First Published: Class Struggle, No. 9, Spring 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
On a cold day last fall, Santiago Carrillo, the leader of the so-called Communist Party of Spain (PCE), crossed the picket lines of striking Yale University workers in New Haven, in order to give a speech on the campus. When asked how a “communist” could scab on a workers’ struggle in this way, he replied that his speech was more important than the strike of the custodial workers. Besides, he added, the American labor movement is “reactionary anyway.”
The incident shed some light on the class character of Carrillo and his cohorts in other European countries, such as Berlinguer in Italy and Marchais in France. While they like to describe themselves as “Eurocommunists,” they are really nothing more than scabs on the workers’ movement. Taken along with the entire body of theory and practice which Eurocommunism has offered, the crossing of the picket line emphasized the fact that the likes of Carrillo and Co. should never be allowed to appropriate the name of communism for their treacherous purposes.
The Eurocommunists are in fact Eurorevisionists. They are the chieftains of a new trend in modern revisionism. They are “more revisionist than the revisionists” in the sense that they have openly attacked Marxism-Leninism and discarded its principles to an even greater extent than the Soviet revisionists.
To wage class warfare, we must get to know the revisionist enemy very well. We must get to know its strengths and weaknesses, its realities and deceptions. The current debate over Eurorevisionism–which is raging not only in Europe, but in the U.S. and many other countries as well–affords us an excellent opportunity to deepen our understanding of the revisionist ideology and the role it plays in today’s world. Eurorevisionism has developed out of the frenzied efforts of the French, Italian, Spanish and other revisionist parties to snuggle up to the ruling classes in their own countries and form electoral blocs capable of bringing them to power.
To do this, the Eurorevisionists have not only abandoned and renounced the most important revolutionary principles taught by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tsetung. They have also tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Soviet social-imperialists. They have done this in order to give legitimacy to their claims of being “genuine nationalists” and “independent” of Moscow. This is why they have refused to bear the onus for the Soviet Union’s most obvious crimes, such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia or the confinement of dissidents to mental hospitals, and have made a big show of criticizing Brezhnev on these points. This combination of warmed-over social-democratic policies on domestic issues with pretense at “independence” from the Kremlin has enabled the Eurorevi-sionist parties to form new alliances with traditional ruling class political forces and increase their role in the national affairs of their respective countries.
In Italy, for example, the Eurorevisionist Communist Party of Italy (PCI) polled 34% of the vote in the last election. For more than six months in 1977, it served as the silent partner of the ruling Christian Democratic Party running Italy. In the most recent period, it has flexed its muscles and demanded a bigger share of power, causing the collapse of Italy’s government in January. This set off a new parliamentary crisis which the PCI hopes to use to obtain an open voice in the Cabinet for the first time in 30 years.
In France, meanwhile, despite a growing rift between the former bedmates of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of France (PCF), Marchais’ revisionists are also manuevering to use their electoral strength to bring them into a coalition government of some sort.
In Spain, Carrillo’s revisionist PCE not only obtained legality a year ago, when all the genuine Marxist-Leninists were still outlawed, but has already sent a number of deputies to parliament. Carrillo even succeeded in getting a former leading official of Franco’s regime to write the introduction to his book, Eurocommunism and the State, which is the most elaborate theoretical exposition of the Eurorevisionists’ political line yet written.
In a dozen other countries, Eurorevisionism is also a significant trend. In Australia, Japan, Norway and Britain, its adherents’ criticisms of the Soviet Union have even triggered open splits in revisionist parties. Here in the U.S., Eurorevisionism also has its followers in a variety of forms. Some of the American Euro-revisionists are to be found right inside the CPUSA, others are loosely grouped around the New American Movement, and some have lately made their opinions known through In These Times newspaper.
Simultaneous with the flourishing of Eurorevisionism, has come an unprecedented and vitriolic attack on it by the new czars in Moscow. Their chief target has been Carrillo, but they have also lashed out from time to time at the other parties, and at the trend as a whole. Always quick to follow the Soviet lead, Gus Hall and the revisionist Communist Party, U.S.A., in this country have also rushed out to attack Eurorevisionism. The CPUSA has even gone in for phrase-mongering about the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” a concept which they wrote out of their program 20 years ago and still reject today.
In any contradiction, there is both unity and struggle between its opposite poles. The same is true for the contradiction between Eurorevisionism and Moscow revisionism. Some struggle between the two has come to light in the form of criticisms and polemics, and this has captured a great deal of attention internationally. But at the same time, there is unity between the two trends. This is because both represent fundamentally revisionist political lines, trampling Marxism-Leninism underfoot. Thus Eurorevisionism objectively serves the aims of Soviet social-imperialism.
The Eurorevisionist phenomenon has posed a whole set of questions for the international communist movement: Are the Eurorevisionists “progressive” in any way? Can they be seen as any kind of “alternative” to modern revisionism? Have the Eurorevisionists ceased to be agents of Soviet social-imperialism, now representing only the interests of their own bourgeoisie? Is the Soviet Union’s critique of the Eurorevisionists indicative of some efforts in Moscow to correct its own revisionist treason?
These and other notions have been put forward from various quarters commenting on the impact of Eurorevisionism. But none of these views are either adequate or correct. Further analysis must be done if we are to get a scientific understanding of this contradiction in the enemy’s camp and use it to the advantage of the revolutionary struggle.
Very logically, it [the French revisionist party–ed] has decided to abandon the idea of the ’dictatorship of the proletariat,’ classically considered by the communist movement as a condition of socialism. –Jean Kanapa, chief of foreign affairs for the PCF[1]
The starting point for a critique of Eurorevisionism must be the most basic of all questions faced by the working class movement–what are the objectives of the class struggle? Long ago, Lenin wrote in response to all those who paid lip service to the existence of class struggle, but refused to acknowledge its final aims:
Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.... This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.[2]
The Eurorevisionists have all openly renounced the dictatorship of the proletariat as the aim of their parties. Long ago, of course, the Soviet revisionists said that the dictatorship of the proletariat had come to an end in the USSR and had been supplanted by the “state of the whole people.” The CPUSA, for its part, simply wrote the proletarian dictatorship out of its program.
But the Eurorevisionists have gone a step farther. They actually declare that the dictatorship of the proletariat is fundamentally wrong as a concept and as a strategic objective. They have no inhibitions about admitting that they run completely counter to Marxism-Leninism on this point. “We are well aware,” says PCI leader Giorgio Napolitano, “of the fact that today we are asserting a conception of the relationship between democracy and socialism that cannot be identified with the one elaborated by Lenin.”[3]
Why did all the great teachers of Marxism-Leninism stress the absolute necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Why do the Eurorevisionists attack it? The answers to these questions lay bare the pro-capitalist, anti-working class essence of Euro-revisionism.
As early as the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels clearly pointed out: ”The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.”[4]
After the experience of the Paris Commune, Marx would clearly explain the need to smash the old state machine and establish the proletarian dictatorship, as the only possible tool for constructing socialism and carrying out the transition to communism.
In summing up Lenin’s teachings, Stalin explained that three main tasks had to be accomplished by the proletarian dictatorship. These were needed to insure that the initial seizure of power by the working class would be consolidated and move forward:
(A) To break the resistance of the landlords and capitalists who have been overthrown and expropriated by the revolution, to liquidate every attempt on their part to restore the power of capital;
(B) To organize construction in such a way as to rally all the working people around the proletariat, and to carry on this work along the lines of preparing for the elimination, the abolition of classes;
(C) To arm the revolution, to organize the army of the revolution for the struggle against foreign enemies, for the struggle against imperialism.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to carry out, to fulfill these tasks.[5]
Throughout all theoretical elaborations of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as in the concrete practice of the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat has never been a dictatorship of the workers over all the rest of society. Rather, as Lenin and Stalin said, it is a dictatorship only over the bourgeoisie, “a rule enjoying the sympathy and support of the laboring and exploited masses.”[6]
Without the instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie would seize power back as quickly as it was wrested from them. Even more important than the old exploiters themselves, Lenin explained further, is the force of habit and old traditions, especially among the small producers and peasants, which continues to “engender capitalism” even after socialism has been established.[7]
To combat these pressures and to advance the cause of socialism, Lenin concluded: “The dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war waged by a new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow.”[8]
These are the principles which Marx and Lenin consistently asserted against the opportunists of their day. They thoroughly exposed all those who advocated “peaceful transition” to socialism; who believed that a mere change of personalities or political parties at the top of the government could fundamentally alter society. They stressed the revolutionary understanding that all states are the instrument for the dictatorship of a particular class. But for the first time in history, they explained, the proletarian dictatorship enables the broad majority of the population to exercise a dictatorship over the minority of exploiters instead of the other way around.
On what grounds, then, can the Eurorevisionists discard the dictatorship of the proletariat and still claim to be struggling for socialism?
Georges Marchais, in his speech at the PCF’s 22nd Congress and in press interviews immediately afterwards, gave the following explanations for renouncing the concept. (1) The working class no longer constitutes a majority in society and thus the dictatorship of the proletariat would be a “minority government”; (2) setting up any type of dictatorship implies stripping the people of political liberties; (3) the dictatorship of the proletariat is historically connected to the Leninist view of the inevitability of violent revolution, a view rejected by the PCF which believes exclusively in the electoral road; and (4) ’dictatorship of the proletariat’ is a term which other class forces and parties find “offensive.”
Let us examine these arguments one by one.
(1) The working class is no longer a majority. First of all this is a lie. In France, the working class makes up well over 50% of the population. Marchais’ effort to paint the picture otherwise is the same classic trick of bourgeois sociologists in this country who try to define all non-industrial workers as part of the “middle class.”
But this is just Marchais’ demagogy and beside the point. In China, the working class constituted only a small percentage of the population, and yet the dictatorship of the proletariat was still established. It represented the outlook, stand and viewpoint of the most advanced class in society and rallied around the proletariat all other progressive classes and strata. The same was true in Russia. Marchais’ efforts to deny that the dictatorship of the proletariat can be established without a proletarian majority is thus a direct attack on the leading role of the working class. It is an open effort to put forward the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie as the leading forces of revolutionary change.
(2) Political liberties. Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat does imply a loss of political liberties–but only for the handful of exploiters. For the great majority of people, it will be the most democratic society ever enjoyed. This shows that Marchais’ real concern is precisely to protect the political liberties of the bourgeoisie. For he knows very well that, as Stalin said, “The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be ’complete’ democracy, democracy for all, for the rich as well as the poor.... The talk of Kautsky and Co. about universal equality, about ’pure’ democracy, about ’perfect democracy,’ and the like, is a bourgeois disguise of the indubitable fact that equality between exploited and exploiters is impossible. The theory of’pure’ democracy is the theory of the upper stratum of the working class which has been fed... by the imperialist robbers.”[9]
The Eurorevisionist stand on the question of “political liberties” is the same in each country where they preach this line. They prettify the present dictatorship of the bourgeoisie as if it was characterized by great freedoms for the masses of people. In fact, they say that all that is necessary to achieve socialism is “an uninterrupted extension of democracy.” This is exactly the kind of thinking of the “upper stratum” of the working class bribed by imperialism, which Stalin exposed.
(3) Violent revolution. The Eurorevisionists have all pledged themselves to the “peaceful road” to socialism, which they envision as taking place through elections. In fact, they repeatedly have given their word of honor to the bourgeoisies of their countries that they will never resort to armed struggle. As Kanapa wrote in his article: “France of 1977 is not Russia of 1917; only the small ultra-Leftist groups dream of the D-Day of armed rebellion. .. .The French Communists are convinced.. .that nothing, absolutely nothing, can... replace the popular will of the majority as expressed by democratic means, and in particular, by universal suffrage.”[10]
Document after document by all the Eurorevisionist parties glorify this ballot-box approach. They all claim that socialism will come about when there is a parliamentary majority in favor of it.
Not only do the Eurorevisionists preach complete faith in bourgeois democracy and the “peaceful path,” but they have actually written out of their programs the possibility of the working class needing to wage armed, revolutionary civil war. “We reject recourse to armed violence,” says Kanapa in his exposition of the PCF’s new outlook.[11]
Yet no socialist revolution has ever come about without the ruling class putting up a last, tenacious and violent stand against the masses. To be unprepared for this would be suicide.
Mao Tsetung summed up the role of violent struggle as part of his critique of the Khrushchev revisionists:
We maintain that the proletarian party of any country should be prepared for two possibilities, one for peace and the other for war. In the first case, the Communist Party demands peaceful transition from the ruling class, following Lenin in the slogan he advanced during the period between the February and October Revolutions. Similarly, we made a proposal to Chiang Kai-shek for the negotiation of peace. This is a defensive slogan against the bourgeoisie, against the enemy, showing that we want peace, not war, and it will help us win over the masses. It is a slogan that gives us the initiative, it is a tactical slogan.
However, the bourgeoisie will never hand over state power of their own accord, but will resort to violence. Then there is the second possibility. If they want to fight and they fire the first shot, we cannot but fight back. To seize state power by armed force–this is a strategic slogan. If you insist on peaceful transition, there won’t be any difference between you and the socialist parties. ...
Generally speaking, the political parties of the proletariat had better be prepared for two possibilities: one, a gentleman uses his tongue, not his fists, but two, if a bastard uses his fists, I’ll use mine.[12]
Thus by “insisting on peaceful transition,” as Chairman Mao said, the Eurorevisionists leave the people totally unprepared for the “second possibility.” This is exactly what happened in Chile, where the revisionist line of “peaceful transition” set the masses up for slaughter. When asked about Chile, all the Eurorevisionist leaders can say is, “It can’t happen here.”
At one point, Marx declared that forcible destruction of the old state machinery was necessary “for every real people’s revolution.”[13] At the same time he added a qualification that peaceful development might be possible in America and Britain, since imperialism had not yet arisen there and militarism and bureaucracy were relatively undeveloped in the state machinery of these countries.
Today’s Eurorevisionists and all revisionists seize on this one quote from Marx to justify their worship of the peaceful path. They conveniently ignore the fact that Lenin also discussed this quote. The rise of imperialism around 1900, he explained, meant peaceful revolution was impossible everywhere in the world. Marx’s qualification about American and Britain, he insisted, no longer applied. Thus Lenin summed up:
The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the substitution for it of a new one.[14]
(4) Offending other class forces. Here Marchais really tips his hand. Why offend the bourgeoisie with the idea of overthrowing them, he asks, since we’re trying to build alliances with them? In fact, we’re really not trying to overthrow them, so why get them confused and excited with talk of a proletarian dictatorship?
The Eurorevisionists are very clear on this point: they have no intention of overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Marchais has gone so far as to assure the “barons of big industry and high finance” that “we do not wish them any harm. We merely want them to stop being the law in our country.”[15]
From each of these four reasons, then, it’s not hard to see why Marchais was anxious to drop the demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Unencumbered by it, the PCF can now proceed on its course of prettifying French imperialism, obscuring the class nature of the state, and building electoral blocs with various sectors of the ruling class–all for the purpose of preserving capitalism and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The Eurorevisionists are already far along this road of class collaboration. In Italy, for example, the PCI has given full backing to the Andreotti government’s economic austerity package, including massive cutbacks in social services, tax hikes and wage freezes.
Using the rhetoric of “socialism” to force the workers in the revisionist-controlled trade union federation into accepting this package, Berlinguer explained it this way: “They say that the sacrifices of the workers serve to obtain three objectives of national interest: redress the national economy, accentuate the production upturn, maintain and extend employment. What response must we give to these objectives? We have no doubt: we will answer ’yes’ to all three.”[16]
But to make workers feel better about swallowing these attacks, Berlinguer tells them what a great “victory” they have won: “The old ruling classes are no longer in a position to impose sacrifices on the working class; today they must ask us to do so.”[17] And as their loyal representative, he might have added, it is he who is in charge of transmitting the “request.”
When these policies were protested by rank-and-file workers and students, PCI goons tried to stop the protests. Last spring, leading up to May Day, workers and students waged one battle after another exposing the collaboration of the revisionists with the government. Each time, they were met by social-fascist violence from the PCI. Similar events took place in Spain, where the PCE demonstrated its thanks to the government for gaining legal status by breaking up the demonstrations of illegal organizations.
As for the PCF, it has been responsible for the deaths of several trade union militants and Marxist-Leninists who stood up to their dictatorial rule of the CGT trade union confederation. It was this same revisionist PCF which also led the way in getting the French parliament to outlaw the Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist) in the midst of the 1968 uprising.
The rank-and-file workers in Italy must be forgiven if they have trouble distinguishing Berlinguer from Mussolini. “We must mount a relentless fight against all forms of waste, corruption and crime,” declared PCI leader Segre in a statement that closely resembled the law-and-order speeches of the Black Shirts before the war.[18]
Time and again, the revisionists use every opportunity to preach that the interests of the working class are synonymous with the interests of Italy’s ruling class. At the last PCI Congress, Berlinguer declared from the rostrum: “Our general approach has always been and remains that of solving the workers’ and the country’s problems, of renewing society and guaranteeing the orderly development of civil life.”[19]
What can this be other than an attack on the working class struggles such as that of the Fiat workers who wildcatted against the revisionist trade union leaders when they heard the “austerity” plan?
While shamelessly equating the interests of the workers with that of the ruling class, all Berlinguer’s talk about the “good of the country” is a lot of demagogy. While all the Eurorevisionists have adopted the rhetoric of nationalism (Berlinguer’s “historic compromise,” Marchais’ “socialism in French colors,” or Carrillo’s pronouncement that “I am a Spaniard, not a Russian”), they are in fact the worst traitors to the national interests of the European peoples.
It is no coincidence that Eurorevisionism has arisen at precisely the time when the political division of the three worlds is becoming more and more pronounced. In second world countries as in Europe, which are under tremendous pressure from both superpowers, a new wave of nationalism has developed corresponding to the struggle of these countries to safeguard their independence and sovereignty.
The Eurorevisionists have demagogically tried to play on these sentiments that exist in the second world countries. With the Soviet Union’s aggressive threat to Europe more and more obvious, they have tried to pose as opponents of Soviet hegemonism. But in fact they are nothing of the sort. They are actually facilitating social-imperialism’s drive into Europe.
Significant sections of the ruling classes in Europe see through the phony nationalism of the Eurorevisionists and continue to oppose their entrance into the government. But other ruling groups, while not always completely comfortable about having the Eurorevisionists as governmental partners, are opting for this as their trump card to get through the present situation of economic and political crisis. In Italy, many of the country’s biggest capitalists are counting on the PCI, with its big working class base, to keep the workers’ movement down.
Look at what Umberto Agnelli, the Vice-Chairman of Fiat and one of Italy’s most flamboyant capitalists, has to say about the PCI: “If the PCI is ready to give its consent to a realistic program, why refuse it? From what position the PCI makes its contribution–whether from the majority or the opposition–is of little importance. For that matter, the official statements of this Party, which says it accepts the Western logic of the market economy and the pluralistic system, are known to all, and I personally, as an industrialist have no reason to doubt them. If then, I look at the facts of the Party’s actual behavior on the local level, I cannot but admit that good administration is guaranteed in these localities where the PCI is in power.”[20]
Agnelli’s praise for the PCI is not unique. All over Europe, powerful sections of the capitalists are singing praises for the Eurorevisionist parties.
And in return, the Eurorevisionists are singing praises for capitalists. Eurocommunism and the State reads like a litany of the wonders of capitalism. It claims that merely through more participatory democracy virtually every problem the working class faces can be solved, from unemployment, to the environment and to defeating the fascists. Similarly the recent Joint Declaration of the Communist Parties of France and Italy called for revisionists to lead the struggle for “broad democratic reforms which will make it possible to solve the serious economic, social and political problems in their countries.”[21] (Emphasis added).
Can the crisis of capitalism be solved with reforms however broad they are? To answer “yes” is to say that capitalism can be made to work and that there is no need to wage revolutionary struggle against it.
The main “broad democratic reform” called for by the Eurorevisionist parties is industrial nationalizations. Like the CPUSA here, these parties try to make workers believe that so-called “public controls” and nationalized industry can bring an end to the profit system and exploitation of the working class. This is a hard myth to maintain in Europe, and requires the revisionists to work overtime. This is because much of European industry has already been nationalized and the workers have been listening to nationalization posed as the be-all and end-all by the social-democrats for two generations. The workers in these very nationalized sectors have learned that they have no more voice in running production than before; that they are exploited just the same if not more severely; and that they have been greeted with the “change” of losing their right to strike.
But the Eurorevisionists continue to press their program for “democratic socialism.” In fact it is nothing but state capitalism. For as long as the capitalists hold state power, even in the guise of their revisionist frontmen, nationalized industry cannot fundamentally alter the oppression of the working class.
Eurorevisionists are actually trying to strengthen the bourgeois state machinery. They want to “perfect” it, as Lenin said of those whose aim in supporting revolution was anything other than to deliver political power to the masses. This is evident in this statement of Segre:
“There is need for a profound renewal the the whole state machine, today reduced to a condition of virtual paralysis.”[22] Where the genuine Marxist-Leninists expose the brutal oppression of the capitalist state, Segre pretends that the state is “paralyzed” and can’t function. Where Marxism-Leninism holds that the state should be smashed, Segre calls for it to be “renewed”! By this, he means to say that the PCI is willing to do its part to help Italian capitalism out of its crisis and to function more smoothly.
In fact, the record of the PCI in those places where it does hold power–as well as the PCF in France–testifies eloquently to these efforts to “perfect” the capitalist state. The Italian revisionists control almost half of Italy’s local and regional governments, including the most important ones like Rome, Bologna, Turin and Milan. But the fact that “communists” control the local government in these areas has not improved the lives of the people one bit. Unemployment is just as rampant in these areas as in the rest of Italy, if not more so. When workers go out on strike, the bosses rely on the “communist” police commissioners to call out the cops against them. Last year, in fact, the PCI was directly implicated in the death of a student during a mass demonstration in Bologna against the PCI-Christian Democrat austerity program.
In France, meanwhile, the PCF rode to power in its coalition with the Socialist Party in numerous municipalities over the last year. But the only visible changes in these areas is that PCF-controlled financial enterprises (of which there are over 300 operating in France) are now being funneled large amounts of money through local budgets. After all, the PCF chieftains must have often thought to themselves, if we are going to help the capitalists repress the workers, why not have a share of the profits too?
The foregoing can only scratch the surface of the reactionary political content of Eurorevisionism on the domestic level. It contains many other elements too numerous to mention here– everything from a glorification of religion and open support for the Vatican, to resurrection of Trotsky and alliance with Trotskyite groups (Carrillo declared at the Berlin Conference in 1976 that Trotsky had been “unfairly treated”), to support for the “free speech” of fascist groups as a way of demonstrating loyalty to the “pluralistic” political process.
All this adds up to the most despicable promotion of capitalist ideology imaginable right inside the workers movement. Euro-revisionism is not “socialism in European colors,” it is “capitalism disguised in socialist colors.”
Having made some analysis of the basic content of Euro-revisionism, we must now turn to the question of how it fits into the present international situation. Europe, after all, is the strategic focus of superpower contention. It is the region where the U.S. and the USSR are most forcefully armed against each other; it is the prize which Soviet social-imperialism especially seeks to dominate in its quest for an overall redivision of the world.
The rise of Eurorevisionism takes place against this backdrop. The question of exactly what role the three most prominent Eurorevisionist parties play vis-a-vis the USSR is a very important, although complicated question.
The Eurorevisionists, to a certain extent, have made some criticisms and exposures of the Soviet Union. This has a positive aspect to it, especially in the context of the Soviet Union seeking to maintain its image as the “motherland of socialism.” The fact that even those who were formerly its staunchest supporters are now raising questions and criticisms contributes in a certain way to the overall exposure of Soviet social-imperialism which is taking place in Europe. This is vitally needed if the masses are successfully to resist the USSR’s aggressive drive westward.
But does the fact that the Eurorevisionists have aired some differences with the USSR mean that they are no longer tools of Soviet hegemonism? Absolutely not. Despite these differences, all three Eurorevisionist parties remain closely intertwined with Moscow and pursue a political line which basically helps to open the door to Soviet aggression. None of the Eurorevisionist parties are in a position to resist Soviet aggression even if they did want to. They are all tied to Moscow by a thousand threads.
Let us examine both the struggle as well as the unity between Eurorevisionism and Moscow revisionism.
Carrillo’s interpretation of Eurocommunism’ accords solely with the interests of imperialism, the forces of aggression and reaction.[23]
With this bombast, the Soviet Union’s weekly international affairs journal, New Times, launched its diatribe last year against Eurorevisionism and Carrillo’s Eurocommunism and the State. Carrillo shot back, calling the Soviet Union a “dictatorship of a small segment of society” and warning the Kremlin that any attempts to split his party’s ranks would meet with “serious consequences.”
This exchange typifies the developing breach in the revisionists’ ranks. But what are the real issues here?
Carrillo offers one indication himself. He told a New York Times reporter that he “probably would have gotten more votes” if the Soviet attack on his book had come before election day instead of after.
In other words, too close an association with Moscow is a liability these days. It is a liability in building alliances with other bourgeois parties. Many are still skeptical about how much “independence” the Eurorevisionists really have from Moscow. Moreover, it is a liability in the face of the views of the masses of people who have seen the evidence of Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere and have heard plenty of reports about the fascist conditions inside the USSR.
In seeking to prove their “independence,” however, some of the Eurorevisionists have gone “too far” and stepped on Brezhnev’s toes. Carrillo has even raised questions in public about the USSR’s holy myth that the Warsaw Pact is “purely a defensive alliance” and that NATO is “purely an aggressive alliance of U.S. imperialism.” Says Carrillo: “We don’t want a Europe under the influence of the Warsaw Pact, we want an autonomous Europe.” And: “Only when the Russians get their installations out of Czechoslovakia, for example, should the U.S. get its [bases–ed.] out of Spain.”[24]
This is very bad propaganda indeed for the Soviet Union. It is especially bad when the Kremlin is trying so hard to lull Europe to sleep with the myth that the Soviet Union is the most “peace-loving” country on earth. So too is Kanapa’s Foreign Affairs article in which he advocates France’s preparedness against “any eventual aggressor.”[25]
The CPUSA, Brezhnev’s loyal stalking horse, polemicized against Kanapa’s article even before the Soviet press was ready to openly condemn the Eurorevisionists. In an article by Jim West in Political Affairs, the CPUSA states that Kanapa’s reference to “any aggressor” clearly “smells of anti-Sovietism.”[26] According to West, “anti-Sovietism” means hinting that the Soviet Union might have aggressive designs on Europe.
The New Times article is also outraged by some of the truths Carrillo touched upon: “How other than as anti-Soviet can one qualify Carrillo’s monstrous statement that the Soviet Union is a ’superpower’ that is to blame for the arms race, and that it pursues great-power objectives?”[27]
Clearly the Eurorevisionists have overstepped the bounds of the “independence” granted them by the 1976 conference of revisionist parties held in East Berlin. The very convening of that meeting was extremely difficult and had to be delayed several years owing to the contradictions among the revisionist parties. But Brezhnev was willing to make certain compromises in order to get the meeting off the ground. He had to demonstrate some “unity” in the revisionist camp as well as assert his own leadership of the world revisionist movement.
The compromise was that Carrillo, Marchais and Berlinguer were all allowed to speak and to focus their statements on the need for each party to be “independent.” The communique that was adopted reflected this and specifically did not include any reference to “proletarian internationalism,” the term which has been so often abused by the Soviet Union in justifying its aggression and subversion around the world.
In fact, all the revisionist parties abandoned proletarian internationalism long ago, not only in name but in practice. In its place they have substituted the rhetoric of bourgeois nationalism, even though in reality they are the Quislings of their countries. The Soviet Party, of course, led the way in this endeavor. Khrushchev and Brezhnev betrayed the principles of genuine proletarian internationalism which characterized the revolutionary days under Lenin and Stalin. They have now embraced the worst type of Great Russian chauvinism and imperialist ambitions.
The Soviet social-imperialists have had no big objection to the bourgeois nationalism of the revisionist parties the world over. European parties actually received Moscow’s encouragement for forming electoral blocs with one or another wing of their own ruling class in order to increase their influence and ultimately ride to power. This was precisely the meaning of Khrushchev’s appeal to take the road of “peaceful transition to socialism.” He really meant peaceful transition to a revisionist-dominated government which can serve the interests of the Soviet Union.
But now the contradictions in Europe are sharpening and the contention between the U.S. and the USSR is moving faster in the direction of war. The Soviet Union is suddenly worried about the Eurorevisionist parties. It fears that a tendency is developing that aligns itself too closely with the sections of the European ruling classes.
Brezhnev has another good reason to fear the impact of Eurorevisionism. He is worried that it will spill over out of West Europe and into East Europe, the key Soviet base of operations against the West. Already Hungarian and Polish newspapers have spoken out in support of the Eurorevisionists’ right to “independent” views. By polemicizing against the Eurorevisionists, the USSR also hopes to nip this movement in the bud in East Europe. The polemics with Carrillo, then, are a form of warning to the East European countries, who have learned from experience how tanks can easily replace polemics.
But the Soviet polemics with the Eurorevisionists are also designed to put pressure directly on these parties to bring their tactics more in line with the Soviet scheme of things. They are saying to Carrillo, Marchais and Berlinguer: “Can’t you cozy up to ruling groups without acknowledging that the USSR is a ’superpower’? Can’t you find some other way to convince the workers that you aren’t foreign puppets besides inviting Soviet dissidents to speak at your rallies and giving their views space in your press?”
This pressure to adjust the Eurorevisionists’ political line has been applied in other ways than polemics. No one knows for certain what caused the PCF in France suddenly to harden its line and refuse to agree on a new common program with the Socialist Party, just when it looked like a coalition of the two could succeed in coming to power. Similarly, it is not known exactly why the PCI decided to end its role as a tacit supporter of Andreotti and once again opt for direct participation in the cabinet. But it is safe to say that somewhere behind both these developments, pressure from the Kremlin figured heavily. It must be kept in mind that all these parties are factionalized, and there are definite “Moscow loyalists” among the factions.
We must not make too much of the contradiction and polemics between Eurorevisionism and Moscow, or be taken in by it. We must look beyond the sound and fury of the debate, and analyze superpower contention in Europe more deeply.
First a few facts, lest anyone get the impression that the Eurorevisionists are on a track fundamentally different than the Soviet revisionists. Take the Italian party, for example. Three leaders of the Italian party went to Moscow in July 1977, shortly after the New Times polemic appeared against Carrillo. They came back asserting that while they “naturally had differences on more than one point,” unity of views was reached on all the main questions discussed. Referring to Carrillo’s book, they said, “We do not endorse it.”
In March, Carrillo, Berlinguer and Marchais met in Madrid. When the issue of their joint communique came up, Marchais argued that it should not criticize abuses of human rights in the USSR on the ground that “we have no right to pass judgements on fraternal parties.” Berlinguer even ran to Spanish television to assert that the Madrid meeting was not “anti-Soviet.”
And what of Carrillo himself, who appears to be the greatest “maverick,” and the most “independent” of Moscow? When he issued his harangue against the New Times article, he was backed up completely by a statement of the Party’s central committee. One of the first members to put her name to that statement was Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria). She had just returned from Moscow where she had been indoctrinated for many long years in the spirit of the most slavish defense of Soviet social-imperialism.
Ibarruri even supports the invasion of Czechoslovakia and has called Eurorevisionism “madness.” At the first public gathering she addressed after her return from exile in the USSR, she spoke not about the Spanish Civil War, from which she is remembered as a heroine, nor about the situation in Spain today. Instead, she delivered a lengthy speech on the need to stand firmly by the Soviet Union! And yet, she found no great difficulty in affixing her name to Carrillo’s “polemic” against the Soviet Union.
There is also some cold, hard economic data that should be considered in reflecting on how “independent” the Eurorevisionists have become of Moscow. In France and Italy, for example, the revisionist parties still hold a monopoly on virtually all trade with the USSR and East Europe. Capitalists who want to trade with the USSR must go through a revisionist frontman or a revisionist front company.
A recent book by Jean Montaldo, entitled Finances of the PCF, describes the vast wealth of the PCF. It is channeled and directed through the Banque Commerciale pour l’Europe du Nord (BCEN), the biggest foreign-owned bank in France. The BCEN is a branch of the Soviet state bank, and has several Soviet officers running it, along with some other financial wizards known to be closely affiliated with the PCF. The whole bank is worth 13 billion francs (over $2 billion) in deposits, and is a highly profitable venture.[28]
The entire economic empire of the PCF, which includes hundreds of businesses, buildings, publications, parcels of real estate, and profitable front organizations is virtually directed from Moscow, through the intricate structure of the BCEN. The top financial official of the PCF is a Soviet agent who reports directly to his superiors in the Kremlin.
Thus Moscow not only holds the purse strings of the PCF, but tens of thousands of full-time bureaucrats make their livelihood off their connections with the USSR. It is a joke to speak of the PCF’s “independence” from the USSR given this situation.
These facts are only the surface reflections that Eurorevisionism has not broken with Soviet revisionism at all. In fact, the Eurorevisionist parties still remain as “fifth columns” for Brezhnev’s legions.
To illustrate how they play this “fifth column” role, it is necessary to examine certain key aspects of their line. For example, although these three parties may have made a few minor criticisms of the USSR’s arms build-up, they remain, in general, the most active spokesmen for the myth of “detente” in Europe.
“Detente” is written into the programs of all three parties. It is prominent in their election slogans; it is featured regularly in their newspaper articles; and it figures heavily in the character of the alliances they form with other bourgeois political parties.
“Basically, what Italy needs in foreign policy is a greater commitment to detente,” says Segre.[29]
Like the Soviet social-imperialists and the voices of appeasement within the ruling classes of the U.S. and Western Europe, the Eurorevisionists preach that “detente” must be strengthened by disarming Western Europe. They claim that the USSR is genuinely serious about “detente,” and that the main obstacles to peace lie in the U.S. and Western Europe. All three Eurorevisionist parties actively defended the Soviet invasions of Angola and Zaire, referring to these aggressive acts as “aid to liberation struggles,” just as the rest of the world’s revisionist press did.
What is the significance of these lullabies? Considering how the Eurorevisionist parties control the trade union movements and have influence over large segments of the working class, it is quite important. While the Soviet troops are mustering across Europe, the Eurorevisionists are frantically trying to get the proletariat to go to sleep with sweet dreams of “detente.”
The Eurorevisionists’ appeasement thinking is carried over to the crucial question of the military and foreign policy that the European countries should pursue. All three parties have recently pledged their support for NATO, even though they have historically opposed it. While this position has drawn some of the most hostile criticisms from Moscow, perhaps this thunder is only designed to cover up the joy Brezhnev would find if the revisionist parliament ministers were suddenly to be sitting on the governing bodies of NATO. Certainly it would be much preferable for the social-imperialists to fight a war in which the commander of NATO’s French front was a revisionist or a political ally of the PCF. The social-imperialists also know full well that the growing electoral strength of the revisionist parties is throwing U.S. imperialism and the NATO alliance into confusion and disunity. For its part, U.S. imperialism has seen the opening this offers to the Soviets. First Kissinger and now Jimmy Carter have gone out of their way to reaffirm that U.S. imperialism will not tolerate “communists” in the West European governments.
Thus when New Times lambasts Carrillo for favoring “the entry of Spain into NATO–that most aggressive bloc whose main purpose is to prepare for war against the Soviet Union,” it could very well be that it is “protesting too much.” Precisely such a ploy would mask the hope that the revisionist-dominated governments in the future may be allowed to stay in NATO, with the West assuming that the USSR “disapproves.” These are exactly the deceptive tactics required to make use of a “fifth column.”
In Kanapa’s article in Foreign Affairs, he explains the foreign policy of the French revisionists should they come to power in alliance with the Socialists. Here too is the talk of a dedicated fifth columnist. He in fact affirms his enthusiasm for NATO: “Today it is not the French communists but certain politicians in the United States and other Atlantic countries who question the incompatibility of the alliance with the participation of Communist ministers in the government of France or Italy.”[30]
Kanapa goes on to spell out his party’s program on other foreign policy matters: bring an end to nuclear testing and sign the nuclear test ban treaty (this alone shows the lie in his earlier claims to be for an “independent” French defense against “any aggressor)”; sign a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (and then dismantle France’s defense lines currently oriented to protect against a Soviet-led invasion); join in the European troop reduction talks and other superpower conferences (designed to give credence to the myth of “detente”); and seek the “broadest possible international cooperation” (which is the code-word the French revisionists in parliament use when they are lobbying for more trade with the USSR since trade with the U.S. is already as broad as can be).
When Kanapa is finished explaining all this, he concludes that: “French policy should be decided neither in Moscow nor in Washington–but in Paris.”[31] Such talk is undoubtedly an appeal to the French bourgeoisie to accept all that he has outlined as a genuinely “nationalist” policy. It covers up for the fact that every one of his points of foreign policy opens the door to Soviet aggression against France.
What is significant about this program as explained by Kanapa is that it is the common program of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party. Although the electoral alliance of the two is now in shambles, it was not over foreign policy that they split. What has happened in France is that the revisionists have carefully cultivated an alliance with the wing of the French bourgeoisie that is generally favorable to “detente” and an appeasement policy towards the Soviet Union. France is the most advanced example of this merger of political trends, but the same thing is happening in every European country.
One last and striking example of appeasement thinking should be given. A leading Italian Eurorevisionist, Pajetta, was interviewed in 1976 by Corriere della Sera. He was asked a question about what the Italian revisionist party would do if a Czechoslovakia-style invasion was launched by the Warsaw Pact against Italy.
“And why should it be attacked,” returned Pajetta. “I do not accept the hypothesis.”[32]
This statement, and in fact the whole debate between the Eurorevisionists and Moscow, is reminiscent of some events before World War II. Didn’t Europe’s social-democrats of that time preach the “impossibility” of a German invasion only short weeks before the German tanks rolled? Didn’t Europe’s social-democrats also take an occasional pot shot against German militarism? Didn’t they profess dissatisfaction with the internal situation in Germany, all the while opening the door to German invasion by their actions?
Eurorevisionism today, in the name of seeking a path “independent” of the USSR, is actually helping to strengthen the appeasement current that can only hasten the outbreak of war.
The Gus Hall clique, as noted earlier, has leaped into the debate against Eurorevisionism. It purports to defend the purity of Marxism-Leninism against the “Browderite” distortions of Carrillo, Marchais and Berlinguer. It is necessary to examine the reasons why.
The first reason, of course, is that anything Brezhnev does, Gus Hall does twice as hard. So when the word went out that Eurorevisionism was out of favor, the CPUSA immediately began polemicizing against it. The CPUSA has hurled all sorts of epithets at the Eurorevisionists–“Browderite,” “social-democrat,” “revisionist,” “class-collaborator,” “anti-Leninist,” etc. But it must be noted that this critique has only begun since the Eurorevisionists started criticizing the Soviet Union more openly. The “Browderism” of Eurorevisionism has been evident for years. The CPUSA did not polemicize against it in the past, however, because it was still perfectly in favor in Moscow.
The Political Affairs article, “For International Solidarity Against Opportunism,” also sheds another light on why the CPUSA has taken up the cudgels against Eurorevisionism. Its author, Jim West, points out: “Among some younger comrades and Leftward moving youth and adults, the Kanapa-Segre views [the documents of Eurorevisionism published in Foreign Affairs–ed.] raise many questions on the positions of the French and Italian parties which give rise to confusion on some Marxist-Leninist principles.”[33]
Here is an unsolicited confession. West tells us that the Eurorevisionist tendency is making some gains among “younger comrades and Leftward moving youth and adults” inside and around the CPUSA itself. And it is for their benefit that West strikes a “left” pose and spends the rest of his article quoting Lenin to give the appearance of defending the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But all this is a sham, made obvious because West unabashedly ignores the fact that the CPUSA itself rejected this concept years ago and still does so today. He is “attacking” the revisionism of Kanapa and Segre in order to divert attention of the CPUSA’s dissident elements away from the revisionism of the Soviet Union and the CPUSA.
Thus, the debate with the Eurorevisionists becomes a forum for West to make the ridiculous assertion that the CPUSA has “cleansed itself of Browderism.”[34] Because of this experience, the CPUSA is now in a good position to lead the ideological struggle against “revisionism”! This is not disconnected from numerous internal polemics and harangues from the CPUSA leadership directed against a rank and file that is raising more and more struggle.
Even in carrying out this polemic, however, West cannot sidestep completely the similarities in line between the CPUSA and the Eurorevisionists. For example, he must admit that the CPUSA itself has abandoned the “phrase” of the dictatorship of the proletariat, although he falsely asserts that the Party upholds its “concept.”
Further along in the article, West strikes another “left” pose. He criticizes the pacifism of the Eurorevisionists and explains why violence was necessary in the October Revolution. But just in case any reader might think that the CPUSA has suddenly moved off the ballot-box approach to the struggle here in the U.S., West hastens to distort and bury these lessons in the remote past. Lenin’s approach had “nothing in common” with the “ultra-left groups” today who advocate armed struggle as necessary to the seizure of political power, he concludes.[35]
Not only on the question of peaceful transition to socialism, but on almost every other major question, it is hard to see much real difference between the Eurorevisionists and the CPUSA. Both are the champions of building “anti-monopoly coalitions.” Both argue for “reordering priorities” away from military spending and towards social services, as if this were possible under imperialism. Both claim that “radical reform” or “structural reform” can solve all capitalism’s problems. Both deny the class nature of the bourgeois state and prettify it. Both preach “detente” as a panacea to resolve every contradiction.
So when all is said and done, there is no fundamental difference between the CPUSA’s line and that of the Eurorevisionists. Of course they have used West’s article and others to appeal to the “left” within their ranks to stay in the Party. They also want to try to pull the rug out from under those like Dorothy Healey, who led a split out of the CPUSA in 1973, basing themselves generally on a Eurorevisionist line towards the Soviet Union.
But all West has really done in the article is expose the revisionist nature of both Eurorevisionism as well as the CPUSA’s own brand. The very passages he quotes from Lenin against the Eurorevisionists apply to the CPUSA itself.
Having sketched some of the chief characteristics of Eurorevisionism, it is appropriate to draw a few conclusions about it.
First, we must see that revisionism, because of its reactionary nature, is bound to suffer splits and divisions. Even the brute force of Soviet fascism cannot hold the world revisionist movement together.
We should take careful stock of all these splits and divisions. Where they can be made use of to further weaken and expose revisionism, they should. At the same time we must be on guard against deception. We must recognize the unity that still underlines the relationship between the Eurorevisionists and Moscow, the center of world revisionism.
In dealing with Eurorevisionism, we are dealing with the enemy. The biggest enemy, however, and the object of our main blow in the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, must continue to be the Soviet revisionists and our “own” revisionists, the CPUSA. Still we must expose and criticize Euro-revisionism, which also poses a danger.
Secondly, we must recognize that Eurorevisionism has some appeal, especially to those who are critical of Soviet social-imperialism in one way or another. These people must be educated about the genuine principles of Marxism-Leninism, and be shown that you can’t defeat Brezhnev with Carrillo. We must arm such people with a scientific understanding of the USSR as a capitalist country and an imperialist superpower, and show how Eurorevisionism still serves its aims.
We must boldly affirm our adherence to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. We must convince these comrades that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not an “outmoded” concept. On the contrary, it still remains the strategic objective of the workers struggle and the only possible vehicle for ending capitalist oppression and constructing socialism.
Finally, we must see that the Eurorevisionists, like all reactionaries, are outwardly strong but inwardly weak. They may make impressive showings at the polls. They may even have a large following among the workers for the time being. But in all the countries where Eurorevisionism is at work, genuine Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations are also at work, fighting imperialism, fighting the two superpowers, and fighting revisionism. They are growing stronger day by day and winning more and more support among the masses. Meanwhile every new act and pronouncement of the Eurorevisionists only serves to expose and unmask them further in the eyes of the workers.
[1] Jean Kanapa, “French Communism’s New Policy,” Foreign Affairs, January, 1977.
[2] V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 40.
[3] Sergio Segre, “The ’Communist Question’ in Italy,” Foreign Affairs, July 1976, p. 700.
[4] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Preface to the German Edition of The Communist Manifesto (Foreign Languages Press, 1972), p. 2.
[5] J. V. Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism (Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 41.
[6] Ibid., p. 46.
[7] V.I. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder (Peking: Foreign Lanugages Press, 1965), p. 6.
[8] Ibid., p. 5.
[9] Stalin, Foundations, p. 41.
[10] Kanapa, French Communism.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Mao Tsetung, “Be Activists in Promoting the Revolution,” Selected Works (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), vol. 5, p. 495.
[13] Cited in Stalin, Foundations, p. 49.
[14] Ibid., p. 49.
[15] Kanapa, “French Communism.”
[16] Enrico Berlinguer, Austerity, an Opportunity to Transform Italy, 1977.
[17] Ibid.,
[18] Segre, “The ’Communist Question’,” p. 693. 76
[19] Ibid., p. 694.
[20] Gazeta del Populo, Turin, Jan. 17, 1976.
[21] Declaration of the Communist Parties of France and Italy, as quoted in Eurocommunism, Materials for an Analysis (San Francisco: Angry Red Planet, 1977)
[22] Segre, “The ’Communist Question’,” p. 693.
[23] New Times, Number 26, 1977.
[24] Henry Winston, “Spain in My Heart,” Political Affairs, October 1976.
[25] Kanapa, “French Communism.”
[26] Jim West, “For International Solidarity, Against Opportunism,” Political Affairs, May 1977.
[27] New Times, Number 26, 1977.
[28] Free Trade Union News, “Where the French CP Gets Its Money,” vol. 32,Number 12, December 1977.
[29] Segre, “The ’Communist Question’,” p. 700.
[30] Kanapa, “French Communism.”
[31] Ibid.
[32] Free Trade Union News, “Eurocommunism–Roots and Reality,” vol. 32, number 6-7, June-July, 1977.
[33] West, “For International Solidarity.”
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.