ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the actual process of the transformation of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The organisational crisis of PCI in the 1980s reflects the crisis of Fordism, the fragmentation of the trade union movement and the fall in workers' militancy in general. The PCI secretary went on to argue that, 'the internationalisation of the economy and the challenge of modernisation no longer permit a country like Italy to coexist with backwardness, mass unemployment and such a deterioration of the state'. After so many profound changes, the PCI's 'new course' should have abandoned any sort of erstwhile ambiguity, chosen a stable political ally and concentrated upon building a realistic alliance. The coordinator of the newly-established institution, Giovanni Pellicani, an ex-mayor of Venice, argued that the 'PCI model of a shadow cabinet has very little to do with the British pattern where the whole system operates under the first-past-the-post electoral system'.
