Action Party (Italy)

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Action Party
Partito d'Azione
Former leaders Ferruccio Parri, Ugo La Malfa, Emilio Lussu, Riccardo Lombardi
Founded 14 July 1942
Dissolved 25 April 1947
Newspaper L'Italia Libera
Membership  (1945) ? (max)
Ideology Republicanism
Liberal socialism[1]
Liberalism[2]
Political position Centre-left[2]
Politics of Italy
Political parties
Elections

The Action Party (Partito d'Azione, PdA) was a liberal socialist political party in Italy.[3]

History

Founded in July 1942 by former militants of Giustizia e Libertà ("Justice and Freedom"), liberal socialists, and democrats. Ideologically they were heirs to the "Liberal Socialism" of Carlo Rosselli and to Piero Gobetti's "Liberal Revolution", whose writings rejected Marxist "economic determinism" and aimed at the overcoming of class struggle and for a new shape of Socialism, respect for civil liberty and for radical change in both the social and the economic structure of Italy. From January 1943 it published a clandestine newspaper, L'Italia Libera ("Free Italy"), edited by Leone Ginzburg. In the same year members of the Party came into contact with Allied secret services stationed in neutral Switzerland. In particular, this activity was commissioned to Filippo Caracciolo which had a special relationship with British Special Operations Executive. Caracciolo tried to avoid Allied bombing on Italy, but most of all he tried to get British support for an Anti-Fascist Committee that was supposed to lead the new government after an anti-Mussolini coup.[4]

After 8 September 1943 and the armistice, central members of the National Liberation Committee, they participated actively in the Italian resistance movement with units of Giustizia e Libertà commanded by Ferruccio Parri. It maintained a clear anti-monarchical position and it was opposed to Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party's Salerno Initiative for postwar governance. The party adopted the symbol of a flaming sword.

In the immediate post-war period it joined the government securing the post of Prime Minister for Ferruccio Parri from June to November 1945. However as a result of the internal conflict between the democratic-reformist line of Ugo La Malfa and the socialist line of Emilio Lussu, combined with the electoral defeat of 1946, the party folded. Unwillingness of the "Actionists" to work with reviving political parties "tainted by association with Fascism" also resulted in the decline of the Action Party. The main group of former members, led by Riccardo Lombardi, joined the Italian Socialist Party, while the Malfa group entered the Italian Republican Party.

Prominent members

Main article: List of Partito d'Azione politicians

See also

References

  1. ↑ Steve Bastow, James Martin. Third way discourse: European ideologies in the twentieth century. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Edinburgh University Press, Ltd., 2003. Pp. 74.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ercolessi, Giulio (2009), "Italy: The Contemporary Condition of Italian Laicità", Secularism, Women & the State: The Mediterranean World in the 21st Century (Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture): 13 
  3. ↑ Steve Bastow, James Martin. Third way discourse: European ideologies in the twentieth century. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Edinburgh University Press, Ltd., 2003. Pp. 74.
  4. ↑ Mireno Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’Antifascismo italiano. Diplomazia clandestina, Intelligence, Operazioni Speciali (1940-1943), Firenze, 2010

Sources

  • Website of the Italian Resistance Historical Society,, including in-depth bios, recent remembrances, and selections from party documents.
  • Historical Dictionary entry from Paravia Mondadori Editori, an Italian Educational ipublishing house: .
Parties
Armed forces
Prime Ministers
Historical political parties in Italy
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