Italian general election, 1972
- PCI: 179
- PSI: 61
- PSDI: 29
- PRI: 15
- Otherwise:. 3
- DC: 266
- PLI: 20
- MSI: 56
The parliamentary elections of 1972 were held on 7 May 1972. They were the seventh after the end of World War II and the introduction of universal male and female suffrage.
Since 1969, Italy was in difficult times of constant terrorist acts, mostly from the right ( here could in many cases connections to the intelligence to government circles and the CIA demonstrated that operated as part of Operation Gladio, with the aim to make Italy ungovernable and so bring about a military coup ), but also from the left (again, there was a suspicion of the instrumentalization of the various groupings by the secret services to discredit the PCI and the Italian left ).
With the new chairman of the PCI, Enrico Berlinguer, hit this an increasingly more moderate direction, and said goodbye to the Leninist model of Soviet Communism - this process can be seen as a turning to the Euro communism be understood. In this role Berlinguer rejected the possibility of a left-wing coalition, fearing that these overthrown as in Chile by right-wing military and Italy could be turned into a dictatorship. Therefore, under his direction desired, the Communist Party of the so-called historic compromise, a coalition of Christian Democrats, Communists and the Social Democratic Socialists. First, they wanted to develop this model through toleration by the PCI. Within the PCI there was against this course but a lot of criticism, especially on the part of the radical New Left within the party, which eventually separated from this and as a " Manifesto" contested the election. Social Democrats and Socialists were again separated.