Editing Democrats of the Left (section)

==Factions==
Inside the DS, there was often a somewhat simplistic distinction between reformists (''riformisti'') and radicals (''radicali''), indicating respectively the party's mainstream and its left wing. The party also included several organised factions. The [[social-democratic]] majority was loosely organised, while including several organised movements: the [[Labour Federation (Italy)|Labourites – Liberal Socialists]] and Sicily's Reformist Movement, both splinter groups of the [[Italian Socialist Party]]; Reformist Europe, a splinter group of the [[Democratic Union (Italy)|Democratic Union]] led by [[Giorgio Benvenuto]] (previously named Reformists for Europe); the [[Social Christians]], which had emerged from the left wing of [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]]; the [[Republican Left (Italy)|Republican Left]], from the left wing of the [[Italian Republican Party]]; and the [[Liberal Left]], from the left wing of the [[Italian Liberal Party]]. A dissident group left the Labourites in order to launch [[Democracy and Socialism|Socialists and Europeans]] as a vehicle to oppose the party's merger with DL. On the party's right, the [[Liberal DS]] had a moderate [[Third Way]] or [[radical centrist]] political agenda and joined the party's majority in latter years.

Before the party's last congress in 2007, the left-wing opposition was led by the ''DS Left – Returning to win'', a democratic-socialist grouping, with other smaller groups including ''DS Left – for Socialism'' and the ''Ecologist Left''. Before that, some DS leading members, including [[Pietro Ingrao]], [[Achille Occhetto]], and [[Pietro Folena]], had left the party in order to join the [[Communist Refoundation Party]], which at its sixth congress held in January 2005 moved toward a more heterogeneous, non-sectarian, and strongly pacifist variety of leftism.