Labour Democratic Party

The Labour Democratic Party (Partito Democratico del Lavoro, DL) was a social-liberal political party in Italy, founded in 1943 as the heir of defunct Italian Social Democratic Party, formed by those Socialists who wanted to cooperate with the Liberal political guard which governed Italy from the days of Giovanni Giolitti. Leading members of the party were Ivanoe Bonomi, Meuccio Ruini and Enrico Molè. The party inheredited the symbol of its ancestor, a torch with a tricolour flame.

The party became one of the six members of the National Liberation Committee which governed Italy during the war against Fascism from 1944 to 1946. After having fought the 1946 general election within the National Democratic Union (composed basically by Benedetto Croce's Italian Liberal Party and by pre-Fascist leading Liberal politicians, such as Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Francesco Saverio Nitti), most members joined the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, of which Bonomi was honorary chairman from 1947 until his death in 1951.