The Communist Party of Italy (Partito Comunista d’Italia, PCd'I) was a communist political party in Italy which existed from 1921 to 1926. That year it was outlawed by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. In 1943, the name was changed to the Italian Communist Party.

The forerunner of the party was the Communist Faction which began in 1912. The Communist Faction was part of the Communist International, commonly known as the Comintern.

The Communist Party of Italy was founded in Livorno on 21 January 1921, following a split in the Italian Socialist Party on their 17th congress. The split occurred after the socialist Congress of Livorno refused to expel the reformist group as required by the Comintern. The L'Ordine Nuovo group in Turin led by Antonio Gramsci and the "culturalist" current led by Angelo Tasca joined the Communist Faction in the new party.

The Comintern, at that time, was structured as a single world party according to Vladimir Lenin's vision. Therefore, its official name was the Communist Party of Italy, Section of the Communist International. This official name remained until 1943 when Communist International was dropped, and the party simply became the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, or PCI).

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.

Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government. The name originates from the 1848 tract Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

A Communist party is, at least according to Leninist theory, the vanguard party of the working class, whether ruling or non-ruling, but when such a party is in power in a specific country, the party is said to be the highest authority of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin's theories on the role of a communist party were developed as the early 20th-century Russian social democracy divided into Bolshevik (meaning "majority") and Menshevik (meaning "minority") factions.

Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, argued that a revolutionary party should be a small vanguard party with a centralized political command and a strict cadre policy; the Menshevik faction, however, argued that the party should be a broad-based mass movement. The Bolshevik party, which eventually became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, took power in Russia after the October Revolution in 1917. With the creation of the Communist International, the Leninist concept of party building was copied by emerging communist parties worldwide.

Gianni Morandi (born December 11, 1944) is an Italian pop singer and entertainer.

He made his debut in 1962 and quickly placed high at or won a number of Italian popular song festivals, including the Canzonissima festival in 1969. In 1970, he represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest with "Occhi di ragazza". His career went into a decline in the 1970s but underwent a revival in the 1980s. He won the Festival of Sanremo in 1987, placed second in 1995 and third in 2000.

It is estimated that Morandi has sold 49 million recordings.

His songs "In ginocchio da te", "Non son degno di te" and "Scende la pioggia" were certified as having each sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs. He has written a number of autobiographical books and appeared in 18 films. In TV he played Claude Jade's husband Davide in the 1984 TV series Voglia di volare.

Gianluigi Morandi was born in a little village called Monghidoro on the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. His father Renato was active within the Italian Communist Party and Gianni used to help him sell the party newspapers. At an early age Morandi worked as a shoe-shiner, cobbler and as a candy vendor in the village's only cinema. His vocal abilities led him to a number of small gigs, some of which were during the Communist Party’s activities.

Steven Arnold "Steve" King (born May 28, 1949) is the U.S. Representative for Iowa's 5th congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party.

The district is located in the western part of the state and includes Sioux City and Council Bluffs.

King was born on May 28, 1949 in Storm Lake, Iowa. The son of Emmett King, a state police dispatcher, and Mildred King, a homemaker, King graduated in 1967 from Denison Community High School. He attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970, taking courses toward becoming a wildlife officer. He does not have a college degree. In 1975, he founded King Construction, an earth moving company. King founded the Kiron Business Association in the 1980s. His involvement with the Iowa Land Improvement Contractors' Association led to regional and national offices in that organization and a growing interest in public policy.

From 1996 to 2002, King served as an Iowa State Senator, representing the 6th district. King worked as the Chairman of the State Government Committee and Vice Chairman of the Oversight Budget Committee. He was a part of the Appropriations Committee, Judiciary Committee, Business and Labor Committee, and the Commerce Committee. He assisted in eliminating the inheritance tax, enforcing workplace drug testing, strengthening parental rights, passing tax cuts for working residents of Iowa, and passing a law that made English the official language in Iowa.