His entire trip had been hazardous. He had received a pass from the plenipotentiary of the French Committee of National Liberation in Moscow that would be recognized by Allied forces. He took off from Moscow three days later, on February 18. His journey to Naples took more than a month; weaving his way through the chaos of war, he had gone first to Baku, then Tehran, Cairo and Algiers.

While most histories have him flying into Naples, the condition of the airstrips available to the Allies (and the small likelihood that they would have agreed to a landing for this purpose) make it more likely that, again with the (never acknowledged) help of the French, Togliatti actually sailed from (French) Algiers.
Togliatti had spent the war years in Moscow, where his actions, always described officially by the party as strong and heroic, have been darkly clouded by recent research, especially as Kremlin files have become available. (The damage to his reputation actually should have begun in 1980 with the publication, little-noticed politically, of historian Sergio Bertelli’s book Il Gruppo, containing some damning documents.) It has led to a serious reconsideration of this history as we once knew it (for another column). But with Togliatti’s return to Italy, we are on firmer documentary footing.Togliatti’s only serious competitor as the great leader of the Communist movement of that time, Antonio Gramsci, had spent the same years in prison, and never actually ran the party (probably thus preserving his reputation).
The leaders of Italian Communism had begun to gather by the time Togliatti arrived; he had, days before, sent messages convoking the party’s National Council (or as many as could struggle through war-torn Italy to get there). These were mostly scarred veterans of decades of leading clandestine cells; their rank and file were well armed and knew that Italy’s collapse was the moment for revolution. To receive this call to action, they gathered in the party’s offices on Via Medina in Salerno, south of Naples, and found themselves witnesses to, but not really participants in, the defining moment in Italian post-war politics.
Togliatti let everybody else speak first (the “d” in democratic centralism). The subjects were obvious: the country, the monarchy, the movement. Then it was Togliatti’s turn. In a tone described as cold, dry, peremptory, in what became known as the “Salerno Switch,” Togliatti charted the movement’s post-war path, a path that, we can guess, had probably not been suggested by any of the militants who spoke first. The party would accept and support the constitution that would be written in the months ahead. It would accept the democratically-elected government that would certainly be called for in the new constitution. Perhaps most important, the party would become a mass party, just like the others. The era of clandestine cells and refusal of alliances was over: both coalitions at the top and “social alliances” with other rank and file would be sought. As the historian Paul Ginsborg summarized, “…Togliatti put great emphasis on transforming the Communists from a small vanguard group into a mass party in civil society.” This stunning change of course was neither debated nor approved by the national council (the “c” in democratic centralism).
How Togliatti sold the switch to a rank and file awaiting the green light for revolution and the reasons for the switch will be explored next week, when (this column not being intended as a history lesson) we will connect it all today’s politics.