Migliorismo influenced by Giorgio Amendola
Origins
The name migliorismo derives from the Italian verb migliorare ("to improve", which is the root of the English word ameliorate), because its main goal was to improve the Italian capitalist system from the inside, by means of gradual reforms, according to a social democratic programme rather than full-scale revolution. Its origins lay in the ideas of Giorgio Amendola, a prominent PCI leader during the post-World War II period, who discussed gradually abandoning Marxism in favour of social democratic and reformist theories. 
These ideas were suited for making alliances with more moderate centre-left parties, such as the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Italian Social Democratic Party (PSDI). Consequently, migliorismo received extensive derogatory treatment from the revolutionary left wing of the PCI, which was led by Pietro Ingrao. The miglioristi did, however, receive some modest support from the pro-Soviet wing of the party in the days when it was headed by Armando Cossutta.
During the early 1980s there were frequent conflicts between the secretary of the Communist Party Enrico Berlinguer and the exponents of migliorismo, who criticized Berlinguer's renunciation of the historic compromise and his ongoing hostility to Bettino Craxi, the leader of the PSI. The miglioristi believed that the party had allowed Craxi to monopolize the concept of 'modernization' in politics (Craxismo), thereby leaving it unable to properly interpret the social and economic changes that had occurred in Italy. According to some critics, Craxi used the miglioristi as a tool to hamper Berlinguer.
Several representatives of the migliorista wing of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), born in 1991 from the ashes of the PCI, criticized Secretary Achille Occhetto's decision to support the prosecutors investigating the numerous corruption scandals that arose during the Tangentopoli crisis, which they attacked as "judicialist". Some of the Milanese exponents of migliorismo, who were often close to the PSI, were later arrested for corruption, although most of them were released without charge.