Unitary Socialist Party (Italy, 1949)
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The Unitary Socialist Party (
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
: ''Partito Socialista Unitario''; PSU) was a
social-democratic Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, socia ...
political party in Italy that existed from 1949 to 1951. The party was founded by moderate members of the
Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...
, who had unsuccessfully tried to stop the collaboration of their former party with the
Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...
(PCI), and some leftist members of the Italian Socialist Workers' Party (''Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani''; PSLI), who sought a rupture with
Christian Democracy Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...
(DC) and
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
. The party was led by a former interior minister
Giuseppe Romita Giuseppe Romita (7 January 1887 – 15 March 1958) was an Italian socialist politician. He served several times as a cabinet minister and member of the Italian Parliament. Early life and education The son of Guglielmo Romita and Maria Gianneli, ...
. There were 15 member of the
Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...
who had joined the party. The goal of the party, which considered itself as transitional, was to reunite all Italian socialists in order to overrun both the PCI and the DC. The project had strong international support through the
Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism, consisting mostly of Social democracy, social democratic political parties and Labour mov ...
; the French
SFIO The C programming language provides many standard library functions for file input and output. These functions make up the bulk of the C standard library header . The functionality descends from a "portable I/O package" written by Mike Lesk at ...
and the British Labour Party, at that time both in government, liked the idea of their Italian counterpart defeating parties funded by the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively. The project was undoubtedly too ambitious, and it quickly stalled. One problem was a lack of money. As
Ignazio Silone Secondino Tranquilli (1 May 1900 – 22 August 1978), best known by the pseudonym Ignazio Silone (, ), was an Italian politician, novelist, essayist, playwright, and short-story writer, world-famous during World War II for his powerful anti-fasci ...
, then a leading member of the party, confessed in 1950: "The search for funds to pay for our extremely limited expenses become every month more difficult, more precarious, more humiliating.... I do not mean we have to liquidate the PSU and accept unification at any cost, but we have to say that we can no longer go on this way."Ettore Costa, ''The Labour Party, Denis Healey and the International Socialist Movement'' (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p. 199. On 1 May 1951, the party fused with the PSLI, led by
Giuseppe Saragat Giuseppe Saragat (; 19 September 1898 – 11 June 1988) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as President of Italy from 1964 to 1971. Early life Saragat was born on 19 September 1898 in Turin, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy, to Sard ...
, giving birth to the
Italian Democratic Socialist Party The Italian Democratic Socialist Party (, PSDI), also known as Italian Social Democratic Party, was a social-democratic political party in Italy. The longest serving partner in government for Christian Democracy, the PSDI was an important for ...
(''Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano'', PSDI).


See also

*
Unitary Socialist Party (Italy, 1922) The Unitary Socialist Party (''Partito Socialista Unitario'', PSU) was a democratic socialist political party in Italy active from 1922 to 1930. Its outlook was reformist and anti-fascist. History The party was founded in November 1922 by the re ...
*
Unified Socialist Party (Italy) The Unified Socialist Party (), officially called Unified PSI–PSDI (''PSI–PSDI Unificati''), was the name of the federation of parties formed by the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) from 1966 t ...


References

{{Historical Italian political parties Political parties established in 1949 Political parties disestablished in 1951 Defunct social democratic parties in Italy Defunct socialist parties in Italy Defunct political parties in Italy 1949 establishments in Italy 1951 disestablishments in Italy