At the beginning , due to the characteristics of the Italian socialist movement, tied up to the municipalism, there were no real membership cards of the Party, because usually Circles and regional and provincial federative structures would distribute their own membership cards.
Only with the 1905 Statute the adhesion becomes a personal, centralized fact .
Since 1905, membership cards were printed by the Direction of the Italian Socialist Party, they had a one-year validity and they were very accurate in graphics.
It'is interesting to examin membership cards from an iconographical and symbolic point of view but also for the 'passwords' launched and for the selected annual theme representing the reality and the task of the socialist movement: in fact it was rightly defined the 'yearly holy picture' of the Party, a document of adhesion full of meanings.
