Il rincontro: Altiero Spinelli ed il PCI fra gli anni Settanta ed Ottanta

Abstract

This paper analyses the last years of Altiero Spinelli’s political trajectory, focusing on the European federalist leader’s rapprochement with the PCI in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Starting positions were far apart: the Italian Communists had arrived at Europeanism after a long reflection influenced by the coordinates of the Cold War; Spinelli, persuaded in the past that the PCI would never fully embrace that view, accepted to confront a world, that of Berlinguer’s PCI, which, at least from the inside, was unknown to him. The research, in addition to bibliographic sources, is largely based on the personal archival papers of the federalist leader, some of his publications and the archive and press of the PCI.