WI: Italian 1948 general election led to a Communist victory?

[Dan1988]

OK, so the Genocide is dubious on this one, but it does say this:

The 1948 general elections were heavily influenced by the then flaring cold-war confrontation between the Soviet Union and the US. After the Soviet-inspired February 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia the US became alarmed about Soviet intentions and feared that the Soviet funded [1][2] PCI would draw Italy into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence if the leftist coalition were to win the elections. In response, on March 1948 the United States National Security Council issued its first document proffering recommendations to avoid such an outcome which were widely and energetically implemented. Ten million letters were sent by mostly Italian Americans urging Italians not to vote communist. US agencies made numerous short-wave propaganda radio broadcasts and funded the publishing of books and articles, warning the Italians of the perceived consequences of a communist victory. The CIA also funded the centre-right political parties and was accused of publishing forged letters in order to discredit the leaders of the PCI[citation needed]. The PCI itself was accused of being funded by Moscow and the Cominform, and in particular via export deals to the Communist countries.[3]

Apparently, because of fears of a Communist victory due to this, the Christian Democrats won the election - and every single election thereafter until the Mani pulite investigation in 1992. However, WI all this was for nothing? WI, despite this, Italians decide to give the US the middle finger and produce a victory of the Italian Communist Party instead? How would post-1945 Italy be different?

 

[Wolfpaw]

Well, the POD is just early enough for Italy to wind up behind the Iron Curtain.

We very well may see a nastier Greek Civil War. More American involvement due to fears over Italy having gone communist, and an emboldened Soviet Union doing a lot more to help the DSE instead of Stalin ignoring it like he did IOTL (one of the few cases where the West actually managed to trick Stalin).

 

[beer kaiser]

Soviet Union would not back Yugoslavia on border claims (but Italian communists did want to divide territory after war and give Gorizia to Yugoslavia while keeping Trieste and coastal cities).
What about Italy being divided like Korea (communistic North and capitalistic South)?

 

[Guarnasco]

What about Italy being divided like Korea (communistic North and capitalistic South)?

Quite difficult IMO, to get this far you need the soviets to actually liberate nothen Italy, basically getting rid of Italian Social Republic singlehandly...

And even in this case southern Italy will end out being a sort of banana monarchy run by the mob... inverting the ditopian NK clichè

 

[Manfr]

An Allied-backed coup is possible, especially if the Soviets don't make anything slightly similar to the Marshall Plan.

Otherwise, I think we would have gone the path of Czechoslovakia and DDR, with the Communists merging with Socialists and later forming a puppet organization of allied parties.

1956 would be interesting, though : with Giuseppe De Vittorio, leader of the powerful CGIL leftist trade union, against the Soviet occupation, and the Socialists behind him, we could well see a Yugoslavian evolution.

It's also possible that, with such a scenario, the Allies simply hand back South Tyrol to Austria, give Imperia to France and proclaim Sardinia and Sicily independent, while we mainland Italians are left starving.

 

[Dan1988]

1956 would be interesting, though : with Giuseppe De Vittorio, leader of the powerful CGIL leftist trade union, against the Soviet occupation, and the Socialists behind him, we could well see a Yugoslavian evolution.

That could be interesting - could assuming that Tito still splits with Stalin, would Yugoslavia become an Italian ally?

It's also possible that, with such a scenario, the Allies simply hand back South Tyrol to Austria, give Imperia to France and proclaim Sardinia and Sicily independent, while we mainland Italians are left starving.

Giorgio Carbone and the revived Principality of Seborga suddenly becomes more plausible.

 

[Manfr]

That could be interesting - could assuming that Tito still splits with Stalin, would Yugoslavia become an Italian ally?



Giorgio Carbone and the revived Principality of Seborga suddenly becomes more plausible.

As for the first, I think it's much possible, especially if Trieste's issue was settled: communist moderates and socialists always had strong links with Tito.

Nice idea

Something wholly unpredictable I was thinking about was the fate of Val D'Aosta and the Alps: they had no desire of falling under French centralism, and just before the war some liberal, catholics and socialists issued a "Alpine Manifesto" calling for federalism. In case of a Communist takeover, maybe the USA could fund a independence movement for Val D'Aosta and northern Piedmont, eitherh joining Switzerland, staying as a small independet buffer State or installing the Aosta branch of House Savoy as kings. I like the idea of a partitioned Italy after WWII, but North-South is boring: of course there would have been massive unrest in monarchist and catholic south at the prospect of "Atheist Communism", but the Mezzogiorno of Italy was also kept in semi-feudal state, and a land reform could make tremendous inroads for commies.

I wonder what the fate of Saragat and his party would be, in such a timeline. OTL, they started as a loose coalition of trotskytes and socialdemocrats, finally moving to atlantism and centrism in the fifties. At first, however, they didn't condemn Soviet Union at large, but only its "degeneration". Any chance they could survive as one of the puppe parties ?

 

[Dan1988]

As for the first, I think it's much possible, especially if Trieste's issue was settled: communist moderates and socialists always had strong links with Tito.

Sounds good.

Nice idea

Hey, nothing goes wrong with Sua Tremendità. Unfortunately, the current one died a couple of days ago.

Something wholly unpredictable I was thinking about was the fate of Val D'Aosta and the Alps: they had no desire of falling under French centralism, and just before the war some liberal, catholics and socialists issued a "Alpine Manifesto" calling for federalism. In case of a Communist takeover, maybe the USA could fund a independence movement for Val D'Aosta and northern Piedmont, eitherh joining Switzerland, staying as a small independet buffer State or installing the Aosta branch of House Savoy as kings. I like the idea of a partitioned Italy after WWII, but North-South is boring: of course there would have been massive unrest in monarchist and catholic south at the prospect of "Atheist Communism", but the Mezzogiorno of Italy was also kept in semi-feudal state, and a land reform could make tremendous inroads for commies.

Also sounds nice.

I wonder what the fate of Saragat and his party would be, in such a timeline. OTL, they started as a loose coalition of trotskytes and socialdemocrats, finally moving to atlantism and centrism in the fifties. At first, however, they didn't condemn Soviet Union at large, but only its "degeneration". Any chance they could survive as one of the puppe parties ?

That would be interesting to see.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Even if the Communists win the general election, will Italy become a Communist dictatorship?

Not a fan of Communism and Communist parties, but the Italian Communists might not take kindly to Stalin telling them what to do and they're not in a convenient place for the Red Army to enforce orthodoxy.

 

[Dan1988]

Even if the Communists win the general election, will Italy become a Communist dictatorship?

Not a fan of Communism and Communist parties, but the Italian Communists might not take kindly to Stalin telling them what to do and they're not in a convenient place for the Red Army to enforce orthodoxy.

That's why I'm suggesting that the Italian Communists might look to Yugoslavia as an ally, even more than the USSR.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

The whole irony of an Italo-Yugoslav alliance alone is worth a TL.

 

[Dan1988]

The whole irony of an Italo-Yugoslav alliance alone is worth a TL.

True. If I didn't already have one TL in the works and one which has yet to be completed, not to mention exams eek:), then I could've done one.

 

[beer kaiser]

Why stay there, why not make Italo-Yugoslav-Albanian alliance?

 

[Hendryk]

Well, the POD is just early enough for Italy to wind up behind the Iron Curtain.

The dividing line between Soviet and US spheres of influence in post-WW2 Europe wasn't determined by Communist electoral victories, but by the presence of Soviet occupation forces. I think that even if the Communists were voted to power in Italy, the country wouldn't actually decide to become a Soviet satellite state--though the relations with the US may become chilly indeed.

Italian Communism had no shortage of intellectual and political talent. Gramsci had died in 1937 (at a still-youthful 46, so perhaps the POD could be that he survives imprisonment by the fascist regime), but even Togliatti was no mere apparatchik. In OTL the Italian CP was known for its relative ideological independence from Moscow's party line.

 

[Manfr]

The dividing line between Soviet and US spheres of influence in post-WW2 Europe wasn't determined by Communist electoral victories, but by the presence of Soviet occupation forces. I think that even if the Communists were voted to power in Italy, the country wouldn't actually decide to become a Soviet satellite state--though the relations with the US may become chilly indeed.

Italian Communism had no shortage of intellectual and political talent. Gramsci had died in 1937 (at a still-youthful 46, so perhaps the POD could be that he survives imprisonment by the fascist regime), but even Togliatti was no mere apparatchik. In OTL the Italian CP was known for its relative ideological independence from Moscow's party line.

But Togliatti was a devoted stalinist. True, he called for a "National way to socialism", and I don't think we would have seen gulags, but let's not also forget that US aid would surely stop, in case of a People's Front victory, leaving a vacuum that only the Soviet Union could fill.

Anyway, I think that preventing the Socialist breakup is much important for a leftist victory: what about a solitary run for both PCI and PSIUP, with a shared program but different party symbols and lists ?

 

[Dan1988]

Anyway, I think that preventing the Socialist breakup is much important for a leftist victory: what about a solitary run for both PCI and PSIUP, with a shared program but different party symbols and lists ?

Didn't the PSI and PCI have an alliance in the lead-up to the 1948 election? If so - maintain the PSI/PCI alliance, and have both of them merge later on.

 

[Thande]

As Hendryk says, a Communist Italy would not necessarily be a Soviet puppet or even a Soviet ally at all. (There is the OTL small scale example of San Marino, which voted in Communists in the 1950s, stayed democratic and then voted them out again a few years later).

This is actually interesting because the example of there being a large-scale democratic state which votes in Communists, doesn't align with the USSR (probably plotting a third way between the cold war sides) and then lets them be voted out at a subsequent election would doubtless have a marked effect on the perception of communism on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

 

[Manfr]

Didn't the PSI and PCI have an alliance in the lead-up to the 1948 election? If so - maintain the PSI/PCI alliance, and have both of them merge later on.

Yep, but to achieve so we need Nenni understand that the People's Front as an electoral machine is inerently flawed, I'll pick up my Italian Political Parties' text ...

 

[Manfr]

As Hendryk says, a Communist Italy would not necessarily be a Soviet puppet or even a Soviet ally at all. (There is the OTL small scale example of San Marino, which voted in Communists in the 1950s, stayed democratic and then voted them out again a few years later).

This is actually interesting because the example of there being a large-scale democratic state which votes in Communists, doesn't align with the USSR (probably plotting a third way between the cold war sides) and then lets them be voted out at a subsequent election would doubtless have a marked effect on the perception of communism on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Weren't Sammarinese communists overthrown in an Italian-sponsored parliamentary coup backed by some Carabinieri squads ?!

We could have a finlandized Italy, moving towards the Unaligned Countries after 1956. However, I think that civil liberties will suffer quite a lot in the Red Forties and Fifties: even if Christian Democrats are somewhat appeased, the Gedda wing (Civic Committees) is likely to team up with the far right to fight back "Bolshevism", and we'll probably see some heavy hand there, maybe under the guise of "anti-fascist epuration", using the post-war laws. Rome city council elections could be a definite hot point, if the Pope goes on with his idea of a christian-liberal-monarchist-fascist coalition against commies, De Gasperi resists him and a split in the DC occurs.

If the right wing of the DC is banned along with the rising MSI and monarchist groups to "defend democracy against reactionary forces", what will the DC do ? Accept Togliatti's pleas and support the government, effectively leading to a Czechoslovak, Eastern German, Polish or Yugoslav situation as our Agrarian Party, or staying in the opposition and menacing civil disorder to defend parliamentary democracy, thus probably making again Italy a dominant-party State (with the People's Front in charge) up to the end of the Cold War ?

 

[Dan1988]

This is actually interesting because the example of there being a large-scale democratic state which votes in Communists, doesn't align with the USSR (probably plotting a third way between the cold war sides) and then lets them be voted out at a subsequent election would doubtless have a marked effect on the perception of communism on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

True - that would be the part that would make the USSR cringe. The one thing that could be interesting is if, because of the possibility of voting them out, the PSI/PCI alliance-cum-merged party moderates (even if its policies are popular). Though it's within a Western Hemisphere, I'm somehow reminded of Mexico under the PRI (if we discount its authoritarian policies and corrupt system - if we include them, it would be somewhat different).

Yep, but to achieve so we need Nenni understand that the People's Front as an electoral machine is inerently flawed, I'll pick up my Italian Political Parties' text ...

That would be something that could work - but we also we need to find a way of ensuring that the stuff the US does to try to avoid a Communist victory in Italy fails.