The Italian Marxist–Leninist Party (, PMLI) is a political party in Italy. Founded in Florence on 9 April 1977 as an anti-revisionist Communist party, the leading core of the PMLI began their political activity as they joined the Communist Party of Italy (Marxist–Leninist) (PCd'I (ml)) in 1967. The group broke away from the PCd'I (ml) in 1969 and formed the Marxist–Leninist Italian Bolshevik Communist Organization (, OCBIml). In 1977, the OCBIml was transformed into the PMLI. The party's general secretary is Giovanni Scuderi. Its official newspaper is called Il Bolscevico (The Bolshevik). During its history, the PMLI has not taken part in any national, European, or local election.
The PMLI is opposed to bourgeois democracy and during political elections carries out pro-abstention propaganda. It is a Communist party loyal to the teachings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. This movement strives for a proletarian revolution and the establishment of a socialist Italy. The PMLI believes that Maoism is the highest stage of the workers' movement. As a Soviet leader, Stalin is held in high regard within the party due to his construction of the first socialist country, the Soviet Union, and his encouragement of the creation of the other socialist countries of Eastern Europe that became the Eastern Bloc. Consequently, the PMLI refuses Trotskyism, believing it to be an extremist and anti-communist diversion from Marxism–Leninism. Furthermore, it views the 1936 Soviet Constitution as example of the existence of socialism, and considers China under Mao to have been the last socialist country.
History Background and establishment of the OCBIml and Il Bolscevico The first founders of the PMLI, which the party describes as "the four pioneers", began their Marxist–Leninist militancy in 1967, when they joined the PCd'I (ml). They were Giovanni Scuderi, Mino Pasca, Nerina "Lucia" Paoletti, and Patrizia Pierattini. In 1969, one of the densest years of the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China, they and other followers denounced the PCd'I (ml), of which they served as the Leninist wing, as a revisionist party judged to be the left-wing cover of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). On 14 December 1969, Scuderi, Pasca, Paoletti, and Pierattini, alongside the provincial committee of Florence, left the PCd'I (ml) and established the OCBIml. The next day, the OCBIml published the first issue of the official newspaper, a two-page monthly magazine named Il Bolscevico. In October 1972, the organ of the OCBIml came out in four pages. In February 1976, it became an 8-page fortnightly. It further expanded in March 1978 and April 1984 when it became an 8-page and 10-page weekly, respectively. In January 1986, after a decision of the party's third congress, it came out at 12 pages. By April 2004, it further expanded to 16 pages.
In the first issue of Il Bolscevico, which was dense of quotes of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, the OCBIml wrote that "Chairman Mao has often said that 'without destruction there is not construction. The destruction is the criticism, the revolution. The destruction comes first, it of course brings the construction.' By the destruction of the PCd'I (ml) of Florence, the Marxist–Leninist Italian Bolshevik Communist Organization arose on completely Marxist–Leninist foundations. It seeks to build the revolutionary party that assumes Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought as the theoretical foundation that leads its thought." After its founding, the OCBIml's goal was mainly to accumulate the forces to create a revolutionary party. To achieve its goal, the OCBIml immediately launched itself in the student and workers revolts of the 1960s and 1970s, carrying out an abstentionist propaganda and denouncing those who they term false communists and Marxists–Leninists, including the PCI, which the PMLI considers to have been a reformist party since what came to be known as the Salerno turning point of 1944.
The late 1960s and early 1970s were difficult years for the OCBIml, mainly for the lack of funds. About those years in the history of the party, Scuderi said: "When we began the struggle for the Party we've not a pen, nor a chair, nor a brush, nor headquarters. Subsequently we rented a foul building of Florence of four rooms inhabited by mouses, cockroaches, and spiders that we restored during the summer holidays of 1968. We removed the bread by our mouths to give a newspaper and a minimum of equipment to the Party and when we could we gave a contribution to the brother parties in worse situation of ours." In 1970, the OCBIml was officially recognized by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese embassy in Rome invited the leaders of the OCBIml to the official holidays of China, while the OCBIml sent some messages to the Chinese Communists regarding the 10th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1973. The OCBIml sent condolences when Zhou Enlai and Zhu De died. The OCBIml had a wreath near the corpse of Mao on 18 September 1976 when the funerals finished. Unlike the PCd'I (ml) and alongside the Communist Party of Italy (Marxist–Leninist) of Osvaldo Pesce, it was among the few Italian Marxist–Leninist groups that did not break with the new Chinese leadership of Hua Guofeng.
Establishment of the PMLI After having gathered dozen of militants of Tuscany, Lombardy, Sicily, and Calabria, the OCBIml established the PMLI in 1977. From 9 April to 11 April 1977, it was held in Florence the founding congress of the PMLI. During this congress, the constitution, the programme, the symbol (black hammer and sickle and Mao's head), and the party anthems were adopted. Scuderi was unanimously acclaimed as general secretary, and has remained the party's general secretary since then. For the PMLI, the date of the founding congress ideally represents the beginning of a new phase for the Italian working class. The PMLI argues that the first phase (1882–1921) was dominated by reformism of the Italian Socialist Party, while the second phase was dominated by revisionism of the PCI and pursued by its heirs, such as the Democratic Party of the Left and the Party of Communist Refoundation, with the latter being defined as a "counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist–Leninist operation", as well as the Party of Italian Communists and Marco Rizzo's Communist Party. The party argues that the third phase should be dominated by the Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought with the development of a nationally based PMLI.
Political and organizational Long March The PMLI had five congresses in 1977, 1982, 1985, 1998, and 2008, all of which were held in Florence, where the central party headquarters are located. Since its establishment, the PMLI began a complex political work; it wanted to gain more and more workers and students, and to pursue its abstaining electoral campaign. Through this work, new party centres were created, and the PMLI came to be present in almost every region of Italy; it is particularly rooted in the South. Many cells were created, among them J. Stalin (Forlì), Red Vesuvio (Naples), Mao Zedong (Milan), and Mao (Enna). The party's anthem is "Il Sole Rosso" ("The Red Sun"); the party also uses "The Internationale" and "Bandiera rossa" as anthems.
The first congress, which established the party, was held on 9–11 April 1977. The second congress was held on 6–8 November 1982, and its document was titled Avanti sulla via dell'Ottobre ("Forward on the October [Revolution] Road"). The third congress was held on 27–29 December 1985; the congress document was named Il socialismo è l'avvenire della classe operaia e dei lavoratori italiani ("Socialism Is the Future of the Working Class and Italian Workers"). The fourth congress was held on 26–28 December 1998, and its document was named Costruiamo un grande, forte e radicato PMLI per combattere la seconda repubblica neofascista, presidenzialista e federalista e realizzare l'Italia unita, rossa e socialista ("Let's Build a Large, Strong, and Rooted PMLI to Fight the Neo-Fascist, Presidentialist, and Federalist Second Republic and Create a United, Red, and Socialist Italy"). The party's fifth congress was held on 6–8 December 2008 under the name Avanti con forza e fiducia verso l'Italia unita, rossa e socialista ("Forward with Strength and Confidence Towards a United, Red, and Socialist Italy").
Popular Unity On 1 July 2022, the PMLI, together with other far-left parties and organizations (Confederation of the Italian Left, Atheist Democracy, Inventing the Future, The Future City, Italian Communist Party, and CARC Party), became part of the Popular Unity coordination, with the aim of elaborating and implementing common and shared initiatives and proposals. Due to different views about the Russo-Ukrainian War, which the PMLI condemned as a Russian imperialist war, there was a break between the PMLI and the CARC party. The PMLI argued that this should not stop the aim of unity of anti-capitalist forces.
Ideology According to its statute, the PMLI is "the conscious and organized vanguard of the Italian proletariat, the political party of the working class, that leads the immediate and partial struggles as well as the general and long-term struggles of the entire class and Italy's broad people's masses, and carries the socialist revolution on to complete victory." The party subscribes to a communism that has its theoretical basis in what the PMLI calls Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought. The party statute says: "The Party takes Marxism–Leninism–Mao Thought as the theoretical basis guiding its ideological, political, organizational and practical orientation." The PMLI also has a political programme, which is known as the party's action programme and is updated through the years, including the issue of climate change that for the party must be linked as part of class politics and in support of socialism, with almost six hundred policy proposals. As a Communist party, its political programme says: "The fundamental program of the Italian Marxist–Leninist Party is to lead the proletariat to the conquest of political power, overthrow the bourgeois dictatorship, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and ensure the complete triumph of socialism over capitalism. The ultimate goal of the Party is the realization of communism."
As Marxist–Leninists, the PMLI cites Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (Marxism), Vladimir Lenin (Leninism), Joseph Stalin (Marxism–Leninism), and Mao Zedong (Maoism), who are named "the five teachers of the international proletariat", as the party's ideological inspirations. The PMLI strives for a "united, red, and socialist Italy". Other party's ideological characteristics include anti-imperialism, anti-revisionism, proletarian internationalism, anti-racism, and anti-fascism, which the PMLI links to anti-capitalism; the party opposes xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, seeing racism in divide and rule terms as "a tool in the hands of the bosses to divide the workers because a divided class is weak but a united class is strong and scary." The PMLI is critical of Third Way and degrowth theories. It also supports lowering the voting age to 16 for national elections and 14 for local elections. On social issues, it is supportive of gender equality and women's rights, including abortion rights and defence of the abortion law in Italy against anti-abortion movements, through Marxist feminist lens. It is also supportive of LGBT rights, including egalitarian marriage, surrogacy, and trans rights; the party opposes discrimination against LGBT people, and it is critical of those who see social rights as being in opposition to civil rights, citing examples of LGBT individuals, such as Dolce & Gabbana, opposing LGBT rights.
Political theories and positions