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Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism constitutes a “moment” of great transformation connecting

the past and the present of the European Left, a political project by means of
which left-wing politics in Europe effected a definitive transition to a thoroughly
different paradigm. It rose in the wake of 1968 – that pivotal year of social revolt
and rethinking that opened a divide between radical, progressive, and socialist
thinking in western and southern Europe and the Soviet model. Communist
parties in Italy, France, Spain, and Greece changed tack, drew on the dynamics
of social radicalism of the time and came to be associated with political modera-
tion, liberal democracy, and negotiation rather than contentious politics, forging
a movement that would exert influence until the early 1980s. Eurocommunism
thus wove an original political synthesis delineated against both the revolutionary
Left and the social democracy: “party of struggle and party of governance”.

Ioannis Balampanidis holds a PhD in Comparative Politics and is a researcher

at the Centre for Political Research, Department of Political Science and History,
Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece. He has stud-
ied Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Political Theory at the
University Paris 8, and has also accomplished part of his research at the Institut
d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) of Paris. His research focuses on the European
radical Left and social democracy, contemporary Greek politics, Europeanization,
and political ideologies in late modernity. gbalabanidis@hotmail.com
The Routledge Global 1960s and 1970s

As the decades that defined the Cold War, the 1960s and 1970s helped shape
the world we live in to a remarkable degree. Political phenomena including the
almighty tussle between capitalism and communism, the Arab–Israeli conflict,
apartheid in South Africa, and uprisings against authoritarianism and independ-
ence from colonial rule for a large swathe of the nations of the Global South
helped define the period but the 1960s and 1970s were as much about cultural
and social change, with lives the world over altered irretrievably by new stand-
points and attitudes. Traditionally, analysis of the era has largely been concerned
with superpower posturings and life in Europe and America, but this series, while
providing full coverage to such impulses, takes a properly global view of the era.
Titles in the series include:

1 Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide

The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970
Edited by A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerten

2 African Political Activism in Postcolonial France

Gillian Glaes

3 Eurocommunism
From the Communist to the Radical European Left
Ioannis Balampanidis
Eurocommunism
From the communist to the radical
European Left

Eυρωκομμουνισμός
Aπό την κομμουνιστική στη ριζοσπαστική
ευρωπαϊκή Aριστερά

Ioannis Balampanidis
Translated from the Greek by Dimitris Hall
First published in English 2019
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2015 by POLIS Publishers and Ioannis Balampanidis
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has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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without intent to infringe.
Published in Greek by POLIS Publishers 2015
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Balampanides, Giannes, 1980- author. | Hall, Dimitris, translator.
Title: Eurocommunism: from the communist to the radical European
left/Ioannis Balampanidis; translated from Greek by Dimitris Hall.
Other titles: Eurokommounismos. English Description: Abingdon, Oxon;
New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. | Translation of: Eurokommounismos:
apo ten kommounistike ste rizospastike europaike Aristera. | Includes
bibliographical references. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018030675 (print) |
LCCN 2018043499 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351243698 (Ebook) |
ISBN 9780815373322 | ISBN 9780815373322 (hardback:alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Communism–Europe–History–20th century. |
Right and left (Political science)–Europe–History–20th century. |
Right and left (Political science)–Europe–History–21st century.
Classification: LCC HX238.5 (ebook) | LCC HX238.5.B34913 2019
(print) | DDC 320.53/2094–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018030675
ISBN: 978-0-8153-7332-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-24369-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents

List of figures ix
List of tables x
Acknowledgements xi

1 Introduction: Eurocommunism in a comparative

historical perspective 1
A comparative perspective 2
What was the Eurocommunist “moment”? 4
The great Eurocommunist transformation 10
Notes 15

PART I
Eurocommunism in its time 19

2 One window closing and one opening: from the popular

fronts to de-Stalinization 21
Popular fronts and resistance 22
Communists in the post-war era 23
Duclos’ pigeons and the via italiana 26
De-Stalinization: a window of opportunity 27
Two deaths, three documents and an expulsion 29
Italy and France: the turn inside the party 32
Spain and Greece: the turn inside and outside the party 34
Notes 36

3 1968: the rift 39

The catalyst of 1968 39
The lost Spring of Czechoslovakia 42
vi Contents
Another Spring lost: 1968 in Greece 44
Communists in May: France 46
Communists in May: the delayed-action case of Greece 49
Communists in May: Italy 51
Can dialectics break bricks? Between the
“old” and New Left 53
Notes 55

4 Variations of Eurocommunism: 1973–1979 59

Italy: the pioneer 60
Italian vanguard: from radical anti-hegemony
to a moderate national role 63
Historic compromise: connecting the dots 65
France: an impossible historic compromise of the Left 68
The Spanish compromise on democratic transition 71
The Eurocommunist paradox in the Greek
post-dictatorship period 74
Notes 78

5 Disengagement from the communist identity 82

One step towards identity politics (and one step back?) 82
Gorbachev: the catalyst 85
One step towards the European Left, and one step back 86
A post-communist identity 87
Communist identity as exception: the French
Communist Party 92
Notes 94

PART II
The Eurocommunist transformation  97

6 Opportunities and adaptations 99

The era of conferences 100
From autonomy to conflict: Afghanistan and Poland 102
The ideological aggiornamento 106
Dialectics, pluralism, pragmatism 108
The sociological aggiornamento 110
Towards a new communist sociological profile 112
Notes 125
 Contents vii
7 State, liberalism, democracy 130
The state as theoretical battlefield 131
The state as political challenge 132
From state to liberalism 133
Deepening of liberalism and pluralism 134
Papa, what is democratic centralism? 136
The majority wins 138
Socialism will either be democratic or will not be at all 141
Notes 141

8 Revolution, protest, governance 144

The political role of “protest” 145
Reform or revolution? 146
And the dictatorship of the proletariat? 151
Taking power from local to national level 152
From class to the people and from the people
to the nation 154
Notes 158

9 Eurocommunism and social democracy 161

A “Mediterranean” communist reformism 162
The limits of communist reformism 164
Eurocommunism and social democracy: antagonistic
co-existence 165
A communism without rupture? 169
A “communist” regime of governance? 172
Notes 177

PART III
Eurocommunism between national and
supranational politics 181

10 Collapse or transformation of global capitalism?:

the Eurocommunist response 183
“We are all planners now” 183
Beyond the monopolies 186
Global crisis: reorientations 189
The twofold crisis of the national welfare state 190
A new path for the European Left, with its bifurcations 192
viii Contents
From national to supranational: one step forward,
but not completed 196
Notes 198

11 The “Europeanization” of the communist movement 202

After the war: against the EEC, ma non troppo 203
Europe as horizon for democratic transition 205
From the rejection of European integration
up to federalism 208
The Eurocommunist parties as mediators
for Europeanisation 211
The upturn at the 1979 European elections 213
En route to the European Left 217
Notes 218

PART IV
Conclusions225

12 Traces of the Eurocommunist inheritance 227

The radical left from 1989 to the present day: decline or
mutation? 228
Heirs to a successful undertaking that was defeated 231
Capitalist cycles and cycles in the critique of capitalism 238
Notes 241

Bibliography 243
Index259
Figures

5.1 Membership of the PCI, PCF, and PCE (1976–1990) 83

6.1 Italy and France: materialists vs post-materialists by age group 111
6.2 Middle majority: self-placement by financial situation 112
6.3 PCI members by gender (1964–1988) 114
6.4 Composition of PCI members by year of entry 114
6.5 Educational level of PCI members by year of entry 115
6.6 Origins of PCI members by year of entry 115
6.7 PCI Conference delegates and voters (18–24 years) 116
6.8 PCF members by vocational category (1979–1997) 118
6.9 PCF voters by vocational category (1978–2002) 118
6.10 PCF voters by gender (1978–2002) 119
6.11 PCF members by age group (1979–1997) 120
6.12 PCF voters by age group (1978–1988) 120
6.13 Age of PCF voters (1978–1984) 121
6.14 PCE voters by vocational category 122
6.15 PCE voters by gender, age, educational level,
and religious persuasion (1978–1982) 123
6.16 PCE-PSOE Voters (1981) 125
7.1 Satisfaction with the functioning of democracy
(11-point scale), 1975 139
8.1 Revolution or reform? Attitudes in Italy and France
by social class 147
8.2 Support for present society, gradual reform or revolutionary
change in France and Italy 147
8.3 Support for radical social change by party in Italy 148
8.4 Self-positioning on the “Left-Centre-Right” axis
in France (1946–1981) 149
9.1 Electoral results of socialists and communists in France
and Italy (on average) 166
9.2 Results of Spanish trade union elections, 1978–1982 176
11.1 In favour of a European political union 213
11.2 European Elections 1979–1994 216
Tables

4.1 Electoral results for the Communist Left in Europe

(% in national elections, 1965–1990)61
6.1 Workers and farmers among the members of PCI-PCF
(1954–1979)110
6.2 Composition of delegates at the 9th Congress of the
PCE (1978) 121

Acknowledgements

No doubt recognition of debts is the last passage of writing to be finished in cases

such as this. But it is at the same time evidence that a research project is slightly less
lonely than it may seem at first sight – though, as we know, responsibility for mistakes
and omissions are borne exclusively by the writer. So, may I be permitted, as the
offspring of a host of different parents, to remember them here, with thanks.
To begin with, Nikos Theotokas, who has been a teacher since the first day that
he welcomed me to the Panteion University. Thanks, of course, to Gerassimos
Moschonas, who, at decisive moments of my research, brought me back to the
methodological order of comparative politics, as well as to the unforgettable
Stavros Konstantakopoulos for his constant encouragement, despite – or because
of – our occasional disagreements.
I owe a similar debt of gratitude to Nicholas Sevastakis for his exemplary intel-
lectual approach, Grigoris Ananiadis for shared exploration of more or less “con-
temporary issues”, Nikos Kotaridis for his laconic but timely interventions and
Susannah Verney for some highly perspicacious comments. I also thank Yannis
Voulgaris for generously allowing me to ransack the “Eurocommunist” shelves
of his library and Andreas Pantazopoulos for the bibliographical references in
French, and much more.
My colleagues and friends Christos Kanellopoulos and Sandy Liakaki were
kind enough to read a significant part of the final text, Giorgos Ioannidis to
enlighten me on issues of economic history, Loudovikos Kotsonopoulos and
Vivian Spyropoulou to keep me supplied with findings from their own work.
The moral support (and every other kind of support) from my family has been
invaluable over these years.
I am also grateful to Polis publishers for their support and generosity.
Finally, I should point out that this work can be understood as the product of
two important communities to which I have had the good fortune to belong: to
the community of political scientists and historians of the homonymous depart-
ment of the Panteion University, and to the past – but also present – circle of the
review O Politis, from where I gleaned an idea of what Eurocommunism was.
Although I have tried, I have not found an appropriate way to thank Katerina,
whom I already hear telling me that I must, at long last, put the final full stop to
this work.
1 Introduction
Eurocommunism in a comparative
historical perspective

In the autumn of 2009, at the annual SYRIZA youth festival, a debate was held
on the subject of “The Left and Power: What Is the Fox Doing in the Market
Place?” (as an old Greek saying goes). It was preceded by December 2008 and by
SYRIZA’s identification with the youthful “anti-authoritarian” rebellion, while
almost at the same time the party’s electoral support in the polls was soaring to
nearly 20% on account of the crisis in the socialist PASOK. This was an extremely
interesting but contradictory political amalgam which, as it turned out, the party
of the radical Left failed to take advantage of. That autumn SYRIZA went back to
its familiar electoral percentages of around 5%, PASOK returned to power greatly
strengthened, and everything apparently conspired to ensure a return to normal-
ity. Then came the crisis and all the above began to look like the precursor to the
major earthquake that followed.
In the ensuing years, and as this study was being written, political reality moved
beyond the realms of fantasy. The formerly powerful PASOK was gradually col-
lapsing, identified with the austerity policy, with SYRIZA emerging explosively
as the dominant anti-Memorandum force. It became the resonator for social pro-
test, sustained by a discourse less and less class-oriented and increasingly populist.
It opened up to large audiences and sought to become a national political force.
Representing better than anyone our national ambivalence (“yes to Europe and
the euro, no to the austerity imposed on us by the EU”) and for the first time
demanding not a protest vote but a vote for governance, SYRIZA succeeded in
making itself the major opposition party. It had already embarked on the trajec-
tory that in less than three years would land it in office. The fox was already in
the market place of power.
This major overturn, which became an example beyond Greece’s national bor-
ders, was succeeded by exercise of power via the relentless compulsions of the
European political environment, posing harsh questions for the party of the radi-
cal Left. The paradigmatic case of a radical Left party taking power in a Western
European country – and at a moment of intense crisis – unfolded in parallel with
my study of the largely forgotten Eurocommunism and paradoxically proved very
productive as it posed for me also some new and interesting questions. Or per-
haps it was a variant on questions that had already been engendered by the
Eurocommunist “moment”.
2 Introduction
In any case, my research had begun as an attempt to approach the uncharted
territory of the Greek Communist Party of the Interior (KKE Interior), the politi-
cal ancestor of SYRIZA. In the Greek context the case of the Eurocommunist
KKE Interior was special: a small communist party with an ideological range and
compass many times greater than its electoral strength, resulting from a deep
schism in the Greek communist movement (the 1968 split with the orthodox
and pro-Soviet KKE), a party that in a variety of ways and for a considerable
period of time exerted an influence on Greek society, despite the fact that it was
mostly marching against the current of the time. But it very soon became appar-
ent to me that what in the Greek context seemed “against the current” was part
of something much more mainstream that for a significant period of time played
an important role, notwithstanding its eventual defeat, in the evolution of the
European Left.
I concluded, therefore, that revisiting the Eurocommunist phenomenon today
might make it possible to introduce a fertile problematic of relevance not only to
Greece but to a considerable part of Europe, to the historical course and transfor-
mations of the European Left situated beyond the social democracy, and indeed
to the history and politics of Europe itself at a critical conjuncture of a many-
faceted crisis and radical transformations. Some of these questions had already
been raised at the time of the rise and subsequent fall of the Eurocommunist
current. Some others are being introduced today, in a different way, and could
shed light not only retrospectively on that particular time but also, mutatis
mutandis, on crucial aspects of the present conjuncture. What the (communist,
Eurocommunist, radical Left) fox is doing in the market place of governance and
power is only one of the relevant questions, though among the most challenging.

A comparative perspective
A study of the Eurocommunist current necessarily involves the comparative per-
spective as an intellectual method1 and as a dimension of political analysis that
allows for better deployment of its concepts,2 particularly given that it is some-
thing more than an individual party, a single national case. Without covering
the totality of the Eurocommunist current, the present study focuses on four
national cases: the communist parties of Italy and France (PCI and PCF), axis
of the two basic protagonists that is not always harmonious, the Spanish PCE,
the third largest Eurocommunist party, and last but not least the Greek KKE
Interior, a small party but with a distinct political reach. In temporal terms it
extends over a historical period beginning with the crisis of 1968, which in differ-
ent forms manifested itself in each of the four countries, up until the first half of
the 1980s, in other words prior to the collapse of the actually existing communist
world in 1989. Even though the peak of Eurocommunism is to be located in the
1970s, it can only be considered together with what preceded and what followed.
The macroscopic examination of such a phenomenon adds depth to the political
analysis. From what viewpoint should these parties be examined? What exactly
are we comparing?
 Introduction 3
Each comparative step entails multiple choices.3 Often the subject of the study
itself, the Eurocommunist current, its origins and its terminations, is the way
to raise more and wider questions. One point of departure is what the philos-
opher Antisthenes called “the visitation of names” [ή τών ονομάτων επίσκεψις].
Eurocommunism is a unifying project and if this is the case, how is it to be
structured? Which elements unify it and impart to it conceptual and historical
coherence? And conversely, if it is unified, does this mean that it will be undiffer-
entiated, or does it mean that it will incorporate internal tensions, discontinuities
and deviations?
What can bring together phenomena that have evolved in different (national)
societies? This is one of the questions that has been implicit in the comparative
perspective from the outset as it sought to identify “scientifically verifiable regu-
larities”.4 The crisis of universalizing schemata, particularly in the 1960s, gave rise
to new approaches introducing the tools of anthropology and culture (Clifford
Geertz) or history (B. Moore, P. Anderson, R. Bendix et al.).5 But the shift from
universalizing to individualizing knowledge introduces new dangers: if the capac-
ity for generalization is lost, if we limit ourselves to a juxtaposition of elements
belonging to different cultures, what can be meant by scientific knowledge?
A comparative study is also bound up with these questions, although in this
case Euro-communism is a purely Western phenomenon – with the paradoxi-
cal exception of the “Eurocommunist” Japanese Communist Party, which has
developed an interesting Gramscian tradition of thought. If we are seeking to
identify the elements which conceptually integrate the Eurocommunist phenom-
enon, it follows that we consider it possible to formulate generally valid conclu-
sions from political analysis. But the contraposition of political identities without
the factoring in of historical depth generates a permanent risk of essentialism.6
The methodological antidote here is the intersection of political science with his-
tory. It was in this way that historical sociology (Immanuel Wallerstein, Theda
Skocpol, Stein Rokkan, Charles Tilly) attempted to address universalism’s crisis
from the comparative perspective. Comparing the historical conditions of action
for the Eurocommunist parties is a prerequisite for highlighting their conver-
gences and divergences within the shared ideological discourse.
Another issue is the “geographical” frame of reference, as Marc Bloch put
it: how do we study four parties that have operated in different national con-
texts, but together constitute a current that has by no means accepted as the
first component in its title the word “European”? It is precisely here that we
encounter a second aspect of the crisis of the comparative method, something
that has come about as a result of accelerated post-war internationalization giving
rise to a methodological model that has taken national states as a unit of com-
parison. The subject of this study, the Eurocommunist current, induces us to go
beyond nationally focused analysis, for two reasons: these are different national
cases interwoven not only in a narrow geopolitical space (western and southern
Europe) but also in a historical phase of crisis and transcendence of the nation
state, at an early stage of the process that has been called globalization. In this
sense we propose to approach the Eurocommunist phenomenon as “histoire
4 Introduction
croisée” (transverse history),7 including both the national level of analysis and the
trans-national viewpoint.
But the Eurocommunist current in the abstract is comprised of specific politi-
cal parties, and a political party is a lot of things together and at the same time.
It is the people who make it up, the people to whom it is addressed, the party
élite, the activists, and the voters, the organizational structure and its social base;
it is a rhetoric, an ideology, a practice and a history; it is relations of power
and resistance. Which of these are being submitted for judgement here? The
basic material of the analysis will be the strategy and the ideology that is under
elaboration by these parties, the discourse they articulate. Discourse in the broad-
est sense: rhetorical and polemical, ideological and programmatic, in the final
analysis discourse that shapes a project, a project of political representation. The
primary material is the texts produced by the parties and their main protagonists
(party documents, conference resolutions, electoral platforms, texts of theoretical
and political intervention, seminars, memoirs, and pamphlets). But at the same
time, this discourse will be examined not as a self-referential corpus but in its cor-
relation with the transformations being undergone by the political parties them-
selves and the societies in which they were active.
One last methodological observation. This study approaches the Eurocom-
munist current as a defining moment in the long trajectory of the 20th cen-
tury’s communist left movement up to the present day. As a potentiality8 that
once emerged among others, a wager that was ventured and lost, ultimately a
defeat that illuminates aspects of the long history of left-wing ideas on our dark
continent. The value of such a study, from the viewpoint of the losers in the
story, is suggested by the observation of historian Reinhart Kosseleck that the
winners tend to interpret their victory in accordance with an ex post facto teleol-
ogy, whereas the losers have a greater need to understand why things turned out
differently from what was hoped or planned. In the short term history is written
by the winners. In the long run it is through the losers that one can come to a
deeper historical understanding.9 Or, to put it differently, a political analysis of
Eurocommunism that is anchored in history is, to paraphrase Gramsci, a way to
examine – from a certain viewpoint – the course of the European Left as a whole,
and even the history of Europe, at a particular time.

What was the Eurocommunist “moment”?

Eurocommunism is today more or less forgotten. It also did not last long: it was at
its height in the 1970s and it had been defeated even before the winds of change
swept the communist world. Eurocommunism was fêted by the book-reading
public and by political analysts in the years that it was coming into vogue, when it
had the appearance of being a promising or threatening, but at any rate provoca-
tive, prospect with the potential to inject a new lease of life into the communist
project in Europe. Why then resurrect lost causes? The fact is that a revisit can
serve a purpose because today, with the benefits and dangers of hindsight, we are
able to rethink the Eurocommunist phenomenon in the long-term perspective.
 Introduction 5
The socialist and communist idea was born in Europe. It was in Europe too
that the deep rupture occurred that separates communists from social-democrats.
Social Democracy was subsequently to evolve into a successful model of governance
for Europe. European communists by contrast had their eyes permanently turned
towards the Soviet birthplace. Through the catalytic experiences of the crushing of
the revolutions in Western Europe, the rise and consolidation of fascism but also the
forging of the popular fronts, the Western European communist parties emerged
through the Second World War and their leading role in the Resistance as parties
more than ever “national” and in search of ways forward beyond revolution.10
“Without a global party with its centre in Moscow the communists would be
like the Roman Catholic Church without a pope”, wrote Seymour Martin Lipset
aphoristically in 1964.11 But in 1956 that pope had already been dealt a blow and
the entire edifice of the communist world church was teetering ominously. The
crisis of the Soviet model was open and continual, although at the same time it
was making a brilliant career for itself via national liberation movements at the
periphery of the capitalist world, and of course in China. With western capitalism
triumphing in its glorious three decades of growth and stability, the West seemed
perceptibly more modern than a stagnating East. The new crisis of communism
in 1968 coincided with an outbreak of revolt in the West. But the revolt had little
in common with the revolution being expected by the communists. It was not
so much a proletarian as a cultural revolution,12 which nevertheless ushered in a
renewal of the communist project13 while at the same time demolishing its central
assumptions. The USSR lost its legendary status, the working class lost its key
role, the common faith (Marxism) lost its unifying capacity. The 1968 upheaval
was at the same time an early manifestation of the globalization that was to desta-
bilize yet another reference point: the nation state.
Eurocommunism, therefore, evolved against the backdrop of a profound cri-
sis in communism. Questioning of the Soviet model opened up questions of
doctrine, and the communist forces lost the political initiative, as Marc Lazar
notes.14 A year before the 1989 collapse he himself outlined the symptoms of the
decline of communism in Europe. At the electoral level the communist parties
were weak: the communist parties of Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria were
shrinking to 1%. The communist parties of Holland and Denmark, having seen a
steady increase (peaking at 4.1% and 4.2% respectively in 1971) had subsequently
fallen to around 0.5%. In Sweden and Spain, they remained stable at around
5%. In France, Finland, Portugal, and Greece they were steadily losing ground.
The strongest communist parties, those of Cyprus and Italy, were also in decline
(AKEL, which in 1960 polled 43.5%, in 1985 had fallen to 27.4%). After a steady
rise between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s, membership in the communist
parties began to contract. Fewer and fewer manual workers were members. More
and more were elderly. Trade unions were in decline. The communist press was
in free fall: in Spain Mundo Obrero from a circulation of 150,000 in 1970 went
down to 30,000. The French Humanité lost 40–54% of its circulation between
1973 and 1982. Unitá, from being in 1976 Italy’s second newspaper in terms of
circulation, fell to seventh place.
6 Introduction
What had happened in the interim? A process of unavoidable decline?
An awkward attempt at renewal which had not been able to come up with new
structures and new thinking? Or, even worse, a sincere effort which nevertheless
remained imprisoned in the rigidities of “Marxism-Leninism” and the secrecy of
democratic centralism,15 in the final analysis an inherent inability to conduct more
than “minor repairs” on the interior of an ideology, overlooking its comprehen-
sive falsity?16

Eurocommunism’s “moment”: a profound transformation

or something feebler?
The initial question, therefore, is what exactly the gamble was behind
Eurocommunism in the game that was played through the long decade between
around 1968 and its dénouement in the mid-80s. How coherent was the project,
what were its historical preconditions, what were the fundamental elements of the
transformation that unfolded in that time of epoch-making crisis?
The long decade we are discussing saw a concatenation of dramatic develop-
ments. An obviously decisive factor was the implosion of the communist world,
its international centre (the USSR), its ideology, its doctrine, its programme. But
at the same time a parallel crisis was unfolding in the West: not only the romantic
1968 questioning of capitalism but also the destabilization of the postwar set-
tlement, the crisis of social-democratic compromise and of the nation state, the
European integration process which similarly moved forward via its crises. In this
climate Eurocommunism seized a historic opportunity for transformation of the
communist movement in Europe.
In the kaleidoscope of the literature on Eurocommunism some nodal points
for interrogation are emerging. The first is the question of whether and if so to
what extent Eurocommunism was a self-sustaining model, with its own internal
consistency, emancipated from the Soviet prototype. The Eurocommunist par-
ties hovered in a limbo between breaking from the USSR in order to “legiti-
mate themselves” in their own countries and alluding to Soviet achievements as
a source of ideological legitimacy. At the same time they took advantage of the
Sino-Soviet dispute in some cases to underline their distancing from the Soviet
model and in others, as with the PCF, to broaden their autonomy through sup-
porting, rather than opposing, the USSR.17 Even though the distancing from
the Soviet prototype was something taken for granted, the question arises as to
whether following the dissolution of the Cominform in 1956 what emerged was
a new international consensus of the Western European communist parties or a
disintegrative fragmentation.18 And likewise whether Eurocommunism was moti-
vated more by reaction against the Soviet centre than it was by a positive vision
of socialist transformation.19
In this connection Annie Kriegel proposed three different ways of approach-
ing Eurocommunism: (a) as a new variant in the communist family, such as
Titoism, Maoism, or Castroism; (b) as a revolutionary strategy for conquest of
power at the regional level, or (c) merely as a “common trend” shared by some
 Introduction 7
communist parties, negatively conditioned by their distance from Soviet com-
munism and positively by elements of an original road to revolution in Europe.20
Eurocommunism could also be seen as an “example of an alternative communist
strategy” elaborated by the southern European communist parties.21 But what-
ever definition one resorts to, it is impossible to ignore the internal differentia-
tions that existed in the current, such as (and primarily) between the pole of the
PCI (together with the Spanish PCE and the Greek KKE Interior) and that of the
PCF (which sometimes converged with the orthodox communist parties such as
the Portuguese or even the Greek pro-Soviet KKE).22
A second problem is whether Eurocommunism in the final analysis did embody
a substantial renewal of the communist prospect or whether it remained stuck
within its doctrinal limits. Or on the contrary whether renewal went so far as to
remove it beyond the orbit of communism into the domain of social democratic
consensus. It has been observed that Western European communism aimed to
construct an identity distinct both from the orthodox communist parties and
from the social democrats and liberal democrats of Western countries on the
other, an ambitious undertaking entailing a high level of ambiguity.23 François
Furet insists that Eurocommunism remained a variant of Soviet communism, gen-
tle, pacifistic, and western, but nevertheless “the daughter of October”.24 Others
think that Eurocommunism did represent a genuine break from Soviet ortho-
doxy albeit retaining principles such as democratic centralism, while at the same
time remaining hostile to capitalism, without embracing social democracy25 –
or maintain that it included elements compatible with both these positions.26
Critiques of Eurocommunism from the left characterize it as a “social democra-
tization process”27 or as reformist de-communistifying politics tending towards
social democracy.28
A third set of questions involves placement on the revolution-protest-reform
spectrum. What locus of equilibrium could be found for the Eurocommunist
parties between maintaining their revolutionary character and persisting in their
claim to embody forces of “struggle and governance”?29 To put it in different
terms, what theoretical and political choices enabled them to disengage from a
“tribunitarian”30 function of integrating social protest31 and claim a status above
and beyond that of the “opposition party”?32 What tensions were likely to be
generated by their effort to broaden the de facto antisystemic character of the
communist party and become “parties of modernization”33 in response to the
post-war challenges of European societies?34
A fourth major question has to do with the extent to which post-war Western
communism and Eurocommunism went beyond class-oriented politics conclud-
ing something like a “phony marriage” between class struggle and international-
ism on the one hand and the nation on the other.35 Was this a uniform trend or
were there internal divergences between the social and political alliances of each
party?36 Finally, how much did this “nationalization” of class-oriented politics
contribute to the development of action from a supra-national perspective?37
A fifth question is whether the new features developed by Eurocommunism:
the pursuit of broader alliances, democratic conquest and exercise of power,
8 Introduction
retreat from Leninist radicalism in favour of a logic of step-by-step rupture with
capitalism, whether all this comprises profound change, meaningful and dura-
ble, a strategy of adherence to the rule of democracy,38 whether at all events
“even if we ourselves may not altogether believe them, it is important that these
statements were made”.39 Or, on the contrary, as asserted by Giovanni Sartori,
whether behind the declarations of the Eurocommunist parties there lurk motives
which reduce the democratic moderation to a mere ruse in a communist strategy
whose goal is the arrogation of power.40
But like every human undertaking, Eurocommunism involves both an aspect
of fraud and a logic that evades inquisition as to intentions. Therefore, questions
like “who benefits from Eurocommunism?” (to which every imaginable answer
has been given, including conspiratorialist ones: American imperialism, European
capital, revisionism, reformism, genuine revolution, etc.) serve no methodologi-
cal purpose.41 A more useful question to ask would be whether and to what extent
and how effectively the Eurocommunist strategy was aimed ultimately at securing
the valuable political asset of “legitimacy” for communist parties in the conditions
of the Western democracies.42 Or whether it was a strategy filled with contradic-
tions, from which the revolutionary project was never completely eliminated.43
Even more provocative is the question not just of whether the Eurocommunist
parties did or did not simply pursue a strategy of integration into the Western
democratic systems but also whether that strategy did not in fact amount to a
threat to what “Western” means.44 Whether there survived within it elements that
made it incompatible with Western societies45 or whether, on the contrary, it rep-
resented a possible answer to the crisis of Western social and political systems.46

Tracking Eurocommunism
Today, enjoying the luxury of historical distance, we can once more take up the
thread of these questions formulated in the conjuncture of Eurocommunism’s
growth period and link them to what followed. The defeat, the end of the narra-
tion, the new prospects, shed equal light on the object of our investigation. What
has happened to the communist Left and the former Eurocommunist parties
since 1989? Is there any danger of this question trapping us in interpretations
conditioned by ex-post-facto knowledge, or can it, on the contrary, better illu-
minate the historically concluded Eurocommunist phenomenon, along with the
inheritance it has bequeathed to today’s fissiparous European Left?
The historian Philippe Ariès insisted that surprise, disorientation, and distancing
are important means for acquiring the knowledge to understand our surroundings
and that “from close up we do not see them so clearly”. “Live in London for a year,”
he encourages us “and your understanding of England will be incomplete. But by
comparison, in the light of the surprises you will experience, you will soon have an
understanding of some of the most profound and original features of France.”47
Modifying his exhortation, it is arguable that a comparison with the characteristics
of the post-1989 European Left could help us understand some of the most original
features of the Eurocommunist “moment” of 1970–1980 – and vice versa.
 Introduction 9
So, what happened to the European Left after 1989? To begin with, it swal-
lowed the jibes of the victors of history: the drawbacks of centrally planned
economies proved fatal, and the western tradition of democratic socialism suc-
cumbed to bureaucratic sclerosis (Paul Starr, “Liberalism after socialism”, 1991);
socialism was inherently totalitarian and undemocratic, and so unreformable
(Ralf Dahrendorf, Reflections on the revolution in Europe); triumphant liberal
(capitalist) democracy is mankind’s final political destiny (F. Fukuyama).48 On
the other hand the social-democrat “enemy brother”49 was also disencumbered,
to its relief, of its communist arch-rival.50
The great loser in the story, the communist Left, split into three party
groupings: 1) the weakened orthodox parties, the French, Portuguese, Greek,
the Belgian PCB and the German DKP, 2) the parties that asserted the col-
lapse was the outcome of failure of a specific model, the Stalinist, and not social-
ism as a whole – such as the Spanish, and Communist Refoundation in Italy
(Rifondazione Comunista), which was founded after 1989, 3) the parties accept-
ing the overall failure of the communist undertaking: the Italian, which evolved
into the PDS, the English, the Finnish SKP, the Dutch CPN. The European par-
liamentary group of Communists and Allies was dissolved in 1989, making way
for two separate configurations: 1) the Italian PDS, together with the Spanish
Izquierda Unida, the SPP of Denmark and the Greek Synaspismos (heir of the
KKE Interior) formed the European United Left/GUE, forerunner of the Party
of the European Left (but soon the PDS would join the European Socialists
parliamentary group); 2) the hard-line Eurosceptics of the PCF, the Portuguese
Communist Party and Greece’s KKE, together with one European parliamentar-
ian of the Workers’ Party of Ireland together comprised the Left Unity group.
The Dutch Green Left, which includes the old Dutch Communist Party, are part
of the Greens. Parties such as Communist Refoundation remain independent.51
The Communist parties are no longer the only or even the central pole of the
political spectrum to the left of social democracy. This no doubt makes possible
greater strategic flexibility for the formations of the Left52 but at the same time
involves a proliferation of divergent orientations. In many cases it includes as a
dominant feature the reversion to a culture of protest – a characteristic case in this
connection is the French PCF. The shift means abandoning the claim to be a party
of governance, which as we shall see was a central element in the Eurocommunist
current, but competition for the role of articulating protest has now become
very widespread, everywhere from far-left movements to far-right parties. Other
former communist parties were transformed into moderate centre-left group-
ings, definitively abandoning the socialist utopia, particularly where there was
no significant social democratic tradition. The classic instance in this connection
was the PCI. Elsewhere former communist parties, such as the Swedish or the
Spanish (later Izquierda Unida), which are in vigorous competition with social-
democratic or socialist parties, assume the role of “leftist conscience” of social
democracy, aspiring to benefit from socialists’ shift to the right.
The ideological tendencies that flourished in the environment of the post-
communist Left comprised an even more pluralistic terrain. Among them one
10 Introduction
finds attempts at formulating “authentic” democratic socialism freed from the
accretions of the Soviet period. In some cases what predominates is identity pol-
itics – feminist movements, multiculturalism, human rights, postmodernism –
perpetuating the trends in the 1970s and 1980s to seek ways of transcending
Marxist economism; tendencies expounding radical democracy drawn from the
1960–1970 New Left, in different variants of participatory democracy and even
forms of left communalism in response to the excessively abstract ecumenism of
the Marxist Left.53
In summary, the post-1989 Left has become disoriented, which makes pos-
sible programmatic renewal but at the same time keeps it in a state of improvi-
sation and strategic uncertainty.54 It adopts an idiom of protest but lacks ideas
as to what is to be done when the old society is overthrown, as Marxism’s
claim to be embodying something comprehensive and all-inclusive no longer
persuades.55 It has accordingly become more anti-authoritarian, more move-
ment-oriented and less focused on party politics, given that targeting of the
conquest and exercise of power is perceived to be beside the point and even
undesirable (as in the analyses of John Holloway, which were very influential
in the first decade of this century).56 But at the same time, it is a contradictory
attitude because it is searching for a comprehensive alternative to the “system”
while itself being undermined by its own democratic-liberal assumptions, more
reformist and pro-European and less anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist than in
the past.57 Finally, it vacillates between rejection of globalization and introduc-
tion of a hetero-globalization, all the while sharing with social democracy the
inability to process ideas and propose practical institutions that go beyond the
horizons of the nation state.58
In the light of precisely this comparison we may situate Eurocommunism in its
historical time but also go beyond that, utilizing the tools of historical institution-
alism in order “to take time seriously”.59 We will thus approach transformations,
changes, and inertias within the Eurocommunist phenomenon by linking them
with the structures of opportunity and the great historical conjunctures, project-
ing our view both towards the past and towards the future. Transformations into
heavy mechanisms such as the communist parties, in particular, do not arise in
a vacuum or through unconstrained political voluntarism. On the contrary, the
path dependencies play a decisive role, as do political paradigms and the geopo-
litical realities within whose context the communist party is obliged to function,
in the era of Cold War bipolarity.
But these transformations also left their own marks on the body of the
European Left. They have established new path dependencies, on the basis of
which today’s radical European Left has moved and still continues to move – at
least in terms of some of its central strategic choices.

The great Eurocommunist transformation

Eurocommunism has been characterized as a process of transitional and
ephemeral character,60 an unequal process of change.61 A process of transition,
 Introduction 11
but from where and in what direction? The working hypothesis of this study
is that Eurocommunism represents the “moment” of transformation linking
the past with the present of the European Left, its communist with its post-­
communist embodiment.
In a time of crisis and transition we examine Eurocommunism as an attempt at
transformation which sought to restore coherence and the power of initiative to
Left politics in Europe, taking advantage of the window of opportunity opened
up by the twofold crisis of the Soviet and the Western world. An attempt to
repatriate the communist project, which was born in Europe, materialized in the
USSR and subsequently inspired national liberation movements. The task now
was to adapt it to the conditions of the West, in response to the crisis that had
broken out there.
It was an undertaking that entailed a twofold renewal of the historical com-
munist identity: on the one hand it acquired dynamism from the social radicalism
of the time, providing it with a means of political representation, on the other
it proceeded on the terrain of programmatic moderation, liberal democracy,
negotiation. Eurocommunism elaborated an original political synthesis: “party of
struggle – party of governance”, delineated against both the revolutionary Left
and the “co-opted” social democracy.

Radicalism
Within the structure of political opportunity that opened with the National
Resistance, the era of the Cold War, de-Stalinization, and the transitional period
between 1964 and 1968 (Chapter 2), a catalytic moment for Eurocommunism
was the global, and certainly pan-European, 1968 (Chapter 3). It was an abnor-
mal revolutionary explosion of the radicalized middle-class youth, who recharged
with romantic idealism the idea of utopia.
Communists were at first taken aback by this development and by the emerg-
ing constellation of the New Left, which threatened their centrality. The PCF in
particular secured the image of guarantor of the stability of the French Republic,
rejecting these “opportunist” positions, which also happened to undermine their
strategy of collaboration with the Socialists. The Italian communists similarly
saw the “hot autumn” of 1968–69 as something threatening, occurring at the
same moment that their electoral popularity was going through the roof. But
the communist parties retained and renewed their hegemony vis à vis the New
Left, quickly assuming the role of privileged interpreter of the new social radi-
calism. As early as the Manifesto of Champigny of December 1968 it was rec-
ognizing the great “working class and democratic movement” as an ally in the
movement towards Advanced Democracy and against the Gaullist status quo. The
Eurocommunists incorporated the radical repertoires – a characteristic exam-
ple being the decisive (for hegemony of the PCI) victory in the referendum on
divorce in Italy. But at the same time, they understood and conceptualized revo-
lution as a permanent struggle within the equilibrium of power, i.e. within the
mechanism of state and economy.
12 Introduction
The adaptation was not only programmatic and ideological but also social
(Chapter 6). To a different extent in each case, the Eurocommunist parties were
better aligned than was sometimes thought with the emergence of a post-materi-
alistic generation in Europe. These parties became a pole of attraction for work-
ing-class youth and the intellectual middle classes, for women, even for devout
Catholics, and of course for people participating in the explosive dynamic of the
social movements. However strong the workerist identity remained in the party
mechanism, this “cautious renewal” was a determining factor in the physiognomy
of Eurocommunism.

Power
In the Eurocommunist synthesis the obverse aspect of the social radicalism was
the question of power. What linked so many different cases: the potentially gov-
erning mass parties of Italy and France, the Spanish party as a secondary force
in the post-Franco two-party system, Greece’s little KKE Interior, was a shared
logic. The Italian historic compromise, the French common programme, the atti-
tude of the Spanish communists in the democratic velvet transition, the National
Anti-Dictatorial Democratic Union of the KKE Interior, were variants of a joint
strategic pursuit (Chapter 4): to transform the “comparative advantage” of com-
munist politics, the ability to mobilize the masses and offer representation to radi-
calism, into fully legitimated, majority-oriented participation in the institutions of
Cold War democracies.
This logic is encapsulated in the slogan “party of struggle, party of govern-
ance”, or in the Spanish version “party both revolutionary and responsible”. An
unresolved ambiguity, both the strength and the weakness of the Eurocommunist
strategy, along with other ambiguities. One of these was the shift, both crucial
and unstable, on the revolution-protest-governance axis (Chapter 8). Given that
the question of revolution had received its answer in the interwar period, the
Eurocommunists were riding a wave of radicalism in a phase when the work-
ing class was no longer wholeheartedly in favour of revolutionary change. From
the historical function of representing large working masses and incorporating
them into politics, with an interlude espousing the anti-fascist “people of the
Resistance”, the Eurocommunist parties now sought to stage a “nationalization”
of the class perspective – and through careful management of communal affairs
on the terrain of self-government, in the “red municipalities” of Italy and the
“red zones” of France, sought to move onto the level of national power, reach-
ing the point of elaborating something like a modernization programme for the
European South. It is precisely here that the parting of the ways came: the PCI
in particular pushed this logic to its extremes, becoming a “programmatic party”;
the PCF retreated to the protest role. It participated in the government declaring
that “it is not a party of government”.
Less ambiguous seemed to be the prerequisite for the aforementioned: com-
mitment to liberal and pluralistic democracy (Chapter 7). When Pravda issued
a tart reminder that the majority could dispense with being “arithmetical”
 Introduction 13
if it could succeed in being “revolutionary”, the Eurocommunists had already
embarked on their campaign for the democratic electoral conquest of the major-
ity. The PCI declared itself committed to the prospect of democratic pluralism.
For the PCF the acceptance of pluralism was a necessary precondition for pro-
ceeding with the Common Programme with French Socialists. For the Spanish
and Greek Eurocommunists, defence of multipartyism was non-negotiable after
years of illegality. In countries where confidence in democratic institutions had
been shaken, these parties put themselves forward, in every possible way, as forces
for democratic revival.

Pragmatism
The key for translating social dynamics into a sober programmatic agenda was an
unprecedented political pragmatism. In the first instance pragmatism at the level of
international politics: in the era following the dissolution of the Cominform, the
deep Soviet shadow receded. The international communist movement expanded
geographically but lost homogeneity. This not only made it possible for there to be
open condemnation of Soviet interventionism but above all established a framework
for pluralism with greater scope for autonomy. The Italian, French, and Spanish
parties formed a nucleus with an independent agenda that became a pole of attrac-
tion for other communist parties. At the same time, theoretical pragmatism: the
emerging new Marxist pluralism allowed for more than one “legitimate” interpreta-
tion of Marxist texts. Less economistic and rigid, more academic, it liberated the
Eurocommunists from the necessity to write inflexible theoretical “set pieces”, ena-
bling them to translate old and ponderous concepts into a new language (Chapter 6).
The PCI’s pragmatic slogan “fare politica” (make politics) was a prerequisite
for crowning, ultimately unsuccessful but nevertheless daring, stratagem of the
Eurocommunists: to achieve ideological and electoral dominance of the whole
spectrum of the Left, against the socialists, in the countries of the European
South, where there was no deeply-rooted social-democratic tradition (Chapter 9).
This political logic went so far as to attempt to establish a communist “regime
of governance”: representation of social radicalism, programmatic moderation,
but with modernizing and equalizing reforms, through the organic ties between
party and powerful trade unions. It was a strategy that triggered a reflexive radi-
calization of the socialist parties of the South, and on the other hand drew the
Eurocommunist parties too deeply into social democratic waters. The PCI went
all out, achieved domination but turned into a non-communist party. The PCF
defended the communist identity and lost the game to the Socialists.

Beyond national politics

Eurocommunism was a project for national reform at a time of internationaliza-
tion that marked the end of “reformism in one country”. It was at precisely this
point that some of the most lasting shifts and vehement disagreements occurred
within the Eurocommunist current.
14 Introduction
In the economic crisis of the 1970s the Eurocommunists finally revised the
old communist position that crises lead inevitably to the overcoming of capital-
ism. (Chapter 10). But subsequently they became divided. The French-inspired
analysis of State-Monopoly Capitalism remained captive to the thesis that
nationalization is a necessary prerequisite for the state ceasing to be a tool of
the monopolies. The Italian reading, by contrast, recognized the vigorous tradi-
tion of state direction of the economy in the South and shifted its emphasis to a
programme of redistributive economic development that was not limited to the
demand for nationalization. It thus proved to be more prepared to understand
that national solutions are not sufficient in an international economic system
where the increasing mobility of capital makes national protectionism inadequate
as an instrument of control.
Examining this logic in correlation with the European policy of the
Eurocommunist parties, we see that it coincided to a considerable extent with
active intervention in the European integration project (Chapter 11). The PCI,
rallying with both Spaniards and Greeks, were placed at the head of an axis that
linked together Eurocommunism and European integration, demonstrating not
only that it was not incompatible with the project for a united Europe but on the
contrary that it possessed the potential to play a mediating role for acceptance
of the “Europeanization” programme in the societies of the South. All of the
Eurocommunist parties without exception moved from the post-war rejection
of the European project to accepting it, as an objective reality at first, as an axis
of democratization (Spain and Greece) and an opportunity for modernization,
and finally as a chance for freeing Europe from Cold War antagonisms. But while
the PCI (with the PCE and the KKE Interior close behind) rose to the chal-
lenge of working for further federalist evolution of European integration, the
PCF retreated to more ethnocentric positions, without questioning, however, the
proposition that Europe is a new terrain for class struggle.

Inheritance
Of the four parties we are examining, after 1989 only the French has retained the
prefix “Communist”. Faced with the “renewal or transformation” dilemma, the
other three responded with “transformation” into a non-communist formation
(Chapter 5). This was not a consequence of collapse at the Soviet centre: it in any
case came first. Was it a “betrayal” of the communist inheritance? An indication of
incompatibility of communist parties with Western societies? It seems more con-
vincing to say that it was the major consequence of the adaptation attempted by
the Eurocommunist parties to the conditions of Western European democracy.
It could be argued that after 1989 the hallmark of the Left is its return to the
culture of protest, the anti-systemic stance, the social movement at the expense
of governance. Is this not a historic revival of the “romantic” insurrectionary
tendency? The answer that is given at the very end of this study is: yes and no
(Chapter 12). Precisely because the Eurocommunist synthesis has generated
path dependencies that even today condition the activity of the radical Left.
 Introduction 15
The oliticization of spontaneous radicalism, the attachment to representative
liberal democracy, the programmatic moderation, the shift of the struggle to the
interior of the state, the pluralistic social profile, the overcoming of national pro-
tectionism, the strong European reformism which today takes the form of a “fed-
eralist Euroscepticism”. All of these are strategic traces of the Eurocommunist
inheritance. Of course, today’s radical Left draws on a variety of historical trends,
from the classical communist tradition, on the New Left, on the romanticism
of the social movements, and so on. But among them, in this palimpsest, is the
legacy of the Eurocommunist “moment”, which now reveals itself more clearly,
however obvious it has become that it is no longer a coherent political synthesis
but rather fragments of political strategy which assume new forms in the context
of what are now very different times.

Notes
1 Yves Meny, Yves Surel, Politique comparée. Les démocraties, Montchrestien, Paris
2009, p. 5.
2 Jean Leca, “Pour une analyse comparative des systèmes politiques méditer-
ranéens”, Revue Française de Science Politique, no. 4–5, 1977, pp. 561–562.
3 Nancy Green, “L’histoire comparative et le champ des études migratoires”,
Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, no. 6, 1990, pp. 1337–1338.
4 François Simiand, “Méthode historique et science sociale Étude critique à propos
des ouvrages récents de M. Lacombe et de M. Seignobos”, Revue de synthèse his-
torique, 1903.
5 Bertrand Badie, Guy Hermet, Politique comparée, PUF, Paris 1990, pp. 19–21.
Gabriel Almond, G. Bingham Powell, Comparative Politics, Little Brown, Boston
1966.
6 Bertrand Badie, Guy Hermet, Politique comparée, op. cit., pp. 22–46.
7 Michael Werner, Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empi-
rie et réflexivité”, Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales, 58th year, 2003/1, pp. 7–10;
Michael Werner, Bénédicte Zimmermann, Sandrine Kott, Le travail et la nation.
Histoire croisée de la France et de l’Allemagne, éditions de la maison des sciences
de l’homme, Paris 1999.
8 Jurgen Kocka, “Comparison and beyond”, History and Theory, vol. 42, no. 1,
February 2003, pp. 39–40.
9 In Eric Hobsbawm, On History. Abacus, London 1998.
10 Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the
Twentieth Century, I.B. Tauris, London 2010.
11 In Frank Wilson, The Failure of West European Communism, Paragon House,
New York 1993.
12 Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991,
Abacus, London 1995.
13 Philippe Raynaud, L’Extrême gauche plurielle. Entre démocratie et révolution,
Autrement, Paris 2006.
14 Marc Lazar, “Communism in Western Europe in the 1980s”, The Journal of
Communist Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, September 1988, pp. 244–254.
15 Frank Wilson, The Failure of West European Communism, op. cit. p. 70.
16 François Furet, Le passé d’une illusion, Laffont and Calmann-Levy, Paris 1995.
17 Heinz Timmermann, “National Strategy and International Autonomy: The
Italian and French Communist Parties”, Studies in Comparative Communism,
no. 2–3, summer-autumn 1972, p. 268.
16 Introduction
18 Lilly Marcou, Marc Riglet, “Du passé font-ils table rase? La Conférence de Berlin,
juin 1976”, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Centre d’études et de
recherches internationales, Série F, article no. 440, pp. 1076–1078.
19 Carl Boggs, The Socialist Tradition. From Crisis to Decline. Routledge, New York
& London 1995.
20 Annie Kriegel, Un autre communisme?, Hachette, Paris 1977, pp. 23–25 and
68–75.
21 Pierre Hassner, “Postwar Western Europe: The Cradle of Eurocommunism?”, in
Rudolf Tokes (ed.), Eurocommunism and Détente, Council on Foreign Relations,
New York University, New York 1978, p. 24.
22 Heinz Timmermann, “Vie al socialismo: Riforme o rivoluzione?”, in Heinz
Timmermann (ed.), I partiti communisti dell’ Europa mediterranea, Il Mulino,
Bologna 1981, pp. 339–342.
23 Martin Bull, “The West European Communist Movement in the Late Twentieth
Century”, West European Politics, vol. 18, no. 1, January 1995, pp. 79–80.
24 François Furet, Le passé d’une illusion, op. cit., p. 561.
25 Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism. Harper Collins, New York 2009,
pp. 464–468.
26 Bernard Brown, “The European Left Confronts Modernity”, in Bernard Brown
(ed.), Eurocommunism and Eurosocialism. The Left Confronts Modernity, Cyrco
Press, New York & London 1979, p. 384.
27 Ernest Mandel, Critique de l’eurocommunisme, Maspero, Paris 1977, p. 39–41.
28 Carl Boggs, The Socialist Tradition. op. cit., pp. 122 and 135.
29 Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, op. cit.
30 Georges Lavau, A qui sert le PCF?, Fayard, Paris 1981.
31 Marc Lazar, “Du populisme à gauche: le cas français et italien”, in Jean-Pierr
Rioux (ed.), Les populismes, Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences poli-
tiques et Perrin, Paris 2007.
32 Hugues Portelli, “La voie nationale du PCF et du PCI”, Projet, no. 106, June
1976, p. 660.
33 Carl Boggs, The Impasse of European Communism, Westview Press, Colorado 1982.
34 Bernard Brown, “The European Left Confronts Modernity”, op. cit., p. 375;
Mario Einaudi, “Communism in Western Europe”, in Mario Einaudi, Jean-Marie
Domenach, Aldo Garosci, Communism in Western Europe, Cornell University
Press, Ithaka and New York, 1951.
35 Marc Lazar, Le communisme, une passion française, Perrin, Paris 2002, p. 98.
36 Sidney Tarrow, “Communism in Italy and France: Adaptation and Change”,
in Donald Blackmer, Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Communism in Italy and France,
Princeton University Press, Princeton 1977, pp. 621–623.
37 Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, op. cit.
38 Frank Wilson, The Failure of West European Communism, op. cit., pp. 62 and 70.
39 John Campbell, “Eurocommunism: Policy Questions for the West”, in Rudolf
Tokes (ed.), Eurocommunism and Détente, Council on Foreign Relations, New
York University, New York 1978, pp. 532–534.
40 Giovanni Sartori, “Calculating the Risk”, in Austin Ramney, Giovanni Sartori
(eds.), Eurocommunism: the Italian Case, American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research, Washington 1978, pp. 168–178. For a different perspec-
tive see in the same volume, Joseph LaPalombara, “The Italian Communist Party
and Changing Italian Society”.
41 Annie Kriegel, Un autre communisme?, op. cit., pp. 16–17.
42 Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, op. cit.
43 Tony Judt, “The Spreading Notion of the Town: Some Recent Writings on French
and Italian Communism”, The Historical Journal, vol. 28, no. 4, December 1985,
p. 1014.
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