page_title: Palmiro Togliatti
section_title: "Salerno turn" and shooting
hierarchical_section_title: Palmiro Togliatti / Secretary of the Italian Communist Party / "Salerno turn" and shooting
caption_attribution_description: English: Palmiro Togliatti
context_page_description: Palmiro Togliatti was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death. He was nicknamed Il Migliore by his supporters. In 1930 he became a citizen of the Soviet Union and later he had a city in that country named after him: Tolyatti.
  Togliatti was a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, and from 1927 until his death, he was the Secretary and the undisputed leader of the Italian Communist Party, except for the period from 1934 to 1938, during which he served as representative to the Comintern, the international organization of communist parties. After the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943 and the formation of the Cominform in 1947, he refused the post of Secretary General, offered to him directly by Stalin in 1951, preferring to remain at the head of the PCI.
  From 1944 to 1945 Togliatti held the post of Deputy Prime Minister and from 1945 to 1946 he was appointed Minister of Justice in the governments that ruled Italy after the fall of Fascism. He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly of Italy.
  Togliatti survived an assassination attempt in 1948, and died in 1964, during a holiday in Crimea on the Black Sea.
context_section_description: In 1944 Togliatti returned from Moscow to Italy, and led his PCI and other political forces to the so-called Svolta di Salerno, the  "Salerno Turn". This was a compromise between antifascist parties, the monarchy and prime minister Pietro Badoglio to set up a government of national unity and to postpone institutional questions. Togliatti also founded a political journal, Rinascita, following his return to Italy in 1944 which he edited until his death. The PCI committed to supporting democracy and to abandon the armed struggle for the cause of Socialism. In effect, the turn moved the party to the right, in contrast with many demands from within; it also meant the disarmament of those members of the Italian resistance movement that had been organized by the PCI (the Garibaldi Brigades). Togliatti served from December 1944 as Deputy Prime Minister and then from June 1945 as Justice Minister.
  After having been minister without portfolio in the Pietro Badoglio government, he acted as vice-premier under Alcide De Gasperi in 1945. In opposition to the dominant line in his own party, he voted for the inclusion of the Lateran Pacts in the Italian Constitution. At the 1946 general election, held at the same time as the Constitutional Referendum won by republican supporters, the PCI obtained 19% of the votes and 104 seats in the new Constituent Assembly.
  Communist ministers were evicted during the May 1947 crisis. The same month, Maurice Thorez, head of the French Communist Party (PCF), was forced to quit Paul Ramadier's government along with the four other communist ministers. As in Italy, the PCF was very strong, taking part in the Three parties alliance (Tripartisme) and scoring 28.6% at the November 1946 elections.
  In 1948, Togliatti led the PCI in the first democratic election after World War II. He lost to the Christian Democrat party (DC – Democrazia Cristiana) after a highly confrontational campaign in which the United States, viewing him as a Cold War enemy, played a large part. Allied with the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front, the left-wing achieved 31% of the votes.
  On 14 July 1948, Togliatti was shot three times, being severely wounded by Antonio Pallante, a strongly anti-communist fascist student; his life hung in the balance for days and news about his condition was uncertain, causing an acute political crisis in Italy (which included a general strike called by the Italian General Confederation of Labour).
caption: Togliatti with a copy of L'Unità newspaper, in 1950s.
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