This book is based on archival sources of the Italian Communist Party till now deposited in Moscow, on Togliatti personal papers and correspondence, and on the archives of the former Eastern Germany, the German Democratic Republic. It deals with the international conferences of the international communist movement and the increasing conflict between the USSR and Mao's China after the XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956. The study suggests that Togliatti's policy, also in Italy, was very much influenced by this scenario and can be understood only within it. The "Italian road" to socialism aimed at offering a non divisive path to the whole Communist movement. The Yalta Memorandum becomes thus a lucid analysis of the perspective of the crisis of the Communist movement.