Alessandro Natta
Alessandro Natta ( born January 7, 1918 in Imperia, Italy, † 23 May 2001 ) was an Italian politician and general secretary of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI ) By 1984 until 1988.
Natta comes from a Piedmontese family of the petty bourgeoisie, the elite school " Scuola Normale Superiore " of Pisa attended along with former Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, where he participated in the anti-fascist struggle. His brother is the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry Giulio Natta. Natta graduated with Dottore into lettre.
During the Second World War, he was sent as lieutenant of artillery to Greece in the Aegean Sea, where he was wounded in battle. In the chaos that followed the Italian armistice with the Allies, he participated in the defense of the airport Gaddurà part of Rhodes against German attacks. Captured, he refused to collaborate with the German and Italian fascists and was interned in a prison camp on the island and deported to Germany, where he organized resistance among the officers of the Italian military internees.
Natta returned to Italy in August 1945 to join the PCI in his home Imperia and full-time to plunge into the party work. He was councilor, secretary of the local party organization and temporarily a leading personality in the internal party life. Together with Luigi Longo he became a member of the Central Committee and Politburo.
1948 Natta was first elected to the Parliament. From 1972 to 1979 he was Group President of his party. He was a member of the Commission of Education in all legislatures.
1984 to 1989 he was also a member of the European Parliament.
Togliatti took Natta in the party secretariat. In 1964 he accompanied Togliatti and Luigi Longo to Yalta, where Togliatti died. As a big supporter of Enrico Berlinguer and the " Italian road to socialism ", he obtained a position in the party secretariat. In 1969, he went on with his report, which suggested a party exclusion of the Manifesto group. At times Natta was chief editor of the journal Theory " Rinascita ". In March 1983 he was made chairman of the Central Control Commission.
After Berlinguer death Natta was elected on 26 June 1984 Secretary General of the party. He considered himself as a transitional chief and mediated between the party wings. Although he still followed Berlinguer political line, he strove to improve the strained relations with the CPSU. He supported an organized by Armando Cossutta trip to the USSR that caused serious controversy in the PCI.
Natta was confirmed at the party congress in 1986 as general secretary, but a heart attack in 1988 forced him to prematurely abandon his post. He was succeeded by Achille Occhetto.
In the controversy over Occhettos proposal to rename the historic party Party of the Democratic Left ( PDS), which led "splitting Bolognina " to, Natta seized together with Cossutta engaged party against the renaming. The resolution of the PCI after Occhettos victory led to the birth of two different new parties, the majority party, the PDS with Occhetto at the top and the minority that the Partito della Refoundation founded together with Cossutta, Sergio Garavini, Lucio Libertini and others. Natta remained together with Pietro Ingrao in the majority party, though he was not optimistic about their prospects.