[4] Craxi was involved in investigations conducted by Mani pulite judges in Milan, eventually being convicted for political corruption and illicit financing of the PSI.

[16] His father Vittorio Craxi was a Sicilian lawyer and anti-fascist who was persecuted by the regime of Benito Mussolini while his mother Maria Ferrari was a housewife from Sant'Angelo Lodigiano.

[16] During World War II, the young Craxi was sent to the Catholic college Edmondo De Amicis due to his unruly character and to protect him from fascist violence in retaliation for his father's anti-fascist activities.

[20] During this period he engaged for the first time in public speaking, organizing conferences, debates, and film screenings, and in 1956 he became part of the PSI Provincial Committee in Milan, and leader of the Socialist Youth Federation.

[22] In 1958 the party sent him to Sesto San Giovanni as a responsible of the organization; in November 1960 he was elected city councilor in Milan with more than 1,000 preferences and became assessor in the junta of Gino Cassinis.

As the representative of PSI at the Socialist International, Craxi formed ties with some of the main European future leaders, like Willy Brandt, Felipe González, François Mitterrand, Mário Soares, Michel Rocard and Andreas Papandreou.

[32] On the morning of 16 March 1978, the day on which the new cabinet led by Giulio Andreotti was supposed to have undergone a confidence vote in the Italian Parliament, the car of Aldo Moro, former prime minister and then president of DC was assaulted by a group of Red Brigades terrorists in Via Fani in Rome.

Craxi was the only political leader, together with Amintore Fanfani and Marco Pannella, to declare himself available to a "humanitarian solution" that would allow the liberation of Christian Democrat statesman, drawing heavy criticism on the so-called "party of firmness", primarily driven by the Communists.

At the same time, the PSI increased its presence in the big state-owned enterprises, and became heavily involved in corruption and illegal party funding which would eventually result in the Mani pulite investigations.

[40] Even if the PSI never became a serious electoral challenger either to the PCI or the Christian Democrats, its pivotal position in the political arena allowed it to claim the post of Prime Minister for Craxi after the 1983 general election.

Craxi led the third longest-lived government of Italy during the republican era (after the II and IV Silvio Berlusconi cabinets) and had strong influence in Italian politics throughout the 1980s;[43] for a time, he was a close ally of two key figures of Christian Democracy, Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, in a loose cross-party alliance often dubbed CAF (from the first letter of the surname Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani).

Against trade union resistance, the Craxi government reacted by abolishing wage-price indexation (a mechanism known as scala mobile or "escalator"), under which wages had been increased automatically in line with inflation.

[50] Abolishing the escalator system did help reduce inflation, which was also falling in other major countries, but in the long term it inevitably increased industrial action as workers had to bargain for better salaries.

[55] The Church's position as the sole state-supported religion of Italy was also ended, replacing the state financing with a personal income tax called the otto per mille, to which other religious groups, Christian and non-Christian, also have access.

Notable recipients of his logistical help were the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) during Francisco Franco's dictatorship and dramatist Jiři Pelikan, in the former Czechoslovakia.

[65] Internationally, Craxi is perhaps best remembered for an incident in October 1985, when he refused the request of US President Ronald Reagan to extradite the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro.

[67] According to the version of political circles in Washington, Craxi first gave the United States Forces permission to detain the terrorists, but he later reneged on the deal.

[68] This move was supposedly dictated both by security concerns about terrorists targeting Italy if the United States had had it their way and by the Italian tradition of diplomacy with the Arab world.

[71] This episode earned Craxi an article in The Economist titled "Europe's strong man" and a standing ovation in the Senate of the Republic, which included his Communist opponents.

[80] The last main turning point of Craxi's career began in February 1992, when Socialist MP Mario Chiesa was arrested by police while taking a 7 million lira bribe from a cleaning service firm.

However, upon coming out of the Hotel Raphael, where he lived, he received a salvo of coins that members of the Democratic Party of the Left and the right-wing Italian Social Movement threw at him as a sign of their disgust.

[81] In December 1993, after his prosecution was finally authorised, Craxi was called to testify alongside Cristian Democracy (DC) party secretary Arnaldo Forlani before Justice Antonio Di Pietro.

[82][83] Craxi's lifestyle was perceived to be inappropriate for the secretary of a party with so many alleged financial problems: he lived in the Raphael, an expensive hotel in Rome's centre, and had a large villa in Hammamet, Tunisia.

Furthermore, Craxi's arrogant character won him many enemies; one of his most condemned actions was blaming corruption in the socialist party on treasurer Vincenzo Balzamo, just after the latter's death, in order to clear himself of any accusation.

Craxi's entourage was famously criticised by Formica as a "court of midgets and dancers" (corte di nani e ballerine), indicating the often ludicrous and immoral traits of a system based on personal acquaintance rather than merit.

Most Socialists joined other political forces, mainly Forza Italia, the new party led by Silvio Berlusconi, the Patto Segni and Democratic Alliance.

Under Craxi, the PSI moved closer to the centre-left and political centre, much to ally with Christian Democracy and other moderate parties that formed a coalition called Pentapartito, which ensured a stable majority to govern.

In addition, along with these other figures, it inspired the overhaul and the policies of Tony Blair's Labour Party, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's PSOE, and Andreas Papandreou's PASOK.

Craxi escaped the laws he had once contributed to make, by fleeing to Hammamet, Tunisia, in 1994; he remained a fugitive there, protected by the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his personal friend.

[87] Prime Minister and Democrats of the Left leader Massimo D'Alema proposed a state funeral, which was not accepted by Craxi's family who accused the government of preventing his return to Italy to undergo a delicate surgery at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.