tary bases. Carrillo The first impression is one of gross political buffoonery. He just seems like everyone's Favourite target - from the Trotskyists and the Kremlin bureaucrats to the imsperialist ideologues who doubt his sincerity. But behind the comedian Is a deadly serious development. For Carrillo symbolises 'EuroLONGTOICE DE would no doubt deny bur which is There is nothing specifically as there is little uniformity in the many phenomena which go under that name. But the past year has seen the culmination of two crucial developments in the growing rifi etween the Fast and West Euro pean Communist Parties.
First, the revisionism and class collaboration which has long been political practice of the Commanist Parties of capitalist Europe is rapidly becoming enshrined in the programuncs of these partes. Part. es which abandoned the dictator. ship of the proletariat in favour of the defence of bourgeois democracy as far back as the 1930s have now got around to dropping the idea in theory, to the dismay of their erstwhile mentors in Mos MOSCOW'S BEHEST But this has more than a formal significance. It also reflects an inat the behest of Moscow, as in the 1930s or the post-war persod, but from the particular interests of the national parties themselves. Even this in itself is not what most worries Moscow. The danger is that this growing accommodation to their respective national bourgeoisies could mean these parties final abandonment of the Soviet 'Intercontinental Press and the the apecial 10 issues (t2.50 Britain and Inland, E4.00 Continental Europe Send me a t Ireland, E8.00 Continental Europe end me a one year subscription |E8.00 Britain an eland, E13.00 Continental Europe - E19.00 airmai Address One person has had more than his fair share of headline space in 1977: Santiago Carrillo, general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party. Carrillo denounces Moscow bureaucracy. Moscow bureaucracy denounces Carrillo. Carrillo backs Spanish monarchy. Carrillo backs US milidenounces general strike. crosses picket line at Yale...and is denounced in his turn.
Union.
The class collaboration of these routine. The Italian and Spanish parties don't simply defend bourgcois democracy their stock-in-trade for decades but support the entire apparatus of the bourgeois state, even against the workers in struggle day-to-day interests of the working class are having to take second place to the governmental aspirations of Cartillo and Herlinguer.
AUSTERITY VEHICLE back ayerior go is mment attacks So Berlinguer is prepared on living standards, praising austcrity as a vehicle of social change, ort from strike the shie ort from strike aller strike. doubt part of the reason for the break-up of the French Union of Party's fear that the Spanish electmunist Party was overtaken on the left by the SOCIALS repeat itscil.
But a second aspect of Eurocommunism has emerged into the Tall light this year with the publication of Carrillo's unise and the State. For the first tume a West European Communist Party leader has produced more "human richts violations" in the workers states. Carrillo sis a theo Carrillo that has been the workera states.
workers states explicitly identify IRST TOT parties or union federation.
Nevertheless it has aect of Eurocommunism Eurocomm- crisis of Stalinism. - Carrilio's book, 's coherent critique of the basis of boreaucratic ruie in ists bave provided a massive stimulus both for oppositionists in the ish and many of whom pro-Moscow splits. with the Western parties, and for a thorough debate on workers' democracy in the Western workers movement.
For the Eurocommunist parties are still caught in the cleft stick of Stalinism: their rapturous support matched by any similar cothusproletarian democracy ommodation particularly not within their own been this doubly welcome. - the most dramatic expression of the which has provoked Moscow lo its most ex The obvious treme responses. Carrillo's book brought an unprocedcated public rebuke from the Moscow journal CUROCORMONISM & and the STASE SANTIAGO CARRILLO New Times, while both the Swed British parties bac All this upheaval, at the same me an a Deepens socal mic political crisis, presents increased apportunes for the at len, 3ad ty it has not always been able to on workers" democracy has so oftof sectarianism and political acc towards Stalinism that the attempts of the Fourth International to opco up such a debate over the past year bave been balance 1977 was a good year for revolutionaries, though шлете ате зародо!
• ones in Europe are Has and We Germany 7 JUTE the entire spectrun from Mao-centrists to Trotskyists thrown into disarray. In Germans, repression has only increased the isolation of the far left, while in Haly political bankruptcy and the logiam in the workers movement bas turbed lett politics into a game of musical chairs, in Portugal the picture is not ils bleak as might have been expect.
While such as the PRP, have disappeared from the face of the carth, olliers. Uke the Trobkyists of the LCI ave made modest advances. Els where in Europe things more positive. In Spain the Trotskyists, newly unified, have been in the leadership of a number of important struggles and are grow ing into a position to challenge the large centrist groups that dominare the farleft.
In Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, the revolutionary left continITIC INCE COA united far left slate got astonishing results in the municipal elections in April. Even in Britain, home of the rost nervasive sectariamsm and disunity, there are signs thai a unification of Lhe revolutionary let is more than just a pipe-dream.
Outside Europe the forces of the Fourth toternationa, also registered significant advances, unifying soctions in a number of places and winning new organisations in Latin America, Yet the crippling weakness of TE ULCERIE Africa and Asia, above all be still mains, The crisis of Stalinism and the emergence of cracks in the Social Democratic monolith in Western Europe will bring us new opportunities in 1978. Ir is up to us to seize tbem