EUROCOMMUNISM-MYTH, HOPE, DELUSION?:WHAT DO WE ASK OF EUROCOMMUNISM?
Pachter, Henry
A political question cannot be answered by a philosophical definition. Leszek Kolakowski has decided, to his own satisfaction, that Communists are Communists are Communists, an insight that he...
...I don't believe that Sr...
...Leszek Kolakowski has decided, to his own satisfaction, that Communists are Communists are Communists, an insight that he derives from reading their texts...
...They have not said that they are no longer Communists...
...In such a government, it can very well be the role of the Socialists to see that civil rights are not violated wantonly, that new laws have due-process clauses, etc., but they cannot in fairness ask the Communists to support patch-up measures that will save capitalism for a while and then to allow themselves to be booted out with diminished prestige...
...Even if they were to join a government, they would still have to project the image of an opposition party...
...And let me add, in a reference ad hominem to the author of an excellent book on positivism, as though scientists had not decided, some 50 years ago, that what matters is not what a substance is but how it works...
...During the 1920s, Stalin ordered European Communists to offer "united-front" alliances to Social Democrats, and again in 1936 he supported "popularfront" governments in France and Spain...
...it makes even less sense if Stalinism is defined as a rigid, truculently orthodox faith...
...It does not make sense to assert and reassert that Communists are "really" still Stalinists at heart...
...The Communists have no reason to ignore that lesson, and therefore their role in a coalition government will be to prevent the Front Populaire experience from repeating itself...
...they will not behave like British cabinet ministers who defend their government to the last breath even as they disagree with it, but rather like U.S...
...That was the fate of the Italian Social Democrats and of the French SFIO before de Gaulle saved it from suicide...
...The talk that they will become social democrats is premature...
...The measures that a Socialist-Communist government will introduce are not policies that could be changed back after a year's try, but permanent changes in the structure of the economy that need time to demonstrate their benefits...
...As though Catholic princes had not fought the Pope with as much ardor as Protestants...
...The question for non-Communists, then, is whether they, too, want those structural reforms...
...In other words, for Socialists a coalition with Communists would make sense only if the Communists continue to behave like Communists...
...I do not propose to name the master politician who could bring off this feat of prestidigita40 tion...
...It is obvious that Italian Communists cannot take governmental responsibilities without risking a severe split in their ranks...
...The Communists are essentially an opposition party...
...He notes, however, that "Berlinguer has no illusions as to what the Soviet system actually is...
...As though the world had not been watching, for the last 30 years with increasing fascination, the "schism in the schism" inside Yugoslavia, with still undecided results...
...As though the "schism" between Peking and Moscow were not the most "consummated" fact of international politics today...
...Far from being dogmatic, it also sacrificed Communist theory to day-to-day interests, often not even those of the Soviet Union but to those of the ruling faction...
...To change them back every time a new government comes to power would be disastrous...
...But you have to be prepared for more...
...Let us not repeat these acrobatics of political consciousness but state coolly and cynically: Eurocommunism is not a new development but an invention of nonCommunists who, for reasons we shall discuss, wish to conclude electoral alliances with their local Communists...
...They are committed to structural change, and they must justify their participation in a government by the achievements of that government...
...if they do want them, the coalition will have to do what the Communists have not hesitated to spell out: they must be prepared to defend the reforms, even if it means to suspend certain rights...
...We see presently the emergence of national Communist leaders who occasionally talk back to the Kremlin and pursue policies that are better adapted to the tactical situation in different countries...
...To suggest that these Communists have turned into social democrats who will play the game of democracy is outright hypocrisy (at times they appear to be on the right of the Social Democrats: both Berlinguer and Carrillo tolerate right-wing governments...
...Leaders who have been brought up in the tradition of Marxism-Leninism look for guidance to the place they will receive in future history books: Have they advanced the cause...
...Either of them has more power now than if he were the member of a government...
...Joining a government would make sense for them only if they were to feel that they could accomplish something for the masses, not just to pull the capitalist chestnuts out of the fire...
...They have been totally opportunistic in their choice of Mediterranean allies, but one may find in this policy one consistency: they are aligned with Soviet foreign-policy interests in global affairs...
...It cannot be asked in fairness that the Communists commit suicide...
...Eurocommunism, as it is constituted today, is not as new as it appears to people born during the Cold War...
...For him, the criteria for their conversion to democracy would be that they repudiate certain texts and make certain declarations on the nature of the Soviet Union...
...A government determined to introduce such changes, therefore, must know that it has the vast majority (not just 51 percent) behind it and that its mandate is long enough to make the reforms stick...
...They emerge from absurdity and we give them credit for pursuing aims identical with ours...
...Socialists must also keep in mind that—whether or not the Communists continue to mouth Leninist theory—the two parties remain rivals, and the Communists would not enter into a coalition if they felt that on balance it would benefit the Socialists...
...Whether these Communists still believe that the Soviet system is preferable to parliamentary democracy is beside the point...
...In fact, it will have to introduce reforms of such a nature (for instance, mergers that cannot be unscrambled...
...If he were alive you might ask Allende...
...They must justify it by telling us why they themselves have changed...
...Berlinguer or M. Marchais are vain enough to seek the title of Mr...
...his stated aim is to crush the Social Democrats by supporting a Christian Democratic government for which he will not take responsibility...
...making tactical and temporary use of cooperation if and when a useful purpose is achieved but keeping a safe distance, always remaining aware of the limitations of such alliances and of the function that Communist parties must fulfill in the political arena...
...They are already facing competition with an increasingly dynamic movement of urban guerillas on their left...
...There seems to be one exception: Berlinguer's promise to respect the NATO alliance...
...But we should also remember that for the time of that alliance American Communists saw to it that no strike endangered the war effort...
...Kolakowski's approach to the question, however, seems misleading to me...
...Is that asking too much...
...One hopes to defuse somehow the class war that the Communists could otherwise unleash, but one does not think that either class war or the Communist support of it can be abolished...
...If they don't want them, the participation of Communists will mean trouble...
...How do you deal with that...
...Berlinguer, in turn, does not even seek a coalition with the Socialists...
...Communists have a right to be taken seriously...
...The only relevant question is: Are the Communists more dangerous outside the government than inside...
...They are thriving in that position and have little reason to give it up...
...Those who desire an alliance cannot and should not justify it by telling us that the Communists have changed...
...Stalin went out of his way to introduce a "Constitution" in the Soviet Union, and delegations sent there assured us that even the prisoners in the Gulags voted 100 percent for Stalin...
...Minister...
...Hence they ask for an assurance that it will bring "structural reforms...
...In his catholic language, he asks 39 them "to consummate both the heresy and the schism...
...The PLO is neither socialist nor communist and yet the Italian Communists are committed to support its aims and policies...
...The one does not necessarily exclude the other, but neither does one follow from the other...
...in fact it cannot be the purpose of the coalition to transform the Communists into social democrats, for what is proposed is precisely to have the opposition inside the government...
...In fact, since the first draft of this comment was written, M. Marchais seems to have come to the conclusion that he would not be the beneficiary of such a coalition, and therefore he busted it...
...One is thankful for small favors...
...Let us remember that Lenin concluded alliances with Kemal Pasha and that Chiang Kai-shek was trained in Moscow...
...but he also wants to "reform" NATO in two respects that are of great importance to the Soviet Union—reducing its Mediterranean commitment and reducing the American participation...
...It was a very flexible, though for that reason not less ruthless tactic that at all times bent the ideology to its practical purposes and sacrificed the interests of national Communist parties to the day-to-day interests of the Soviet Union...
...One would like to see the Communist party split over the issue of government participation, but not so badly that it loses all control over the masses, and a more radical Communist party (Maoist, anarchist, or Trotskyist) would renew the threat of an uncontrolled, intransigent party of the disgruntled and unintegrated masses...
...The so-called Eurocommunists suggest that they would be less of a nuisance inside...
...senators who will attack it even though they agree with its policies...
...I merely say that one should honestly say what one is trying to do...
...The question is obviously not whether party 41 schools still teach the orthodox Leninist theory of the state, nor whether they think that socialism rules in the Soviet Union, in China, Cuba, or for that matter in Uganda...
...As a birthday present for FDR, the CP, U.S.A., and the Comintern were dissolved, and democracy was promised to Poland...
...Nationalization of the banks means that capitalists will try to smuggle their money out of the country...
...It no longer is a source of strength and unity but has become a source of weakness and of disunity...
...Instead of imputing to the so-called Eurocommunists motives and ideologies that they do not have and that would be at crosspurposes with their true interests, let us soberly deal with them as with any other party: allowing them to evolve, but withholding recognition until they have delivered...
...When it became necessary for the Anglo-Saxon imperialists to conclude a working alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler, one could read in the New York Times that democracy was ruling in the Soviet Union, that the Moscow Trials had been conducted fairly and according to the rules of due process, and that only the Trotskyites were spoilsports...
...For this, French Communists had to praise the blessings of democracy, march under the tricolor, and even dismantle their clandestine apparatus in the French army...
...workers' participation in management of a sort that cannot be undone) that will make a return to the previous status quo impossible...
...Some of these leaders have evolved so far toward reality that they actually seem to be operating in the framework of practical politics and can sustain an intelligent dialogue with representatives of other parties...
...Besides the practical behavior patterns of European Communist parties, the ideology has become pale...
...either for reasons of tradition or because they like to align themselves with the wave of the future, they have chosen to be staunch allies of the radical Arab governments...
...If you want socialized medicine you cannot allow doctors to go on strike...
...Put that way, there is little inducement for the Communists to take the bait...
Vol. 25 • January 1978 • No. 1
