Quick Facts
Born:
April 3, 1881, Pieve Tesino, near Trento, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary [now in Italy]
Died:
August 19, 1954, Sella di Valsugana, Italy (aged 73)
Title / Office:
prime minister (1945-1953), Italy
Founder:
Italian Popular Party
Political Affiliation:
Italian Popular Party

Alcide De Gasperi (born April 3, 1881, Pieve Tesino, near Trento, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary [now in Italy]—died August 19, 1954, Sella di Valsugana, Italy) was a politician and prime minister of Italy (1945–53) who contributed to the material and moral reconstruction of his nation after World War II.

From the age of 24 De Gasperi directed the journal Il Nuovo Trentino, in which he defended Italian culture and the economic interests of his own region. In 1911 he was elected to the Austrian parliament as an Italian representative, joining other Italian deputies who sought the annexation of the Trentino by Italy. When the annexation of the Trentino was effected (1919), De Gasperi was elected deputy to the Italian parliament in 1921 as one of the founders of the Italian Popular Party (Partito Popolare Italiano; PPI), which represented the liberal Christian Democratic tradition. Hostile to the fascists, in 1927 he was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment; he was released, after serving 16 months, through Pope Pius XI’s intervention and, in 1929, became a librarian in the Vatican.

Active in the resistance during World War II, he succeeded in reorganizing the PPI as the Christian Democratic Party. Upon the fall of the fascist regime (1943) he returned to the forefront of Italian politics. He became secretary of the Christian Democratic Party and was appointed minister without portfolio in Ivanoe Bonomi’s first cabinet (June 1944). Minister of foreign affairs in the two succeeding cabinets, De Gasperi formed his own cabinet on December 10, 1945. He was to remain in office for more than seven years.

De Gasperi, who signed the peace treaty with the Allies, had Parliament ratify it (September 1947) and then enacted a new constitution (January 1948). He instituted a long-term land reform program in southern and central Italy and sought to increase utilization of Italy’s natural resources by constructing new power plants fueled by natural gas or natural steam of volcanic origin.

In foreign affairs he strove to restore an influential role in international politics for Italy. Seeking closer ties with the West, Italy entered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1951 and began rearming shortly thereafter. A leading proponent of the formation of a federation of democratic European states, he helped organize the Council of Europe and the European Coal and Steel Community (1951).

After the fall of his government in 1953, he became secretary general of the Christian Democratic Party, which named him its president in May 1954.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Christian democracy, political movement that has a close association with Roman Catholicism and its philosophy of social and economic justice. It incorporates both traditional church and family values and progressive values such as social welfare. For this reason, Christian democracy does not fit squarely in the ideological categories of left and right. It rejects the individualist worldview that underlies both political liberalism and laissez-faire economics, and it recognizes the need for the state to intervene in the economy to support communities and defend human dignity. Yet Christian democracy, in opposition to socialism, defends private property and resists excessive intervention of the state in social life and education. While Christian democracy found its inspiration and base of support in Christianity, its parties operated autonomously from ecclesiastical organizations and often welcomed the support of agnostics or atheists. Many Christian democratic parties have adopted over time a more secular discourse, privileging pragmatic policies over overtly religious themes.

After World War II, a number of Christian democratic parties appeared in Europe, including the Italian Christian Democratic Party (later the Italian Popular Party), the French Popular Republican Movement, and the German Christian Democratic Union, which became the most successful. Christian democratic parties were a major political force during the Cold War and led coalition governments in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, and the Netherlands. The same period also saw the appearance of Christian democratic parties in Latin America. Though most were small splinter groups, Christian democrats eventually achieved power in Venezuela, El Salvador, and Chile. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Christian democratic parties made electoral strides in central and eastern Europe.

André Munro