The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism
Twenty years have passed since the Italian Communists’ last Congress in 1991, in which the death of their party was decreed. It was a deliberate death, accelerated by the desire for a “new beginning.” That new beginning never came, and the world lost an invaluable, complex political, organizational and theoretical heritage.

In this detailed and probing work, Lucio Magri, one of the towering intellectual figures of the Italian Left, assesses the causes for the demise of what was once one of the most powerful and vibrant communist parties of the West. The PCI marked almost a century of Italian history, from its founding in 1921 to the partisan resistance, the turning point of Salerno in 1944 to the de-Stalinization of 1956, the long ’68 to the “historic compromise,” and to the opportunity—missed forever—of democratic transformation.

With rigor and passion, The Tailor of Ulm merges an original and enlightening interpretation of Italian communism with the experience of a militant “heretic” into a riveting read—capable of broadening our insights into contemporary Italy, and the twentieth-century communist experience.
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The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism
Twenty years have passed since the Italian Communists’ last Congress in 1991, in which the death of their party was decreed. It was a deliberate death, accelerated by the desire for a “new beginning.” That new beginning never came, and the world lost an invaluable, complex political, organizational and theoretical heritage.

In this detailed and probing work, Lucio Magri, one of the towering intellectual figures of the Italian Left, assesses the causes for the demise of what was once one of the most powerful and vibrant communist parties of the West. The PCI marked almost a century of Italian history, from its founding in 1921 to the partisan resistance, the turning point of Salerno in 1944 to the de-Stalinization of 1956, the long ’68 to the “historic compromise,” and to the opportunity—missed forever—of democratic transformation.

With rigor and passion, The Tailor of Ulm merges an original and enlightening interpretation of Italian communism with the experience of a militant “heretic” into a riveting read—capable of broadening our insights into contemporary Italy, and the twentieth-century communist experience.
29.95 In Stock
The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism

The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism

The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism

The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism

Paperback(Reprint)

$29.95 
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Overview

Twenty years have passed since the Italian Communists’ last Congress in 1991, in which the death of their party was decreed. It was a deliberate death, accelerated by the desire for a “new beginning.” That new beginning never came, and the world lost an invaluable, complex political, organizational and theoretical heritage.

In this detailed and probing work, Lucio Magri, one of the towering intellectual figures of the Italian Left, assesses the causes for the demise of what was once one of the most powerful and vibrant communist parties of the West. The PCI marked almost a century of Italian history, from its founding in 1921 to the partisan resistance, the turning point of Salerno in 1944 to the de-Stalinization of 1956, the long ’68 to the “historic compromise,” and to the opportunity—missed forever—of democratic transformation.

With rigor and passion, The Tailor of Ulm merges an original and enlightening interpretation of Italian communism with the experience of a militant “heretic” into a riveting read—capable of broadening our insights into contemporary Italy, and the twentieth-century communist experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781786635549
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 08/13/2019
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 444
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lucio Magri joined the Italian Communist Party in the mid 1950s. In 1969, he was expelled from the PCI along with the group of dissidents who had founded the journal il manifesto. Active in the Independent Left and the peace movement over the next two decades, Magri became one of the leaders of Rifondazione Comunista in 1991 and the editor of la Rivista del manifesto.

A translator from Romanian, Spanish, German, French, and Italian, Patrick Camiller has translated many works, including Dumitru Tsepeneag’s Vain Art of the Fugue, The Necessary Marriage, and Hotel Europa.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Legacy 19

The burden of Communist man 20

The Gramsci genome 38

2 A Founding Act: The Salerno Turn 44

The Liberation 44

The national unity governments, 1944-7 52

The new party 56

3 On the Brink of the Third World War 61

The longer cold war 62

The great surprise 65

The new cold war 66

The invention of the Atlantic pact 72

4 The Communists and the New Cold War 79

Stalin's riposte 79

The Cominform error 83

The hard years 89

5 The Shock of the Twentieth Congress 102

The beginning of de-Stalinization 104

The Twentieth Congress and Khrushchev's Secret Speech 107

Poland or Hungary 114

6 The PCI and De-Stalinization 120

Togliatti and the Secret Speech 122

The second storm 128

The Eighth Congress 133

7 The Italian Case 138

The economic miracle 141

The labour revival 150

8 The Centre-Left 156

9 The PCI Facing Neocapitalism 167

Right and Left 167

Tendencies in neocapitalism 173

Development model and structural reforms 176

10 The Eleventh Congress 181

The legitimacy of dissent 181

USSR and China 188

11 Italy's Long Sixty-Eight 195

The centrality of the working class 197

Students and others around them 203

The Vatican Council 214

12 The PCI in 1968 220

Prologue 222

Prague remains alone 227

Party and movements 230

Longo, Berlinguer 235

The Purge of Il Manifesto 237

13 Towards the Endgame 244

The economic crisis 245

An unconsummated marriage 252

The first steps 253

14 Historic Compromise as a Strategy 259

15 From Apogee to Defeat 267

The dilemma of 1976 270

Failure of the grand coalition 276

Omissions, silences and lies 278

16 What Was Brewing in Italy 291

The downward miracle 291

17 What Was Brewing in the World 306

The last cold war 306

Crisis in the East 309

Kissinger, an evil genius 311

The new wind from the West 319

18 The Fateful Eighties 324

The second Berlinguer 326

The revival of class conflict 328

The moral question 333

The break 336

A provisional balance sheet 341

19 Natta, the Conciliator 348

20 Andropov, Gorbachev, Yeltsin 356

Perestroika 358

From Gorbachev to Yeltsin 363

21 The End of the PCI 368

The Occhetto operation 369

A surprising unanimity 371

The Bolognina turn: the ayes and the noes 373

Three splits 380

Envoi: A New Communist Identity 385

Development and nature 392

Abundance and poverty, needs and consumption 396

The question of work 401

The impotence of the sovereign 407

The party form 419

Index 428

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