ABSTRACT
Reviewing the prospects of the Partito democratico della sinistra (PDS) in the autumn of 1991, Stephen Hellman found them "not promising." This chapter shows that the transformation of the Partito comunista italiano (PCI) into the PDS and argues that it reveals a weakness of political culture which explains the PDS's poor election vote. It describes that the historical moment in which Occhetto undertook his task rendered it more difficult. The chapter explains how Rifondazione comunista (RC) emerged from out of the "no" group: the forces in the PCI which opposed Occhetto's innovations. Occhetto's task in the campaign was to convince the voters that his party was instead a part of the solution. Pressure to transform the PCI into a non-communist party came from two overlapping sources: electoral decline and the disasters which overtook the world communist movement. The RC vote may be interpreted as a way of bearing witness to the continued existence of Communism and the PCI.
