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.