ABSTRACT
The Constituent Assembly which drafted the Italian Constitution was elected on 2 June 1946. On the same day a national referendum was held to decide whether Italy was to be a monarchy or a republic. The three signatories symbolized the compromise between liberalism, socialism and political Catholicism which the Constitution embodied. By the standards of Italian parliamentary proceedings, or indeed by any standards, the drafting and approval of the Constitution was a speedy affair. When it first met, in June 1946, the Cold War had not yet begun and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was still in the government. The first article of the Constitution gave a particular role to the working class: Ttaly is a democratic republic founded on labour. The Constitution bears the mark of the compromise between Italian communism and Christian Democracy which was a feature of the Resistance and of the first post-war governments.
