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Since 1945 the Italian left has always fragmented into several different parties. The Communists quickly became the dominant party of the left. Ideologically and politically, they have remained adamantly opposed to any attempt to pursue a social democratic path. Though at the beginning, the Italian Socialist Party harboured reservations of its own on the desirability of social democracy, its policies, especially during the centre-left experience, had a social democratic imprint. However, the PSI never succeeded in becoming strong enough to impose its view and had always to govern in a coalition with the Christian Democrats. Not even the fall of the Berlin wall and the transformation of the Communist Party into the Left Democrats has opened the path toward a social democratic experience. By this time, the Italian industrial working class has considerably shrunk and the three major unions remain divided. More importantly, the PSI has collapsed and the Left Democrats are still rejecting social democracy and supporting a long term alliance with former Christian Democrats who are not at all inclined to work in a social democratic perspective.