Ricerc@Sapienza

The ‘friend–enemy’ relation represented an essential ideological mainstay
of the thought and action of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in the years of
republican Italy. This relation goes back to the aftermath of World War I when
Soviet communism became established as a global revolutionary movement.
The PCI’s strategy of delegitimation of political opponents underwent substantial
changes over the years of republican Italy. The long period spanning Togliatti and
Berlinguer’s leadership of the party saw a change in political culture destined
to alter the very nature of the ‘friend–enemy’ relation. Particularly in the 1970s,
with the so-called ‘moral question’, a new antiparty public discourse became
established and was implemented mainly against the parties in government. This
paved the way to a more radical and absolute logic of enmity that, in the long run,
overwhelmed the PCI itself in the dramatic transition from First to Second Republic.