This article offers a historiographic as well as methodological reflection on the “other communisms” in Italy, or rather the dissident and minority tendencies that developed within and outside the Italian Communist Party during the twentieth century. Starting from an examination of historiography, which has long privileged the study of “orthodox” (majority) communism, the authors argue for the need for an inclusive approach aimed at integrating dissident currents into the broader history of communism. Moreover, the article proposes several research paths for investigating the history of these “other” communists and provides a comparison with the case of French historiography. In this way, the authors seek to demonstrate that the study of these formations is indispensable for a comprehensive understanding of the crises, debates, and evolutions not only of communism, but also of the Italian and European workers’movement throughout the twentieth century, due to the role played by these groups in the internal debate of the workers’movement, the originality of their critiques of the communist party line, and also their attempts to elaborate political alternatives to the dominant communist model promoted by a part of these tendencies.
