Later that year, Proletarian Democracy (DP), a far-left outfit, dissolved itself so that its members could join the PCI dissidents and form a united front composed of all Italian communists.

Garavini resigned from his role as secretary in June 1993 and was replaced by Fausto Bertinotti, a trade unionist of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) who had left the PDS only a few months before.

In June 1995, a splinter group led by Lucio Magri and Famiano Crucianelli formed the Movement of Unitarian Communists (MCU), which would eventually merge with the PDS, being one of the founding members of the Democrats of the Left (DS) in February 1998.

In the 2006 general election, the PRC was part of The Union, which won narrowly over the centre-right House of Freedoms coalition and the party obtained 5.8%.

Additionally, for the first time it entered a government by joining the Prodi II Cabinet, with Paolo Ferrero Minister of Social Solidarity and seven undersecretaries.

Consequently, Bertinotti quit politics and Giordano resigned and after that some bertinottiani, led by Ferrero and Giovanni Russo Spena (both former Proletarian Democracy members), had forged an alliance with former cossuttiani.

At the July 2008 congress, the PRC was highly divided around ideological and regional lines with Vendola, the bertinottiani's standard-bearer, accusing northern delegates of having absorbed leghismo and stating that it was the end of the party as he knew it.

In the 2009 European Parliament election the PRC ran with the PdCI and minor groups within the Anticapitalist and Communist List,[16] obtaining 3.4% of the vote and no MEPs.

[20] In the 2013 general election the PRC ran within Civil Revolution along with the PdCI, the Greens, Italy of Values and minor groups, obtaining 2.2% and no seats.

[27] In 2020–2021 the party was briefly represented in the Senate by Paola Nugnes, a splinter from the Five Star Movement who later joined Italian Left (SI).

In the run-up of the 2022 general election the PRC was a founding member of the People's Union (UP), a left-wing electoral list led by Luigi de Magistris.

[35] The majority of the party following the October 2004 congress was led by Fausto Bertinotti (59.2%) and viewed the PRC as the representative of the anti-globalization movement in Italy.

Communist Project, which opposed the party's participation in the Prodi II Cabinet, unfolded shortly after the 2006 general election.

In February 2007, senator Franco Turigliatto of Critical Left, led by Salvatore Cannavò, voted twice against the government's foreign policy, leading Romano Prodi to temporarily resign from Prime Minister.

Following the severe defeat of the party in the 2008 general election, a group of bertinottiani composed mainly of former members of Proletarian Democracy and led by Paolo Ferrero and Giovanni Russo Spena allied with the other minority factions, notably including Being Communists, to force Franco Giordano's resignation from secretary.