The Italian statesman Palmiro Togliatti (1893-1964) was one of the principal founders of the Italian Communist Party. Under his leadership the party became the largest Communist Party in the West and a major factor in Italian politics after World War II.

Born in Genoa on March 26, 1893, the son of a modest state employee who was highly religious, Palmiro Togliatti was named "Palmiro" after the Palm Sunday that was his birthday. He attended high school in Sardinia and then studied law at the University of Turin. In 1914 he joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). During World War I he did military service until his release in 1917, when he returned to Turin.

As a student Togliatti experienced a wide variety of ideologies and intellectual currents, ranging from Marxism to neo-Hegelianism and syndicalism. His war experiences and the example of the Russian revolution turned him more and more toward Marxism. He...