Talk about identity crisis! The Socialists have suffered from one practically since birth. Their problem is how to cling to Socialist principles without either being drawn toward Communism or embracing the bourgeois Establishment. Nowhere has the conflict been more tortured than in Italy. There, Socialists are outflanked on the left by the West's strongest Communist Party, while the center is pre-empted by the dominant Christian Democrats. Ever in search of a role, often quarreling among themselves, the Socialists have contributed greatly to Italy's protean politics. They have just caused the latest Italian government crisis, and brought down the promising government of Christian Democrat Mariano Rumor.
Shifting Coalition. To see how this came about, it is necessary to pause and contemplate the plot as it has unfolded over the years. It is a commedia dell' arte script with occasional touches of Machiavelli.
ACT I. In the 1940s, the Socialists under longtime Leader Pietro Nenni participate in the Christian Democratic government. But ideologically, they often cooperate with the Communists. This so enrages the Christian Democrats that they toss Nenni out as Foreign Minister. It so troubles the moderate Socialists that they split off and regroup as the Italian Socialist Workers' Party and later as the Social Democrats.
ACT II. In the 1950s, Nenni himself finally draws away from the Communists. He helps prepare the way for the famous apertura a sinistra, the Christian Democrats' opening to the left in which, by 1963, they once more admit the Socialists into the government.
ACT III. To strengthen the center left government and push the social reforms that Italy badly needs, Nenni in 1966 agrees with the Social Democrats to reunite the old Socialist Party factions. It does not turn out to be a profitable reunion. In Italy's 1968 national elections left-wing voters disenchanted with the center-left government vote for the Communist Party, which picks up nearly 800,000 new votes. The Socialists lose four seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
ACT IV. Trying to recoup some of their losses, left-wing Socialists start making overtures to the Communists again. They are led by Deputy Premier and Party General Secretary Francesco de Martino, a 62-year-old law professor who learned how to tack and test the winds as a yachtsman on the Bay of Naples. He sees to it that far-left factions slowly take control of the party machinery. This infuriates the ex-Social Democrats; their leader, Giuseppe Saragat, has been President of the Republic for four years and is presumably above politics. But others angrily threaten to bolt.