Blackwell Reference Online

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Il Manifesto is a daily newspaper published in Rome. Defining itself as a “communist daily,” it is an independent left-wing newspaper. This makes it an anomaly, in the sense that it is neither the organ of any political organization nor does it have any strict political affiliation. The first issue of Il Manifesto , under the editorship of Luigi Pintor, was published on April 28, 1971, but its origins can be traced back to June 23, 1969. At that time, the first issue of a monthly periodical under the same name came out under the editorship of Rossana Rossanda and Lucio Magri, with the support of a small number of members of the Italian Communist Party (among them Pintor, Aldo Natoli, Eliseo Milani, Luciana Castellina, Massimo Caprara, Ninetta Zandegiacomi, Mario Catalano, Filippo Maone, and Valentino Parlato). The periodical criticized the Italian Communist Party (PCI) for its sub-alternity to the USSR, for the lack of internal democracy, and for its shifting to the right. It explicitly condemned the Russian intervention in Prague . An internal debate quickly arose inside the PCI, and the Manifesto group ran unsuccessfully in the 1972 general elections. The Manifesto group and a group of left-wing socialists then merged into the short-lived Partito d'Unità Proletaria (PdUP) . The original Manifesto group eventually split, and the newspaper gained full autonomy as a communist ... log in or subscribe to read full text