Europe's Central Issue: The Communists' Role
Rossi, Mario
Europe's Central Issue: The Communists' Role MARIO ROSSI The Italian election held in June has not resolved the problem of Communist party participation in the governments of Italy, France, and...
...The PCF had consummated an alliance with the Socialists in the 1974 French presidential campaign, only to lose by a narrow margin...
...Within its ranks, the French Party tolerated no criticism of the Soviet system, and it applauded every one of Stalin's crimes—the crushing of freedom in Eastern Europe, the interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the suppression of discontent in Poland and East Germany...
...Another influential Italian Communist, Giorgio Napolitano, has stated: "For us, Italy's participation in NATO is not open to question, to the extent that this participation is part of the political and military equilibrium in Europe...
...They had proclaimed the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat as sacred...
...One of Western Europe's influential Communist leaders, Santiago Carrillo, secretary general of the Spanish party, recently stated that socialism in the West must differ from the Soviet model—not just for tactical or propaganda purposes, but because in Western Europe "the only socialism possible must be founded upon the majority" and be ready "to yield power if such majority ceases to exist.'' The Communist movement, Carrillo added, is no longer a "church...
...When French television showed scenes from a Soviet labor camp, the PCF commented that if the film was authentic, the conditions it depicted were terrible...
...no other Communist Party in Europe was more faithful to the Soviet Union...
...The PCF's new look was severely criticized in the Kremlin, which expects all Communist parties everywhere to give unquestioning support to everything that Soviet leaders do or say...
...Furthermore, both Communist parties have shown their commitment to parliamentary rule through their uncompromising opposition to Far Left and Maoist extremists...
...In private conversation, Italian Communists will admit that a weakening of U.S...
...Europe's Central Issue: The Communists' Role MARIO ROSSI The Italian election held in June has not resolved the problem of Communist party participation in the governments of Italy, France, and perhaps other Western European nations...
...Carrillo and Marchais stressed their independence by not attending the Soviet Party congress this year...
...Only an alliance between the two main popular parties of near equal strength, Communist and Christian Democratic, can pull Italy out of the chaos...
...It is time for Washington to come to terms with that reality...
...The Communist Party of Italy lived an illegal and precarious existence until the end of World War II...
...In France, the Communists have entered into a united front with the Socialists, but the latter are the stronger element in the partnership, and their devotion to the democratic process is unquestioned...
...He characterized the Soviet system as "primitive" and influenced by the "semi-feudal system it has replaced and of which it carries an imprint," and declared: "There cannot be a common line between the Communist parties of capitalist countries and the parties-states of Eastern Europe...
...it no longer sought to attain power by revolution...
...Except for the World War II years, the French Communist Party (PCF) has had a legal existence throughout its fifty-six-year history...
...To attempt one-party rule, he acknowledges, would be to invite civil war...
...At first glance, the question might appear naive: Why would the Left, whose historical experience is well known, want to be absorbed into the democratic system...
...The future of U.S...
...They recognize the fate that befell their comrades in Czechoslovakia who tried to attain a measure of independence...
...private investments in Europe—and they are considerable—also enters into the picture...
...overreact at the prospect that Communists might share power in Western Europe...
...Paradoxically, Leonid Brezhnev appears as perturbed about this prospect as Gerald R. Ford—although for different reasons...
...In recent years the PCF ventured some timid words of disagreement with the Kremlin, usually on relatively minor matters...
...The announcement would have been of small consequence had it been made in isolation...
...In Italian politics, all victories and defeats are relative...
...Recent interventions by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig, the NATO commander, who warned against the dire consequences of eventual Communist participation in the Italian and French governments, are not helpful...
...Those who insist on basing policy on the stereotypes of the past will be bypassed by events...
...An Italian government with Communist participation will preserve an absolute independence of judgment, including with respect to Moscow...
...Afterwards, the Party tried to take advantage of its relative success by making the Socialists toe its line...
...But if Alexander Dubcek has taught them a lesson, so has Salvador Allende...
...The Party's leader in the postwar years, Palmiro Togliatti, was totally devoted to Stalin, but having spent most of his adult life as an exile in the Soviet Union, he understood that the Kremlin's brand of communism had no chance in Italy...
...Until the recent switch, it never wavered in its conviction that its future depended on the closest association with Moscow...
...The conservative forces opposed to any compromise with the Communists are still quite formidable, as the Italian election has once again shown...
...It is widely recognized in Europe, of course, that the presence of Communists in Western governments would have inevitable consequences for U.S.rEuropean relations in general, and for NATO in particular...
...It should be stressed that there is no possibility of any West European nation being "taken over" by the Communists as Poland or Bulgaria were...
...Political polarization is greater than ever, and will force the country deeper into political, moral, and financial bankruptcy...
...Furthermore, the PCI represents law and order in the almost incredible disorder that is Italy today...
...The Soviet Union, on the other hand, worries about the impact of "revisionist" Western Communist policies on its Warsaw Pact allies...
...Consequently, when violence in Portugal was answered by violence and the Communists were thrown on the defensive, the ideological blow was felt not only in Lisbon but in Paris, too...
...The French Communists have a long way to go before they line up with the Italians...
...Today, the Italian party has 227 deputies in Parliament and controls a third of all regions, provinces, and municipalities, and all major Italian cities, including Rome...
...The Vatican's opposition is total, though it did not take the near-hysterical form of 1948, when Communists were excommunicated...
...the Socialists grew stronger and the Communists lost support...
...One day last November, it was announced that Marchais had gone to Rome to talk to his Italian counterpart, Berlinguer...
...But the leaders of the Eastern bloc obviously prefer Giscard to Marchais as president of France, just as they prefer any "Christian Democrat to Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer as premier of Italy...
...The persecution of Soviet mathematician Leonid Pliouch, who had been incarcerated in an insane asylum because of his political views, elicited that such a thing would never happen in a French government dominated by the Left...
...But it must be stressed, to place the PCF's role in its proper perspective, that if the Left were to gain power in France, the role of the Communists would be a subsidiary to that of the Socialists...
...The PCF has not been the same since...
...Furthermore, the French Communists are discovering now what their Italian comrades did long ago—that total fidelity to Moscow was an aspect of the Cold War between East and West...
...They wonder, too, whether the present West European governments are in a position to face up to growing Soviet strength and influence at a time of reduced U.S...
...The United States fears for the cohesion of the Atlantic alliance...
...Another element that contributed to the change of direction in the PCF was internal...
...Even such popular leaders of the PCF as Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos insisted that Stalin was always right and regarded any censure of the Soviet Union as collaboration with "reaction...
...The turning point proved to be the events that shook Portugal last year...
...the Portuguese Communists had taken a similar stand in October 1974 but it had not signified a real change of attitude...
...In France, where Communists shared power in the Popular Front of 1936 and in Charles DeGaulle's government after World War II, no one really believes the world would end if Francois Mitterand became the next president at the head of a Socialist-Communist coalition...
...His tactic was to lure voters away from right-wing parties (especially the neo-Fascist MSI) by promising that the Christian Democrats would never share power with the Communists...
...At the same time, however, the Christian Democrats named as their chairman the influential leader of their right wing...
...The most obvious reason for the switch was that independence has greatly profited the Italian Party, while servility has hurt the French...
...The problem refuses to go away just because Washington threatens and the Vatican thunders...
...The showdown has been postponed, but it remains inevitable...
...The parties of France, Italy, and Spain have no interest in seeing their respective countries deprived of American protection...
...The Italian and Spanish Communist parties proclaimed their independence from Moscow long ago, and they did so precisely in order to survive...
...Shortly before the election, the Christian Democrats were forced to recognize that the PCI represents a major force, and reelected Secretary-General Benigno Zaccagnini, who favors dialogue with the Communists...
...This outlook could change dramatically if the two main political forces—the Christian Democrats and the Communists—were to decide to cooperate...
...should Italy withdraw, the balance would be upset and detente would be seriously compromised...
...As Portugal undertook the enormously difficult transition from dictatorship to democracy, the Portuguese Communists operated on the assumption that their party, as the self-proclaimed vehicle of popular aspirations, was obliged to lead all progressive forces to power...
...The reality is that the achievement of any kind of a stability in Europe depends, at this point, on a rapid consolidation of a Left that has become European and democratic...
...Georges Marchais had noted the steady progress of the Italian Communists, who insisted they were Italians first and proclaimed their independence from Moscow even on issues to which the Soviet Union attached the greatest importance...
...Since this is a Presidential election year in the United States, it was inevitable that official Washington would Mario Rossi, a former United Nations correspondent, now free-lances from Paris...
...Many leading industrialists hope the Communists would put a stop to worker absenteeism, slowdowns, and strikes...
...Their economic plans for France call for nationalization while the PCI proposes to reduce Italy's existing state enterprises...
...Still, one may wonder whether Moscow recognizes the full extent of the chasm that has opened between communism on the two sides of what used to be called the Iron Curtain...
...They have recently been joined by the French Communists—a change of major importance when one recalls that the French Party has traditionally been most subservient to the Kremlin...
...In Italy, Berlinguer has repeatedly asserted that a country with such immense problems cannot be governed by a single party—even one that gains a majority of votes...
...The Communist parties of the three main Latin nations— France, Italy, and Spain—have now coordinated their policies, and this is bound to have a profound ideological and political effect on Western Europe—a Europe disorganized, leaderless, lacking a sense of purpose, in spiritual disarray...
...at the time there was no alternative—one had to take sides...
...It was not just the jettisoning of an unpopular phrase but of a political line...
...Marchais was convinced that his party should emulate the Italians, but more cautiously...
...That kind of Europe makes a poor ally for the United States: The governments supporting Washington are too weak and their opposition is too strong...
...Since the Portuguese "reaction" refused to yield without a struggle, the contest had to be a violent one...
...military power and a corresponding strengthening of Soviet power would definitely not be in their interest...
...Marchais refuses even to talk to Giscard...
...Meanwhile, the role of the Communists remains the central issue in Western Europe, and it is an issue that must be faced—not only because of the social forces sustaining it, but also because in Italy and Spain, and to a lesser extent in France, the Communists have abandoned rigid Leninism and are in the process of modifying Marxism, too...
...But Western Europe is in a state of crisis, and many non-Communists believe that a sharing of power by the Communists would be preferable to leaving things as they are...
...Many traditionally conservative elements in Italian society would not have changed their attitude had the Communists themselves not changed...
...Amintore Fanfani, and it was Fanfani who led his party through the election...
...It was the Italian Niccolo Machiavelli who defined politics as the art of the possible...
...today's "never" could become "perhaps" in a few weeks and "yes, but" in a few months...
...Premier Aldo Moro referred to the PCI as a "great popular force" with which he hoped to maintain a "serious, rigorous, and respectful confrontation...
...Therefore, they began to place high priority on the maintenance of equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union...
...Enrico Berlinguer has repeatedly stated that his party favors continued Italian membership in NATO...
...A reader of their newspapers and pamphlets might wonder whether they are not ideologically closer to British Labor than to Soviet communism...
...There is no question of the PCI tolerating any form of direct action by workers or students...
...The tactic backfired...
...The French experience was quite different...
...Unlike their Italian and Spanish comrades, the French gave all-out support to the Portuguese Communists...
...French Communist leader Georges Marchais reacted angrily when Polish premier Piotr Jaroszewicz, during an official visit to Paris, heaped praise on President Valery Giscard d'Estaing...
...The Christian Democratic refusal to enter into such a coalition may not be permanent...
...It played a leading role in the wartime resistance against the Fascists and Nazis, and afterwards became closely identified with the labor movement in a nation urgently in need of sweeping social and economic reforms...
...Parties on the Left do not want to gain power only to mobilize the opposition to wage a deadly struggle against them, as Allende did in Chile...
...East European officials who owe their positions to the Kremlin share its concern...
...Berlinguer went, but clearly stated his party's ideological differences with the Soviet Union...
...In the French case, however, it reflected a determination to align the PCF with the Italian and Spanish parties...
...involvement and credibility...
...Thus, the Christian Democrats, with Zaccagnini as secretary-general and Fanfani as chairman, are open to the Left and open to the Right...
...As the French daily Le Monde observed, "without the United States there would be no communism u la Berlinguer nor humanistic socialism a la Marchais...
...They wonder how much the Western military alliance is worth when the Communists, whether in or out of government, are so strong...
...rather the question is how to prevent the eventual presence of Communists in such governments from upsetting the balance of power upon which the peace of the world rests...
...But it is important to stress that they could follow such an independent course only because they operate in a part of the world where Soviet power is checked by American power...
...They are not yet ready to support France's continued participation in the Atlantic alliance, nor are they committed, like the PCI, to the consolidation of the European economic community...
...Much of its strength derives from its image of responsibility...
...Barring a major upheaval in Europe, the new line adopted by the French Communists represents a fundamental change from which there is no turning back...
...The answer is that it probably has no alternative...
...The Christian Democrats "won," but with a plurality of 38.7 per cent they cannot govern without allies—and all indications at this writing are that they will have much difficulty finding them...
...Though Washington and Moscow share the hope that Communists will be kept out of West European governments, that is no longer the issue...
...And then, just a few days before the opening of the Party's twenty-second congress on February 4, the big bomb was set off: Marchais announced that the PCF no longer subscribed to the doctrine of the "dictatorship of the proletariat...
...In Italy, Giovanni Agnelli, president of Fiat and until recently of Italy's counterpart to the National Association of Manufacturers, has repeatedly warned against overreacting to an eventual participation of Communists in the government...
...The Kremlin is apprehensive that such "decadent" ideas as coalition between Communist and other parties or respect for the parliamentary system may work their way into Eastern Europe...
...On the other hand, the PCI believes that through the various local administrations it controls, it can provide more support to direct grass-roots efforts by workers, students, and local communities to control their own lives...
...They recognized that their political progress was a consequence of their independence from Moscow, and that such independence could be maintained only if the Cold War were not renewed...
...They wonder, in sum, whether the best hope for Western Europe might not lie in an evolutionary process in which the Left (both communist and non-communist) makes a total commitment to Western democratic institutions...
...Stalin's death and the advent of more or less peaceful coexistence between Washington and Moscow in the aftermath of the 1962 Cuba missile crisis opened new opportunities for the Italian Communists...
Vol. 40 • September 1976 • No. 9
