Enrico Berlinguer - Analysis

Analysis

Enrico Berlinguer has been defined in many ways, but he was generally recognised for political coherence and a certain courage, together with a rare personal and political intelligence. A serious man, he was sincerely respected even by his opponents, and his three days' agony was followed with great attention by the general population. His funeral was followed by a large number of people, perhaps among the highest ever seen in Rome.

The most important political act of his career in the PCI was undoubtedly the dramatic break with Soviet Communism, the so-called strappo, together with the creation of Eurocommunism, and his substantial work towards contact with the moderate (and particularly the catholic) half of the country.

Berlinguer nevertheless had many enemies. An internal opposition in the PCI claimed that he had turned a workers' party into a sort of bourgeois revisionist club. External opposition figures noted that strappo took several years to be completed; this was seen as evidence that there had been no definitive decision on the point. The acceptance of NATO is however generally seen as evidence of the genuine autonomy of the PCI's position.

All the work of Berlinguer, however, even if supported by a notably successful Communist local governments, was unable to bring the PCI into the government. Berlinguer's final platform, the "democratic alternative," was never translated into reality. Within a decade of his death the Soviet Union, the Christian Democrats and the PCI all disappeared, transforming Italian politics beyond recognition.