Eurocommunism and the Quest for Legitimacy

Abstract

The usage of the term ‘Eurocommunism’, if not necessarily the phenomenon itself, has been a source of considerable embarrassment for the Soviet leadership and its foreign loyalist supporters, as well as for the leaders of the three West European parties to which the label is most commonly affixed, the Communist Parties of Italy, France, and Spain (PCI, PCF, and PCE, respectively). Why this should be so is not always entirely clear; at times the furore over Eurocommunism has been more a media event than a reflection of the genuine political significance of the emergent phenomenon. At other times, however, issues of considerable practical and theoretical substance may indeed be involved. Some observers with substantial knowledge of the international communist movement in general and of the histories of the three parties in particular have entertained doubts as to the genuine novelty and longer-term significance of the phenomenon.¹ Others who are prepared to argue that important changes have taken place in these parties are compelled to account for obvious retrogressions, as well as historical precedents before and after the Second World War which proved to be transitory. The generic character of the Eurocommunist phenomenon is another matter of dispute, both within and outside the socialist community. Given the historical differences among the three parties — their distinctive cultural, social, and political traditions — any generalisations based solely upon geographical propinquity or socio-economic structural similarities are likely to be superficial or problematical.