Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician, considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party, which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970.
During his leadership, he distanced the party from the influence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and pursued a moderate line, repositioning the party within Italian politics and advocating accommodation and national unity. This strategy came to be termed Eurocommunism and he was seen as its main spokesperson. It would come to be adopted by Western Europe's other significant communist parties, in Spain and later France, its significance as a political force cemented by a 1977 meeting in Madrid between Berlinguer, Georges Marchais and Santiago Carrillo.