10/11 DECEMBER 1955 - Italy: Rome - Foundation of the Radical Party

The Radical Party - initially known as the Radical Party of - Italian - Democrats and Liberals - was founded at a convention, attended by 2,500 people, held at the Cola di Rienzo cinema in Rome, following a split in the - Italian - left wing of the Liberal Party. Official speakers were Nicolo CARANDINI, Leone CATTANI, Mario PAGGI and Bruno VILLABRUNA. Exponents of the liberal left and of the former Action Party, and prominent intellectuals, lay free-lance newspapermen and journalists, and leaders of youth and university movements, joined the new political group. They included: Leopoldo PICCARDI, Mario PANNUNZIO, Ernesto ROSSI, Leo VALIANI, Guido CALOGERO, Giovanni FERRARA, Marco PANNELLA, Paolo UNGARI, Eugenio SCALFARI ...

The Radicals gave top priority to:

"...the enforcement of the Constitution and the establishment of a liberal, secular State, a constitutional State that makes all citizens equal in the eyes of the law, without political or religious discrimination, and which guarantees freedom from oppression inflicted by the authorities or the police."

The main areas for action, proposed by the Radical Party in its Statute and its programmes were: social justice; educational reform; the moralization of public concerns and the opposition of economic monopolies; integration in the Common Market.

The first national Secretariat was composed of Nicolo CARANDINI, Leopoldo PICCARDI, Mario PANNUNZIO, Leo VALIANI, Bruno VILLABRUNA.

During the period between 1995-60, the Radical Party occupied itself mainly with Italian politics, keeping its distance from both clerical centrism and communist totalitarianism, while aiming to expand the secular and socialist territory in the country.

Where foreign policy was concerned the RP’s initial agenda, as expressed in the two diverse Radical weeklies (L’Espresso and Il Mondo), had the following objectives: a pro-Atlantic position assumed by Italy in NATO and the relaunch of the country at the European level. From 1960 onwards the positions and theories of the "Radical Left" were defined, whose young exponents would later assume the leadership of the Party.

From its inception the Radical Left, typically, was to show a primary and practical interest in international politics.

"In the mid-fifties various new leftist opposition movements, which set themselves apart from the established communist and social-democrat parties, entered the international stage. These secular movements interpreted, at various practical and theoretical levels, the new social needs that had begun to emerge but were still ignored by the official Left or by Christian Democrat parties. They all assumed antiauthoritarian stances to confront the repressive tactics that were once again being adopted by European governments (...)

In this context, the CND movement was born in Britain, the Resistance networks set up to "fight" the Algerian war in France, and new theories expressed in the Quaderni Rossi (Red Notebooks) in Italy..." (INR)