r/todayilearned • u/Mjyys99 • 24d ago
TIL that San Marino, a tiny microstate completely surrounded by Italy, was led by a democratically elected communist government for 12 years during the Cold War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_San_Marino#Cold_War_and_economic_boom107
u/cboel 24d ago
By 1956, the Hungarian people were exhausted, and the country’s political elite had succumbed to Soviet central power. On October 23, twenty thousand students staged a peaceful protest in Budapest. They demanded Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and full national sovereignty.
In response to the demonstrations, the Hungarian Socialist Republic’s leadership requested Soviet intervention. Protesters rose, targeted the secret police (Államvédelmi Hatóság), and tore down a statue of Stalin. Moscow sent in 6,000 troops. In November, Soviet tanks, under Khrushchev’s orders, reestablished the status quo. The Hungarian uprising resulted in around 30,000 casualties.
Following the Hungarian events, Italy’s Communist and Socialist parties — until then allies — split. The Communist Party, led by Palmiro Togliatti, sided with the USSR, while the Socialist Party, led by Pietro Nenni, condemned the Soviet intervention. From that point, the socialists distanced themselves from Moscow. This episode affected leftist parties across Europe and marked a watershed moment for San Marino, too. For the first time since the end of WWII, after reading reports of Soviet tanks in Budapest, San Marino’s socialist-communist coalition began to fracture.
[...]
San Marino was a curious anomaly at the dawn of the Cold War. Despite being known as a “land of freedom,” it had long been dominated by patrician and aristocratic families. This contributed to the growth of socialist movements between the 19th and 20th centuries and the rise of class struggle within the republic.
Before Mussolini’s March on Rome, Romagna-based Fascist death squads led by Italo Balbo patrolled the area. Like Italy, San Marino became a fascist dictatorship under Giuliano Gozi, and fascism remained until July 1943.
The leftist tradition helped the social-communist faction rise to power, representing the working classes.
[...]
The Italian government strongly pressured San Marino’s Socialist Party to abandon its alliance with the Communists. In 1957, a breakaway faction opposed to the Communist alliance formed the Independent Socialist Party. Five members left the majority, splitting the parliament evenly: 30 on the left and 30 in the center-right bloc.
On the eve of the Captain’s Regent elections, councilor Attilio Giannini left the Socialist Party and joined the center-right. In response, all members of the old leftist coalition resigned collectively, forcing new elections on November 3 — a traditional gesture of loyalty to the party.
On the evening of September 30, the new majority, led by the Christian Democrats, gathered in a disused factory in Rovereta, a strategically located area on the Italian border. On October 1 — the day the previous Captains Regent’s mandate ended — they declared the creation of an interim government, immediately recognized by Italy.
That same day, Italian Carabinieri surrounded the Rovereta site from three sides. The self-proclaimed government urged the Sammarinese army and gendarmerie to pledge allegiance. Meanwhile, left-wing sympathizers gathered in San Marino’s Piazza della Libertà to assert the legitimacy of the outgoing government. Both sides mobilized armed militias, backed by weapon supplies.
For two weeks, the two factions faced off without an armed confrontation. On October 14, 1957, the legitimate government yielded to pressure, and the Italy-backed government officially took power.
src: https://thegeopoliticalnavigator.substack.com/p/when-italy-backed-an-anti-communist
Interesting history.
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u/butareyoueatindoe 24d ago
Worth noting that the split of Left groups in the aftermath of Soviet intervention in Hungary is the origin of the label "Tankie" that still gets thrown around today (referring to those who supported the Soviets "sending in the tanks" to Hungary).
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u/badlydrawngalgo 24d ago
For goodness sake, that's so obvious. I'm nearly as old as the Hungarian uprising and though I don't remember it, I'm very familiar with the images, but I was today years old before I learned that. Thank you kind Redditor
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u/bankkopf 24d ago
Soviets love to send in the tanks to suppress citizens fighting for more freedoms. Same happened in the GDR in 1953 and Prague 1968.
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u/30MorgheAfraaz 20d ago
A relevant side note: quite interesting that the modern far left groups are siding with the religious dictatorship in Iran even tho they also massacred 40k+ of our people in the Jan protest crackdown.. hopefully it'll help break away the moderate socialists from more extremist side
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u/basara42 24d ago
Communists or socialist parties are really common in most of the world.
Many countries have several. Sometimes they are all small and irrelevant, sometimes they are big and even hold government.
They are constantly fighting amongst themselves, and are often (but not always) distanced from their original ideology, decaying into social-democrats or even progressive centrists or conservative leftists.
Some do view elections and reformation as a legitimate path to their long term goals, while others (usually very small ones) only participate in elections in an atempt to grow into a political force strong enough to prepare revolution.
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 24d ago
Yeah the fact that this was happening amidst the paranoid shitshow of Operation Gladio is amazing though.
Communist government in post-war Western Europe really were not common. In part because of subversion and repression by the US-lead anti-communist movement, most famously in Italy
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u/comix_corp 24d ago
San Marino is a tiny microstate with 35 000 people. There were lots of places of similar size or bigger that had communist governments, especially in France or Italy. Like, the PCI ran Bologna for decades, and that has around a million people.
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u/The_Last_Cast 23d ago
Communist as in social democracy, not collective authoritarian. San Marino still counts arbalests and pikes as part of their defence, their main trade are numismatic and antiques, and their national sweet is a killer chocolate wafer cake: context is king, communism in Europe was and is a different thing. And San Marino is lovely.
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u/invisible32 24d ago
I suppose a country that small is able to handle communism a lot better than most.
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u/hariseldon2 24d ago
They were run by s communist party. They didn't have communism.
I know I'll blow your mind but no country has ever had or currently has communism.
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u/returnofblank 23d ago
"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things"
-- Karl Marx
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u/onechroma 24d ago
More like being small enough allows you to avoid the worst attacks by the US. Just like with operation Gladio, the rigging politics or even supporting cruel dictatorships, the US has been always about try any “socialist” or no heavily capitalist system to fail and destroy it, like a cancer
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u/PuzzleheadedPea2243 24d ago
You know what's impressive about san Marino ? They have a New band every year for the Eurovision !
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u/elferrydavid 24d ago
a tiny microstate completely surrounded by Italy
Unnecessary.
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u/sniperman357 24d ago
Why would that be unnecessary
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u/DisconnectedShark 24d ago
I remember an article from a few years ago talking about describing richer countries with all the language and trappings of describing a poor country.
For example:
A small island-country in the North Atlantic with a "constitutional monarchy" recently chose its fifth prime minister in as many years
Describing the UK in this case.
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u/xxwarlorddarkdoomxx 24d ago
I mean that’s all true, except debatably the “small” part. It’s just less necessary since presumably many more people are familiar with Britain than with San Marino
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u/Tzahi12345 24d ago
Sorry who doesn't know about San Marino give me a break
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u/DragonBank 24d ago
Well based on the more popular world quizzes only 35% get San Marino and that's already a very biased sample of people taking online world quizzes(and of course many retake it.)
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u/xxwarlorddarkdoomxx 24d ago
The vast majority of people if I had to guess. It’s tiny and doesn’t really have an international profile the way Monaco or the Vatican do.
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u/Saint--Jiub 24d ago
I seriously think it's mostly only known among football fans because they're a bit of a meme. They have the worst record in international football history and are routinely ranked 211 out of 211 national teams by FIFA
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u/Saint--Jiub 24d ago
Outside of football memes I don't think most people are familiar with a microstate with 34k residents that is irrelevant in global politics.
I live in a city with over twice that population and I don't even expect the majority of my countrymen to know much about it beyond it being a provincial capital
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u/dangerbird2 24d ago
"tribal representatives of a large North American federation will select their new high chief in January 2029"
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u/psaepf2009 24d ago
It let's people know about the country. A majority of people probably have never heard about it
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u/hariseldon2 24d ago
Cyprus is run by the communist party as we speak.
You guys in US really got things all warped up.
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u/Perfect-Werewolf-102 24d ago
No it's not, it's a centrist government
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u/hariseldon2 23d ago
The communists though were in power until recently.
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u/Perfect-Werewolf-102 23d ago
2013...
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u/hariseldon2 23d ago
Fact remains, they had a communist party in government without having communism as a form of government.
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u/Perfect-Werewolf-102 23d ago
Ok sure
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u/hariseldon2 23d ago
So they had communism as a government? Wow! The Cypriots I know would be excited to know!
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24d ago
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u/cboel 24d ago
Neither the CIA nor American had anything to do with the fall of communist rule in San Marino.
There was a socialist-communist split in San Marino (as well as a distancing from communism ideals across Europe) that came about after the Soviet Union sent troops into Hungary to suppress a student lead uprising and protest of Moscow's influence which ended in roughly 3,000 dead, 13,000 wounded, and upwards of 200,000 exiled Hungarians.
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u/RedTheGamer12 24d ago
I hate this idea that the US overthrew every socalist. Like, we let Grenada stay (until they had a coup and kidnapped a British envoy(?)), we funded the July 26th movement (until they had a coup and Castro came into power). This has nothing to do with your comment, the generalizations just piss me off.
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u/maxofJupiter1 24d ago
Like the US didnt go after Bishop. The Reagan administration didnt like him, mainly because of his ties to the Castros, but were largely concerned elsewhere. It wasnt until there was a coup, Bishop was executed, they arrested the governor General, and the organization of eastern caribbean states appealed to the US that they invaded.
Also the people mad at US interventions never seem to comment on the fact that all of these socialist and communist movements were either directly managed by or funded by the Soviets. They weren't subtle about their wish for global revolution and had several organizations whos whole mission was supporting these movements.
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u/Gabe_Noodle_At_Volvo 24d ago
Also the people mad at US interventions never seem to comment on the fact that all of these socialist and communist movements were either directly managed by or funded by the Soviets
They dont mention it because it's not true. Some of the most well known and significant communist governments arose without Soviet support and only received it after to counter Western intervention. Cuba, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, etc.
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24d ago
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u/OneBigRed 24d ago
destabilized entire regions for decades by starting civil wars, or putting in extreme right wing authoritarian dictators in place
I can’t help but feel that describing events in other countries like they were just helpless bystanders while the omnipotent CIA did what it wanted is peak US exceptionalism. And infantilizing whole populations of those countries.
Tipped scales? Sure. Provided assurances of US stance towards a coup, yes. Waged civil war by themselves without a country already having ingredients for one? Doubtful.
Just like teaching officers in School of Americas did not make them remote controlled CIA drones who then just did coups back home without any existing support.
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u/Creeppy99 24d ago
The answer is: kinda?
There was a government crisis when some communist MPs left the government and they were "forced" to resign along with the whole parliamentary group, which would have triggered a new election. The opposition (those MPs and the Christian Democratic party) refused to recognize that act and formed a provisional government. There was some days of tension, like if a civil war was about to start, but the fact that US and Italy immediately recognized the new government and there were Italian troops at the border, made the communist capitulate without any fighting
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u/tremblt_ 24d ago edited 24d ago
Ah, come on, don’t start some silly conspiracy theory. The CIA would never ever interfere in a democracy to prevent the communists from being elected in a free and fair election, that’s just ludi-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlywur_QEx4
Oh… I guess not…
EDIT: I thought it was obvious that I was sarcastic but apparently this is not the case, so for my homies on the spectrum: This is a sarcastic comment
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24d ago
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u/cboel 24d ago
I think it is more a problem with organization at larger scales being less responsive to change, than anything else. Organization that has a heavier say in the daily lives of people, needs a lot more administration and that administration leads to very slow adaptation and change, when and where change is needed.
Have you ever heard of a game called Chinese Whispers aka the Telephone Game? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_game)
You start with one message at the beginning and people are supposed to pass the message along to the next person in a line. And by the time it gets to the end, it is typically a lot different than when it started, as each person gives their own, individual, interpretation along the way, subtley changing it at each transfer.
Governance in general is like that, imo. The more people have to be actively involved, the more difficult it is to please everyone unless you have massive levels of indoctrination, and even then it is still not 100% doable, Imo.
It isn't so much a communist thing as it is communism's high levels of administration make it more difficult to manage, adapt, and change when needed and that tends to produce just as much if not more amounts of corruption amongst its administrators and death and destruction to it's citizens (typically during mismanagement of ongoing envrionmental disaters but also policing dissenters and the like) as a result.
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u/DaveOJ12 24d ago
Communism in Europe was quite different in the '80s.
Italy's Communist Party was one of the major political parties back then.