Handsarchive 1 - The Fist: Farewell to Enrico Berlinguer - L'addio a Enrico Berlinguer

© Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico 13th June 1984 - More than a million citizens attended his funeral, one of the biggest in Italy's history. Reflecting his stature in Italian politics, the leaders of all parties paid tribute to his career and even the Vatican expressed condolences. Considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano), which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970. He distanced the party from the influence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and pursued a moderate line, repositioning the party within Italian politics and advocating accommodation and national unity. This strategy came to be termed Eurocommunism and he was seen as its main spokesperson. It would come to be adopted by Western Europe's other significant communist parties, in Spain, Portugal and later France, its significance as a political force cemented by a 1977 meeting in Madrid between Berlinguer, Georges Marchais and Santiago Carrillo. Berlinguer himself described his "alternative" model of socialism, distinct from both the Soviet bloc and the capitalism practised by Western countries during the Cold War, as the terza via or "third way". He characterised the PCI as an honest party in Italy's corruption-ravaged politics, an image that preserved the party's reputation during the Mani pulite corruption scandals. He was characterised by Patrick McCarthy as "the last great communist leader in Western Europe" and remains identified with the causes of Eurocommunism, opposition to Soviet repression in Eastern Europe and democratic change in Italy. He was an atheist. http://patrimonio.aamod.it/aamod-web/film/detail/IL8600005497/22/l-addio-enrico-berlinguer.html?startPage=0&idFondo=&multiSearch=true&jsonVal=%7B%22jsonVal%22:%7B%22query%22:%22l%27addio%20a%20enrico%20berlinguer%22,%22startDate%22:%22%22,%22endDate%22:%22%22,%22fieldDate%22:%22dataNormal%22,%22_perPage%22:21%7D%7D