WI: Communist Italy?

In 1948 the Italian Communist party was making huge strides. They were eventually defeated because of large CIA investments into other parties. First of all, what's the most plausible way to get a communist parliamentary majority in Italy in this time? Second, what would the consequences of a communist Italy be? Would that lead to a war in Italy much like the Korean war in OTL? Other thoughts?
 
Actually, the 1948 election was not remotely close. The Christian Democrats got 48.5 percent of the vote, the "Popular Democratic Front" of Communists and Nenni Socialists only 31.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_1948 I really doubt that a margin like that can be explained solely by CIA support. BTW, even in 1946, when there was no CIA as we now know it, the Communist and Socialist vote combined was under 40 percent--and the Socialists in 1946 included not only Nenni's pro-PCI wing but also Saragat's social democrats (who by 1948 had split off to form a separate party). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_1946 (Interestingly, the total "left" vote in both elections was almost identical, if you include the anti-communist social democrats as "left' for 1948.)
 
"In 1948 the Italian Communist party was making huge strides. They were eventually defeated because of large CIA investments into other parties. First of all, what's the most plausible way to get a communist parliamentary majority in Italy in this time?"

No CIA?
 
If you could get the Red Army into northern Italy in your alternate World War 2 timeline, the PCI should win the elections there. But the Americans, British, and the Catholic Church should be able to split off a rump Southern Italian kingdom allied with the capitalists.

Its worth keeping in mind that outside of two states in India, Communist parties have never won elections at the national or regional level. This is pretty much, like, everywhere. Communist governments have always shot their way in power or been installed by the Red Army. There have been some instances, including Italy itself, of really watered down Communist Parties participating in governing coalitions.

In neighboring Yugoslavia you got a Communist regime without the assistance of the Red Army, though elections weren't that important in installing it. But Yugoslavia is much less important than Italy is, whether strategically, economically, or culturally. The Yugoslav Communists also broke with Moscow much earlier than the Italian Communists did. I don't see the US government being willing to "Titoize"Italy, unless you have a timeline where the US is just not a factor on the European continent power World War 2. Even then, the British might be able to manage things on their own. Tito also didn't have to deal with the Catholic Church, on its home ground, in consolidating his regime.
 
Maybe if you could keep the Social Democrats in the Popular Front, find some way to weaken and divide the Christian Democrats and strengthen the Republicans whilst keeping their left-wing, who supported cooperating with the Communists, in charge, you could probably have a Communist lead government in postwar Italy. However I doubt that they would be in a position to, or even necessarily inclined to, establish a Communist dictatorship. I imagine that they would probably aim to keep Italy non-aligned and on friendly terms with the Soviets, maybe even demilitarised, whilst focusing on anti-Clericalism at home with the support of the Republicans.
 
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I found the returns interesting as the Socialists and Communists had a great deal of strength in the 80s in Sardinia and the South.
 
Its worth keeping in mind that outside of two states in India, Communist parties have never won elections at the national or regional level. This is pretty much, like, everywhere. Communist governments have always shot their way in power or been installed by the Red Army.
Depends what you mean by 'won'. Weren't the Communists the largest party in France in some of the elections in the early post war era?
 
Depends what you mean by 'won'. Weren't the Communists the largest party in France in some of the elections in the early post war era?

Yes they were, in the 1946 and 1956 legislative assembly elections.

Their highest vote percentage was 28.3% in 1946. If you are curious, they got 2.7% of the vote in 2017.

The National Assembly during the Fourth Republic was elected using party list proportional representation, so 28% of the vote got you 28% of the seats. This is obviously not close to a majority. There was no incentive for similar parties to combine into larger units, so half a dozen parties competed and there was one election where the PCF was the only party to get over 20% of the vote. Of course the PCF never got close to having a majority, and never took the lead in forming a government, even with their SFIO allies, though they have participated as junior partners in some governments.

Do you really want to count this as winning? The PCI in Italy had a somewhat better electoral performance for what is worth, but in Italy parties that would have operated separately in the Fourth Republic consolidated into the DC, who posted slightly higher percentages.
 
Do you really want to count this as winning? The PCI in Italy had a somewhat better electoral performance for what is worth, but in Italy parties that would have operated separately in the Fourth Republic consolidated into the DC, who posted slightly higher percentages.
Majority governments are not the norm in the most democracies, so you don't regard the PCF as having 'won' the French legislative elections, then either you can't regard any party as winning in the case of most elections, or you have to draw some line where an arbitrary percentage seat or vote share below 50% still counts as 'winning', neither of which sound like a great idea. By the conventional wisdom of PR elections, the largest party is generally regarded to have won the election. Sure, the PCF might not have won it on a particularly high percentage of the vote, but its still larger than you might see in modern Belgium or the Netherlands, for instance.
 
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