Stan badań nad Włoską Partią Komunistyczną. Wyzwania i postulaty badawcze
The State of Research on the Italian Communist Party. Research Challenges and Postulates

Summary/Abstract: The Italian Communist Party (PCI) was founded in 1921, a year before the march of the fascists on Rome. After only a few years of existence, it was broken up and its individual units continued to operate in exile. During the Cold War, it was the largest communist party in the West. Unlike many other Western parties with this ideological profile, it quickly became a mass party. On the one hand, the PCI remained a communist party which maintained close relations with Moscow and its satellite states, and on the other, it sought democratic legitimacy and “national” roots. It is this complexity (some Italian historians use the word ’anomaly’) in the history of the party that caused and causes the unrelenting fascination of many researchers. Many publications and articles about the PCI have already been written but some areas of its history remain unexplored. This article is an attempt to organise the rich scientific achievements related to the party, to present problems related to its historiography and to indicate research postulates for the future.

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