40 years from the death of Enrico Berlinguer. It was the11 June 1984 when the historic secretary of the Communist Party died, after suffering a stroke at the end of the electoral campaign for the European elections in Padua. Millions of citizens attended the funeral of one of the most beloved leaders of the Italian left in Rome. In Piazza Venezia, there were politicians and personalities from all over the world lining up to pay homage to the body. Among these, also the leader of the right Giorgio Almirante, who went to pay homage to his political opponent, calling him an "honest man".
Enrico Berlinguer, youth in Sardinia and joining the Italian Communist Party
Born in Sassari on 25 May 1922, after the Azuni classical high school, in 1940 he enrolled in the Faculty of Law. In August 1943 he joined the PCI and it was the beginning of his political commitment, with participation in the anti-fascist struggles. In January 1944 he was arrested on charges of being the main instigator of the bread demonstrations and remained in prison for four months. In September he moved to Rome and then to Milan.
Enrico Berlinguer, the beginning of his political career
In January 1948, he joined the party leadership, later becoming general secretary of the Communist Youth Federation. He is a tireless man who his friends describe as shy and introverted. In 1956 he left the youth organization and the following year he married Letizia Laurenti. In 1958 Berlinguer joined the party secretariat, establishing an important relationship with Palmiro Togliatti. In 1968 he condemned her to the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia and broke it up. In 1969 in Moscow, at the international conference of communist parties, he openly declared the dissent of the Italian communists towards Stalinist politics.
The party secretariat and the "historic compromise"
Enrico Berlinguer, who became secretary of the PCI in the 70s, promoted a formula of collaboration between the great popular forces: thus the idea of the "historical compromise" was introduced, a strategy of collaboration between the main mass parties. For Berlinguer, 1976 was the year of the break with the Soviet Communist Party and the beginning of the so-called Eurocommunism.
The moral question
In 1981, in an interview with Eugenio Scalfari, Berlinguer accused the Italian political class of corruption, raising the so-called moral question and underlined the risk of citizens' rejection of politics. Struck by a stroke and died on 11 June 1984, in Padua, Berlinguer's funeral was attended by millions of citizens who said their last goodbyes.
Leave a comment (0)