"Czechoslovakia Has Opened the Eyes Even of the Blind": The Impact of the Prague Coup on the Italian Elections of April 1948
"Czechoslovakia Has Opened the Eyes Even of the Blind": The Impact of the Prague Coup on the Italian Elections of April 1948

Summary/Abstract: The communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 critically shaped the Italian general elections of April that same year, with lasting consequences for Italy’s democratic trajectory. As Italian political scientist and historian Giorgio Galli observed in 1958, “the events that took place in Prague at the end of February 1948 contributed decisively to shifting the character of the electoral debate in Italy from the alternative of reform versus conservatism to that of parliamentary democracy versus communist dictatorship”. Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana, DC) interpreted the Prague coup as a harbinger of what might happen in Italy should the pro-Moscow, socialist-communist Popular Democratic Front (Fronte Democratico Popolare, FDP) prevail or even gain decisive leverage. The spectre of a “Czechoslovak scenario” in Italy was a catalyst for the ferocious campaigning of both the Catholic Church and the U.S. government’s open interference in the election. This article offers a revisionist twist to the familiar narrative. It argues that the elections were not secured solely through the unscrupulous tactics of the Church and Washington; they were also lost by the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI), whose support for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ) was absolute and uncritical. Until February 1948, the Popular Democratic Front had been campaigning on a reformist policy designed to appeal to the middle classes. The PCI’s embrace of the Cominform line, however, discredited it with voters who might have been swayed by a more moderate stance. The result was that Christian Democracy scored a momentous triumph, obtaining over 48 percent of the vote and, under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi (1881–1954) – together with democratic socialists and republicans – consolidated Italy’s place in the institutions of the “West” through a policy of centrismo. This outcome had been by no means certain a year before, or even at the beginning of 1948. In footballing terms, American and Vatican interference may have put an extra player on the field for Christian Democracy, but it was a communist own goal that sealed the match.

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