The Debate on Post-colonial Africa in the Pages of Mondoperaio: The Reflection of Socialists on Decolonization (1955–1987)

This chapter analyzes how socialist intellectuals have described the history of post-colonial Africa on Mondoperaio and Critica Sociale, two magazines inspired by Italian socialism. This chapter will focus in particular on how this representation of post-colonial Africa has influenced Italian socialist culture after the Second World War. Chronologically, two fractures have been identified: the first between the Bandung conference of 1955 until the 1970s; the second between the mid-1970s and 1987. The first will highlight the conditioning of the anti-imperialist Marxist doctrine on the analysis of Italian intellectuals’ socialists; the second the conditioning of the European social democratic thought and that linked to the protection of human rights and the fight against underdevelopment.