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Pietro Ingrao

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Pietro Ingrao
President of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
5 July 1976 – 19 June 1979
Preceded bySandro Pertini
Succeeded byNilde Iotti
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
27 September 1950 – 22 April 1992
ConstituencyRome (1950–1963; 1976–1983)
Perugia (1963–1972; 1983–1992)
Bologna (1972–1976)
Personal details
Born(1915-03-30)30 March 1915
Lenola, Italy
Died27 September 2015(2015-09-27) (aged 100)
Rome, Italy
Political partyPCI (until 1991)
PDS (1991–1993)
PRC (2005–2009)
SEL (2009–2015)
SpouseLaura Lombardo Radice
Children5 (Chiara, Renata, Bruna, Celeste, Guido)
Alma materSapienza University of Rome
ProfessionPolitician

Pietro Ingrao (30 March 1915 – 27 September 2015) was an Italian politician and journalist who participated in the Italian resistance movement. For many years, he was a senior figure in the Italian Communist Party (PCI).[1][2]

Biography

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Ingrao was born at Lenola, Lazio, in the province of Latina. As a student, he was a member of GUF (Gruppo Universitario Fascista) and won a "Littoriale" of culture and art. Ingrao joined the PCI in 1940 and took part in the anti-fascist resistance during World War II. After the war, he was an important representative of the left-wing, more explicitly Marxist–Leninist tendency in the party. This led him to frequent political differences with Giorgio Amendola, leader of the tendency that was more complacent towards social democracy.

Ingrao was a member of the Italian Parliament continuously from 1950 to 1992. From 1947 to 1957, he was editor-in-chief of the party newspaper L'Unità. The tensions between Ingrao's and Amendola's vision became sharper throughout the first half of the 1960s. According to Lucio Magri, Ingrao was portrayed by his detractors as a utopian dreamer who refused any temporary compromise with the center-left, but incorrectly so. In fact, Ingrao acknowledged the value of reforms on the "road to socialism", but he found the vision of Amendola and Longo to be devoid of a long-term strategic plan. Magri adds that Ingrao's dissent was important "because it meant that a 'non-dogmatic, non-Stalinist' Left was present for the first time within a Communist party".[3]

During the Eleventh Party Congress (1966), Ingrao openly criticized Longo's refusal to allow public debate, which made him popular with a part of the participants. However, it also led to the party leadership demonizing him as a factionalist; Ingrao later recalled that the leading cadres retained a cold posture in their seats and declined to shake his hand afterwards.[4][5] Mario Alicata denounced Ingrao's statements as harmful to the party unity.[6] Magri clarifies that Ingrao's aim was not to challenge democratic centralism (Ingrao himself later voted for the expulsion of the faction around il manifesto[7]), but exactly to return to democratic centralism as it was originally conceived by Lenin. This vision entailed a more transparent process of argument and a party democracy that was not limited only to occasional congresses.[8]

Ingrao was the first Communist to become president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, a position he held from 1976 to 1979. After PCI's then-secretary Achille Occhetto, in what was called the Svolta della Bolognina, decided to change the party's name, Ingrao became his main internal opponent.[9] In the PCI's 20th Congress of 1991, he joined the reformist majority in its successor, the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), but soon left the group. After the 2004 European Parliament election in Italy, he abandoned the PDS and adhered as an independent to the more hardline successor to the old PCI, the Communist Refoundation Party.

Ingrao wrote a number of poems and political essays. His most important work is Appuntamenti di fine secolo ("Rendez-Vous at the End of the Century"), which was published in 1995 in collaboration with Rossana Rossanda. He was an atheist.[10] He married Laura Lombardo Radice [it], who died in 2003.[11] Ingrao died on 27 September 2015, at the age of 100.[12]

Electoral history

[edit]
Election House Constituency Party Votes Result
1948 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 26,801 ☒N Not elected
1953 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 20,457 checkY Elected
1958 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 33,820 checkY Elected
1963 Chamber of Deputies Perugia–Terni–Rieti PCI 48,423 checkY Elected
1968 Chamber of Deputies Perugia–Terni–Rieti PCI 42,441 checkY Elected
1972 Chamber of Deputies Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì PCI 48,718 checkY Elected
1976 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 62,623 checkY Elected
1979 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 53,369 checkY Elected
1983 Chamber of Deputies Perugia–Terni–Rieti PCI 57,148 checkY Elected
1987 Chamber of Deputies Perugia–Terni–Rieti PCI 57,220 checkY Elected

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Ajello, At (14 September 2004). "Pietro Ingrao "I miei errori"". La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 2 June 2012.
  2. ^ Donald Sassoon (9 October 2015). "Pietro Ingrao obituary". the Guardian.
  3. ^ Magri, Lucio (2018). The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism. London: Verso. p. 176-178. ISBN 9781786635549.
  4. ^ Ingrao, Pietro (1990). Interventi sul campo. Naples: CUEN. p. 143.
  5. ^ Magri, Lucio (2018). The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism. London: Verso. p. 181-182. ISBN 9781786635549.
  6. ^ XI Congresso del PCI. Atti e risoluzioni. Rome: Editori Riuniti. 1966. p. 466.
  7. ^ Pietro Ingrao, La questione del Manifesto, discorso pronunciato presso il Comitato Centrale del PCI il 15 ottobre 1969, Il Manifesto, 31 marzo 2015.
  8. ^ Magri, Lucio (2018). The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism. London: Verso. p. 186. ISBN 9781786635549.
  9. ^ Telese, Luca (2009). Qualcuno era comunista. Sperling & Kupfer.
  10. ^ Quinzio, Sergio. "Ingrao convertito. anzi no". Il Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  11. ^ "Muore Laura Lombardo Radice, partigiana e moglie di Ingrao". Il Messaggero (in Italian). 23 March 2003. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  12. ^ Addio a Pietro Ingrao, morto a Roma lo storico dirigente del Pci, La Repubblica, 27 September 2015.

Sources

[edit]
  • Galdo, Antonio (2004). Pietro Ingrao. Il compagno disarmato. Milan: Sperling & Kupfer. ISBN 88-200-3732-7.
[edit]
Political offices
Preceded by President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies
1976–1979 		Succeeded by


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