[13] He took a firm stand against terrorism after the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, and used the PCI's influence to steer Italian labour unions towards moderating wage demands to cope with the country's severe inflation rate after the 1973 oil crisis.

The combination of austerity advocacy, hard line against the Red Brigades, and attempts at an accommodation with the DC affected the PCI's vote at the 1979 Italian general election and the compromise was ultimately ended in 1980.

[18] One of the most important figures of the First Italian Republic,[19] Berlinguer had an austere and modest but charismatic personality,[13] and despite the difficulties that confronted the PCI during the Historic Compromise,[20][21] he remained a popular politician,[14] respected for his principles, conviction,[1] and bold stands.

[26] Berlinguer's father was a socialist and anti-fascist; as many of his ancestors, he belonged to the Italian Freemasonry and was Great Master (33rd Scottish Rite Mason) of the regular lodge of Sassari.

[37] At the party's twelfth congress in 1969, Berlinguer reiterated the need to "deepen the knowledge of the reality of the socialist countries ... through a historical, critical, objective judgement", which would capture both the positive and negative elements, and "their interweaving and contradictions that derive from it".

[37] In this role, he took part in the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with the official political line and refused to support the final report.

[46] In 1973, Berlinguer went to Belgrade, the capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to meet with Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, with a view to further developing his relationships with the major Communist parties of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

[46] In a 1975 speech for Dolores Ibárruri, Berlinguer stated: "It is necessary that with audacity and intelligence we know how to free ourselves from any scholastic application of our doctrine understood as dogma, or from orientations that are no longer adequate to current experience and historical conditions, to walk towards new ways of advancing towards socialism.

We think that in Italy we can and must ... build a socialist society with the contribution of political forces, organisations, different parties, and that the working class can and must affirm its historical function in a pluralistic and democratic system.

In the words of historian Antonio Varsori, the PCI interpreted the pro-European option as "an opportunity to overcome the division of the old continent and for the birth of a socialist, neutralist, and tendentially pro-Third World Europe".

In June 1978, the PCI gave its approval and ultimately active support to a campaign against Giovanni Leone, the then president of Italy who was accused of being involved in the Lockheed bribery scandal, which resulted in his resignation.

[43] The policy was unpopular among its base and was criticised for its contradictions, such as how to start a path towards socialism through a compromise with the DC, which was not economically socialist and from 1947 onwards had always been considered by the PCI as its historical enemy, what would have been the most urgent socialist-leaning measures, and the fact that on those points Berlinguer remained vague.

[46] Berlinguer continued with the policy on the grounds that the process of legitimising communists would be long (the United States were bitterly opposed even under Jimmy Carter), and that choosing the election route, in the middle of serious economic and terrorist crises, would favour the political right.

[46] In early 1978, the Historic Compromise led to the contracted, recognised, and explicit" participation of the PCI in the majority government that would support Giulio Andreotti's new cabinet that was defined as one of national solidarity.

"[44] He stated that this was the main difference from social democrats and other socialists, and said that "they put the commitment to change the given structure between parents, leading them to the obfuscation and loss of their own ideal and political autonomy.

"[44] In a speech delivered by Berlinguer at the FGCI congress held in Milan in 1982,[57] he said: "If young people organise themselves, take over every branch of knowledge, and fight with the workers and the oppressed, there is no escape for an old order founded on privilege and injustice.

"[44][59] In 1980, the PCI publicly condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Moscow then immediately sent Georges Marchais to Rome to try to bring Berlinguer into line; he was received with perceptible coldness.

[68] Apart from all the major politicians across the political spectrum, many international figures, such as the Soviet deputy leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese prime minister Zhao Ziyang, attended his funeral.

[74][75] A non-believer,[36] Berlinguer married in a civil ceremony the religious Letizia Laurenti (1928–2017), whom he met during a holiday in the Aosta Valley, on 26 September 1957 in the Capitoline Hill; they had been engaged for ten years, and both the PCI and her family were against it.

When the wind picked up, the sea got rough, and for several hours no one heard news about Berlinguer until his cousin Francesco Cossiga, the then interior minister, sent patrol boats to search for him.

[76] Very close to his family, he spent every Christmas with his brother and sister-in-law, and never had an hour of vacation without at least one of his children; he also gave regular visits to his ninety-year-old aunt, Iole Siglienti, every time she came in Cagliari.

[47] Renzo Trivelli told Corriere della Sera that Berlinguer bought "a Harley Davidson that [was] too big for him; when he arrives at the [PCI] offices, his supervisors help him get on and off the vehicle.

A serious and morally rigorous man,[87] he was sincerely respected even by his opponents, such as the Italian Social Movement leader Giorgio Almirante,[86] who paid his homage to Berlinguer and lowered himself in front to his coffin at Botteghe Oscure.

[70] From Almirante to the then president of the Senate, Francesco Cossiga, to then interior minister Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, from all the major Italian personalities across the political spectrum to common people, including women and the youth, they all paid their respect to Berlinguer.

[70] Berlinguer's most important political act of his career in the PCI was the break with Soviet Communism, together with the creation of Eurocommunism and his substantial work towards contact with the moderate and particularly the Catholic half of the country.

[86] The fact that Berlinguer went down in history for preaching austerity,[91][92] in Pier Paolo Pasolini's terms expressed as a warning in 1974 that "true fascism is the consumer society", is seen as a testament to his durature legacy and thinking.

"[94] In the words of sociologist Francesco Alberoni, Berlinguer's critique of Soviet Communism was "never crude or hostile", and he had "always considered it a deviation from an original project, an error, understandable in those historical situations, and correctable in the future.

The acceptance of NATO is generally seen as evidence of the genuine autonomy of the PCI's position, and Berlinguer was seen in declassified CIA documents as the strongest critic of Soviet actions, such as their role in suppressing the Prague Spring of 1968, which was a turning point.

On his death, not only the head of the largest Communist party in the West died but also an idea to which millions of Italians had dedicated a good part of their existence during the 20th century, what Francesco Guccini called "the timeless dreams".

His qualities, such as reserve, honesty, seriousness, and puritanical rigour, made him a foreigner at home, and his death freed many people of a burden but also created a sense of guilt that was reflected in collective mourning and tributes from his adversaries.