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The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista d'Italia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that body's congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. In 1991 the PCI disbanded to form the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS), with membership in the Socialist International. The communist tendency, led by Armando Cossutta, left the party to form the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) or Communist Refoundation Party. In 1998 the PDS, with several smaller parties, the Laburisti (liberal socialists), the Cristiano Sociali (christian socialists), the Comunisti Unitari (right-wing split of the PRC), the Sinistra Repubblicana (left republicans) and the Riformatori per l'Europa (social democratic trade unionists), co-founded the "Democratici di Sinistra" (DS) or Democrats of the Left party. Later in the same year the Armando Cossutta tendency left the PRC to form the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (PdCI) or Party of Italian Communists.
History PCI contested the 1921 general election, obtaining 4.6% of the nationwide vote and 15 seats in the parliament. This as well as 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. In 1991 the Italian Communist Party split into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), led by Achille Occhetto, and the Communist Refoundation Party (Partito della Rifondazione Comunista), headed by Armando Cossutta. Occhetto, leader of the PCI since 1988, stunned the party faithful assembled in a working-class section of Bologna with a speech heralding the end of communism, a move now called in Italian politics the Bolognina. The collapse of the communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had convinced Occhetto that the era of eurocommunism was over, and he transformed the PCI into a progressive left-wing party, the PDS. Cossutta and a third of the PCI membership refused to join the PDS, and instead founded the Communist Refoundation Party. • See also | |||||||||||||||||||||
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