The course will focus on the history of the PCI (1921-1991), analyzing the organization’s structure, the internal political debate, and the relationship with the Soviet Union. A central part will be dedicated to the cultural policy in particular to the years of the Palmiro Togliatti Leadership (1945-1964). The topics will be: the propaganda machine, the cultural commission, the cultural foundations, the journals, the publishing houses and the publication of the works of Antonio Gramsci. The different phases reviewed in the relationship between the Communist Party and intellectuals will be: the reconstruction after the war; the electoral defeat of the left in 1948; the crisis of 1956; the social, economical and political transformations of the 1960’s.