EURO-COMMUNISM
17
T he second point tha t has been made is tha t the Communi st
parti es of Eu rope a re no longer revoluti on ary. But thi s is no t a very
important po int. T hey have no t been revoluti ona ry fo r a long time.
At any ra te, thi s is no t th e issue a t sta ke. Sta lin was no t a revolution–
ary either.
It
is frequentl y a rgued tha t if th e European Communist
parti es are exposed to the rea liti es of power, of res ponsibility, they
are bound to change. Now, unfo rtuna tely, and here I can go onl y by
the record, wherever Communi st pa rti es have come to power-and
thi s is no t lo nger in one o r two count ries, but in a dozen countries –
what has emerged is a di cta to rship , frequentl y a brutal di ctatorship.
A non-Ma rxi st may perhaps a rgue tha t thi s was an accident of
hi story. But I don 't think a Marx ist can dismi ss it like tha t. I beli eve
that should the Ita li an Communi st pa rty come to power, it would
behave mo re humanely than o ther parti es. Ita ly has a po litical
cultu re whi ch is no t tha t aggress ive, o r violent, a lthou gh lately they
have been tryin g to ca tch up a bit. Indeed , Ita li an fascism was much
more humane th an naz ism. How many peopl e were kill ed under
Musso lini ? May be twenty over twenty years. It was " fascism with a
human face." And I can imagin e tha t in Ita ly, with communism in
power, it would be a rela ti vely modera te di cta to rshi p. Secretary of
State Vance h as sa id that Eu ro-communi sm would be much mo re of
a menace to th e Soviet Uni on than to the West. T hi s seems to me a
lilli e na ive because for the Sov iet Uni on , and for Eastern Europe,
Euro-communi sm is no mo re th an a nui sance. T here is n o danger of
ideological infecti on . Soviet power rests on power, no t ideology.
T he Eas tern Eu ro peans know far more about the rea lity of
communi sm than even Mr. Ca rrill o and Berlin guer. The situa ti on as
I see it has o f course changed; thi s is no t longer 1953, and Sta lin is no
longer a li ve. I would no t pay tha t much a ttenti on to changes of
doctrine, because Communi st doctrine h as frequentl y changed, in
1935, for in stance, and aga in in 1945. I would attribute much mo re
importance to the structure of the Communi st pa rty, and thi s has no t
changed yet; they a re, as yet, o rgani zed like a military body, meanin g
that a few people in the leadershi p decide, and the rest obey. And
unl ess and until thi s chan ges, Communi st parti es canno t rea ll y be
trusted, because a pa rty whi ch is itself, in its structure, no t demo–
cra ti c, will n o t behave democra ti call y toward o ther pa rti es. Nor are
they reall y independent vi s-a-v is th e Sovi et Uni on . In the 1930s,
Dimitroff coined th e famo us phrase accordin g to whi ch the acid test
for every Communi st is hi s a llitude towa rd the Soviet Uni on. It
seems to me he was perfectl y ri ght then , and he is right now.
