Lucio Colletti

Who was Lucio Colletti?

Lucio Colletti was an Italian philosopher. Colletti started to be known outside Italy because of a long interview that Marxist historian Perry Anderson published in the New Left Review in 1974.

Colletti studied philosophy at the University of Messina with the Marxist philosopher Galvano Della Volpe. Colletti was well known as a critic of Hegelian idealism and also later became a noted critic of Marxism.

Colletti changed his political beliefs very often and abandoned many of his early Marxist beliefs. Colletti joined the Italian Communist Party in 1949 and emerged as an important cultural party figure. In 1964, Coletti left the PCI because the break with its semi-Stalinist past was leading in what he called a "patently rightward direction." In the 1970s he was among the supporters of Socialist leader Bettino Craxi. From 1996 until his death he was elected in the list of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing political party, in the Italian parliament.