Chiara Giorgi teaches contemporary history at Rome’s Sapienza University. She is the author of a biography of Lelio Basso and editor of the English translation of his selected writings. She has also written books on Italy’s welfare state and colonialism and fascism, and essays on the history of Marxism.

03.08.2021

• Chiara Giorgi

Lelio Basso and the Missed Opportunities of Italian Socialism

Lelio Basso was a major figure of the postwar Italian left who urged its parties to follow through on their revolutionary programs and avoid subordinating themselves to the ruling Christian Democrats. Italy’s Socialists and Communists should have heeded his advice.