Communists in Italy Will Rename Party

Western Europe’s largest Communist Party surrendered to changing times Tuesday, formally announcing that it will change its name. It also will wave goodby to the hammer and sickle.

Achille Occhetto, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, told the 56-member party directorate that the name change is part of a plan to forge a broad alliance of left-wing political forces in Italy.

The 1.5-million-member party has shared power in recent years at city halls in every major Italian city but has been an outsider at the national level since the 1948 founding of the Italian Republic. And, mired behind dominant Christian Democrats, the Communists have been stagnant at the polls in the past decade.

The party, Italy’s second-largest political grouping, has been stridently independent of Moscow since the era of Josef Stalin and has been a frequent critic of Soviet interventionist foreign policies. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, widely admired by most Italian Communists, will call on the party later this month during a state visit to Italy. He will also see Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.