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have brought the Socialists within reach of the frontiers of thought . The party
has its own technocrats, too, and there are some politicians around Mitterand
who are not always comfortable with these (or any other) ideas . Still , a gener–
ation ofrethinking on the French left may be finding expression in something
other than Sorbonne theses or sectarian polemic.
Rethinking is not, however, conspicuous in the Communist Party. It has
fused Leninist organization with Jacobinism and something else that is
French:
ouvrierism,
a term difficult to translate. Let's say that it means that
salvation is accessible only to and with the working class. (The Party, and not
only on account of its persistent Stalinism, has had terrible difficulties with
the intellectuals . Its culture is that of the French working class, almost inerad–
icably petit bourgeois .) Now it was seeking a new image, but what of its
substance?
I talked about these matters with a friend who is a Communist Parlia–
mentarian , a member of the Central Committee . He received me in its new
headquarters , designed by the Brazilian architect Niemayer, in Paris's
working-class east . The building was an adequate representation of the Party's
present state of mind . A moat-like entrance provides for protection against
hostile demonstrations (or worse), the construction emphasizes the texture of
cement, the offices are functional boxes-and the whole conveys a hint of
modernity. My interlocutor wore long hair and a
chemise de sport.
He was
proud of his coauthorship of a recent Charter of Liberties published by the
Party, to show that its France would be even more rigorous about Constitu–
tionalliberties than bourgeois democracy. I refrained from observing that not
since the Soviet Constitution of1936 had I read a more compelling document .
We discussed,the controversy with the Socialists. The Communists feared that
they would be diminished to some fifteen percent of the electorate (from their
usual proportion of about twenty-four). Having become the largest party of
the left, the Socialists would then turn about and enter a center-left coalition,
excluding the Communists. The right would pay a high price to avert an
electoral victoty by the united left. No reason, I said , for the right to pay any
price with the left tearing itself apart .
The French Communist Party, rigid in its loyalty to Cunhal in Portugal ,
faithful to the Soviet Union (which does not quite repay its devotion, since it
seemed to have supported Giscard during the last elections), has a vety long
way to go before it resembles the Italian party-open, modern, and con–
vincing in its devotion to pluralism and democracy . The French electorate will
continue to have doubts on this score. And even should these (huge) diffi–
culties be overcome , the French Communists will have to show that they can
develop a modern conception of socialism . Paradoxically, the effort to re–
assure the electorate may make the Party less venturesome with respect to
