Italy's Communist Party and People's China (50s-early 60s)

In the ’50s and early ’60s the Italian Communist Party (ICP) was one of the main actors involved in informal and unconventional diplomacy between Italy and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the presence in Italy of the largest Communist party in Western Europe undoubtedly acted as an important channel for unofficial Sino-Italian exchanges. This paper tries to trace the development of ICP-CCP relations focusing in particular on the Italian Communists’ views and analysis of the CCP’s historical experience. It also would like to show that ICP leaders generally viewed the CCP’s revolutionary in a positive way, an evaluation which largely stemmed from the ICP’s own national experience and its search for a more autonomous international role.