PCI policy in 1981. The Proletarian Unity Party merged into the PCI in 1984. During the Years of lead, the PCI strongly opposed the terrorism and the Red Brigades, who in turn murdered or wounded many PCI members or trade unionists close to the PCI. According to Mitrokhin, the party asked the Soviets to pressure the StB, Czechoslovakia's State Security, to withdraw their support to the group, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do. This, along with the Soviet invasion of Afganhistan, led to a complete break with Moscow in 1979. In 1980, the PCI refused to participate in the international conference of Communist parties in Paris; cash payments to the PCI continued until 1984. Dissolution Achille Occhetto became general secretary of the PCI in 1988. At a 1989 conference in a working-class section of Bologna, Occhetto stunned the party faithful with a speech heralding the Revolutions of 1989, a move now referred to in Italian politics as the svolta della Bolognina (Bolognina turning point). The collapse of the Communist governments in the Eastern Europe led Occhetto to conclude that the era of Eurocommunism was over. Under his leadership, the PCI dissolved and refounded itself as the Democratic Party of the Left, which branded itself as a progressive left-wing and democratic socialist party. A third of the PCI membership, led by Armando Cossutta, refused to join the PDS, and instead seceded to form the Communist Refoundation Party. Popular support In all its history, the PCI was particularly strong in Central Italy, in the Red Regions of Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Tuscany, and Umbria, as well as in the industrialised cities of Northern Italy. The party's municipal showcase was Bologna, which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards. Amongst other measures, the local PCI administration tackled urban problems with successful programmes of health for the elderly, nursery education and traffic reform, while also undertaking initiatives in housing and school meal provisions. Communist administrations at a local level helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. From 1946 to 1956, the Communist city council built 31 nursery schools, 896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built and 8,000 children received subsidised school meals. In 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri, introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a