General election in Italy in 1958
The parliamentary elections of 1958 , which took place on May 25th , were the fourth after the end of fascism in Italy and the introduction of equal women and men suffrage. Over 32 million Italians were called upon to elect a new parliament.
To the background
The majority party DC consisted of very different correnti (dt. Wings), which had their regional strongholds, and its center majority (DC, PSDI, PLI, PRI) had no safe majorities. There were differing views on which parties to open up to. If the right-wing correnti considered tolerating the right-wing extremist monarchists or fascists (which was supported by the CIA , which even contemplated a right-wing military dictatorship for fear of an alleged communist takeover), the Christian social or social liberal one stood Wing for an opening to the PSI . Amintore Fanfani (DC), who had been Prime Minister from January 18 to February 10, 1954 , relied on centro-sinistra (center-left), for which he also received the votes of the centrist correnti , because it also constituted an alliance between socialists and wanted to break communists and so could isolate the communists; Aldo Moro , who later became Prime Minister , was already pursuing the goal of (re) integrating the Communists (PCI).
After the XX. CPSU party congress (February 1956), at which Khrushchev settled accounts with Stalinism , and after the suppression of the Hungarian popular uprising , the PSI under Pietro Nenni followed a more moderate course: had the PSI previously been no less left than the PCI and differed from the PCI Essentially only in the fact that he did not subordinate himself unconditionally to the CPSU , but certainly aimed for a common front for action with the pro-Soviet left, the crisis in the Soviet Union or in the Eastern bloc offered itself , like almost all other socialist / social democratic parties in Western Europe, a reformist one and to take a pro-western course (examples of this and the following splits are: the Godesberg program (1959) for the SPD , the TPSL (1959) for the SDP , the PSA (1958) for the SPIO, and the SP the fifth party program (1959)). There was no longer any collaboration with the PCI. There was also a crisis within the PCI, as criticism of Soviet communism was voiced and many intellectuals left the party. The party leadership responded by announcing a democratic “Italian path to socialism”, which can be seen as the forerunner of later Eurocommunism .
consequences
Until 1962, under Fernando Tambroni , the DC experimented with centro-destra (center-right), which happened after the planned party congress of the MSI in June 1960 in the anti-fascist and “red” stronghold of Genoa and the associated demonstrations (which successfully prevented the party congress ), she allowed herself to be tolerated by the socialists in a center-left coalition from then on.
Results
| Political party | Number of votes | Mandates |
|---|---|---|
| Democrazia Cristiana (DC) | 42.4% | 273 |
| Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) | 22.7% | 140 |
| Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) | 14.2% | 84 |
| Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) | 4.8% | 24 |
| Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano (PSDI) | 4.6% | 22nd |
| Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI) | 3.5% | 17th |
| Partito Monarchico Popolare (PMP) | 2.6% | 13 |
| Partito Nazionale Monarchico (PNM) | 2.2% | 11 |
| Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) and Partito Radicale (PR) | 1.4% | 6th |
| Movimento Comunità | 0.6% | 1 |
| South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) | 0.5% | 3 |
| Union Valdôtaine (UV) | 0.1% | 1 |
| Others | 0.5% | - |
Individual evidence
- ^ Friederike Hausmann: Brief history of Italy. From 1943 to the post-Berlusconi era , Berlin 2006, pp. 50–66.
literature
- Canfora, Luciano: Turning point 1956: de-Stalinization, Suez crisis, Hungarian uprising, Cologne 2012.
- Hausmann, Friederike: Brief History of Italy: From 1943 to the era after Berlusconi, Berlin 2006.
