20
PARTISAN REVIEW
one. These parti es canno t be deemed democra ti c in their interna l
structure umil they adop t different p rocedures. But those p rocedures
appear to depend to some considera ble degree on the will , on the
politi cal con victi on s, and on the po liti cal-organi za ti onal capacity o f
their own members and militants. T he last word has no t been sa id o n
the recent turn in France, and its is quite in teres tin g th a t the
uni onists associated with the French Communist party and the
C.g.t.
h ave been very careful not to associa te themselves with the Pa rty's
recent o utri ght rupture with the Sociali sts. And in Italy pressure
from the base, open di scuss ion in the Party, open di spute amo n gs t
the leaders, with interviews in the p ress, no t onl y in the Pa rty p ress,
but in the non-Party press as well , seems
to
be the rul e of the day.
So the loosenin g of the structu re seems to have gone a certa in
way a t least in Italy. It seems to me tha t the ca ll or the demand th a t
somehow we oppose these pa rti es because we don 't like th em ,
because they have not evolved full y or because they have no t full y
di ssolved and joined the Second Interna ti ona l is not emirely rea lis–
ti c. It is a demand whi ch obvio usly is no t go in g to be met. And we
are therefore faced with a dogma ti c oppos iti on to these parties
because they are Communi st, and beca use we have decided th a t they
canno t evolve a t all.
But thi s raises the issue of Ameri can power and Ameri can
intervention , and the answer is th a t the Europea ns have themse lves
seized a grea t dea l of autonomy in thi s regard, and do not seem to
share many of these forebodings.
William Phi llips:
Can I as k you a q ues ti on , Norman ?
If
you were a
politi cal acti vist in a Euro pean country, woul d you support the
Communi st pa rty, cr iti call y, as we used
to
say? Or would you
support an existing Socialist pa rty, or woul d you try
to
build a
Sociali st party where it was not very strong?
In
other words, I am
asking you for a more concrete pos iti on .
N orman Birn baum:
Well , if there exi sted large Socia list p arti es, in
Italy, France, and Spain, if I were a Frenchman , a Spani ard, o r an
Italian , I would belong to the respective Socialist parti es. But tha t
does not seem to me a very impo rtant ques ti on . T he ques ti on is wh at
these parti es themselves a re doing, and wha t o ffi cial Ameri can po li cy
or American opini on should be towa rd these pa rti es. T hese parties
are in va ri ous degrees of, let us say, competiti ve coex istence with the
Communi sts, but none of these pa rti es has anno unced tha t the
preconditi on for democratic sociali sm in its country is the ex tirpa–
ti on of thi s Party or its bl ockage.
