Christian Democracy (Italy)

Propaganda posters of the DC: they described to potential voters the party's commitment to anti-communism (in the left poster), traditionalism (in the centre poster), and family values (in the right poster). Note the use of symbols, especially the crusader shield (representing the DC) protecting Italy (represented by Italia Turrita) from the communist hammer and sickle symbol being used as a weapon in the left poster.

The party's ideological sources were principally to be found in Catholic social teaching, the Christian democratic doctrines developed from the 19th century (see Christian democracy), and on the political thought of Romolo Murri and Luigi Sturzo and ultimately in the tradition of the defunct Italian People's Party. Two Papal encyclicals, Rerum novarum (1891) of Pope Leo XIII, and Quadragesimo anno (1931) of Pope Pius XI, offered a basis for social and political doctrine.

In economics, the DC preferred competition to cooperation, supported the model of social market economy and rejected the Marxist's idea of class struggle. The party thus advocated collaboration between social classes and was basically a catch-all party which aimed to represent all Italian Catholics, both right-wing and left-wing, under the principle of the "political unity of Catholics" against socialism, communism and anarchism. It ultimately represented the majority of Italians who were opposed to the Italian Communist Party. The party was however originally equidistant between the Communists and the hard right represented by the Italian Social Movement.

As a catch-all party, the DC differed from other European Christian Democratic parties, such as the Christian Democratic Union of Germany that were mainly conservative parties, with DC comprising conservative as well as social-democratic and liberal elements. The party was thus divided in many factions and party life was characterised by factionalism and by the double adherence of members to the party and the factions, often identified with individual leaders.

The DC was characterised by a number of factions, spanning from left to right and continually evolving.[21]

In the early years, centrists and liberal-conservatives such as Alcide De Gasperi, Giuseppe Pella, Ezio Vanoni and Mario Scelba led the party. After them, progressives led by Amintore Fanfani were in charge, though opposed by right wing led by Antonio Segni. The party's left wing, with its roots in the left of the late Italian People's Party (Giovanni Gronchi, Achille Grandi and controversial Fernando Tambroni), was reinforced by new leaders such as Giuseppe Dossetti, Giorgio La Pira, Giuseppe Lazzati and Fanfani himself. Most of them were social democrats by European standards.

The party was often led by centrist figures unaffiliated to any faction such as Aldo Moro, Mariano Rumor (both closer to the centre-left) and Giulio Andreotti (closer to the centre-right). Moreover, often, if the government was led by a centre-right Christian Democrat, the party was led by a left-winger and vice versa. This was what happened in the 1950s when Fanfani was party secretary and the government was led by centre-right figures such as Scelba and Segni and in the late 1970s when Benigno Zaccagnini, a progressive, led the party and Andreotti the government: this custom, in clear contrast with the principles of a Westminster system, deeply weakened DC-led governments, that even with great majorities were de facto unable to conciliate the several factions of the party, and ultimately the office of Prime Minister (defined by the Constitution of Italy as a primus inter pares among ministers), turning the Italian party system into a particracy (partitocrazia).

From the 1980s the party was divided between the centre-right led by Arnaldo Forlani (supported also by the party's right wing) and the centre-left led by Ciriaco De Mita (whose supporters included trade unionists and the internal left), with Andreotti holding the balance. De Mita, who led the party from 1982 to 1989, curiously tried to transform the party into a mainstream "conservative party" in line with the European People's Party in order to preserve party unity. He was replaced by Forlani in 1989, after that becoming Prime Minister in 1988. Disagreements between de Mita and Forlani brought Andreotti back to prime-ministership from 1989 to 1992.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of great ideologies and ultimately the Tangentopoli scandals, the heterogeneous nature of the party led it to its collapse. The bulk of the DC joined the new Italian People's Party (PPI), but immediately several centre-right elements led by Pier Ferdinando Casini joined the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD), while others directly joined Forza Italia. A split from the PPI, the United Christian Democrats (CDU), joined Forza Italia and the CCD in the centre-right Pole of Freedoms coalition (later becoming the Pole for Freedoms), while the PPI was a founding member of The Olive Tree centre-left coalition in 1996.

In its early years the party was stronger in Northern Italy, and especially in eastern Lombardy and Veneto, due to the strong Catholic roots of that areas, than in the South, where the Liberal establishment that had governed Italy for decades before the rise of Benito Mussolini had still a grip on voters, as also the Monarchist National Party and the Common Man's Front did. The DC was very weak in Emilia-Romagna and Central Italy, where the Italian Communist Party was the dominant political force.

In the 1948 general election the party had its best result ever (48.5%) and the absolute majority in the Italian Parliament. The party won 66.8% in eastern Lombardy (73.6% in the Province of Bergamo), 60.5% in Veneto (71.9% in the Province of Vicenza), 69.6% in Trentino and 57.8% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, that is to say where the late Italian People's Party had its strongholds. In the Centre-South the DC gained more than 50% of the vote in Lazio (51.9%), Abruzzo (53.7%) and Campania (50.5%).

From the late 1950s the DC's support started to move South and by the 1980s it was stronger in the South than in the North, with the exception of Veneto, which remained one of the party's strongholds. In the 1983 general election the party suffered a dramatic decrease in term of votes and its electoral geography was very different from 30 or even 10 years before, as the region where it obtained the best result was Apulia (46.0%).

In the 1992 general election the shift was even more evident as the party was over the 40% mark only in some Southern regions (41.1% in Campania, 44.5 in Basilicata and 41.2% in Sicily), while it barely reached 20-25% of the vote in the North. As a result of the rise of Lega Nord, which was stronger precisely in the traditional Christian Democratic heartlands, the DC was reduced to 21.0% in Piedmont (with the League at 16.3%), 32.1% in western Lombardy (League at 25.2%), 31.7% in Veneto (League at 17.3%) and 28.0% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (League at 17.0%).

As the DC's role was reduced, the 1919 PPI strongholds and the DC's traditional heartlands were to become Lega Nord's power base, while the successor parties of the DC continued to be key political actors only in the South, where the clientelistic way of government practised by the Christian Democrats and their allies had left a mark. In the 1996 general election the League gained 7 out of 8 single-seat constituencies in the Province of Bergamo and 5 out of 6 in the Province of Vicenza, winning well over 40%, while the combined score of the three main post-DC parties (the new PPI, the CCD and the CDU) was highest in Campania (22.3%). In the 1996 Sicilian regional election the combined score of those parties was 26.4%.[22][23]

The electoral results of the DC in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1946 are shown in the chart below.

DC election poster for Mafia boss Giuseppe Genco Russo.

Having ruled Italy for over 40 years with no alternative other than the Italian Communist Party, DC members had ample opportunity to abuse their power, and some did. In the 1960s scandals involved frauds such as huge illegal profits in the administration of banana import quotas, and preferential allocation of purposely misprinted (and, therefore, rare) postage stamps. Giovanni Leone was forced to resign as President of the Italian Republic in 1978, after the Lockheed bribery scandals. He was later acquitted.

The party was also invested, like the other parties of the Pentapartito, in the Tangentopoli scandals and in the subsequent Mani pulite. Moreover, as in the 1970s and the 1980s Southern Italy had become the party's stronghold, it was likely that Mafia and dishonest politicians may try to collaborate. DC was the party most associated with Mafia among the public. Leaders such as Antonio Gava, Calogero Mannino, Vito Ciancimino, Salvo Lima and especially Giulio Andreotti were perceived by many to belong to a grey zone between simple corruption and mafia business, even if most of them were later acquitted.

• Secretary: Alcide De Gasperi (1944–1946), Attilio Piccioni (1946–1949), Giuseppe Cappi (1949), Paolo Emilio Taviani (1949–1950), Guido Gonella (1950–1953), Alcide De Gasperi (1953–1954), Amintore Fanfani (1954–1959), Aldo Moro (1959–1964), Mariano Rumor (1964–1969), Flaminio Piccoli (1969), Arnaldo Forlani (1969–1973), Amintore Fanfani (1973–1975), Benigno Zaccagnini (1975–1980), Flaminio Piccoli (1980–1982), Ciriaco De Mita (1982–1989), Arnaldo Forlani (1989–1992), Mino Martinazzoli (1992–1994)
• President: Alcide De Gasperi (1946–1954), Adone Zoli (1954–1960), Attilio Piccioni (1960–1966), Mario Scelba (1966–1969), Benigno Zaccagnini (1969–1975), Amintore Fanfani (1976), Aldo Moro (1976–1978), Flaminio Piccoli (1978–1980), Arnaldo Forlani (1980–1989), Ciriaco De Mita (1989–1992), Rosa Russo Iervolino (1992–1994)
• Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Giovanni Gronchi (1946–1948), Giuseppe Cappi (1948–1949), Giuseppe Spataro (1949), Giuseppe Cappi (1950), Giuseppe Bettiol (1950–1953), Aldo Moro (1953–1956), Attilio Piccioni (1956–1958), Luigi Gui (1958–1962), Benigno Zaccagnini (1962–1968), Fiorentino Sullo (1968), Giulio Andreotti (1968–1972), Flaminio Piccoli (1972–1978), Giovanni Galloni (1978–1979), Gerardo Bianco (1979–1983), Virginio Rognoni (1983–1986), Mino Martinazzoli (1986–1989), Vincenzo Scotti (1989–1990), Antonio Gava (1990–1992), Gerardo Bianco (1992–1994)

• 
  The Crusader Shield, DC’s official logo
• 
  Electoral logo
  (1946–1991)
• 
  Electoral logo
  (1992–1993)

• Leonardi, Robert; Albert, Paolo (2004). Steven Van Hecke; Emmanuel Gerard (eds.). From Dominance to Doom? Christian Democracy in Italy. Christian Democratic Parties in Europe Since the End of the Cold War. Leuven University Press. pp. 105–131. ISBN 978-90-5867-377-0.
• Masala, Carlo (2004). Michael Gehler; Wolfram Kaiser (eds.). Born for Government: The Democrazia Cristiana in Italy. Christian Democracy in Europe since 1945. Routledge. pp. 88–102. ISBN 978-0-7146-5662-5.

• Massimo L. Salvadori, Enciclopedia storica, Zanichelli, Bologna 2000
• Igino Giordani, De Gasperi, il ricostruttore, Cinque Lune, Rome 1955
• Giulio Andreotti, De Gasperi e il suo tempo, Mondadori, Milan 1956
• Gianni Baget Bozzo, Il partito cristiano al potere: la DC di De Gasperi e di Dossetti 1945–1954, Vallecchi, Florence 1974
• Gianni Baget Bozzo, Il partito cristiano e l'apertura a sinistra: la DC di Fanfani e di Moro 1954–1962, Vallecchi, Florence 1977
• Pietro Scoppola, La proposta politica di De Gasperi, Il Mulino, Bologna 1977
• Nico Perrone, Il segno della DC, Dedalo, Bari 2002 ISBN 88-220-6253-1
• Luciano Radi, La DC da De Gasperi a Fanfani, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2005

• Archive of DC posters – part 1
• Archive of DC posters – part 2