The Dialogue between catholics and communists in Italy during the 1960s

The relationships between the Catholic and the Marxist worlds in postwar Italy were complex and complicated. Togliatti had expressed a tactical interest in the Catholic world, in hope of winning votes from that important sector of Italian society. In the wake of the crisis of 1956, the Marxist world was shaken, and Italian communist intellectuals began to distinguish their positions from those of the USSR. Many turned their attention toward Marxist scholars, such as Adams Schaff and Roger Garaudy, who were developing independent lines of research in the direction of a ‘‘Marxist humanism.’’ Marxists were in fact engaging in the rediscovery of subjectivity and of the importance of human action in history. These intellectuals were the protagonists of a dialogue with the Catholic world, which, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, was also involved in reassessing its core convictions