All the numbers of the Democrazia Cristiana party in Italy (1991)

In1960, the number of Christian Democrat members reached 1,470,923. In 1989, the latest figure available from the Party’s Organisational Office, was 1,675,725. Over thirty years of history, the data on Christian Democrat militants would appear to be substantially homogeneous, even though it refers to a period full of transformations and social and political changes. However, the history of the largest Italian party is not as linear as the figures at the beginning and end of the thirty years might at first sight indicate. After the 1960s, during which the strength of the militants (except for 1963, the year in which there was a percentage increase of 11.87%) remained substantially unchanged, the membership figures underwent significant variations during particular political events dramatically experienced by the DC: from 1974 to 1977, in just three years, the party lost 31.94% of its militants, reaching 1,254,530 members in 1977, the lowest figure in the period under consideration. This minimum was achieved simultaneously a maximum for the PCI, which reached 1,814,317 members in 1976. These are the years immediately following the referendum on divorce and the two catastrophic electoral rounds of 1975 (regional) and 1976 (political and administrative) that aroused in the consciousness of the public opinion the objective or the fear of overtaking which, in fact, at a local level (starting from Rome), in those years occurs resoundingly. Political and social events tended to condition the history of Christian Democrat militancy at this time. The ‘anni di piombo’ (armed fight period) and the strong pressure of a public opinion sensitive to a cultural hegemony of the left, contributed, in addition to reasons related to less visible internal logic, to a reasonably stable compression of the Christian Democrat militancy for the duration of that period (1976/1986). The exit from the emergency will restore meaning to political participation in the DC.