Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste (in Italian: Partito Comunista del Territorio Libero di Trieste, PCTLT, in Slovenian: Komunistični Partiji Svobodnega Tržaškega Ozemlja, KPSTO) was a communist party in the Free Territory of Trieste. It was founded at a congress in 1945 by a merger of the local branches of the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Slovenia as the Communist Party of the Giulian Region (Partito Comunista della Regione Giulana, PCRG, Komunistična partija Julijske krajine, KPJK). The party published a daily newspaper, Il Lavatore. In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical ideology based on Marxism. ... Official Languages Italian, Slovenian, Croatian Capital Trieste Form of Government Republic Area 738 km² Population 330. ... The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista dItalia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that bodys congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. ...

Initial period

At the time of its foundation, the party favoured integration of the area with Yugoslavia.^[1] This stood in contrast with the line of the Italian Communist Party and its leader Palmiro Togliatti, which opposed Yugoslav claims to the region. The main leaders of the party were Rudi Uršič and the Yugoslav partisan leader Branko Babič. Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in all South Slavic languages, Југославија in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic) is a term used for the three separate but successive political entities that existed during most of the 20th century on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. ... Palmiro Togliatti (March 26, 1893 - August 21, 1964) was an Italian communist leader. ... The Rebellion The Yugoslav Partisans were the main resistance movement engaged in the fight against the Axis forces in the Balkans during World War II. // Origins The Yugoslav Partisans went under the official name of National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (Slovene: Narodnoosvobodilna vojska in partizanski odredi Jugoslavije...

In 1947, when the Free Territory was formally constituted, the party adopted the name PCTLT/KPSTO.^[2]

Tito-Cominform split

The party suffered a split following the June 28, 1948 resolution of Cominform, resulting in the expulsion of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The pro-Yugoslavia wing was led by Branko Babič, and the pro-Cominform wing was led by former Comintern agent Vittorio Vidali. The pro-Cominform wing was able to retain a majority in the Central Committee (6 against 4), and Vidali became the leader of the party.^[3] Under Vidali's leadership the party began opposing the annexation of the Free Territory by Yugoslavia. The Cominform (from Communist Information Bureau) is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties. It was the first official forum of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern, and confirmed the new realities after World... The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (after 1952 the League of Communists of Yugoslavia) was the ruling party of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until the 1991. ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... Vittorio Vidali (1900, Trieste—1983; aka Vittorio Vidale, Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras, Comandante Carlos) was an Italian-born Stalinist assassin and what is commonly called a communist agent. Outside of Spain (where Vidali is said to have killed 400), he is known primarily for orchestrating the deaths... Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in all South Slavic languages, Југославија in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic) is a term used for the three separate but successive political entities that existed during most of the 20th century on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. ...

The pro-Yugoslav minority was largely composed of Slovenian cadres. They formed a separate PCTLT under the leadership of Babič. The pro-Yugoslav minority then regrouped as the Italian-Slovenian Popular Front (FPIS).^[4]

Although initially present in both the Italian-controlled Zone A and the Yugoslavian-controlled Zone B, the PCTLT led by Vidali was supressed in Zone B after the split. The FPIS took part in FTT elections in Zone A and continued to function after the integration of Zone A into Italy.

1949 election

The PCTLT took part in the June 12, 1949 elections in the Free Territory. It obtained 35 568 votes (approximately 20% of the total vote), and 13 seats. In the same election, the pro-Yugoslav communists obtained one seat.^[5] June 12 is the 163rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (164th in leap years), with 202 days remaining. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ...

Ethnic composition

PCTLT was the sole pluriethnical political force in the Free Territory at the time, with a large following amongst both Italian and Slovenian workers. It ran a separate Slovenian-language organ, Delo.^[6]

Youth wing

The youth wing of the party was known as the Communist Youth Federation of the Free State of Trieste (Federazione Giovanile Comunista del Territorio Libero di Trieste). FGCTLT published Gioventù.^[7]

Integration into PCI

After the Zone A was integrated into Italy in 1954, the party merged into the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1957.^[2] Within the PCI, the Trieste communists had a Triestian Autonomous Federation.^[7] The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) or Italian Communist Party emerged as Partito Comunista dItalia or Communist Party of Italy from a secession by the Leninist comunisti puri tendency from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) during that bodys congress on 21 January 1921 at Livorno. ...

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ ^a b [2]
3. ^ [3], [4]
4. ^ PBM Storia
5. ^ [5]
6. ^ [6]
7. ^ ^a b Fondo WEISS - DOCUMENTO