Der eigenartige Genosse Enrico Berlinguer

Enrico Berlinguer is a key figure in Italian political history. From 1972 to 1984 he was General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party, the largest in a Western country. He is considered the father of "Eurocommunism". How did Berlinguer come to develop this new conception of democratic communism and thus break new ground? What is Berlinguer's significance today? The Italian journalist and writer Chiara Valentini draws a comprehensive, well-documented portrait in a dense and captivating manner. She reports on hitherto unknown human and political dimensions and describes the ideas, passions, mistakes and successes of this great European. At the centre of his idea of Eurocommunism were the topics of democracy as a universal value, independence from Moscow, advocacy of European unification, commitment to world peace and the "Third World" of the time.The emphasis on the "moral question" in politics and the attempt to integrate opposing worlds, especially in the course of the desired "historic compromise" between communists and Christian-Democratic Catholics.