page_title: Italian Socialist Party
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Italian Socialist Party / History / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Filippo Turati
context_page_description: The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic 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 dominated the Italian left until after World War II, when it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party. The Socialists came to special prominence in the 1980s, when their leader Bettino Craxi, who had severed the residual ties with the Soviet Union and re-branded the party as "liberal-socialist", served as Prime Minister. The PSI was disbanded in 1994 as a result of the Tangentopoli scandals.
  The party has had a series of legal successors: the Italian Socialists, the Italian Democratic Socialists and the Italian Socialist Party. These parties have never reached the popularity of the old PSI. Socialist leading members and voters have joined quite different parties, from the centre-right Forza Italia, The People of Freedom, and the 2013 Forza Italia, to the centre-left Democratic Party.
  Prior to World War I, future dictator Benito Mussolini was a member of the PSI.
context_section_description: The Italian Socialist Party 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. While in Sicily the Fasci Siciliani were spreading, the party was celebrating on September 8, 1893 its second congress in Reggio Emilia and changed its name to Socialist Party of Italian Workers (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani). During the third congress on January 13, 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 and this led to the split of the Italian Reformist Socialist Party. In 1914 the party obtained good success in local elections, especially in the industrialized northern Italy, and Mussolini became leader of the City Council of Milan. From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini headed up the Bolshevik wing of the Italian Socialist Party who purged moderate or reformist socialists.
caption: The founder of the party, Filippo Turati
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:10:02 11:05:17", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "911", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1237"}