Communist Party of Italy - Bolshevization

Bolshevization

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 of the party to the minority center which had aligned with the position of Moscow.

In 1924-25, the Comintern began the campaign of "Bolshevization" which forced every party to conform itself to the discipline and orders of Moscow. In May 1924, during the clandestine conference in Como held to ratify the party leadership. of the 45 secretaries of sections, 35 more the Youth Federation’s one vote for Bordiga’s Left, 4 for Gramsci’s Centre and 5 for Tasca’s Right.

In 1926, before the Llyon Congress, the Center won almost all the votes due to the absence of most of the members of the Left delegates who were unable to attend because of the fascist controls and the lack of support of the Comintern (clandestine movements). A recourse to the Comintern against the evident maneuver had no effect.

The PCd’I, as conceived by the Sinistra Comunista (Communist Left), terminated. The organization continued with the support of the Communist International and a new structure and a new leading group. In 1922, the newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo was closed, and in 1924 the new central newspaper L'Unità, directed by Gramsci, was started. The Communist Left continued as a fraction principally functioning in exile. It published the newspaper Bilan, the Monthly Theoretical Bulletin of the Italian Fraction of the Communist left.

In 1926, Bordiga and Gramsci were arrested and imprisoned on the island of Ustica. In 1927, Palmiro Togliatti was elected secretary in the place of Gramsci, who was imprisoned. In 1930, Bordiga was expelled from the CI, accused of “Trotskyism”.

In 1943, Stalin dissolved the Communist International, and the exiled members of the PCd’I in Moscow on 15 May changed the party's name to Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI). With this name, it reorganized in Italy and after the fall of Fascism became a parliamentary party.