This is the new context in which the question of Communist parties participation in the governments of Italy, Spain, France & elsewhere arises. In a period of growing social crisis, pressure, of working class radicalisation, masses of Western Europe Communist and Socialist Parties.
At root, this is not a complicated or unpreced -ented matter. They want jobs and stable prices, a decent and rising living standard. They want expanded rights, not new restrictions. They want an end to the terrible uncertainty that hangs over their lives under capitalism. They want an end to militarism and to the increasing threat of nuclear warfare... In addition to a radicalisation of the working class and the labour movement as a whole, women, oppressed nationalities, foreign workers who have been incorporated in large numbers into the economies of the advanced countries of Europe, youth who will have to fight the wars if they come, students who want a decent educat -ion - all these radicalising forces begin to assert themselves. Quite simply, they want socialism as an alternative to capitalism. This is the heart of In this framework, the Communist parties in countries like France and Italy face a basic problem. They are in competition with the Socialist Parties (and to some degree with forces further to the left...) for the adherence of the very same workers. The key question for them is how to attract these workers - how to hold their allegiance, how to grow, how to increase their voting strength.
Legacy The CPs claim to represent the legacy of the Russian Revolution. They claim to be more militant in industrial struggles. They claim a special reiationship with the 'bastion of world peace! the Soviet Union. But all that is no longer enough. They also have to clean themselves up a bit from the filth of Stalinism.
This is no longer the 1930s, 1940s or 1950s when millions of working people in France and Italy believed that anything negative said about the USSR was probably a lie being spread by bourgeois secret agents, capitalist agents etc. Those naive days are gone forever. The Stalinists have to refurbish their image. They must not only be associated with the LiSSR, they must simultaneously not be identified with the most senting workers and intellectuals in the USSR are sent to insane asylums, that there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of assembly, no right to emigrate, no right to strike, … nO to self-determination for oppressed nationalities, no liberation for women, and that 'socialism with a human face' will be obliterated by soviet tanks. They can't carry that albatross around their necks and win the mass of workers from the Socialist parties in advanced capitalist countries.
Representatives of other CPs observe as Brezhnev addresses 25th Congress of CPSU Thus the Stalinists have to lay claim to their own inational road to socialism', proclaiming a 'union of the left' in France or a 'historic compromise! in Italy. In reality, these are in no way roads to socialism, national or otherwise, there is nothing new or innovative They are simply old vinegar in new bottles, catchy proposal for winning mass support the CPs long-established aim of sharing responsibility for governing Italy & France as capitalist states, as they did immediately after the war.
But this is not obvious to the millions who vote for the CP. What they want and what the Stalinist bureaucrats want are two different things. Expectations The US ruling class is (however| geruinely concerned about the prospects of goverr.mental coalitions in Europe that include CP ministers.
expounded his views on this at length before a meeting of American Ambassadors in Europe last December:
"One thing is clearl of Communist parties in the West is u. accepiabie. This has nothing to do with the reasonableness of these parties or with the degree oi iheir dependence from Russia".
We must remember, he went on, "the primary appeal of Communists to the electorate has to do with their position on social and economic problems that bother the people of that courtry".
The result, as Kissinger outlined in an April 13 statement, is that "this in turn is going produce governments in which the degree of copperation that has become 'characteristic' of Atlantic relations will become increasingly difficult, in which their own internal priorities are going to be away from concern with defence, which will produce new opportunities for ouiside pressure and a move towards a eutralist conception of ioreign policy".
From the point of view of the class he serves, Kissinger sizes inings up fairly well. The masses are attracted to the CPs and the SPs because they want socialism, not because they 'Communists' or 'Socialists' to manage austerity programmes for the capitalist state. Secondly, electoral successes by the CP and SP the expectations of the masses too much, embolden the workers, the women, the youth, the immigrant workers, the oppressed nationalities. This enco rages them to press forward and can even impel them well to the left of the CPs & the SPs they put in government. The last thing sectors of the population have in mind is electing a SP or CP government just to have it spend more money on missiles.
Kissinger speaks the truth when he says it is not a question of the reasonableness of a given CP. He knows the ruling classes can make arrLa Berlinguer, with a Marchais, with a Cunhal regardless of what they say don't say about the worst excesses of the Soviet bureaucracy. The capitalist rulers know that ¡hese men and their colleagues are not proletarian revolutionists, but class collaborationists through and through. That is not the problem. The hooker is that big class forces can unintentionally be set in motion because the workers believe less in class collaboration than do their misleaders.
NATO From the point of view of the Atlantic alliance, and of NATO, Kissinger sees a weighty difference between the CP and SP. The SP leadership is much more dependable. The SP, based on the labour aristocracy in its own country, loyally manages the affairs and defends the interests of its own ruling class.
The CP and its leadership is a slightly different kettle of fish. The CP and the SP are not differentiated from each other on the basis of programme, method and aim. Both are class -collaborationist. If the party labels were removed from the programmes of the Italian and French SPs & CPs and the terminology homog -onised a bit, no-one could tell which belonged The essential difference beiween the two kinds ot workers parties resides in the relationship of the CPs to the Soviet bureaucracy - regardless of any critical opinion members and heads of a CP may voice. Without their special relationship to Moscow, the CPs would erase the partition that separates them from Social Democracy, It is this special relationship to the Soviet bureaucracy that presents the capitalists with their It is quite evident what the American bourgeoisie favour. They want the Christian Democracy in power in Italy, the Gaullists in power in France, the Tories in power in Britain and the Liberal Democrats in power in Japan, But they, and especially their colleagues in Europe, have to answer a very difficult question.
What parties can administer the severe austerity programme that capitalism needs and keep social peace at the same time? What parties have the best chance of keeping the increasingly radicalised masses accepting wage freeze policies, stepping up productivity in the factories offices, and staying off the streets?
This question points to the importance of the CPs in the eyes of the ruling clas: as the social -political crisis deepens.
----- pull-quotes -----
notorious crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy. They have to counter public knowledge that dis-