Eurocommunism’

chapter 13 On the Subject of ‘Eurocommunism’

The rather abrupt manner in which someone posed the question yesterday – ‘Is Eurocommunism a strategy for socialism and are there others?’ – gave rise to a discussion in the all-or-nothing style, confronted with which we must at least address a more analytical consideration, a study of ‘dimensions’, as Ernest Mandel has attempted to do in his recent articles on the subject.

The Reality and Realism of ‘Eurocommunism’ ‘Eurocommunism’ is eliciting a fair amount of communist debate. Some have gone so far as to say that it is the most important political event since World War Two, or since the Chinese Revolution, or since the end of the Cold War. The bourgeois press – inventor of the term ‘Eurocommunism’, which the Communist Parties involved rejected until the expeditious style and populist talent of Santiago Carrillo consecrated it – has given the topic publicity, but that is not the agent primarily responsible for its prevalence. ‘Eurocommunism’ is the great topic of reflection in the communist movement today because it embodies the main social reality of this movement outside the Soviet and Chinese spheres. (The Russians are guilty of a certain recklessness in contrast- ing the ‘real’ character of their ‘socialism’ with the movement inspired by the Italian, French or Spanish Communist Parties, for one can reply to them there is more social reality in 30 percent of an electorate [including no less than 50 percent of the proletariat], as in Italy, than in the Czech political police and the armour-plated occupation forces.) Outside the bloc under Russian hege- mony and the Far East, the three main ‘Eurocommunist’ parties, if not the Japanese party as well, make up the greatest socio-political phenomenon to come out of the movement that arose as a reaction against Social Democracy’s abandonment of proletarian internationalism – the 1914 nationalist vote for war credits.

* First published in 1977. Republished as ‘A propósito del ‘eurocomunismo’, in Intervenciones políticas. Panfletos y materiales III, edited by Juan-Ramón Capella (Barcelona: Icaria Editorial, S.A., 1985).

Three Correct Ideas in ‘Eurocommunism’ The first of these ideas is a good perception of social facts and, above all, of the non-realisation of the revolutionary prospects that inspired the con- stitution of the Communist International in 1919. That perception, if it is not accompanied by a reaffirmation of the revolutionary goal, may be the start- ing point for a regression toward social democracy. Even in this case, however, the ‘Eurocommunists’ can maintain truthfulness and consistency. The ‘Eurocommunist’ leaders are generally not guilty of opportunism, but openly state the consequences of their analysis. The good perception of reality and the truthful expression of what one sees (independently of the fact that one infers a social-democratic perspective from what is seen) reinforce, in turn, the ‘Eurocommunist’ parties’ insertion in social reality, above all that of the proletariat. For the workers are much more intelligent and critical, and are much better informed, than many radical groups, with their paternalist prophesying, seem to think. The workers compare the reality that they see and in which they live with the intensely idealised versions of this reality presented by some groups and with the plausible versions of it offered by social democrats from the ‘Eurocommunist’ or socialist parties. They add things up and see the result. The second correct idea involves the practice of an effective self-criticism of one’s own tradition. That allows ‘Eurocommunism’ to set in motion an authen- tic reflection, of interest not only to the sect’s faithful, but also to many workers. The third correct idea is the unprejudiced analysis of new developments in the social structure. Thanks perhaps to this liberation from the dogmatism (whether sincere or hypocritical) of the politicians in the East, that fresh analysis in turn permits a new search for alliances based on the structure of social classes and the different social strata as they exist in society today, and not in poor manuals.

‘Eurocommunism’ as a Retreat However, above that analytical dimension (in which ‘Eurocommunism’, in apparent contradiction to its limited taste for theory, stands out in com- parison with the rest of the communist movement), there is no totalising socialist dimension. The ‘Eurocommunist’ analysis is not part of a revolutionary dialectic. Or to put it in the words of one of yesterday’s interventions, ‘Eurocommunism’ is not a strategy for socialism. It is precisely when presented as a socialist strategy that it loses even its analytical quality and becomes a deceptive ideology. As a socialist strategy, ‘Eurocommunism’ offers the insipid