Guido Liguori is the president of the International Gramsci Society Italia.
Polls for Italy’s September 25 general election suggest the far right is coasting to victory. Its center-left opposition is weak and divided — showing what happens to a Left that grows apart from its working-class base.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascent stirred enthusiasm among Italy’s Communists, who had long dreamed of reform in Moscow. The Soviet leader was inspired by the Italians’ more democratic, pluralistic approach to Communism. His failure would doom Eurocommunism, as well.
Born 100 years ago today, Italian communist Enrico Berlinguer grew up under Fascist dictatorship. In postwar decades, he became leader of Europe’s biggest Communist Party — and an iconoclastic champion of a democratic path to socialism.