Communist Refoundation Party

In February 1991, when the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) under the leadership of Achille Occhetto, left-wing dissidents led by Armando Cossutta launched the Movement for Communist Refoundation. Later that year, Proletarian Democracy (DP), a far-left outfit, dissolved itself so that its members could join the PCI dissidents and form a united front of all Italian communists. In December, the PRC was officially founded and Sergio Garavini was elected secretary. In the 1992 general election, the party obtained 5.6% of the vote.

Garavini resigned from secretary in June 1993 and was replaced by Fausto Bertinotti, a trade unionist of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) who had left the PDS only a few months before, in January 1994. In the 1994 general election, the PRC was part of the PDS-led Alliance of Progressives and obtained 6.1% of the vote. In June 1995, a group of splinters led by Lucio Magri and Famiano Crucianelli formed the Movement of Unitarian Communists (MCU), which would eventually merge with the PDS, being one of the founding members of the Democrats of the Left (DS) in February 1998.

The leadership of Bertinotti was a turning point for the party, which jumped to 8.6% of vote in the 1996 general election, fought by the party in a loose alliance with The Olive Tree, the major centre-left coalition whose dominant partner was the PDS. After the election, the PRC decided to externally support the first cabinet led by Romano Prodi, but tensions soon arose within the coalition and the party.

In October 1998, the PRC was divided between those who wanted to stop supporting Prodi's government, led by Bertinotti; and those who wanted to continue the alliance, led by Cossutta, the party's president. The central committee endorsed Bertinotti's line, but Cossutta and his followers decided to ignore this line and to support Prodi. The votes of the cossuttiani were not enough and the government lost a confidence vote in Parliament.

The dissidents, who controlled the majority of deputies and senators, split and formed a rival communist party, the Party of Italian Communists (PdCI), which immediately joined the first cabinet led by Massimo D'Alema, leader of the DS and first post-communist to hold the job of Prime Minister of Italy. Deprived of most of its parliamentary representation, the PRC fought for its existence and voters supported it rather than the PdCI, both in the 1999 European Parliament election (4.3% to 2.0%) and the 2001 general election (5.0% to 1.7%).

Despite competition from the PdCI, the PRC confirmed its status as Italy's largest communist party. Having been left by most traditional communists, it also started to enlarge its scope aiming at becoming a collector of radical social movements and, foremost, the main representative of the anti-globalization movement in Italy. The PRC also forged new alliances at the European level and was instrumental in the foundation of the Party of the European Left in May 2004.[3][4]

In October 2004, the PRC re-joined the centre-left coalition, once again led by Prodi. In April 2005, Nichi Vendola, an openly gay politician and one of the emerging leaders of the party, won a primary election and was elected president of traditionally conservative southern region of Apulia, becoming the only regional president ever belonging to the PRC.

In the 2006 general election, the PRC was part of The Union, which won narrowly over the centre-right House of Freedoms coalition and the party obtained 5.8%. After the election, Bertinotti was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies and replaced by Franco Giordano as secretary. Additionally, for the first time it entered a government by joining the Prodi II Cabinet, with Paolo Ferrero Minister of Social Solidarity and seven undersecretaries. The decision to participate in the coalition government and vote to refinance the Italian military presence in Afghanistan and send troops to Lebanon attracted criticism from sectors of the European far-left[5] and provoked the splits of several groups from the ranks of his own party, notably including the Workers' Communist Party, the Communist Alternative Party and Critical Left. Prodi, whose majority was weak and fragmented, resigned in January 2008.

For the 2008 general election, the PRC formed a joint list named Rainbow Left (SA) with the PdCI, the Federation of the Greens and the Democratic Left under Bertinotti's leadership. SA obtained a mere 3.1% (compared to 10.2% won by the constituent parties individually two years before) and no seats. Consequently, Bertinotti quit politics and Giordano resigned and after that some bertinottiani, led by Ferrero and Giovanni Russo Spena (both former Proletarian Democracy members), had forged an alliance with former cossuttiani.

At the July 2008 congress, the PRC was highly divided around ideological and regional lines with Vendola, the bertinottiani's standard-bearer, accusing northern delegates of having absorbed leghismo and stating that it was the end of the party as he knew it. The internal left-wing (which wanted to return to PRC's original communist project) finally prevailed over the bulk of bertinottiani (who insisted on the creation of a broader left-wing party) and Ferrero was elected secretary by the central committee with 50.5%.[6]

In January 2009, the faction around Vendola and Giordano, silently supported by Bertinotti, left the PRC and launched the Movement for the Left (MpS), aimed at forming a broader left-wing party,[7] which would eventually be Left Ecology Freedom (SEL).

In the run-up of the 2009 European Parliament election, the PRC formed along with the PdCI and minor groups, the Anticapitalist and Communist List,[8] obtaining 3.4% of the vote and no MEPs.

In April 2009, the list was transformed into the Federation of the Left,[9][10] which would be disbanded by the end of 2012[11] and officially dissolved in 2015.[12]

In the 2013 general election, the PRC ran within Civil Revolution along with the PdCI, the Greens, Italy of Values and minor groups, obtaining 2.2% of the vote and again no seats.[13] In the 2014 European Parliament election, the PRC was part of The Other Europe, which obtained 4.0% of the vote and three MEPs, including PRC's Eleonora Forenza.

In April 2017, Ferrero was replaced as secretary by Maurizio Acerbo, a former member of the Chamber of Deputies.[14][15][16]

In the 2018 general election, the PRC was part of the Power to the People electoral list,[17][18] which obtained 1.1% of the vote and no seats.[19]