Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Post-WWII: the Tuscan Left
A new Italian government surrendered to the Allies in 1943, but Mussolini refused to con-
cede defeat, and dragged Italy through two more years of civil war, Allied campaigns and
German occupation. Tuscany emerged from these black years redder than ever, and became
a staunch Socialist power base.
Immediately after the war, three coalition governments succeeded one another. Italy be-
came a republic in 1946 and the newly formed right-wing Democrazia Cristiana (DC;
Christian Democrats) - led by Alcide de Gasperi, who remained prime minister until 1953
- won the first elections under the new constitution in 1948.
Until the 1980s the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI; Italian Communist Party), despite
being systematically kept out of government, played a crucial role in Italy's social and
political development. The popularity of the party - founded in the port town of Livorno in
1921 - prompted the so-called
anni di piombo
(years of lead) in the 1970s, dominated by
terrorism and social unrest. In 1978 the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades, a group of young
left-wing militants responsible for several bomb blasts and assassinations) claimed their
most important victim - former DC prime minister Aldo Moro. His kidnap and murder (54
days later) shook the country.
Despite the disquiet, the 1970s enjoyed positive change: divorce and abortion became
legal, and legislation was passed allowing women to keep their own names after marriage.
Regional governments with limited powers were formed in 15 of the country's 20 regions,
including Tuscany.
America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator who, from 1497 to 1504,
made several voyages of discovery in what would one day be known as South America.
And, in a predictable Tuscan centre-left fashion, from its creation in 1970 until 1983,
Tuscany's regional government was headed up by Italy's dominant leftist party, the Partito
Socialista Italiano (PSI; Italian Socialist Party).
With the disbanding of the Socialist party following the Tangentopoli ('kickback city')
scandal, which broke in Milan in 1992, the door was left open in Tuscany's political arena
for the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Democratic Party of the Left; PDS) - an equally
socialist political party created in 1991 to replace the disbanded PCI - to dominate the dec-
ade: on a national level, the PDS was part of Romano Prodi's winning centre-left coalition
