GenZedong

North Italy especially had a very revolutionary tradition, throughout various periods there were more communists than liberals, especially after the russian revolution, and during the 1950s-70s. It was one of the main fronts of the cold war, which is why the CIA put so many resources into killing them during the years of lead and stamping out their orgs via gladio.

The Italian and other southern and eastern european expats to the US during the early 1900s formed the core of most of its communist / socialist organizing too. They were highly-communitarian minded people, pretty much the opposite of anglos.

Highly recommend comrades read Paul Williams - Operation Gladio.

I mean, Marx came from Germany so...

But I think it has to do with how both Germany and Italy were heavily industrialized while also not having as many colonies like Spain, Britain or France.

But Germany actually got a socialist government in the east after the war, so their western counterparts by necessity had to be social democrats. The Communist Party of Italy on the other hand went on existing for most of the 20th century, supported by the Comintern.

In all of Western Europe the last century, I think Italy and maybe (Northern) Ireland had the most consistent revolutionary potential until Eurocommunism doomed the peninsula.

Economic disparity in Italy following industrialization, between North and South, which continues to this day, undoubtedly could be a factor. Italy is also a very extroverted culture with a collectivist, outgoing tradition that even today opposes social atomization that capitalism creates (think of movements like Cittaslow and Slowfood), but this can be said about so many other cultures in just the Mediterranean basin alone - Italy has just been part of the imperial core, meaning higher literacy rates and thus "capacity" to produce such prominent Marxist thinkers. Italy also saw fascism, which perhaps could have made class consciousness amongst intellectuals skyrocket?

And confirmation bias? Maybe, but it's a fun thought experiment regardless because we as Marxists are materialists in the first place, so we know that this isn't just an "inherent genetic trait", or "random", as liberal idealism would propose.

Britain [although in the latter’s case, their intellectuals are so endlessly insufferable im genuinely considering calling for a ban on all publications from the god forsaken island]

~~not just their intellectuals are insufferable lmao, that's too generous when speaking of that "civilization"~~