Gorbachev's Perestroika and Italian Communists: the Two Exits from One Utopia

This article is a contribution to the studies of the sudden and precipitous collapse of European communism. It seeks to revisit the main stages of interactions between the PCI leaders and Gorbachev's reformist circle. The author sought to shed some light on the generational, social, and cultural aspects of the story. In particular, to the role of informal transnational community between Italian and Soviet (mostly Russian) communist believers, that was formed in the 1930s-50s – the community which, thanks to such representatives as Anatoly Chernyaev, became crucial part to a background of institutional relationship between the two parties. Also, the author used the diaries of Chernyaev and Anatoly Adamishin, selective and special as they were, to complicate the chronology of the crisis of European communism: these personal documents demonstrate that some changes of minds and perspectives took place much earlier and in parallel on both sides, as Italians and Soviets pursued their parallel paths towards their exits from the great collectivist utopia.