed by a Socialist : the clockmaker Paolo Sacco was elected mayor on 25 July 1899. Owing to its marshalling yard and the bridges on the Tanaro and Bormida, Alessandria was a strategic military target during World War II and was subjected to intense Allied bombing (especially during Operation Strangle ),

3458-678: The Chamber of Deputies due to the better get-out-the-vote machine of Communists and the split of the social democratic faction from the party, the Italian Workers' Socialist Party (7.1%, with peaks over 10% in the Socialist strongholds of the North). In the 1953 Italian general election , the PSI was reduced to 12.7% of the vote and to its heartlands above the Po River , having gained more votes than Communists only narrowly in Lombardy and Veneto . The margin between

3549-649: The DS and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL). Many others were not members of any party any more. Some former Socialists were affiliated to The People of Freedom (PdL) and remains in the 2013 refoundation of FI, while others are in centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and modern-day Socialist Party (PS). Socialists who joined FI include Tremonti, Frattini, Fabrizio Cicchitto , Renato Brunetta , Amalia Sartori , Francesco Musotto , Margherita Boniver , Francesco Colucci , Raffaele Iannuzzi , Maurizio Sacconi , Luigi Cesaro , and Stefania Craxi . Although it may seem unusual for self-identified socialists to be members of

3640-578: The Emperor, with a name assumed in 1168 to honour the Emperor's opponent, Pope Alexander III . In 1174–1175 the fortress was sorely tested by the Imperial siege and stood fast. A legend (related in Umberto Eco 's book Baudolino , and which recalls one concerning Bishop Herculanus ’ successful defence of Perugia several centuries earlier) says it was saved by a quick-witted peasant, Gagliaudo: he fed his cow with

3731-739: The Fascist years; in 1930, the PSU was re-integrated into the PSI. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1930 and 1940. In the 1946 Italian general election , the first after World War II , the PSI obtained 20.7% of the vote, narrowly ahead of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) that gained 18.9%. In the 1948 Italian general election , the United States secretly convinced Britain's Labour Party to pressure Socialists to end all coalitions with Communists, which fostered

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3822-507: The PCI and Christian Democracy , and was part of Italy's first centre-left government in the 1960s; its inclusion led those governments to be called the Organic centre-left . When Socialists came out in the late 1890s, they were present only in rural Emilia-Romagna and southern Lombardy , where they won their first seats of the Chamber of Deputies ; they soon enlarged their base in other areas of

3913-679: The PSI continued its alliance with the PCI until 1956, when the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 caused a major split between the two parties. Starting from 1963, Socialists participated in the Organic centre-left governments in alliance with Christian Democracy (DC), the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) and the Italian Republican Party (PRI). These governments acceded to many of

4004-478: The PSI frequently participated in coalition governments led by Christian Democracy , from the Organic centre-left to the Pentapartito in the 1980s. The PSI, which always remained the country's third-largest party, came to special prominence in the 1980s when its leader Bettino Craxi served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Under Craxi, the PSI severed the residual ties with Marxism and dropped

4095-561: The PSI was from the beginning a big tent of Italy's political left and socialism , ranging from the revolutionary socialism of Andrea Costa to the Marxist -inspired reformist socialism of Filippo Turati and the anarchism of Anna Kuliscioff . Under Turati's leadership, the party was a frequent ally of the Italian Republican Party and the Italian Radical Party at the parliamentary level, while lately entering in dialogue with

4186-454: The PSI was virtually wiped out, receiving around 3% of the vote. In Milan, where the PSI had won 20% in 1990, the PSI received a mere 2% and was shut out of the council. Del Turco tried in vain to regain credibility for the party. By the 1994 Italian general election , the PSI was in a state of near-collapse. Its remains contested the election as part of the Alliance of Progressives dominated by

4277-441: The PSI's collapse in the controversial 1924 Italian general election and eventual ban in 1925. This led the party and its remaining leaders to the underground or in exile. The PSI dominated the Italian left until after World War II , when it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The two parties formed an alliance lasting until 1956 and governed together at the local level, particularly in some big cities and

4368-436: The Piedmontese language were written in the 12th century, the sermones subalpini , when it was extremely close to Occitan . In 2004, Piedmontese was recognised as Piedmont's regional language by the regional parliament, although the Italian government has not yet recognised it as such. In theory, it is now supposed to be taught to children in school, but this is happening only to a limited extent. The last decade has seen

4459-440: The SDI, a portion of the NPSI led by Gianni De Michelis, The Italian Socialists of Bobo Craxi , Socialism is Freedom of Rino Formica and splinters from the DS joined forces and formed the Socialist Party (PS), renamed Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 2011. This PSI is the only Italian party represented in Parliament that explicitly refers to itself as Socialist; many other Socialist associations and organisation participate to

4550-534: The Socialist Party of Turin formed the Red Army of Turin , which was accompanied by a proposal to organise a national confederation of Red Scouts and Cyclists. At the 1921 Livorno Congress , the left wing of the party broke away in 1921 to form the Communist Party of Italy (PCdI), a division from which the PSI never recovered and that had enormous consequences on Italian politics. In 1922, another split occurred when

4641-610: The South, reaching 19.6% of the vote in Campania, 17.8% in Apulia, and 17.2% in Calabria. The electoral results of the PSI in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1895 are shown in the chart above. The PSI was rather unusual among mainstream socialist parties in Europe in using the hammer and sickle as its symbol. In the early 1970s, this prevented it from obtaining

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4732-413: The Tanaro flooded a good part of the city, causing major damage, especially in the Orti quarter. The first known Jews in Alessandria, named Abraham (son of Joseph Vitale de Sacerdoti Cohen) opened a loan bank in or about 1490. In 1590, the Jews were expelled from the Duchy of Milan , and one of Abraham's descendants travelled to Madrid , which ruled the Duchy and was permitted to stay in the town due to

4823-404: The army of Gian Galeazzo Visconti , commanded by Jacopo dal Verme , heavily defeated the French army led by Jean III of Armagnac in Alessandria. In 1450 Alessandria passed with their possessions to the Sforza , following the career of Milan , until 1707, when it was ceded to the House of Savoy and henceforth formed part of Piedmont . The new domination was evidenced by the construction of

4914-405: The centre-right, such as Forza Italia , The People of Freedom and the new Forza Italia , to the centre-left, such as the Democratic Party . The PSI was founded in 1892 as the Party of Italian Workers ( Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani ) by delegates of several workers' associations and parties, notably including the Italian Workers' Party and the Milanese Socialist League. It was part of

5005-401: The city. The Emperor, fearing that the siege would last too long, left Alessandria free (malaria was probably the real cause of his departure). A statue of Gagliaudo can be found on the left corner of the city cathedral. Alessandria entered into jealous conflicts with the older communes of the region, in particular with Asti . In 1348 Alessandria fell into the hands of the Visconti . In 1391

5096-449: The country's GNP and controlled inflation . He demonstrated Italy's independence and nationalism in the clash with the United States during the Sigonella incident . Moreover, Craxi spoke of many reforms, including the transformation of the Constitution of Italy toward a presidential system . The PSI looked like the driving force behind the bulk of reforms initiated by the Pentapartito coalition. Craxi lost his post in March 1987 due to

5187-403: The country, especially the urban areas around Turin , Milan , Genoa , and to some extent Naples , densely populated by industrial workers. In the 1900 Italian general election , the party won 5.0% of the vote and 33 seats, its best result so far. Emilia-Romagna was confirmed as the Socialist heartland (20.2% and 13 seats), and the party also did well in Lombardy and Piedmont . By the end of

5278-421: The demands of the PSI for social reform and laid the foundations for Italy's modern welfare state . During the 1960s and 1970s, the PSI lost much of its influence despite actively participating in the government. The PCI gradually outnumbered it as the dominant political force in the Italian left. The PSI tried to enlarge its base by joining forces with the PSDI under the name Unified Socialist Party (PSU). After

5369-435: The east end with [dʒ] e/o [tʃ] for example the westerns [lajt] , [tyjt] , and [vɛj] (milk, all and old) in the east are [lɑtʃ] , [tytʃ] and [vɛdʒ] . A typical eastern features is [i] as allophone of [e] : in word end, at the end of infinitive time of the verb, like in to read and to be ( western [leze] , [ese] vs . eastern [lezi] , [esi] ) and at words feminine plural gender . Although this development

5460-431: The end of World War II the balance between the two parties was completely changed. In the 1946 Italian general election , the PSI was narrowly ahead of Communists (20.7% over 18.7%) but was no longer the dominant party in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. In the 1948 Italian general election , Socialists took part to the Popular Democratic Front with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) but lost almost half of their seats in

5551-450: The existing governments and its improving electoral fortunes helped to establish the PSI as a mainstream Italian political party by the 1910s. Despite the party's improving electoral results, the PSI remained divided into two major branches, the Reformists and the Maximalists. The Reformists, led by Filippo Turati , were strong mostly in the unions and the parliamentary group. The Maximalists, led by Costantino Lazzari , were affiliated with

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5642-419: The last grain remaining within the city, then took it outside the city walls until he reached the Imperial camp . Here he was captured, and his cow cut open to be cooked: when the Imperials found the cow's stomach filled with grain, Gagliaudo was asked the reason to waste such a rich meal. He answered that he was forced to feed his cow with grain because there was such a lot of it, and no room to place it within

5733-479: The magistrates against a political system that the majority of Italians already distrusted. Craxi himself was under criminal investigation since December 1992. In April 1993, the Italian Parliament denied four times the authorisation for magistrates to continue investigation for Craxi. Italian newspapers shouted scandal and Craxi was besieged at his Rome residence by a crowd of young people, who threw coins at him, shouting "Bettino, do you want these as well?" This scene

5824-474: The monarchy if such reforms were not made and if Italy did not enter the war together with the Allied Powers and their struggle against the Central Empires , seen as the final fight for the worldwide triumph of freedom and democracy. The dominant internationalist and pacifist wing of the party remained committed to avoiding what it called a bourgeois war. The PSI's refusal to support the war led to its national syndicalist faction either leaving or being purged from

5915-482: The most serious being the raids of 30 April 1944, with 238 dead and hundreds wounded, and 5 April 1945, with 160 deaths, among them 60 children from the children's asylum in Via Gagliaudo. Altogether, 559 people were killed by air raids on Alessandria, which destroyed or badly damaged a thousand buildings. On 29 April 1945 the city was liberated from the German occupation (1943–1945) by the partisan resistance and troops of Brazilian Expeditionary Force . On 6 November 1994

6006-419: The new party led by Silvio Berlusconi , the Patto Segni , and Democratic Alliance . The party was disbanded on 13 November 1994 after two years in which almost all of its longtime leaders, especially Craxi, were involved in Tangentopoli and decided to leave politics. The 100-year-old party closed down, partially thanks to its leaders for their personalisation of the PSI. Socialists who did not align with

6097-509: The other parties organised themselves in two groups: the Italian Socialists (SI) of Enrico Boselli , Ottaviano Del Turco , Roberto Villetti , Riccardo Nencini , Cesare Marini , and Maria Rosaria Manieri , who decided to be autonomous from the PDS; and the Labour Federation (FL) of Valdo Spini , Antonio Ruberti , Giorgio Ruffolo , Giuseppe Pericu , Carlo Carli , and Rosario Olivo , who entered in close alliance with it. The SI eventually merged with other Socialist splinter groups to form

6188-524: The party as a whole. Feeling betrayed, Chiesa confessed his crimes to the police and implicated others, starting a chain reaction of judicial investigations that would ultimately engulf the entire political system. The investigations, named mani pulite ("clean hands") was carried out by three Milanese magistrates among whom Antonio Di Pietro quickly stood out becoming a national hero thanks to his charismatic character and his ability to extract confessions. The investigations were suspended for four weeks for

6279-400: The party was aligned with European social democracy and like-minded reformist socialist parties and leaders, including François Mitterrand , Felipe González , Andreas Papandreou and Mário Soares , and was one of the main representatives of Mediterranean or South European socialism. During this period, Italy underwent il sorpasso and became the world's sixth largest economy but also saw

6370-419: The party's left-wing , heir of the Maximalist faction, remained strong at least until the 1980s, when the PSI under Bettino Craxi was rebranded as liberal socialist . At its beginnings, the PSI sat to the farthest left of the Italian party system with the heirs of the Historical Far Left . As many of its positions became accepted or mainstream, the party came to represent the centre-left , positioned between

6461-414: The party's historical traditions as a working-class trade union based party and attempting to gain new support among white-collar and public sector employees. At the same time, the PSI increased its presence in the big state-owned enterprises and became heavily involved in corruption and illegal party funding, which would eventually result in the mani pulite investigations. Even if the PSI never became

6552-573: The party, such as Mussolini who had begun to show sympathy to the national syndicalist cause. A number of the national syndicalists expelled from the PSI later joined Mussolini's Italian fascist revolutionary movement in 1914, including the Fasces of Revolutionary Action in 1915 (later Italian Fasces of Combat ). During the Third Fascist Congress in late 1921, Mussolini turned the Fasces of Combat into

6643-466: The political debate both in the centre-right and the centre-left coalitions. During its century-long history, the party's socialism evolved from its revolutionary socialist beginnings, with the Reformist faction in minority, to parliamentary and reformist socialism , democratic socialism , and social democracy . While its more radical factions split to form the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1921,

6734-480: The pro- Bolshevik wing of the PSI who purged moderate or reformist socialists. World War I tore the party apart. The orthodox socialists were challenged by advocates of national syndicalism , who called for revolutionary war to liberate Italian-speaking territories from authoritarian Austrian Empire control and force the government by threat of violence to create a corporatist state. The national syndicalists intended to support Italian republicans in overthrowing

6825-405: The publication of learning materials for schoolchildren, as well as general-public magazines. Courses for people already outside the education system have also been developed. In spite of these advances, the current state of Piedmontese is quite grave, as over the last 150 years the number of people with a written active knowledge of the language has shrunk to about 2% of native speakers, according to

6916-466: The reformist wing of the party, headed by Turati and Giacomo Matteotti , was expelled and formed the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU). Matteotti was assassinated by Fascists in 1924 and shortly afterwards a Fascist one-party dictatorship was established in Italy. The PSI and all other political parties except the Fascist party were banned in 1926. The party's leadership remained in exile during

7007-527: The remnants of the Historical Left and the Liberal Union during Giovanni Giolitti 's governments to ensure representation for the labour movement and the working class. In the 1900s and 1910s, the PSI achieved significant electoral success, becoming Italy's first party in 1919 and during the country's Biennio Rosso in 1921, when it was victim of violent paramilitary activities from the far right , and

7098-540: The reserve team for Serie A club Juventus Turin . Alessandria is twinned with: Piedmontese language It has some support from the Piedmont regional government but is considered a dialect rather than a separate language by the Italian central government. Due to the Italian diaspora Piedmontese has spread in the Argentinian Pampas , where many immigrants from Piedmont settled. The Piedmontese language

7189-519: The so-called red regions until the 1990s. The PSI suffered the right-wing split of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party , whose members opposed the alliance with the PCI and favoured joining the Centrism coalition, in 1947 and the left-wing split of the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity , whose members wanted to continue the cooperation with the PCI, in 1964. Starting from the 1960s,

7280-605: The two parties would have become larger and larger until its peak in the 1976 Italian general election , when the PCI won 34.4% of the vote and the PSI stopped at 9.6%. At that time, Communists had almost five times the vote of Socialists in the PSI's ancient heartlands of rural Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, and three times in the Northern regions, where the PSI had some local strongholds left such as in north-eastern Piedmont, north-western and southern Lombardy, north-eastern Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia , where it gained steadily 12–20% of

7371-412: The vote. Under the leadership of Bettino Craxi in the 1980s, the PSI had a substantial increase in term of votes. The party strengthened its position in Lombardy, north-eastern Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and broadened its power base to Southern Italy , as all the other parties of Pentapartito coalition ( Christian Democracy , Italian Republican Party , Italian Democratic Socialist Party , and

7462-701: The works of Zan Zòrs Alion, poet of the duchy of Montferrat, the most famous work being the opera Jocunda. In the 1500s and 1600s, there were several pastoral comedies with parts in Piedmontese. In the Baroque period, El Cont Piolèt , a comedy by Giovan Battista Tan-na d'Entraive was published. Literary Piedmontese developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it did not gain literary esteem comparable to that of French or Italian, other languages used in Piedmont. Nevertheless, literature in Piedmontese has never ceased to be produced: it includes poetry , theatre pieces, novels , and scientific work. The first documents in

7553-650: Was Judeo-Piedmontese , a dialect spoken by the Piedmontese Jews until the Second World War , when most were killed during the Holocaust . Some survivors knew the language but as of 2015, the language had gone extinct. It had many loanwards from Provencal , Spanish and Hebrew . It kept many conservative features that Piedmontese abandoned over time. The language never became as large in terms of words as larger Jewish languages like Yiddish , and it never developed

7644-680: Was at the time the representative of both the rural workers of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and north-western Piedmont and the industrial workers of Turin, Milan, Venice , Bologna , and Florence . In 1919, the party won 49.7% in Piedmont (over 60% in Novara ), 45.9% in Lombardy (over 60% in Mantua and Pavia ), 60.0% in Emilia-Romagna (over 70% around Bologna and Ferrara ), 41.7% in Tuscany , and 46.5% in Umbria . In

7735-510: Was attacked by supporters of the Italian Social Republic . Books and manuscripts were taken out of the synagogue and were set on fire at Piazza Rattazzi. In total, 48 Jews were deported from the province of Alessandria, most of them to Auschwitz where they were murdered. Alessandria is located in a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa ), the city has moderately cold winters and hot, sultry summers. Rainfall

7826-469: Was elected new secretary of the party. From the beginning, Craxi tried to undermine the PCI, which until then had been continuously increasing its votes in elections and to consolidate the PSI as a modern, strongly pro-European reformist party, with deep roots in the democratic left-wing, and a left-wing alternative to the Historic Compromise between DC and PCI. This strategy called for ending most of

7917-497: Was in line to become the Italy's second largest party and to become the dominant force of a new left-wing coalition opposed to a Christian Democrat-led one; this did not actually happen because of the rise of Lega Nord and the Tangentopoli scandals. In February 1992, Mario Chiesa , a Socialist hospital administrator in Milan , was caught taking a bribe. Craxi denounced Chiesa by calling him an isolated thief, who had nothing to do with

8008-459: Was made Prime Minister. Christian Democrats accepted this compromise to avoid a new election. Craxi became the first Socialist in the history of the Italian Republic to be appointed Prime Minister. Unlike many of its predecessors, Craxi's government proved to be durable, lasting three and a half years from 1983 to 1987. During those years, the PSI gained popularity as Craxi successfully boosted

8099-400: Was not able to move the country in the revolutionary direction it wanted. A split with what became known as the Communist Party of Italy and the rise to power of former party member and Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini , who was expelled from the party, class struggle and internationalism in favour of corporatism and ultranationalism , and his National Fascist Party led to

8190-506: Was succeeded by a technocratic government led by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi . Craxi resigned as party secretary in February 1993. Between 1992 and 1993, most members of the party left politics and three PSI deputies committed suicide. Craxi was succeeded by two Socialist trade-unionists, first Giorgio Benvenuto and then by Ottaviano Del Turco . In the December 1993 provincial and municipal elections,

8281-570: Was to become one of the many symbols of that period. In 1992–1993, many PSI regional, provincial, and municipal deputies, MPs, mayors and even ministers found themselves overwhelmed with accusations and arrests. At this point, public opinion turned against the PSI and many regional headquarters of the party were besieged by people who wanted an honest party with true socialist values. Between January 1993 and February 1993, Claudio Martelli (former Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister) started to contend for party leadership. Martelli stepped forward as

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