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Italian Socialist Party Partito Socialista Italiano | |
|---|---|
.svg) Logo of the Italian Socialist Party from 1978 to 1987, with the classichammer and sickle and the moderncarnation symbolism | |
| Abbreviation | PSI |
| Secretary |
|
| Founders | |
| Founded | 14 August 1892 |
| Legalised | 24 April 1944 (previously banned from 6 November 1926) |
| Dissolved | 13 November 1994 |
| Merger of | |
| Split from | Historical Far Left |
| Succeeded by | Italian Socialists |
| Newspaper | Avanti! |
| Youth wing | Italian Socialist Youth Federation |
| Paramilitary wing | Red Guards (1919–1922) |
| Membership(1991) | 674,057[1] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-left toleft-wing |
| National affiliation |
|
| European affiliation | Party of European Socialists |
| European Parliament group | Party of European Socialists |
| International affiliation |
|
| Colours | Red |
TheItalian Socialist Party (Italian:Partito Socialista Italiano,PSI) was asocial democratic anddemocratic socialist political party in Italy,[2][3] whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded inGenoa in 1892, the PSI was from the beginning abig tent of Italy'spolitical left andsocialism, ranging from therevolutionary socialism ofAndrea Costa to theMarxist-inspiredreformist socialism ofFilippo Turati and theanarchism ofAnna Kuliscioff. Under Turati's leadership, the party was a frequent ally of theItalian Republican Party and theItalian Radical Party at the parliamentary level, while lately entering in dialogue with the remnants of theHistorical Left and theLiberal Union duringGiovanni Giolitti's governments to ensure representation for the labour movement and the working class. In the 1900s and 1910s, the PSI achieved significant electoral success, becoming Italy's first party in 1919 and during the country'sBiennio Rosso in 1921, when it was victim of violent paramilitary activities from thefar right, and was not able to move the country in the revolutionary direction it wanted.[4]
A split with what became known as theCommunist Party of Italy and the rise to power of former party member andItalian fascist leaderBenito Mussolini, who was expelled from the party,class struggle andinternationalism in favour ofcorporatism andultranationalism, and hisNational Fascist Party led to the PSI's collapse in the controversial1924 Italian general election and eventual ban in 1925. This led the party and its remaining leaders to the underground or in exile.[4] The PSI dominated the Italian left until afterWorld War II, when it was eclipsed in status by theItalian Communist Party (PCI). The two parties formed an alliance lasting until 1956 and governed together at the local level, particularly in some big cities and the so-called red regions until the 1990s. The PSI suffered the right-wing split of theItalian Democratic Socialist Party, whose members opposed the alliance with the PCI and favoured joining theCentrism coalition, in 1947 and the left-wing split of theItalian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity, whose members wanted to continue the cooperation with the PCI, in 1964. Starting from the 1960s, the PSI frequently participated in coalition governments led byChristian Democracy, from theOrganic centre-left to thePentapartito in the 1980s.[4]
The PSI, which always remained the country's third-largest party, came to special prominence in the 1980s when its leaderBettino Craxi served asPrime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987.[4] Under Craxi, the PSI severed the residual ties withMarxism and dropped thehammer and sickle in favour of acarnation, a symbol popularly associated with democratic socialism and social democracy, which the party was by then fully embracing, and re-branded it asliberal-socialist[5][6]—some observers compared this to theThird Way developments of social democracy and described these events as being twenty years ahead ofNew Labour in theUnited Kingdom.[7] By that time, the party was aligned with European social democracy and like-minded reformist socialist parties and leaders, includingFrançois Mitterrand,Felipe González,Andreas Papandreou andMário Soares, and was one of the main representatives of Mediterranean or South European socialism.[8][9] During this period, Italy underwentil sorpasso and became the world's sixth largest economy but also saw a rise of its public debt. While associated withneoliberal policies, as thepost-war consensus around social democracy was on the defensive amid the crisis of the 1970s, others argue that the PSI and Craxi, along with the DC's left-wing when they governed, maintaineddirigisme in contrast to the neoliberal andprivatisation trends.[10]
The PSI was disbanded in 1994 as a result of theTangentopoli scandals.[11] A series of legal successors followed, including theItalian Socialists (1994–1998),[12] theItalian Democratic Socialists (1998–2007) and theSocialist Party (formed in 2007, it took the PSI name in October 2009) within thecentre-left coalition,[4] and a string of minor parties and theNew Italian Socialist Party (formed in 2001) within thecentre-right coalition.[4] These parties have never reached the popularity of the old PSI. Former PSI leading members and voters have joined quite different parties, from the centre-right, such asForza Italia,The People of Freedom and thenew Forza Italia, to the centre-left, such as theDemocratic Party.[13]
The PSI was founded on 14 August 1892 as theParty of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani) by delegates of several workers' associations and parties, notably including theItalian Workers' Party and theMilanese Socialist League.[14] It was part of a wave of new socialist parties at the end of the 19th century and had to endure persecution by the Italian government during its early years. It modelled on theSocial Democratic Party of Germany.[15] While in Sicily theFasci Siciliani were spreading as a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, the party was celebrating on 8 September 1893 its second congress inReggio Emilia and changed its name to theSocialist Party of Italian Workers (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani). During the third congress on 13 January 1895 inParma, it decided to adopt the name of Italian Socialist Party andFilippo Turati was elected its secretary.[4]
At the start of the 20th century, the PSI chose not to strongly oppose the governments led by five-time prime ministerGiovanni Giolitti. This conciliation with the existing governments and its improving electoral fortunes helped to establish the PSI as a mainstream Italian political party by the 1910s. Despite the party's improving electoral results, the PSI remained divided into two major branches, the Reformists and the Maximalists. The Reformists, led byFilippo Turati, were strong mostly in theunions and the parliamentary group. The Maximalists, led byCostantino Lazzari, were affiliated with theLondon Bureau of socialist groups, an international association of left-wing socialist parties. In 1912, the Maximalists led byBenito Mussolini prevailed at the party convention, which led to the split of theItalian Reformist Socialist Party. In 1914, the party obtained good success in local elections, especially in the industrialised northern Italy, and Mussolini became leader of theCity Council of Milan. During the First World War, Italian Socialists found themselves in positions enabling them to influence economic and social legislation.[16] From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini headed up the pro-Bolshevik wing of the PSI who purged moderate or reformist socialists.[17]
World War I tore the party apart. The orthodox socialists were challenged by advocates ofnational syndicalism, who called for revolutionary war to liberate Italian-speaking territories from authoritarianAustrian Empire control and force the government by threat of violence to create acorporatist state. The national syndicalists intended to support Italian republicans in overthrowing the monarchy if such reforms were not made and if Italy did not enter the war together with theAllied Powers and their struggle against theCentral Empires, seen as the final fight for the worldwide triumph of freedom and democracy. The dominant internationalist and pacifist wing of the party remained committed to avoiding what it called a bourgeois war. The PSI's refusal to support the war led to its national syndicalist faction either leaving or being purged from the party, such as Mussolini who had begun to show sympathy to the national syndicalist cause. A number of the national syndicalists expelled from the PSI later joined Mussolini'sItalian fascist revolutionary movement in 1914, including theFasces of Revolutionary Action in 1915 (laterItalian Fasces of Combat). During the Third Fascist Congress in late 1921, Mussolini turned the Fasces of Combat into theNational Fascist Party.[18]
After theRussian Revolution of 1917, the PSI quickly aligned itself in support of the Bolshevik movement in Russia and supported its call for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. In the1919 Italian general election, the PSI, led byNicola Bombacci, reached its highest result ever: 32.0% and 156 seats in the country'sChamber of Deputies. From 1919 to the 1920s, Socialists and Fascists emerged as prominent rival movements in Italy's urban centres, often resorting to political violence in their clashes. In 1919, the Socialist Party of Turin formed theRed Army of Turin, which was accompanied by a proposal to organise a national confederation of Red Scouts and Cyclists.[19] At the 1921Livorno Congress, the left wing of the party broke away in 1921 to form theCommunist Party of Italy (PCdI), a division from which the PSI never recovered and that had enormous consequences on Italian politics. In 1922, another split occurred when the reformist wing of the party, headed by Turati andGiacomo Matteotti, was expelled and formed theUnitary Socialist Party (PSU).[4]
Matteotti was assassinated by Fascists in 1924 and shortly afterwards a Fascist one-party dictatorship was established in Italy. The PSI and all other political parties except the Fascist party were banned in 1926. The party's leadership remained in exile during the Fascist years; in 1930, the PSU was re-integrated into the PSI. The party was a member of theLabour and Socialist International between 1930 and 1940.[20]
In the1946 Italian general election, the first afterWorld War II, the PSI obtained 20.7% of the vote, narrowly ahead of theItalian Communist Party (PCI) that gained 18.9%. In the1948 Italian general election, the United States secretly convinced Britain'sLabour Party to pressure Socialists to end all coalitions with Communists, which fostered a split in PSI.[21] Socialists led byPietro Nenni chose to take part in thePopular Democratic Front along with the PCI, whileGiuseppe Saragat launched theItalian Workers' Socialist Party. The PSI was weakened by the split and was far less organised than the PCI, so Communist candidates were far more competitive. As a result, the PSI parliamentary delegation was cut by a half. Nonetheless, the PSI continued its alliance with the PCI until 1956, when the Soviet repression of theHungarian Revolution of 1956 caused a major split between the two parties.[4]
Starting from 1963, Socialists participated in theOrganic centre-left governments in alliance withChristian Democracy (DC), theItalian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) and theItalian Republican Party (PRI). These governments acceded to many of the demands of the PSI for social reform and laid the foundations for Italy's modernwelfare state.[22] During the 1960s and 1970s, the PSI lost much of its influence despite actively participating in the government. The PCI gradually outnumbered it as the dominant political force in the Italian left. The PSI tried to enlarge its base by joining forces with the PSDI under the nameUnified Socialist Party (PSU). After a disappointing loss in the1968 Italian general election in which the PSU gained far fewer seats in total than each of the two parties had obtained separately in 1963, it disbanded. The1972 Italian general election underlined the PSI's precipitate decline as the party received less than 10% of the vote compared to 14.2% in 1958, when Nenni assumed the leadership of the autonomist faction.[4]
In 1976,Bettino Craxi was elected new secretary of the party. From the beginning, Craxi tried to undermine the PCI, which until then had been continuously increasing its votes in elections and to consolidate the PSI as a modern, strongly pro-European reformist party, with deep roots in the democratic left-wing, and a left-wing alternative to theHistoric Compromise between DC and PCI.[4] This strategy called for ending most of the party's historical traditions as a working-classtrade union based party and attempting to gain new support among white-collar and public sector employees. At the same time, the PSI increased its presence in the big state-owned enterprises and became heavily involved in corruption and illegal party funding, which would eventually result in themani pulite investigations.
Even if the PSI never became a serious electoral challenger either to the PCI or the DC, its pivotal position in the political arena allowed it to claim the post of prime minister for Craxi after the1983 Italian general election. The electoral support for DC was significantly weakened, leaving it with 32.9% of the vote, compared to the 38.3% it gained in 1979. The PSI that had obtained only 11% threatened to leave the parliamentary majority unless Craxi was made prime minister. Christian Democrats accepted this compromise to avoid a new election. Craxi became the first Socialist in the history of the Italian Republic to be appointed prime minister.
Unlike many of its predecessors, Craxi's government proved to be durable, lasting three and a half years from 1983 to 1987. During those years, the PSI gained popularity as Craxi successfully boosted the country'sGNP and controlledinflation. He demonstrated Italy's independence and nationalism in the clash with the United States during theSigonella incident. Moreover, Craxi spoke of many reforms, including the transformation of theConstitution of Italy toward apresidential system. The PSI looked like the driving force behind the bulk of reforms initiated by thePentapartito coalition. Craxi lost his post in March 1987 due to a conflict with the other parties of the coalition over the proposed budget for 1987.
In the1987 Italian general election, the PSI won 14.3% of the vote and this time it was Christian Democrats' turn to govern. From 1987 to 1992, the PSI participated in four governments, allowingGiulio Andreotti to take power in 1989 and to govern until 1992. Socialists held a strong balance of power, which made them more powerful than Christian Democrats, who had to depend on it to form a majority in Parliament. The PSI kept tight control of this advantage. The alternative that Craxi had wanted so much was taking shape, namely the idea of a Socialist Unity with the other left-wing political parties,[23] including the PCI, proposed by Craxi in 1989. He believed that theFall of Communism in eastern Europe had undermined the PCI and made Socialist Unity inevitable. In fact, the PSI was in line to become the Italy's second largest party and to become the dominant force of a new left-wing coalition opposed to a Christian Democrat-led one; this did not actually happen because of the rise ofLega Nord and theTangentopoli scandals.
In February 1992,Mario Chiesa, a Socialist hospital administrator inMilan, was caught taking a bribe. Craxi denounced Chiesa by calling him an isolated thief, who had nothing to do with the party as a whole. Feeling betrayed, Chiesa confessed his crimes to the police and implicated others, starting a chain reaction of judicial investigations that would ultimately engulf the entire political system. The investigations, namedmani pulite ("clean hands") was carried out by three Milanese magistrates among whomAntonio Di Pietro quickly stood out becoming a national hero thanks to his charismatic character and his ability to extract confessions.
The investigations were suspended for four weeks for the1992 Italian general election to take place in an uninfluenced atmosphere and the PSI managed to garner 13.6% of the vote in spite of the corruption scandals. Many in the party thought the scandal had been brought under control; they failed to realise that investigations would eventually be launched against ministers and party leaders. Furthermore, as early as May 1992, public opinion unconditionally supported the magistrates against a political system that the majority of Italians already distrusted. Craxi himself was under criminal investigation since December 1992. In April 1993, theItalian Parliament denied four times the authorisation for magistrates to continue investigation for Craxi. Italian newspapers shouted scandal and Craxi was besieged at his Rome residence by a crowd of young people, who threw coins at him, shouting "Bettino, do you want these as well?" This scene was to become one of the many symbols of that period.
In 1992–1993, many PSI regional, provincial, and municipal deputies, MPs, mayors and even ministers found themselves overwhelmed with accusations and arrests. At this point, public opinion turned against the PSI and many regional headquarters of the party were besieged by people who wanted an honest party with true socialist values. Between January 1993 and February 1993,Claudio Martelli (former justice minister and deputy prime minister) started to contend for party leadership. Martelli stepped forward as a candidate, emphasising the need to clean the party of corruption and make it electable. Although he had many supporters, Martelli and Craxi were both caught in a scandal dating back to 1982, when theBanco Ambrosiano gave to the two of them around 7 million dollars. Martelli subsequently resigned from the party and from the government.Giuliano Amato, a member of the PSI, resigned as prime minister in April 1993. His government was succeeded by a technocratic government led byCarlo Azeglio Ciampi.
Craxi resigned as party secretary in February 1993. Between 1992 and 1993, most members of the party left politics and three PSI deputies committed suicide. Craxi was succeeded by two Socialist trade-unionists, firstGiorgio Benvenuto and then byOttaviano Del Turco. In the December 1993 provincial and municipal elections, the PSI was virtually wiped out, receiving around 3% of the vote. In Milan, where the PSI had won 20% in 1990, the PSI received a mere 2% and was shut out of the council. Del Turco tried in vain to regain credibility for the party.
By the1994 Italian general election, the PSI was in a state of near-collapse. Its remains contested the election as part of theAlliance of Progressives dominated by thepost-Communist incarnation of the PCI, theDemocratic Party of the Left (PDS). Del Turco had quickly changed the party symbol to reinforce the idea of innovation, which did not stop the PSI gaining only 2.2% of the votes compared to 13.6% in 1992. The PSI elected 16 deputies,[a] as well as 14 senators,[b] down from 92 deputies and 49 senators of 1992. Most of them came from the left-wing of the party as Del Turco himself did. Most Socialists joined other political forces, mainlyForza Italia, the new party led bySilvio Berlusconi, thePatto Segni, andDemocratic Alliance.[citation needed]
The party was disbanded on 13 November 1994 after two years in which almost all of its longtime leaders, especially Craxi, were involved inTangentopoli and decided to leave politics.[citation needed] The 100-year-old party closed down, partially thanks to its leaders for their personalisation of the PSI.
Socialists who did not align with the other parties organised themselves in two groups: theItalian Socialists (SI) ofEnrico Boselli,Ottaviano Del Turco,Roberto Villetti,Riccardo Nencini,Cesare Marini, andMaria Rosaria Manieri, who decided to be autonomous from the PDS; and theLabour Federation (FL) ofValdo Spini,Antonio Ruberti,Giorgio Ruffolo,Giuseppe Pericu,Carlo Carli, andRosario Olivo, who entered in close alliance with it. The SI eventually merged with other Socialist splinter groups to form theItalian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in 1998, while the FL merged with PDS to form theDemocrats of the Left (DS) later on that year.
Between 1994 and 1996, many former Socialists joinedForza Italia (FI), as didGiulio Tremonti,Franco Frattini,Massimo Baldini, andLuigi Cesaro.Gianni De Michelis,Ugo Intini and several politicians close to Craxi formed theSocialist Party, while others likeFabrizio Cicchitto andEnrico Manca launched theReformist Socialist Party. In the 2000s, two outfits claimed to be the party's successor, namely the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) that evolved from the Italian Socialists (SI) and theNew Italian Socialist Party (NPSI) founded byGianni De Michelis,Claudio Martelli, andBobo Craxi in 2001.
Both the SDI and the NPSI were minor political forces. A number of Socialist members and voters joined FI,[24] while others joined the DS andDemocracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL). Many others were not members of any party any more.[c] Some former Socialists were affiliated toThe People of Freedom (PdL) and remains in the 2013 refoundation of FI, while others are in centre-leftDemocratic Party (PD) and modern-daySocialist Party (PS).[d] Socialists who joined FI include Tremonti, Frattini,Fabrizio Cicchitto,Renato Brunetta,Amalia Sartori,Francesco Musotto,Margherita Boniver,Francesco Colucci,Raffaele Iannuzzi,Maurizio Sacconi,Luigi Cesaro, andStefania Craxi. Although it may seem unusual for self-identified socialists to be members of a centre-right party, many of those who did so felt that the centre-left was by now dominated by former Communists and the best way to fight for mainstream social democracy was through FI/PdL.Valdo Spini,Giorgio Benvenuto,Gianni Pittella andGuglielmo Epifani joined the DS, whileEnrico Manca,Tiziano Treu,Laura Fincato, andLinda Lanzillotta joined DL.Giuliano Amato joinedThe Olive Tree as an independent.
In 2007, some former Socialists, including the SDI, a portion of the NPSI led by Gianni De Michelis,The Italian Socialists ofBobo Craxi,Socialism is Freedom ofRino Formica and splinters from the DS joined forces and formed theSocialist Party (PS), renamed Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 2011. This PSI is the only Italian party represented in Parliament that explicitly refers to itself as Socialist; many other Socialist associations and organisation participate to the political debate both in the centre-right and the centre-left coalitions.
During its century-long history, the party'ssocialism evolved from itsrevolutionary socialist beginnings, with the Reformist faction in minority, to parliamentary andreformist socialism,democratic socialism, andsocial democracy. While its more radical factions split to form theItalian Communist Party (PCI) in 1921, the party'sleft-wing, heir of the Maximalist faction, remained strong at least until the 1980s, when the PSI underBettino Craxi was rebranded asliberal socialist.[4] At its beginnings, the PSI sat to the farthest left of the Italian party system with the heirs of theHistorical Far Left. As many of its positions became accepted or mainstream, the party came to represent thecentre-left, positioned between the PCI andChristian Democracy, and was part of Italy's first centre-left government in the 1960s; its inclusion led those governments to be called theOrganic centre-left.[4]
When Socialists came out in the late 1890s, they were present only in ruralEmilia-Romagna and southernLombardy, where they won their first seats of theChamber of Deputies; they soon enlarged their base in other areas of the country, especially the urban areas aroundTurin,Milan,Genoa, and to some extentNaples, densely populated by industrial workers. In the1900 Italian general election, the party won 5.0% of the vote and 33 seats, its best result so far. Emilia-Romagna was confirmed as the Socialist heartland (20.2% and 13 seats), and the party also did well in Lombardy andPiedmont.[25]
By the end of the 1910s, Socialists had broadened their organisation to all the regions of Italy but were stronger inNorthern Italy, where they emerged earlier and where they had their constituency. In the1919 Italian general election, thanks to the electoral reforms of the previous decade and especially the introduction ofproportional representation in place of the oldfirst-past-the-post system, they had their best result ever: 32.0% and 156 seats. The PSI was at the time the representative of both the rural workers of Emilia-Romagna,Tuscany and north-western Piedmont and the industrial workers of Turin, Milan,Venice,Bologna, andFlorence. In 1919, the party won 49.7% in Piedmont (over 60% inNovara), 45.9% in Lombardy (over 60% inMantua andPavia), 60.0% in Emilia-Romagna (over 70% around Bologna andFerrara), 41.7% inTuscany, and 46.5% inUmbria.[25]
In the1921 Italian general election and after the split of theCommunist Party of Italy, the PSI was reduced to 24.5% and was particularly damaged in Piedmont and Tuscany, where Communists got more than 10% of the vote.[25] During theItalian Resistance, which was fought mostly in Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, andCentral Italy, Communists were able to take roots and organise people much better than Socialists so that at the end ofWorld War II the balance between the two parties was completely changed. In the1946 Italian general election, the PSI was narrowly ahead of Communists (20.7% over 18.7%) but was no longer the dominant party in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany.[26]
In the1948 Italian general election, Socialists took part to thePopular Democratic Front with theItalian Communist Party (PCI) but lost almost half of their seats in the Chamber of Deputies due to the better get-out-the-vote machine of Communists and the split of the social democratic faction from the party, theItalian Workers' Socialist Party (7.1%, with peaks over 10% in the Socialist strongholds of the North). In the1953 Italian general election, the PSI was reduced to 12.7% of the vote and to its heartlands above thePo River, having gained more votes than Communists only narrowly in Lombardy andVeneto. The margin between the two parties would have become larger and larger until its peak in the1976 Italian general election, when the PCI won 34.4% of the vote and the PSI stopped at 9.6%. At that time, Communists had almost five times the vote of Socialists in the PSI's ancient heartlands of rural Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, and three times in the Northern regions, where the PSI had some local strongholds left such as in north-eastern Piedmont, north-western and southern Lombardy, north-eastern Veneto, andFriuli-Venezia Giulia, where it gained steadily 12–20% of the vote.[25][27]
Under the leadership ofBettino Craxi in the 1980s, the PSI had a substantial increase in term of votes. The party strengthened its position in Lombardy, north-eastern Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and broadened its power base toSouthern Italy, as all the other parties of Pentapartito coalition (Christian Democracy,Italian Republican Party,Italian Democratic Socialist Party, and theItalian Liberal Party) were experiencing. In the1987 Italian general election, the PSI gained 14.3% of the vote, which was below expectations after four years of government led by Craxi. Alongside the high shares of vote in north-western Lombardy and the North-East (both around 18–20%), the PSI did fairly well inCampania (14.9%),Apulia (15.3%),Calabria (16.9%), andSicily (14.9%). In the1992 Italian general election, this trend toward the South was even more evident, and is also reflected in the PSI's main successors, theItalian Socialists, theItalian Democratic Socialists, theNew Italian Socialist Party, and the modern-dayItalian Socialist Party, all of which had always been stronger in those Southern regions. While Socialists, like Communists and Christian Democrats, had lost votes toLega Nord, especially in Lombardy, they gained in the South, reaching 19.6% of the vote in Campania, 17.8% in Apulia, and 17.2% in Calabria.[25][27]
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The electoral results of the PSI in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1895 are shown in the chart above.
| Election | Leader | Chamber of Deputies | Senate of the Republic | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position | ||
| 1895 | 82,523 | 6.8 | 15 / 508 |  15 | 4th | No election | |||||
| 1897 | 82,536 | 3.0 | 15 / 508 |  0 |  5th | No election | |||||
| 1900 | 164,946 | 13.0 | 33 / 508 | 17 | 3rd | No election | |||||
| 1904 | 326,016 | 21.3 | 29 / 508 | 4 | 2nd | No election | |||||
| 1909 | 347,615 | 19.0 | 41 / 508 | 12 | 2nd | No election | |||||
| 1913 | 883,409 | 17.6 | 52 / 508 | 11 | 2nd | No election | |||||
| 1919 | 1,834,792 | 32.3 | 156 / 508 | 104 | 1st | No election | |||||
| 1921 | 1,631,435 | 24.7 | 123 / 535 | 33 | 1st | No election | |||||
| 1924 | 360,694 | 5.0 | 22 / 535 | 101 | 4th | No election | |||||
| 1929 | Angelica Balabanoff | Banned | 0 / 400 | 22 | – | No election | |||||
| 1934 | Banned | 0 / 400 | 0 | – | No election | ||||||
| 1946 | 4,758,129 | 20.7 | 115 / 556 | 115 | 2nd | No election | |||||
| 1948 | 8,136,637[e] | 31.0 | 53 / 574 | 62 | 2nd | 6,969,122[e] | 30.8 | 41 / 237 | 41 | 2nd | |
| 1953 | 3,441,014 | 12.7 | 75 / 590 | 22 | 3rd | 2,891,605 | 11.9 | 26 / 237 | 15 | 3rd | |
| 1958 | 4,206,726 | 14.2 | 84 / 596 | 9 | 3rd | 3,682,945 | 14.1 | 36 / 246 | 10 | 3rd | |
| 1963 | 4,255,836 | 13.8 | 83 / 630 | 1 | 3rd | 3,849,495 | 14.0 | 44 / 315 | 8 | 3rd | |
| 1968 | 4,605,832[f] | 14.5 | 62 / 630 | 21 | 3rd | 4,354,906[f] | 15.2 | 36 / 315 | 8 | 3rd | |
| 1972 | 3,210,427 | 10.0 | 61 / 630 | 1 | 3rd | 3,225,707 | 10.7 | 33 / 315 | 3 | 3rd | |
| 1976 | 3,542,998 | 9.6 | 57 / 630 | 4 | 3rd | 3,208,164 | 10.2 | 30 / 315 | 3 | 3rd | |
| 1979 | 3,630,052 | 9.9 | 62 / 630 | 5 | 3rd | 3,252,410 | 10.4 | 32 / 315 | 2 | 3rd | |
| 1983 | 4,223,362 | 11.4 | 73 / 630 | 11 | 3rd | 3,539,593 | 11.4 | 38 / 315 | 6 | 3rd | |
| 1987 | 5,505,690 | 14.3 | 94 / 630 | 21 | 3rd | 3,535,457 | 10.9 | 43 / 315 | 5 | 3rd | |
| 1992 | 5,343,808 | 13.6 | 92 / 630 | 2 | 3rd | 4,523,873 | 13.6 | 49 / 315 | 6 | 3rd | |
| 1994 | 849,429 | 2.2 | 15 / 630 | 77 | 10th | 103,490 | 0.3 | 9 / 315 | 40 | 11th | |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position | EP Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | 3,866,946 | 11.0 | 9 / 81 | 9 | 3rd | SOC | |
| 1984 | 3,940,445 | 11.2 | 9 / 81 | 0 | 3rd | ||
| 1989 | 5,151,929 | 14.8 | 12 / 81 | 3 | 3rd | ||
| 1994 | 606,538 | 1.8 | 2 / 87 | 10 | 10th | PES |
| Regions of Italy | |||||
| Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 2,837,451 (3rd) | 10.4 | 67 / 720 | – | |
| 1975 | 3,631,912 (3rd) | 12.0 | 82 / 720 | 15 | |
| 1980 | 3,851,722 (3rd) | 12.7 | 86 / 720 | 4 | |
| 1985 | 4,267,959 (3rd) | 13.3 | 94 / 720 | 8 | |
| 1990 | 4,884,179 (3rd) | 15.3 | 113 / 720 | 19 | |
The PSI was rather unusual among mainstream socialist parties in Europe in using thehammer and sickle as its symbol. In the early 1970s, this prevented it from obtaining the right to use thefist and rose created by France'sSocialist Party and shared with several other European parties; it was used in Italy by theRadical Party, although it was ideologically different.[28][29]
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