The memory of Enrico Berlinguer

Enrico Berlinguer began his political rise in the PCI in the second half of the 1950s, when the process of Stalinization was underway following the stance taken by the new secretary Khrushchev. These are the years of Soviet repression in Hungary, when the Soviet model begins to show its cracks and sees its credibility undermined. Then, in 1969, Berlinguer was appointed deputy secretary of the party and that same year, in Moscow, he participated in the international conference of communist parties. In 1972, Enrico Berlinguer was appointed General Secretary of the party and in a short time led the PCI towards goals that were previously unthinkable. Forty years after his death, Paolo Mieli and Professor Silvio Pons analyze his figure on “Pasto e Presente”, broadcast on Tuesday 11 June at 1.15pm on Rai 3 and at 8.30pm on Rai Storia. In the 1976 elections, the PCI reached its historic peak, garnering 34.4 percent of the vote. At the beginning of 1978, the programmatic agreement between communists and Christian Democrats, made possible by the dialogue begun a few years ago between Berlinguer and Aldo Moro, seems increasingly closer to its realization. But Moro’s kidnapping and assassination deal a mortal blow to the political project of the historical compromise. The season of the Democratic Alternative begins for the PCI. Berlinguer places himself in opposition to Christian Democratic politics not only by proposing a different economic-social model of development, but also by denouncing the cronyism and malfeasance of the parties, placing the so-called “moral question” at the center of the political debate.
“Enrico Berlinguer 1972 – 1984” by Enrico Salvatori is also dedicated to Enrico Berlinguer, a collage of his statements to the Rai news in the twelve years in which he led the PCI as secretary, broadcast at 6.10pm on Rai Storia. The Special ends with images of the crowd at his funeral in San Giovanni.