Abstract

Books played a crucial role within the framework of the Italian Communist Party's cultural policy. The party leadership's commitment in the cultural field involved the creation of publishing houses, a distribution system for books, press and party propaganda, as well as the weaving of a network of relationships with the Italian publishing sector, with the aim to convey a precise model of culture and to provide the party with a strong identity. By reconstructing the activity of Società editrice l'Unità, Edizioni Rinascita, Edizioni di cultura sociale, and Centro diffusione stampa, this article examines book production and the mechanisms of distribution in Communist publishing, and investigates the processes of constructing and spreading its political culture from the «Salerno Turn» of 1944 to the birth of Editori Riuniti in 1953, which marks the beginning of a new season in communist publishing.