Meliorism (politics)
Encyclopedia
Meliorism was a wing of the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

. Its leader was Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano is an Italian politician who has been the 11th President of Italy since 2006. A long-time member of the Italian Communist Party and later the Democrats of the Left, he served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994 and as Minister of the Interior from 1996 to...

, and counted among its number Gerardo Chiaromonte
Gerardo Chiaromonte
Gerardo Chiaromonte was an Italian Communist politician, journalist and writer.-Biography:He was born in Naples into a poor family from Roccanova, a small village in the province of Potenza...

 and Emanuele Macaluso. It was also referred to as the "right wing" of the Italian Communist Party, due to its more moderate views.

Origins

The name derives from the Italian verb migliorare (to improve), because its main goal was to improve the Italian capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 system from the inside, by means of gradual reforms, according to a social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 policy, rather than full scale revolution. Its origins lay in the ideas of Giorgio Amendola
Giorgio Amendola
Giorgio Amendola was an Italian writer and politician.Born in Rome in 1907, he was the son of Lithuanian intellectual Eva Kuhn and Giovanni Amendola, a liberal anti-fascist who died in 1926 in Cannes after having been attacked by killers hired by Benito Mussolini...

, a prominent MP and member of the communist party during the period post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, who thought about gradually abandoning Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 in order to embrace social democratic and reformist theories. These ideas were suited to making alliances with more moderate left-wing parties, such as the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

 and the Italian Social Democratic Party
Italian Social Democratic Party
The Italian Democratic Social Party was a social-liberal political party in Italy.It was formed for the 1919 general election by the union of the Constitutional Democratic Party with several other parties of the liberal left...

.

Meliorism received extensive derogatory treatment from the left wing of the Communist Party, headed by Pietro Ingrao
Pietro Ingrao
Pietro Ingrao is an Italian politician, and was for many years a senior figure in the Italian Communist Party .-Political career:Ingrao was born at Lenola, in the province of Latina....

. They received some modest support from the pro-Soviet wing of the party, headed by Armando Cossutta
Armando Cossutta
-Life:Born in Milan, Cosutta joined the Italian Communist Party in 1943, and took part in the Italian resistance movement as a partisan. After World War II, he became one of the leading members of the party, representing the most pro-Soviet Union tendency; his belief in that country as the...

.

During the 80s there were frequent conflicts between the secretary of the Communist Party Enrico Berlinguer
Enrico Berlinguer
Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 until his death.-Early career:...

 and the meliorists, the latter criticizing Berlinguer's renunciation of the historic compromise
Historic Compromise
In Italian history, the Historic Compromise was an accommodation between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party in the 1970s, after the latter embraced eurocommunism under Enrico Berlinguer. The 1978 assassination of DC leader Aldo Moro put an end to the Compromesso storico...

 and his hostility to Bettino Craxi
Bettino Craxi
Benedetto Craxi was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.-Political career:...

. They believed that the party was leaving to Craxi's Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

 the monopoly of modernity in politics, failing to acknowledge the changes that had occurred in Italy. According to some critics, Bettino Craxi
Bettino Craxi
Benedetto Craxi was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.-Political career:...

, the head of the PSI, used the meliorist wing as a tool to hamper Berlinguer.

During Tangentopoli
Tangentopoli
Tangentopoli is a term which was coined to describe pervasive corruption in the Italian political system exposed in the 1992-6 Mani Pulite investigations, as well as the resulting scandal, which led to the collapse of the hitherto dominant Christian Democracy party and its allies.-Popular distrust...

 the meliorist wing of the Democratic Party of the Left
Democratic Party of the Left
The Democratic Party of the Left was a post-communist, democratic socialist political party in Italy.-History:...

, born in 1991 from the old Italian Communist Party, opposed Secretary Achille Occhetto
Achille Occhetto
Achille Occhetto , nicknamed Akel, is an Italian political figure.-Biography:Occhetto was born in Turin. He served as the secretary-general of the Italian Communist Party between 1988 and 1994 Achille Occhetto (born 3 March 1936), nicknamed Akel, is an Italian political figure.-Biography:Occhetto...

's policy of supporting the prosecutors. Some of the Milanese exponents of the meliorist wing, close to the Socialist Party, were arrested for corruption, but many of them were later discharged.

Meliorism today

The former meliorists, including Napolitano, became mainly members of the Democrats of the Left
Democrats of the Left
The Democrats of the Left was a social-democratic Italian political party and part of the Olive Tree electoral coalition, which merged with a number of centrist and leftist groups to form the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007...

, and were close to the positions of Piero Fassino
Piero Fassino
Pietro Franco "Piero" Fassino is an Italian politician with the Democratic Party, the current Mayor of Turin and a former national secretary of the Democrats of the Left party.-Biography:...

 and especially Enrico Morando. Il Riformista
Il Riformista
Il Riformista is an Italian political and financial newspaper, based in Rome, Italy.- History :Launched on 23 October 2002, initially the newspaper was formed of about four pages with Orange as main colour used....

, a left-oriented Italian newspaper, is a publication whose ideas are close to those of meliorism.

Some meliorists, like Massimo Ferlini, Lodovico Festa, Sandro Bondi
Sandro Bondi
Sandro Bondi is an Italian politician of The People of Freedom. He was appointed on 8 May 2008 to be Culture Minister until March 23, 2011 in Silvio Berlusconi's fourth cabinet.-Biography:...

 have joined the Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....

.

Notable meliorists

  • Giorgio Napolitano
    Giorgio Napolitano
    Giorgio Napolitano is an Italian politician who has been the 11th President of Italy since 2006. A long-time member of the Italian Communist Party and later the Democrats of the Left, he served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994 and as Minister of the Interior from 1996 to...

  • Giorgio Amendola
    Giorgio Amendola
    Giorgio Amendola was an Italian writer and politician.Born in Rome in 1907, he was the son of Lithuanian intellectual Eva Kuhn and Giovanni Amendola, a liberal anti-fascist who died in 1926 in Cannes after having been attacked by killers hired by Benito Mussolini...

  • Emanuele Macaluso
  • Nilde Iotti
  • Giancarlo Pajetta
    Giancarlo Pajetta
    Giancarlo Pajetta was an Italian communist politician.Pajetta was born in Turin and become a member of the Italian Communist Party during his youth. In 1927 this caused him a condemn to two years of imprisonment...

  • Luciano Lama
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