Editing Enrico Berlinguer (section)

== Legacy ==
=== Personality ===
Not many journalists could have interviewed Berlinguer, as he could not bear fame and discouraged anecdotes. He was described as reserved, "bashful, probably shy", and not much was known about his private life, including his music preferences, whether Bach or Wagner, when he was alive. A Sardinian fisherman who had known him in distant times told a reporter that "[Berlinguer] was a serious, very reserved child. He never laughed."<ref name="Biagi 2019"/> Berlinguer was so shy that, before a rally, he sipped a little whiskey that the driver Alberto Menichelli handed him from a small bottle kept in his jacket pocket.<ref name="Vecchio 2019">{{cite news|last=Vecchio|first=Concetto|date=10 June 2019|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/10/news/enrico_berlinguer_35_anni_fa_l_addio_al_leader_del_pci_che_non_tradi_mai_i_suoi_ideali-228428052/|title=Enrico Berlinguer, 35 anni fa l'addio al leader del Pci che non tradì mai i suoi ideali|work=La Repubblica|language=it|access-date=16 July 2023}}</ref> His notable 1983 television interview with Giovanni Minoli on ''Mixer'' is seen as evidence of Berlinguer not being corroded by vanity.<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/> In that same interview, asked about which was the quality he was most fond of, Berlinguer responded: "That of having remained faithful to the ideals of my youth."<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/>

Berlinguer has been described in many ways but was generally recognised for political coherence and courage, together with a rare personal and political intelligence. A serious and morally rigorous man,<ref>{{cite book|last=Valentini|first=Chiara|date=7 May 2014|title=Enrico Berlinguer|language=it|location=Milan|publisher=Feltrinelli|isbn=978-8-8588-1776-6}}</ref> he was sincerely respected even by his opponents, such as the [[Italian Social Movement]] leader [[Giorgio Almirante]],<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/> who paid his homage to Berlinguer and lowered himself in front to his coffin at Botteghe Oscure.<ref name="Stabile 2019"/> Riccardo Bisognero, the then [[Commander-General of the Carabinieri]], said: "He was not only the leader of a political party, but a point of reference for Italian democracy."<ref name="Stabile 2019"/> His three days of agony were followed with great attention by the general population.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/09/foto/_il_popolo_con_quella_bara_l_addio_e_i_funerali_di_berlinguer_sulle_prime_pagine_di_repubblica-228370569/1/|title=Enrico Berlinguer 'Il popolo con quella bara'. L'addio e i funerali sulle prime pagine di Repubblica|work=La Repubblica|language=it|date=9 June 2019|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> Attended by more than a million people, his funeral was among the highest ever seen in Rome, and was reminiscent of the funeral of [[Palmiro Togliatti]] in 1964;<ref>{{cite news|last=Stabile|first=Alberto|date=9 June 2019|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/09/news/una_lunga_giornata_di_attesa_poi_il_grido_enrico_enrico_-228377984/|title=Una lunga giornata di attesa, poi il grido 'Enrico, Enrico'|work=La Repubblica|language=it|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> in both cases, a group of directors filmed the event for a documentary.<ref name="Stabile 2019"/> From Almirante to the then president of the Senate, [[Francesco Cossiga]], to then interior minister [[Oscar Luigi Scalfaro]], from all the major Italian personalities across the political spectrum to common people, including women and the youth, they all paid their respect to Berlinguer.<ref name="Stabile 2019"/>

=== Politics ===
Berlinguer's most important political act of his career in the PCI was the break with [[Soviet Communism]], together with the creation of [[Eurocommunism]] and his substantial work towards contact with the moderate and particularly the Catholic half of the country.<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015"/><ref name="Alberoni 2019">{{cite news|last=Alberoni|first=Francesco|date=10 June 2019|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/10/news/enrico_berlinguer_il_suo_carisma-228392711/|title=Enrico Berlinguer, il suo carisma|work=La Repubblica|language=it|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> As evidence of his legacy, the [[Five Star Movement]] (M5S) put him in their pantheon and the former M5S leader [[Luigi Di Maio]], who culturally formed himself on the [[political right]], claimed Berlinguer's legacy.<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/> Pierpaolo Farina, a young blogger, built a website about Berlinguer for the youth and those who had not known him, and soon reached 300,000 contacts.<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/> The fact that Berlinguer went down in history for preaching austerity,<ref>{{cite news|last=Bagnoli|first=Roberto|date=26 August 2010|url=https://www.corriere.it/politica/10_agosto_26/bagnoli-tremonti-loda-berlinguer-rigormismo-lavoratori-partecipare-utili_e9cb1c4a-b0d4-11df-9462-00144f02aabe.shtml|title=Tremonti, lodi a Berlinguer e riformisti. 'I lavoratori partecipino agli utili'|work=Corriere della Sera|language=it|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.ilpost.it/2010/08/27/berlinguer-austerita/|title=Cosa diceva Berlinguer. Il discorso al Convegno degli intellettuali del 1977 sulla 'politica di austerità e di rigore'|work=Il Post|language=it|date=27 August 2010|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> in [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]]'s terms expressed as a warning in 1974 that "true fascism is the consumer society", is seen as a testament to his durature legacy and thinking.<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/> Even after 35 years since his death, in the words of [[Eugenio Scalfari]], "Enrico Berlinguer had a somewhat similar role in Italian politics (and not only) to the one Pope Francis is having today in the Catholic religion (and not only). Both followed a path of reformism so radical as to produce revolutionary effects; both were loved and respected even by their adversaries; both had a charisma that grasped reality and fueled a dream."<ref>{{cite news|last=Scalfari|first=Eugenio|date=9 June 2019|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/09/news/enrico_berlinguer_perche_ti_abbiamo_voluto_bene-228363890/|title=Enrico Berlinguer, perché ti abbiamo voluto bene|work=La Repubblica|language=it|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

In the words of [[Giorgio Bocca]], in his analysis after his death, Berlinguer had understood that, after "the lacerations, the convulsions, the loss of prestige, of dynamism, of leadership of the PCI and of the left in general in the Seventies" that had derived "above all from the cultural inadequacy of a sclerotic Marxism and a formalist anti-fascism", he needed "to bring back to the party and the left what remains alive of Marxism, its humanism, the defence of man from the exploitation and alienation that continue and perhaps worsen in post-industrial society."<ref>{{cite news|last=Bocca|first=Giorgio|date=10 June 2019|url=https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/cultura/enrico-berlinguer-35/2019/06/10/news/dal_nuovo_segretario_io_vorrei-228447935/|title=Enrico Berlinguer, dal nuovo segretario io vorrei|work=La Repubblica|language=it|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> In the words of sociologist [[Francesco Alberoni]], Berlinguer's critique of Soviet Communism was "never crude or hostile", and he had "always considered it a deviation from an original project, an error, understandable in those historical situations, and correctable in the future. This is typical of the great ideological, intellectual leader who interprets history with a view to the future. It was these merits of him, as leader of an Italian party, as a democrat, as an outstanding ideological figure of international Communism, that provoked the sense of loss everywhere and even the homage of enemies."<ref name="Alberoni 2019"/>

Berlinguer's search for a new socialism was to find a solution to the bipolar international blocs, and his name is thus associated to that of [[Willy Brandt]] and [[Olof Palme]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lussana|first=Fiamma|date=2004|title=Il confronto con le socialdemocrazie e la ricerca di un nuovo socialismo nell'ultimo Berlinguer|journal=Studi Storici|volume=45|issue=2|pages=461–488|issn=0039-3037|jstor=20567252}}</ref> In October 2012, [[Nichi Vendola]] said of his alternative Europeanism that "the one that we continue to dream is not the unbalanced power that rules today, with an unknown identity. No: it is the Europe of Willy Brandt, of Olof Palme, of Enrico Berlinguer."<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Di Donato|first=Michele|date=2013|url=https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/4227/1/Pci%20e%20socialdemocrazie%20europee%20da%20Longo%20a%20Berlinguer.pdf|title=Pci e socialdemocrazie europee da Longo a Berlinguer|degree=PhD|language=it|location=Rome|publisher=Roma Tre University|pages=3–4|access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> Within the broad international Communist movement, Berlinguer had many opponents. The more orthodox [[Marxist–Leninist]] opposition argued that he had turned a workers' party into a bourgeois, [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionist]] one. External opponents said that the ''strappo'', the break with the CPSU, took several years to be completed; this was seen as evidence that there had been no definitive decision on the point. The acceptance of NATO is generally seen as evidence of the genuine autonomy of the PCI's position, and Berlinguer was seen in declassified CIA documents as the strongest critic of Soviet actions, such as their role in suppressing the Prague Spring of 1968, which was a turning point.<ref name="Madonia 2022"/> Despite notably successful Communist local governments, Berlinguer's efforts failed to bring the PCI into government. His final platform, "The Democratic Alternative", was never realised. Within a decade of his death, the Soviet Union and the DC and PCI parties all disappeared, leading to the [[Second Italian Republic]] and transforming [[Italian politics]] beyond recognition.<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015" /> For some, for the vast population on the [[political left]], which felt dispersed, his death marked the end of the PCI. On his death, not only the head of the largest Communist party in the West died but also an idea to which millions of Italians had dedicated a good part of their existence during the 20th century, what [[Francesco Guccini]] called "the timeless dreams".<ref name="Vecchio 2019"/>

=== Impact on Italian society ===
[[File:Unità addio berlinguer.jpg|thumb|180px|Italian Communists signing the frontpage of ''[[l'Unità]]'' at Berlinguer's funeral]]
As one of the most important figures of the [[First Italian Republic]],<ref name="Paese Sera 2022"/> Berlinguer's impact on Italian society is reflected in references in popular culture,<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015"/> with a general love, admiration, and respect that transcended political affiliations. Italian actor and director [[Roberto Benigni]] declared publicly his admiration and personal love for Berlinguer. Besides making him the protagonist of the movie ''[[Berlinguer, I Love You]]'', Benigni appeared with Berlinguer during a public political demonstration of the PCI, of which he was a sympathiser.<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015"/> Italian singer-songwriter [[Antonello Venditti]] posthumously dedicated a song, "Dolce Enrico" ("Sweet Enrico"), to Berlinguer.<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015"/> Italian [[folk music]] band [[Modena City Ramblers]] wrote a song about Berlinguer's funeral, which was published on their first full-length album ''Riportando tutto a casa'' and was titled "I funerali di Berlinguer".<ref name="Expoitalyonline 2015"/>

An ''[[il Giornale nuovo]]'' article after his death proposed the psychological thesis that Berlinguer was not really loved but that people were forced to admire him and recognise his virtues. His qualities, such as reserve, honesty, seriousness, and puritanical rigour, made him a foreigner at home, and his death freed many people of a burden but also created a sense of guilt that was reflected in collective mourning and tributes from his adversaries.<ref name="Alberoni 2019"/>