Italian Socialist Party instance of political party
The Italian Socialist Party (Italian: Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI) was a social-democratic and democratic-socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 1892, the PSI was from the beginning a big tent of Italy's political left and socialism, ranging from the revolutionary socialism of Andrea Costa to the Marxist-inspired reformist socialism of Filippo Turati and the anarchism of Anna Kuliscioff. Under Turati's leadership, the party was a frequent ally of the Italian Republican Party and the Italian Radical Party at the parliamentary level, while lately entering in dialogue with the remnants of the Historical Left and the Liberal Union during Giovanni Giolitti's governments to ensure representation for the labour movement and the working class. In the 1900s and 1910s, the PSI achieved significant electoral success, becoming Italy's first party in 1919 and during the country's Biennio Rosso in 1921, when it was victim of violent paramilitary activities from the far right, and was not able to move the country in the revolutionary direction it wanted.A split with what became known as the Communist Party of Italy and the rise to power of former party member and Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, who was expelled from the party and repudiated socialism, class struggle and internationalism in favour of corporatism and ultranationalism, and his National Fascist Party led to the PSI's collapse in the controversial 1924 Italian general election and eventual ban in 1925. This led the party and its remaining leaders to the underground or in exile. The PSI dominated the Italian left until after World War II, when it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The two parties formed an alliance lasting until 1956 and governed together at the local level, particularly in some big cities and the so-called red regions until the 1990s. The PSI suffered the right-wing split of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, whose members opposed the alliance with the PCI and favoured joining the Centrism coalition, in 1947 and the left-wing split of the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity, whose members wanted to continue the cooperation with the PCI, in 1964. Starting from the 1960s, the PSI frequently participated in coalition governments led by Christian Democracy, from the Organic centre-left to the Pentapartito in the 1980s.The PSI, which always remained the country's third-largest party, came to special prominence in the 1980s when its leader Bettino Craxi served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Under Craxi, the PSI severed the residual ties with Marxism and dropped the hammer and sickle in favour of a carnation, a symbol popularly associated with democratic socialism and social democracy, which the party was by then fully embracing, and re-branded it as liberal-socialist—some observers compared this to the Third Way developments of social democracy and described these events as being twenty years ahead of New Labour in the United Kingdom. By that time, the party was aligned with European social democracy and like-minded reformist socialist parties and leaders, including François Mitterrand, Felipe González, Andreas Papandreou and Mário Soares, and was one of the main representatives of Mediterranean or South European socialism. During this period, Italy underwent il sorpasso and became the world's sixth largest economy but also saw a rise of its public debt. While associated with neoliberal policies, as the post-war consensus around social democracy was on the defensive amid the crisis of the 1970s, others argue that the PSI and Craxi, along with the DC's left-wing when they governed, maintained dirigisme in contrast to the neoliberal and privatisation trends.The PSI was disbanded in 1994 as a result of the Tangentopoli scandals. A series of legal successors followed, including the Italian Socialists (1994–1998), the Italian Democratic Socialists (1998–2007) and the Socialist Party (formed in 2007, it took the PSI name in October 2009) within the centre-left coalition, and a string of minor parties and the New Italian Socialist Party (formed in 2001) within the centre-right coalition. These parties have never reached the popularity of the old PSI. Former PSI leading members and voters have joined quite different parties, from the centre-right, such as Forza Italia, The People of Freedom and the new Forza Italia, to the centre-left, such as the Democratic Party.History
Early years
The PSI was founded in 1892 as the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani) by delegates of several workers' associations and parties, notably including the Italian Workers' Party and the Milanese Socialist League. It was part of a wave of new socialist parties at the end of the 19th century and had to endure persecution by the Italian government during its early years. It modelled on the Social Democratic Party of Germany. While in Sicily the Fasci Siciliani were spreading as a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, the party was celebrating on 8 September 1893 its second congress in Reggio Emilia and changed its name to the Socialist Party of Italian Workers (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani). During the third congress on 13 January 1895 in Parma, it decided to adopt the name of Italian Socialist Party and Filippo Turati was elected its secretary.At the start of the 20th century, the PSI chose not to strongly oppose the governments led by five-time prime minister Giovanni Giolitti. This conciliation with the existing governments and its improving electoral fortunes helped to establish the PSI as a mainstream Italian political party by the 1910s. Despite the party's improving electoral results, the PSI remained divided into two major branches, the Reformists and the Maximalists. The Reformists, led by Filippo Turati, were strong mostly in the unions and the parliamentary group. The Maximalists, led by Costantino Lazzari, were affiliated with the London Bureau of socialist groups, an international association of left-wing socialist parties. In 1912, the Maximalists led by Benito Mussolini prevailed at the party convention, which led to the split of the Italian Reformist Socialist Party. In 1914, the party obtained good success in local elections, especially in the industrialised northern Italy, and Mussolini became leader of the City Council of Milan. From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini headed up the pro-Bolshevik wing of the PSI who purged moderate or reformist socialists.Diaspora
Socialists who did not align with the other parties organised themselves in two groups: the Italian Socialists (SI) of Enrico Boselli, Ottaviano Del Turco, Roberto Villetti, Riccardo Nencini, Cesare Marini, and Maria Rosaria Manieri, who decided to be autonomous from the PDS; and the Labour Federation (FL) of Valdo Spini, Antonio Ruberti, Giorgio Ruffolo, Giuseppe Pericu, Carlo Carli, and Rosario Olivo, who entered in close alliance with it. The SI eventually merged with other Socialist splinter groups to form the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in 1998, while the FL merged with PDS to form the Democrats of the Left (DS) later on that year.
Between 1994 and 1996, many former Socialists joined Forza Italia (FI), as did Giulio Tremonti, Franco Frattini, Massimo Baldini, and Luigi Cesaro. Gianni De Michelis, Ugo Intini and several politicians close to Craxi formed the Socialist Party, while others like Fabrizio Cicchitto and Enrico Manca launched the Reformist Socialist Party. In the 2000s, two outfits claimed to be the party's successor, namely the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) that evolved from the Italian Socialists (SI) and the New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI) founded by Gianni De Michelis, Claudio Martelli, and Bobo Craxi in 2001.
Both the SDI and the NPSI were minor political forces. A number of Socialist members and voters joined FI, while others joined the DS and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL). Many others were not members of any party any more. Some former Socialists were affiliated to The People of Freedom (PdL) and remains in the 2013 refoundation of FI, while others are in centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and modern-day Socialist Party (PS). Socialists who joined FI include Tremonti, Frattini, Fabrizio Cicchitto, Renato Brunetta, Amalia Sartori, Francesco Musotto, Margherita Boniver, Francesco Colucci, Raffaele Iannuzzi, Maurizio Sacconi, Luigi Cesaro, and Stefania Craxi.  Although it may seem unusual for self-identified socialists to be members of a centre-right party, many of those who did so felt that the centre-left was by now dominated by former Communists and the best way to fight for mainstream social democracy was through FI/PdL. Valdo Spini, Giorgio Benvenuto, Gianni Pittella and Guglielmo Epifani joined the DS, while Enrico Manca, Tiziano Treu, Laura Fincato, and Linda Lanzillotta joined DL. Giuliano Amato joined The Olive Tree as an independent.
In 2007, some former Socialists, including the SDI, a portion of the NPSI led by Gianni De Michelis, The Italian Socialists of Bobo Craxi, Socialism is Freedom of Rino Formica and splinters from the DS joined forces and formed the Socialist Party (PS), renamed Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 2011. This PSI is the only Italian party represented in Parliament that explicitly refers to itself as Socialist; many other Socialist associations and organisation participate to the political debate both in the centre-right and the centre-left coalitions.Ideology
During its century-long history, the party's socialism evolved from its revolutionary socialist beginnings, with the Reformist faction in minority, to parliamentary and reformist socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracy. While its more radical factions split to form the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1921, the party's left-wing, heir of the Maximalist faction, remained strong at least until the 1980s, when the PSI under Bettino Craxi was rebranded as liberal socialist. At its beginnings, the PSI sat to the farthest left of the Italian party system with the heirs of the Historical Far Left. As many of its positions became accepted or mainstream, the party came to represent the centre-left, positioned between the PCI and Christian Democracy, and was part of Italy's first centre-left government in the 1960s; its inclusion led those governments to be called the Organic centre-left.
type of example of manifestation of representation of