Misplaced Pages

#784215

96-467: It was founded in 1981 by Roberto Gremmo , a former member of the Italian Communist Party . The party was soon joined by Gipo Farassino , another former Communist and well-known folk-singer. In the 1985 regional election UP won 1.1% of the vote under the banner of Liga Veneta . In the 1987 general election Gremmo formed an alliance with Umberto Bossi 's Lega Lombarda , but was damaged by

192-619: A campaign of Bolshevisation , which forced each party to conform to the discipline and orders of Moscow. During the clandestine conference held in Como to ratify the party leadership in May 1924, 35 of the 45 federation secretaries, plus the secretary of the youth federation, voted for Bordiga's Left, four for Gramsci's Centre, and five for Tasca's Right. Before the Lyon Congress in 1926, the Centre won almost all

288-615: A change of tactics in a democratic direction within the Bolshevik party and consequently within the Comintern. This happened in particular regarding the possibility, previously opposed, of an alliance with the social democratic and bourgeois parties. This provoked a tension in the party between the majority (Left) and the minority factions (the Right and the Centre) supported by the Comintern. The proposals of

384-419: A coalition, so long at least one party within the coalition reached the required 3% threshold), and is calculated nationally. Notwithstanding this, a different threshold is needed for lists representing linguistic minorities, which is 20% and is calculated on a regional basis. The Chamber comprises 400 members elected by universal suffrage and by citizens who are 18 or older. Out of the total number, according to

480-405: A committee formed so that it conforms to the proportions of the various parliamentary groups." In order to fulfill its function as the ordinary organ through which popular sovereignty is exercised, Parliament can employ the same investigative and coercive instruments as the judiciary in these inquests. The Parliament meets and votes in joint session ( Italian : Parlamento in seduta comune ) for

576-556: A majority of all MP's in each house (absolute majority) in its second reading. Depending on the results of this second vote, the constitutional law may then follow two different paths. Article 139 of the Constitution holds the "form of Republic" above amendment. In addition to its legislative functions, Parliament also reviews the actions of Government and provides it with political direction. Parliament exercises its review function by means of questions and inquests. Questions consist of

672-634: A national basis), as well as the Senate of the Republic (with 200 members or senatori elected on a regional basis, plus a small number of senators for life or senatori a vita , either appointed by the President of the Republic or former Presidents themselves, ex officio ). The two Houses are independent from one another and never meet jointly except under circumstances specified by the Constitution of Italy . By

768-472: A new Centre newspaper, l'Unità , edited by Gramsci, was founded. The Left continued as a faction, principally functioning in exile. It published the newspaper Bilan , a monthly theoretical bulletin. In 1926, Bordiga and Gramsci were arrested and imprisoned on the island of Ustica . In 1927, Palmiro Togliatti was elected secretary in place of Gramsci. In 1930, Bordiga was expelled from the Comintern and accused of Trotskyism . After Joseph Stalin dissolved

864-719: A progressive left-wing and democratic socialist party. A third of the PCI membership, led by Armando Cossutta , refused to join the PDS, and instead seceded to form the Communist Refoundation Party . In all its history, the PCI was particularly strong in Central Italy , in the Red Regions of Emilia-Romagna , Marche , Tuscany , and Umbria , as well as in the industrialised cities of Northern Italy . The party's municipal showcase

960-526: A proposal in the form of a draft law, approved by 50,000 voters), individual Regional Councils , and the National Council for Economics and Labour (CNEL). Once a proposal is introduced in one of the two Houses, it is assigned to a parliamentary committee to carry out preliminary inspection of the proposal (taking advantage of advice of other committees, especially, the so-called "filter committees"). At this point, two different procedures can be taken. In

1056-513: A set of functions explicitly established by the Constitution. Article 55.2 specifies that these functions are entrenched and cannot be altered. Joint sessions take place in the building of the Chamber of Deputies at Palazzo Montecitorio and are presided over by the President of the Chamber of Deputies ex officio . In this way, the drafters of the Constitution intended to establish an equilibrium with

SECTION 10

#1732876678785

1152-433: A single ballot. The ballot includes all candidates for a given single-member district (majoritarian component). For each candidate, the parties and party-lists that supported him/her are also listed, which is used to determine the proportional seats. These latter seats are allocated within each single regional constituency. A 3% minimum threshold for single party-lists is required for the proportional component (or 10% if within

1248-538: A single world party according to Vladimir Lenin 's vision. In the 1921 Italian general election , the party obtained 4.6% of the vote and 15 seats in the country's Chamber of Deputies . At the time, it was an active yet small faction within the Italian political left, which was strongly led by the PSI, while on the international level it was Soviet -led. During its 2nd Congress in 1922, the new party registered 43,000 members. This

1344-667: A speech heralding the Revolutions of 1989 , a move now referred to in Italian politics as the svolta della Bolognina (Bolognina turning point). The collapse of the Communist governments in the Eastern Europe led Occhetto to conclude that the era of Eurocommunism was over. Under his leadership, the PCI dissolved and refounded itself as the Democratic Party of the Left , which branded itself as

1440-566: A strengthened legislative process ad hoc for the passing of a constitutional law. Article 138 of the Constitution provides for the special procedure through which the Parliament can adopt constitutional laws (including laws to amend the Constitution), which is a variation of the ordinary legislative procedure. The ordinary procedure to adopt a law in Italy requires both Houses of Parliament to approve

1536-456: A written question directed to the Government, asking whether a certain claim is true, whether the Government is aware of it, and whether the Government is taking any action about it. The response can be given by the relevant Government minister, by the chairperson of the relevant ministry, or by an undersecretary. It may be given in writing or delivered to the parliament orally. The member who asked

1632-484: Is led by the President of the Council of Ministers and is the national executive of Italy, needs to have the confidence of both houses in order to exercise its power fully. It must receive a vote of confidence by both houses before being officially in power, and Parliament can cast a motion of no confidence at any moment, which forces the President of the Council of Ministers and his/her Cabinet to resign. The President of

1728-453: Is passed to the other house, which can amend it before approving or rejecting it. If approved without amendments, the bill is then promulgated by the President of the Republic and becomes law. If approved with amendments, it goes back to the other house. The process continues until the bill is approved in the same text by both houses (in which case it becomes law after promulgation) or is rejected by one house. The Council of Ministers , which

1824-419: Is required to be appointed senator for life (but Presidents of the Republic must be 50 or older). The main prerogative of Parliament is the exercise of the legislative power , that is the power to enact laws. For a bill to become law, it must receive the support of both houses independently in the same text. A bill is first introduced in one of the houses, amended, and then approved or rejected: if approved, it

1920-662: Is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1848–1861), the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitional National Council (1945–1946) and the Constituent Assembly (1946–1948). It is a bicameral legislature with 600 elected members and a small number of unelected members ( senatori a vita ). The Italian Parliament is composed of the Chamber of Deputies (with 400 members or deputati elected on

2016-524: The Rosatellum bis , As the Senate of the Republic, the Chamber of Deputies is elected on a single ballot, as indicated above for the Senate of the Republic. The only difference is that the proportional component is calculated based on the national average of the vote. The Italian Parliament is one of the few legislatures in the world to reserve seats for those citizens residing abroad . There are 8 such seats in

SECTION 20

#1732876678785

2112-626: The Communist Party of Italy ( Italian : Partito Comunista d'Italia , PCd'I ) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga , Antonio Gramsci , and Nicola Bombacci . Outlawed during the Italian fascist regime, the party continued to operate underground and played a major role in the Italian resistance movement . The party's peaceful and national road to socialism, or

2208-758: The Communist Refoundation Party (PRC). The roots of the PCI date back to 1921, when the I Congress of the Communist Party of Italy was held in Livorno on 21 January, following a split in the XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party . The split occurred after the Congress of Livorno refused to expel the reformist group as required by the Communist International (Comintern). The main factions of

2304-477: The Historic Compromise of the 1970s, which ended in 1980, until its dissolution in 1991, not without controversy and much debate among its members. The PCI included Marxist–Leninists and Marxist revisionists , with a notable social-democratic faction being the miglioristi . Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer and the influence of the miglioristi in the 1970s and 1980s, Marxism–Leninism

2400-454: The Italian road to socialism , the realisation of the communist project through democracy, repudiating the use of violence and applying the Constitution of Italy in all its parts, a strategy inaugurated under Palmiro Togliatti but that some date back to Gramsci, would become the leitmotif of the party's history. Having changed its name in 1943, the PCI became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II , attracting

2496-585: The Lega Alpina Lumbarda : PA, now part of Lega Nord, won 16.3% in Piedmont, LAP just 2.2%. The party has since then disappeared. Among its successors one can count Lega Padana Piemont of Rabellino. Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( Italian : Partito Comunista Italiano , PCI ) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was founded in Livorno as

2592-616: The Organic centre-left governments, although it never directly joined a government. It successfully lobbied Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ (Lada) car factory in the Soviet Union (1966). The party did best in Emilia-Romagna , Tuscany, and Umbria, where it regularly won the local administrative elections, and in some of the industrialised cities of Northern Italy . At the city government level during

2688-609: The Portella della Ginestra massacre , in which eleven leftist peasants (including four children) were murdered at an International Workers' Day parade in Palermo by Salvatore Giuliano and his gang. In the political chaos that ensued, the United States government engineered the expulsion of all left-wing ministers from the cabinet on 31 May. The PCI would not have a national position in government again. De Gasperi did this under pressure from

2784-496: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , led to a complete break with Moscow in 1979. In 1980, the PCI refused to participate in the international conference of Communist parties in Paris; cash payments to the PCI continued until 1984. Achille Occhetto became general secretary of the PCI in 1988. At a 1989 conference in a working-class section of Bologna, Occhetto stunned the party faithful with

2880-525: The Svolta di Salerno ( Salerno 's turning point), Togliatti, who had returned to Italy the month prior after 18 years of exile, agreed to cooperate with King Victor Emmanuel III and his prime minister of Italy , the Marshal Pietro Badoglio . After the turn, the PCI took part in every government during the national liberation and constitutional period from June 1944 to May 1947. Their contribution to

2976-430: The "normal procedure", the committee holds a referral meeting, drafts a response and names a spokesperson to report this response, then leaves the responsibility for composing and approving the bill's text to the assembly. This must be completed in no more than four months for the Chamber of Deputies and two months for the Senate. Once the bill has come before one of the chambers, a general discussion takes place, followed by

Piedmontese Union - Misplaced Pages Continue

3072-414: The "special procedure" (also called the "decentralised legislative procedure") can be employed. In this case, the committee holds a drafting meeting (leaving only the final approval of the bill to the parliament), or a deliberative/legislative meeting (in which case the entire legislative process is carried out by the committee and the bill is not voted on by parliament at all). This procedure can be vetoed by

3168-611: The 1970s and 1980s and toward Eurocommunism and the Socialist International . The PCI sought a collaboration with the socialist and Christian democracy parties, a policy known the Historic Compromise . The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro , the DC leader, by the Red Brigades in May 1978 put an end to any hopes of such a compromise. The compromise was largely abandoned as a PCI policy in 1981. The Proletarian Unity Party merged into

3264-550: The 200 elected members, the Senate, as per article 59 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic , also comprises a small number of senators for life . These can be differentiated into: The voting age mandated for both houses is the age of majority : any Italian citizen who is eighteen or older can vote. But the two houses have a different age of candidacy : deputies are required to be twenty-five or older, while elected senators must be forty or older. No explicit age limit

3360-577: The Communist International in 1943, the exiled members of the PCd'I in Moscow changed the party's name to the PCI on 15 May. Under this name, it reorganised in Italy and became a parliamentary party after the fall of Fascism. The party and its militants were actively involved in the resistance to Benito Mussolini 's regime through clandestine action. They were well prepared for clandestine activity because of

3456-504: The Communist city council built 31 nursery schools, 896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built and 8,000 children received subsidised school meals. In 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri , introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a renewed concentration on cheap public transport. Bologna's social services continued to expand throughout

3552-545: The Constitution, the two houses of the Italian Parliament possess the same powers, unlike in most parliamentary systems. Perfect bicameralism has been codified in its current form since the adoption of the Albertine Statute , and resurged after the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of the 1920s and 1930s. No distinction is made between deputies and senators, notwithstanding that a member of parliament cannot be at

3648-522: The DC leader and prime minister of Italy, was losing popularity, and feared that the leftist coalition would take power. While the PCI was growing particularly fast due to its organising efforts supporting sharecroppers in Sicily , Tuscany , and Umbria , movements that were also bolstered by the reforms of Fausto Gullo , the Italian Minister of Agriculture . On 1 May, the nation was thrown into crisis by

3744-494: The Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries as reported at the time in l'Unità , the official PCI newspaper. Giuseppe Di Vittorio , chief of the communist trade union Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), repudiated the leadership position, as did prominent party member Antonio Giolitti and Italian Socialist Party national secretary Pietro Nenni , a close ally of the PCI. Napolitano later hinted at doubts over

3840-621: The II Congress in Moscow of 1920. The official program, drawn up in ten points, began with the intrinsically catastrophic nature of the capitalist system and terminated with the extinction of the state. It follows in a synthetic way the model outlined by Lenin for the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) . For a while, this identity resisted, but the fast progress of the reaction in Europe produced

3936-547: The Italian Constitutional Court, which agreed to rehear the appeal in the Lorenzoni case, which had been dismissed the year before, it was stated that autodichia might be found in violation of the independence of the judiciary. The constitution defines "Parliamentary status" in articles 66 , 67 , 68 and 69 . Article 67 ("Prohibition on imperative mandate ) states that "every member of parliament represents

Piedmontese Union - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-459: The Left were no longer accepted and the conflict between the factions became irremediable. In 1923, some members of the party were arrested and put on trial for "conspiracy against the State". This allowed the intense activity of the Communist International to deprive the party's left-wing of authority and give control to the minority centre which had aligned with Moscow. In 1924–1925, the Comintern began

4128-569: The Leninist preferred the single world party as it was internationalist and strongly centralised, while on the other side the Italians wanted a party more tailored to their nation's peculiarities and more autonomy. After the fall of Fascist Italy on 25 July 1943, the PCI returned to a formally legal status, playing a major role during the national liberation, known in Italy as Resistenza (Resistance) and forming many partisan groups. In April 1944, after

4224-600: The PCI in 1984. During the Years of Lead , the PCI strongly opposed the terrorism and the Red Brigades, who in turn murdered or wounded many PCI members or trade unionists close to the PCI. According to Mitrokhin, the party asked the Soviets to pressure the StB , Czechoslovakia's State Security, to withdraw their support to the group, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do. This, along with

4320-481: The PCI over this issue. Napolitano became a leading member of the miglioristi faction within the PCI that promoted a social-democratic direction in party policy. In the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated the party membership to be approximately 1,350,000, or 4.2% of the working age population, making it the largest Communist party in per capita terms in the capitalist world at

4416-403: The PCI, were among the more numerous partisan forces. The PCI took part in the 1946 Italian general election and the 1946 Italian institutional referendum , campaigning for a republic. In the election, the PCI was third, behind Christian Democracy (DC) and the PSI, gaining almost 19% of votes and electing 104 members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy . The popular referendum resulted in

4512-442: The Republic can dissolve one or both houses, and new elections are held if a new Prime Minister is unable to receive the support of both houses. The process by which the Italian Parliament makes ordinary laws, the iter legis ordinario , is as follows: Proposals can be made by the Government, individual Members of Parliament (who must present their proposal to the Chamber that they are a member of), private citizens (who must present

4608-409: The Senate had 315 elected members. Following the 2020 Italian constitutional referendum , the number of MPs in the Parliament has been reduced from 630 to 400 in the Chamber of Deputies and from 315 to 200 in the Senate . The proposed changes were approved, with 69.96% voting in favour. The reduction of the number of MPs came to fruition with the following Legislature XIX of Italy . In addition to

4704-426: The Senate in article 65, which explicitly foresees such action. The Chambers of the Italian Parliament enjoy special prerogatives to guarantee their autonomy with respect to other parts of Government: In some matters (e.g. employment disputes) the Italian Parliament acts as its own judicial authority (without using external courts), which is referred to as " autodichia " (self-judging). In order no. 137 of 2015 of

4800-604: The United States Secretary of State, George Marshall , who had informed him that anti-communism was a pre-condition for receiving American aid, and Ambassador James Clement Dunn , who had directly asked de Gasperi to dissolve the parliament and remove the PCI. In the 1948 Italian general election , the party joined the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front (FDP) but was defeated by the DC. The United States government provided support to anti-PCI groups in

4896-496: The United States ordered a removal from government of the PCI and PSI. The PCI–PSI alliance lasted until 1956; the two parties continued to govern at the local and regional level until the 1990s. Apart from the 1944–1947 years and occasional external support to the organic centre-left (1960s–1970s), which included the PSI, the PCI always remained at the opposition in the Italian Parliament , with more accommodation as part of

SECTION 50

#1732876678785

4992-414: The bill has been approved in the same form by both houses of Parliament, it is sent to the President of the Republic, who must promulgate it within one month or send it back to Parliament for renewed debate with a written justification. If after the renewed debate the bill is approved by Parliament again, the President of the Republic is constitutionally required to promulgate it. Once it has been promulgated,

5088-509: The bill in the same text, with a simple majority (i.e., the majority of votes cast). Constitutional laws start by following the same procedure; however, after having been approved for the first time, they need to be voted for by both Houses a second time, which can happen no sooner than three months after the first. In this second reading, no new amendments to the bill may be proposed: the bill must be either approved or rejected in its entirety. The constitutional law needs to be approved by at least

5184-596: The course of the post-war period, the PCI demonstrated in cities like Bologna and Florence their capacity for uncorrupt, efficient and clean government. After the 1975 Italian local elections , the PCI was the strongest force in nearly all of the municipal councils of the great cities. The Soviet Union's brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 created a split within the PCI. The party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano (who in 2006 became President of Italy ), regarded

5280-464: The earlier system of "authorisation to proceed" ( autorizzazione a procedere ) for convictions in cases with defined sentences. Finally, article 69 states that "members of parliament receive compensation set down by the law," thereby affirming that parliamentarians must receive compensation and cannot renounce that compensation. This reverses the principle laid down in the Albertine Statute, which

5376-401: The early and mid-1970s. The city centre was restored, centres for the mentally sick were instituted to help those who had been released from recently closed psychiatric hospitals , handicapped persons were offered training and found suitable jobs, afternoon activities for schoolchildren were made less mindless than the traditional doposcuola (after-school activities), and school programming for

5472-438: The efforts made by Italy's top authorities to prevent any of the alleged Italian war criminals from being extradited and taken to court. The denial of Italian war crimes was backed up by the Italian state, academe, and media, re-inventing Italy as only a victim of Nazism and the post-war Foibe massacres . The party gained considerable electoral success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to

5568-709: The election, and argued that should the PCI win, the Marshall Plan and other aids could be terminated. It spent $ 10–20 million on anti-communist propaganda and other covert operations, much of it through the Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan, and then laundered through individual banks. Fearful of the possible FDP's electoral victory, the British and American governments also undermined their campaign for legal justice by tolerating

5664-471: The execution of a final court judgement or if caught in the act of a crime for which it is compulsory to arrest someone caught in the act. An analogous standard is required in order to put members of parliament under any form of surveillance." Neither immunity nor inviolability are prerogatives of individual parliamentarians; they are intended to protect the free exercise of Parliament's functions against judicial interference, which occurred in earlier regimes when

5760-408: The first years of the PCd'I, there was no official leader; the accepted leader, first of the faction/tendency and then of the party, was Bordiga (Left) of the communist left current. Leaders of the minority currents were Angelo Tasca (Right) and Gramsci (Centre). As a territorial section of Comintern, the PCd'I adopted the same program, the same conception of the party and the same tactics adopted by

5856-610: The former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin , Longo and other PCI leaders became alarmed at the possibility of a coup in Italy after the Athens Colonel coup in April 1967 that led to the Greek junta . These fears were not completely unfounded as there had been two attempted coups in Italy, Piano Solo in 1964 and Golpe Borghese in 1970, by military and neo-fascist groups. The PCI's Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare

SECTION 60

#1732876678785

5952-473: The freedom of culture. At the time, the PCI, which had absorbed the PSI's left-wing, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity , so strengthening its leadership over the Italian left, was the largest communist party in a capitalist state , garnering 34.4% of the vote in the 1976 Italian general election . Relationships between the PCI and the Soviet Union gradually fell apart as the party moved away from Soviet obedience and Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy in

6048-582: The judiciary was under Government control and was not autonomous. There is controversy with respect to the principle of immunity about what statements are expressed in the member's parliamentary role and the Constitutional Court distinguishes between political activities and parliamentary activities, and even with respect to the latter, distinguishes between activities which are immune and activities which are not immune because they contradict other constitutional principles and rights. The principle of inviolability results from Constitutional Law #3 of 1993, which revoked

6144-447: The law is published in the official gazette by the Ministry of Justice and enters into force after the vacatio legis (15 days unless otherwise specified). The rigidity of the Constitution is ensured by the special procedure required to amend it. With the same procedure, Parliament can adopt a constitutional law, which is a law with the same strength as the Constitution. This process is referred to as iter legis aggravato , that is,

6240-407: The law upon proposal of the bill to Parliament. The Senate comprises 200 members elected by universal suffrage and by citizens who are 18 or older. Out of the total number, according to the Rosatellum bis : In addition to the elected members, the Senate, as per article 59 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic , also comprises senators for life as discussed above. The Senate is elected on

6336-463: The nation and performs their functions without limitation by a mandate." The members are considered to receive a general mandate from the whole electorate, which cannot be revoked by the initiative of the individual electoral district which elected them, nor by their political party. This general mandate is not subject to judicial review, only political review through constitutionally defined methods (mainly elections and referendums). Article 68 lays down

6432-430: The new Italian democratic constitution was decisive. The Gullo decrees of 1944, named after Fausto Gullo , sought to improve social and economic conditions in the countryside. During Badoglio and Ferruccio Parri 's cabinets, Togliatti served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy . During the Resistance, the PCI became increasingly popular, as the majority of partisans were communists. The Garibaldi Brigades , promoted by

6528-410: The new party were L'Ordine Nuovo, based in Turin and led by Antonio Gramsci , and the Maximalist faction led by Nicola Bombacci . Amadeo Bordiga was elected secretary of the new party. The party was officially founded as the Communist Party of Italy – Section of the Communist International ( Partito Comunista d'Italia – Sezione dell'Internazionale Comunista ), since the Comintern was structured as

6624-430: The new version of the bill must be returned to the first chamber to approve these changes. If the bill repeats this process many times it is said to be "shuttling" or " dribbling ." This procedure is obligatory for bills which concern constitutional and electoral matters, the delegation of legislative power, the authorisation of the ratification of international treaties , the approval of the budget . In all other cases,

6720-485: The official political line and refused to support the final report. Unexpectedly to his hosts, his speech challenged the communist leadership in Moscow. He refused to excommunicate the Chinese Communist Party and directly told Brezhnev that the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , which he called "the tragedy in Prague", had made clear the considerable differences within the communist movement on fundamental questions, such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and

6816-421: The official publication of Lega Lombarda. Subsequently, he refused to participate to the founding process of Lega Nord and UP started its decline. In the 1990 regional election , UP won 2.3% of the vote and Gremmo was elected to the Regional Council, while PA gained 5.1% and three regional councillors. For the 1992 general election , Gremmo transformed the party into Lega Alpina Piemont (LAP), sister-party of

6912-595: The party in case of such an event. The KGB drew up and implemented a plan to provide the PCI with its own intelligence and clandestine signal corps. From 1967 through 1973, PCI members were sent to East Germany and Moscow to receive training in clandestine warfare and information gathering techniques by both the Stasi and the KGB. Shortly before the 1972 Italian general election , Longo personally wrote to Leonid Brezhnev asking for and receiving an additional $ 5.7 million in funding. This

7008-618: The party led a campaign against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War . The party and communist partisans, among others, then went on to play a major role in the resistance movement that led to the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy . On 15 May 1943, the party changed its official name to the Italian Communist Party ( Partito Comunista Italiano ), often shortened to PCI. This change was not surprising as PCI started being used as

7104-511: The party strived to organise itself on some bases that were not a mere reproduction of the traditional parties' bases. It then took again some arguments that distinguished the battle within the PSI, namely the idea that it is necessary to form an environment fiercely hostile to bourgeois society and that is an anticipation of the future socialist society. The purpose of this was not considered utopian because already in this society, especially in production, some structures are born on future results. In

7200-403: The party's acronym around 1924–1925. This name change also reflected a change in the Comintern's role—it increasingly became a federation of national communist parties. This trend accelerated after Lenin's death and its new name emphasised the party's shift from an international focus to an Italian one. At the time, it was a hotly contested issue for the two major factions of the party. On one side,

7296-474: The power of the President of the Senate to exercise the functions of the President of the Republic when the latter is indisposed. Joint sessions take place for the following matters explicitly established by the Constitution: There is debate among legal scholars about whether the Parliament in joint session can make its own standing orders. Most scholars think it can, by analogy with the regulation of

7392-499: The principles of immunity ( insindacabilità ) and inviolability ( inviolabilità ), stating that "the members of parliament cannot be called to account for the opinions they express or the votes that they cast in the exercise of their functions" and that "without the permission of the chamber to which they belong, no member of parliament can be subjected to a body search or a search of their home, nor can they be arrested or otherwise stripped of their personal freedom, or imprisoned, except in

7488-518: The propriety of his decision. He would eventually write in From the Communist Party to European Socialism. A Political Autobiography ( Dal Pci al socialismo europeo. Un'autobiografia politica ) that he regretted his justification of the Soviet intervention but quieted his concerns at the time for the sake of party unity and the international leadership of Soviet Communism . Giolitti and Nenni went on to split with

7584-415: The question can respond to say whether or not the answer is satisfactory. In injunctions, a fact is noted with a request for the reasons for the conduct of the Government and its future intentions. The process is done by writing. If the member who filed the injunction is not satisfied with the response, they can present a motion to hold a debate in the Parliament. The provision of political direction embodies

7680-510: The relationship of trust which is meant to exist between Parliament and the Government. It takes the form of confidence votes and votes of no confidence. These can be held concerning the entire Government or an individual minister. Other means of providing political direction include motions, resolutions, and day-orders giving instruction to the Government. Under Article 82 of the Constitution , "each chamber can undertake inquests into matters of public interest. For this purpose, they should appoint

7776-540: The replacement of the monarchy with a republic, after 54% of the votes were in favour and 46% against. Luciano Canfora saw the Salerno Turn and 1944 as a rebirth of the PCI, and said "the PCI had gradually followed a path which required it, as a historical task, to occupy the space of social democracy in the Italian political panorama." As part of the May 1947 crises , the PCI was excluded from government. Alcide De Gasperi ,

7872-407: The review (with a vote) article by article, and finally a vote on the whole bill, which is normally an open ballot (secret ballots are possible for matters of individual conscience). If the bill passes the vote in one chamber then it passes to the other chamber of the parliament, where it must be voted through without any further changes. If the other chamber does make any modifications to the bill then

7968-407: The same time both a senator and a deputy; regarding presidents and vice-presidents, the precedence is given to the older one. The number of deputies and senators was fixed by a constitutional amendment in 1963: in its original text, the Constitution provided for a variable number of Members of Parliament depending on the population. From 1963 to 2022, the Chamber of Deputies had 630 members, while

8064-448: The seats allocated using a majoritarian system (single-member districts; first-past-the-post ), and the remaining about two-thirds (63%) of the seats allocated using a proportional system (multi-member districts; D'Hondt method ), with one round of voting. This electoral law is colloquially known as the Rosatellum bis , or simply Rosatellum , after Ettore Rosato , member of the Chamber of Deputies for Italia Viva , first signatory of

8160-466: The split led by Farassino, Mario Borghezio and Renzo Rabellino , who formed Autonomist Piedmont (PA). In 1989 Bossi welcomed both UP and PA into his Lega Lombarda – Alleanza Nord coalition for the European Parliament election . Gremmo refused to join forces again with Farassino and Borghezio, who were separatists while he was a federalist, and resigned from editor of Lombardia Autonomista ,

8256-415: The structure of their organisation, and the fact that they had been victims of systematic repression by the authorities; more than three quarters of the political prisoners between 1926 and 1943 were communists. Throughout the dictatorship, the party was able to maintain and feed a clandestine network, distribute propaganda leaflets and newspapers, and infiltrate fascist unions and youth organisations. In 1935,

8352-462: The support of about a third of the vote share during the 1970s. At the time, it was the largest Communist party in the Western world , with peak support reaching 2.3 million members in 1947, and peak share being 34.4% of the vote (12.6 million votes) in the 1976 Italian general election . The PCI was part of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and the Italian government from 1944 to 1947, when

8448-532: The time and the largest party at all in the whole of Western Europe with the Social Democratic Party of Germany . United States government sources said that the party was receiving $ 40–50 million per year from the Soviets when their investment in Italy was $ 5–6 million. Although the PCI relied on Soviet financial assistance more than any other Communist party supported by Moscow, declassified information shows this to be exaggerated. According to

8544-402: The vote of one tenth of the members of the Chamber in which the bill was originally proposed, by a vote of one fifth of the members of the committee, or by the decision of the Government. There are special procedures for the passage of laws granting emergency powers , the annual law incorporating EU law, annual financial laws (such as the budget), and the passage of laws under urgency. Once

8640-419: The votes in the absence of much of the Left, who were unable to attend as a result of fascist controls and lack of Comintern support. Recourse to the Comintern against this evident manoeuvre had little effect. The PCd'I as conceived by the Left terminated. The organisation continued with the support of the Comintern and a new structure and leadership. In 1922, the newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo was closed and in 1924

8736-487: The whole day helped working parents. The electoral results of the PCI in general ( Chamber of Deputies ) and European Parliament elections since 1946 are shown in the chart above. Italian Parliament Opposition (87) Opposition (157) The Italian Parliament ( Italian : Parlamento italiano ) is the national parliament of the Italian Republic . It is the representative body of Italian citizens and

8832-459: Was Bologna , which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards. Amongst other measures, the local PCI administration tackled urban problems with successful programmes of health for the elderly, nursery education and traffic reform, while also undertaking initiatives in housing and school meal provisions. Communist administrations at a local level helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. From 1946 to 1956,

8928-633: Was in part due to the entrance of almost the whole Socialist Youth Federation ( Federazione Giovanile Socialista ). The party adopted a slim structure headed by a Central Committee of 15 members, five of whom were also in the Executive Committee (EC), namely Ambrogio Belloni, Nicola Bombacci, Amadeo Bordiga (EC), Bruno Fortichiari (EC), Egidio Gennari , Antonio Gramsci, Ruggero Grieco (EC), Anselmo Marabini, Francesco Misiano , Giovanni Parodi, Luigi Polano, Luigi Repossi (EC), Cesare Sessa, Ludovico Tarsia, and Umberto Terracini (EC). Since its formation,

9024-475: Was on top of the $ 3.5 million that the Soviet Union gave the PCI in 1971. The Soviets also provided additional funding through the use of front organisations providing generous contracts to PCI members. In 1969, Enrico Berlinguer , the PCI deputy national secretary and later secretary general, took part in the international conference of the communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with

9120-532: Was removed from the party statute and the PCI adhered to the Eurocommunist trend, seeking independence from the Soviet Union and moving into a democratic socialist direction. In 1991, it was dissolved and re-launched as the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which joined the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists . The more radical members of the organisation formally seceded to establish

9216-414: Was the opposite, and is linked to the principle of equality (article 3) and the prohibition on imperative mandate (article 67). The national elections for the renewal of members of the Senate of the Republic and Chamber of Deputies are regulated by Law n. 165 of 3 November 2017. It introduces a mixed electoral system in the form of parallel voting (mixed-member majoritarian), with about one-third (37%) of

#784215