 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Italian. (July 2025)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Communist Refoundation Party Partito della Rifondazione Comunista | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Secretary | Maurizio Acerbo |
| Founder | Armando Cossutta |
| Founded | 6 January 1991 (as the "Committees for the Communist Refoundation") 12 December 1991 (creation of the Party List) |
| Split from | Italian Communist Party |
| Headquarters | Via degli Scialoja 3,Rome |
| Newspaper | Liberazione (1991–2014) Su la testa (since 2020) |
| Youth wing | Young Communists |
| Membership(2019[1]) | 11,496 |
| Ideology | Communism |
| Political position | Far-left[2][3][4][5][6][7] |
| National affiliation | AdP (1994–1995) Olive Tree (1996–1998; external support) Union (2004–2008) SA (2008) FdS (2009–2012) RC (2012–2013) AET (2014) PaP (2017–2018) The Left (2019) UP (2022–2024) PTD (2024) |
| European affiliation | Party of the European Left |
| European Parliament group | European United Left–Nordic Green Left (1995–2009, 2014–2019) |
| International affiliation | IMCWP |
| Colours | Red |
| Anthem | Bandiera Rossa ("Red flag") |
| Chamber of Deputies | 0 / 400 |
| Senate | 0 / 205 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 76 |
| Regional Councils | 0 / 896 |
| Party flag | |
 | |
| Website | |
| home.rifondazione.eu/#gsc.tab=0 | |
TheCommunist Refoundation Party (Italian:Partito della Rifondazione Comunista,abbr.PRC) is acommunist[8][9]political party in Italy that emerged from a split of theItalian Communist Party (PCI) in 1991. The party's secretary isMaurizio Acerbo, who replacedPaolo Ferrero in 2017.Armando Cossutta was the party's founder, whileFausto Bertinotti its longest-serving leader (1994–2008). The latter transformed the PRC from a traditionalcommunist party into a collection of radicalsocial movements.
The PRC is a member of theParty of the European Left (PEL), of which Bertinotti was the inaugural president in 2004. The PRC has not been represented in theItalian Parliament since 2008, but had amember of theEuropean Parliament,Eleonora Forenza, who sat with theEuropean United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in 2014–2019.
In February 1991, when theItalian Communist Party (PCI) was transformed into theDemocratic Party of the Left (PDS) under the leadership ofAchille Occhetto, left-wing dissidents led byArmando Cossutta launched the Movement for Communist Refoundation. Hardliners in PCI were not happy about the changes made inside the party after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Later that year,Proletarian Democracy (DP), a far-left outfit, dissolved itself so that its members could join the PCI dissidents and form a united front composed of all Italian communists. In December, the PRC was officially founded andSergio Garavini was elected secretary. In the1992 general election, the party obtained 5.6% of the vote.
Garavini resigned from his role as secretary in June 1993 and was replaced byFausto Bertinotti, a trade unionist of theItalian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) who had left the PDS only a few months before. In the1994 general election, the PRC was part of the PDS-ledAlliance of Progressives and obtained 6.1% of the vote. In June 1995, a splinter group led byLucio Magri andFamiano Crucianelli formed theMovement of Unitarian Communists (MCU), which would eventually merge with the PDS, being one of the founding members of theDemocrats of the Left (DS) in February 1998.
The leadership of Bertinotti was a turning point for the party, which jumped to 8.6% of vote in the1996 general election, fought by the party in a loose alliance withThe Olive Tree, the majorcentre-left coalition whose dominant partner was the PDS. After the election, the PRC decided to externally support thefirst cabinet led byRomano Prodi.
Tensions soon arose within the coalition and the party. In October 1998 the PRC was divided between those who wanted to stop supporting Prodi's government, led by Bertinotti; and those who wanted to continue the alliance, led by Cossutta, the party's president. The central committee endorsed Bertinotti's line, but Cossutta and his followers decided to ignore this line and to support Prodi. The votes of thecossuttiani were not enough and the government lost a confidence vote in Parliament.
The dissidents, who controlled the majority of deputies and senators, split and formed a rival communist party, theParty of Italian Communists (PdCI), which would soon join thefirst cabinet led byMassimo D'Alema, the leader of the DS, who replaced Prodi and became the first post-communist to hold the job ofPrime Minister of Italy.
Deprived of most of its parliamentary representation, the PRC fought for its existence and voters supported it rather than the PdCI, both in the1999 European Parliament election (4.3% to 2.0%) and the2001 general election (5.0% to 1.7%).
Despite competition from the PdCI, the PRC confirmed its status as Italy's largest communist party. Having been left by most traditional communists, it also started to enlarge its scope aiming at becoming a collector of radicalsocial movements and, foremost, the main representative of theanti-globalization movement inItaly. The PRC also forged new alliances at the European level and was instrumental in the foundation of theParty of the European Left in May 2004.[10][11]
In October 2004, the PRC re-joined the centre-left coalition, once again led by Prodi. In April 2005,Nichi Vendola, an openlygay politician and one of the emerging leaders of the party, won a primary election and was elected president of traditionally conservativesouthern region ofApulia, becoming the only regional president ever belonging to the PRC.
In the2006 general election, the PRC was part ofThe Union, which won narrowly over thecentre-rightHouse of Freedoms coalition and the party obtained 5.8%. After the election, Bertinotti was electedPresident of the Chamber of Deputies and replaced byFranco Giordano as secretary. Additionally, for the first time it entered a government by joining theProdi II Cabinet, withPaolo Ferrero Minister of Social Solidarity and seven undersecretaries. The decision to participate in the coalition government and vote to refinance the Italian military presence inAfghanistan and send troops toLebanon attracted criticism from sectors of the European far-left[12] and provoked the splits of several groups from the ranks of his own party, notably including theWorkers' Communist Party, theCommunist Alternative Party andCritical Left. Prodi, whose majority was weak and fragmented, resigned in January 2008.
For the2008 general election, the PRC formed a joint list namedRainbow Left (SA) with the PdCI, theFederation of the Greens and theDemocratic Left under Bertinotti's leadership. SA obtained a mere 3.1% (compared to 10.2% won by the constituent parties individually two years before) and no seats. Consequently, Bertinotti quit politics and Giordano resigned and after that somebertinottiani, led by Ferrero andGiovanni Russo Spena (both formerProletarian Democracy members), had forged an alliance with formercossuttiani.
At the July 2008 congress, the PRC was highly divided around ideological and regional lines with Vendola, thebertinottiani's standard-bearer, accusing northern delegates of having absorbedleghismo and stating that it was the end of the party as he knew it. The internal left-wing (which wanted to return to PRC's original communist project) finally prevailed over the bulk ofbertinottiani (who insisted on the creation of a broader left-wing party) and Ferrero was elected secretary by the central committee with 50.5%.[13]
In January 2009, the faction around Vendola and Giordano, silently supported by Bertinotti, left the PRC and launched theMovement for the Left (MpS), aimed at forming a broader left-wing party,[14] which would eventually beLeft Ecology Freedom (SEL).
In the2009 European Parliament election the PRC ran with the PdCI and minor groups within theAnticapitalist and Communist List,[15] obtaining 3.4% of the vote and noMEPs. In April 2009 the list was transformed into theFederation of the Left,[16][17] which would be disbanded by the end of 2012[18] and officially dissolved in 2015.[19]
In the2013 general election the PRC ran withinCivil Revolution along with the PdCI, the Greens,Italy of Values and minor groups, obtaining 2.2% and no seats.[20]
In the2014 European Parliament election the PRC was part ofThe Other Europe, which obtained 4.0% of the vote and three MEPs, including PRC'sEleonora Forenza.
In April 2017 Ferrero was replaced as secretary byMaurizio Acerbo, a former member of theChamber of Deputies.[21][22][23]
In the2018 general election the PRC was part of thePower to the People (PaP) electoral list,[24][25] which obtained 1.1% of the vote and no seats.[26] In 2020–2021 the party was briefly represented in the Senate byPaola Nugnes, a splinter from theFive Star Movement who later joinedItalian Left (SI).[27][28][29]
In the2019 European Parliament election the PRC was part ofThe Left electoral list, which obtained 1.8% and no seats.
In February 2022 the party formed a joint sub-group with PaP in the Chamber of Deputies' Mixed Group.[30] In June 2022 the same happened in the Senate,[31] and senator Nugnes returned to the party. In the run-up of the2022 general election the PRC was a founding member of thePeople's Union (UP), a left-wing electoral list led byLuigi de Magistris.
In the run-up of the February 2025 congress the proposition put forward by incumbent secretary Acerbo obtained 50.7% of the vote of party members in local congresses, while a large majority led by Ferrero won 49.3%.[32] As a result, Acerbo was narrowly re-elected secretary.[33]
The majority of the party following the October 2004 congress was led byFausto Bertinotti (59.2%) and viewed the PRC as the representative of theanti-globalization movement in Italy. Other factions strongly opposed Bertinotti's innovations. These included the hard-line traditionalistBeing Communists (26.2%) which was composed of former followers ofArmando Cossutta as well as theTrotskyists ofCritical Left,Communist Project andHammerSickle (14.6% together). Communist Project, which opposed the party's participation in theProdi II Cabinet, unfolded shortly after the2006 general election. A group led byFrancesco Ricci established theCommunist Alternative Party, others, led by theTrotskyistMarco Ferrando, formed theWorkers' Communist Party, while a tiny minority chose to stay in the party and launchedCountercurrent.
In February 2007, senatorFranco Turigliatto of Critical Left, led bySalvatore Cannavò, voted twice against the government's foreign policy, leadingRomano Prodi to temporarily resign fromPrime Minister. In April, Turigliatto was expelled from the party and Critical Left was suspended from it, leading to its final split and establishment as a party in December. Turigliatto's ejection was supported also byClaudio Grassi (leader of Being Communists) and this caused a break-up of the faction. A group led byFosco Giannini launched an alternative faction namedThe Ernesto (from the eponymous communist publication), but it would suffer the 2008 split ofCommunist Left, which would splinter in 2011 into Communist Left and Communists Together/The Future City.
Following the severe defeat of the party in the2008 general election, a group ofbertinottiani composed mainly of former members ofProletarian Democracy and led byPaolo Ferrero andGiovanni Russo Spena allied with the other minority factions, notably including Being Communists, to forceFranco Giordano's resignation from secretary. Subsequently, in the July congress Ferrero's and Grassi'sRefoundation in Movement motion (40.1%) faced the bulk ofbertinottiani, who organized themselves around a motion named "Manifesto for the Refoundation" (47.6%) withNichi Vendola as standard-bearer. Giannini's The Ernesto and Countercurrent (7.7%),Claudio Bellotti's HammerSickle (3.2%) and a minor group of formerbertinottiani called "Disarm, Renew, Refound" (1.5%) joined forces with the Ferrero-Grassi group. Vendola, defeated by Ferrero, announced the creation of a new minority faction,Refoundation for the Left (RpS).[13][34]
RpS finally left the party in 2009 to form theMovement for the Left (MpS), but some of its members, led byAugusto Rocchi, decided to stay in the PRC[35] and launchedTo the Left with Refoundation.[36] However, the alliance between Ferrero and the traditionalists did not last. The Ernesto joined the PdCI in 2011 while Being Communists divided in two groups, both eventually quitting the party. One group joined SEL in 2014[37] and was later merged into theDemocratic and Progressive Movement (MDP) in 2016;[38] a second, larger group (including Grassi) participated in the foundation of SEL's successor,Italian Left (SI).[39] Indeed, between 2014 and 2016 all of Being Communists quit the PRC and finally ended in SI.[40][41] In early 2016 the TrotskyistLeft Class Revolution left the party too,[42] while Countercurrent seemed no longer active.
In the 2017 congress, two motions were presented by Ferrero andEleonora Forenza, respectively.[43] The coalition of factions led by Ferrero prevailed with the vote of 71.5% of party members.[44] Consequently,Maurizio Acerbo, supported by Ferrero,[45] was elected secretary by the central committee.[46]
The electoral results of the PRC in general (Chamber of Deputies) elections and European Parliament elections since 1994 are shown in the chart below. The 2008 result refers to that ofThe Left – The Rainbow, a joint list comprising theParty of Italian Communists,Democratic Left and theFederation of the Greens. After that, the party formed joint lists with the Party of Italian Communists. The 2014 result refers to that ofThe Other Europe, a joint list led byLeft Ecology Freedom.
 | This graph was using thelegacy Graph extension, which is no longer supported. It needs to be converted to thenew Chart extension. |
The electoral results of the PRC in the ten most populatedregions of Italy are shown in the table below.[47]
| 1994 general | 1995 regional | 1996 general | 1999 European | 2000 regional | 2001 general | 2004 European | 2005 regional | 2006 general | 2008 general | 2009 European | 2010 regional | 2013 general | 2014 European | |
| Piedmont | 5.9 | 9.3 | 10.3 | 4.6 | 5.5 | 5.9 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 5.9 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 2.6 | 2.1 | 4.1 |
| Lombardy | 5.1 | 7.7 | 6.8 | 4.0 | 6.4 | 5.0 | 5.6 | 5.7 | 5.5 | 2.9 | 2.7 | 2.0 | 1.6 | 3.5 |
| Veneto | 4.4 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 2.2 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1.3 | 2.8 |
| Emilia-Romagna | 6.6 | 7.6 | 8.3 | 5.0 | 5.8 | 5.5 | 6.3 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 3.0 | 3.1 | 2.8 | 1.9 | 4.1 |
| Tuscany | 10.1 | 11.1 | 12.5 | 7.4 | 6.7 | 6.9 | 9.1 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 4.5 | 5.1 | 5.3 | 2.7 | 5.1 |
| Lazio | 6.6 | 9.2 | 10.4 | 4.9 | 5.4 | 5.2 | 7.1 | 5.9 | 7.4 | 3.3 | 3.7 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 4.7 |
| Campania | 6.9 | 9.2 | 9.1 | 4.0 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 6.0 | 4.1 | 6.1 | 2.7 | 3.8 | 1.6 | 2.6 | 3.8 |
| Apulia | 7.0 | 8.1 | 7.5 | 3.3 | 3.6 | 4.7 | 6.0 | 5.1 | 5.7 | 3.0 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 2.4 | 4.3 |
| Calabria | 9.3 | 8.7 | 10.0 | 4.3 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 5.8 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 3.2 | 6.7 | 4.0 | 2.9 | 4.2 |
| Sicily | – | 4.3(1996) | 7.0 | 2.2 | 2.4(2001) | 3.2 | 3.6 | –(2006)[48] | 3.2 | 2.6 | 2.2 | 4.9(2008) | 3.4 | 3.6 |
| Chamber of Deputies | ||||||
| Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | Leader | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 2,202,574 (5th) | 5.6 | 35 / 630 | – | ||
| 1994 | 2,334,029 (6th) | 6.0 | 39 / 630 |  4 | ||
| 1996 | 3,215,960 (5th) | 8.5 | 35 / 630 |  4 | ||
| 2001 | 1,868,659 (5th) | 5.0 | 11 / 630 | 24 | ||
| 2006 | 2,229,604 (5th) | 5.8 | 41 / 630 | 30 | ||
| 2008 | intoSA | – | 0 / 630 | 41 | ||
| 2013 | intoRC | – | 0 / 630 | – | ||
| 2018 | intoPaP | – | 0 / 630 | – | ||
| 2022 | intoUP | – | 0 / 400 | – | ||
| Senate of the Republic | |||||
| Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 2,163,317 (5th) | 6.5 | 20 / 315 | – | |
| 1994 | intoAdP | – | 18 / 315 | 2 | |
| 1996 | 934,974 (4th) | 2.9 | 11 / 315 | 7 | |
| 2001 | 1,708,707 (3rd) | 5.0 | 5 / 315 | 6 | |
| 2006 | 2,518,624 (5th) | 7.4 | 27 / 315 | 22 | |
| 2008 | intoSA | – | 0 / 315 | 27 | |
| 2013 | intoRC | – | 0 / 315 | – | |
| 2018 | intoPaP | – | 0 / 315 | – | |
| 2022 | intoUP | – | 0 / 200 | – | |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | EP Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Fausto Bertinotti | 1,991,977 (6th) | 6.08 | 5 / 87 | New | EUL |
| 1999 | 1,330,341 (4th) | 4.27 | 4 / 87 | 1 | GUE/NGL | |
| 2004 | 1,971,700 (7th) | 6.06 | 5 / 78 | 1 | ||
| 2009[a] | Paolo Ferrero | 1,038,247 (6th) | 3.39 | 0 / 72 | 5 | – |
| 2014 | IntoAET | 1 / 73 | 1 | GUE/NGL | ||
| 2019 | Maurizio Acerbo | IntoLS | 0 / 76 | 1 | – | |
| 2024 | IntoPTD | 0 / 76 |  0 | |||
| Region | Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/− |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lombardy | 2023 | 39,913 (11th)[a] | 1.4 | 0 / 80 | – |
| South Tyrol | 2018 | intoUnited Left | 0 / 35 | – | |
| Trentino | 2023 | 1,088 (23rd)[a] | 0.5 | 0 / 35 | – |
| Veneto | 2020 | into Solidarity Environment Work | 0 / 51 | 1 | |
| Emilia-Romagna | 2020 | intoThe Other Emilia-Romagna | 0 / 50 | 1 | |
| Tuscany | 2020 | into Tuscany to the Left | 0 / 41 | 1 | |
| Marche | 2020 | into Depend on Us | 0 / 31 | 1 | |
| Lazio | 2023 | 10,289 (14th)[a] | 0.7 | 0 / 51 | – |
| Campania | 2020 | into Terra | 0 / 51 | – | |
| Apulia | 2020 | intoThe Other Apulia | 0 / 51 | – | |
| Basilicata | 2019 | into Possible Basilicata | 0 / 21 | – | |
| Sicily | 2017 | into 100 Steps for Sicily | 0 / 70 | – | |
| Sardinia | 2019 | 4,308 (22nd)[b] | 0.6 | 0 / 60 | 1 |
European Parliament group:The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL | |||||||||
| Parties |
| ||||||||
| Party presidents | |||||||||
| European Parliament Group presidents | |||||||||
| Other prominent figures | |||||||||
| See also | |||||||||
European political foundation:Transform Europe | |||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
