It is not easy to take the measure of the Italian Communist party. It has been in such continuous transition that what is true of it at any particular moment is not necessarily true at another. Moreover it is a party that has lived between two worlds – the ideological world of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin and the practical political world of Western parliamentarism and pluralism. And it is a party that has always been internally divided between those to whom democracy and those to whom socialism is more important. Consequently its historic course has been marked by continuity, change, contradiction, and ambiguity in almost equal measure. Even today, after an evolution of decades, the party presents two faces: One was born of the Bolshevik revolution, insists that it is intrinsically different from other parties, rejects social democracy, and advocates a transformation of the economic and social system. The other was shaped by Italy's free political and economic system which the party has supported as loyally as any institution and more than some. Which face is real? Or are both real? Or is one a mask for the other?

No other questions about postwar Italy have so engaged politicians, journalists, scholars, diplomatists, and the business community – not to mention the simple Italian voter. The issue is anything but hypothetical. The party has long been the country's second political force, could become the largest, and may someday participate in the national government and even lead it.