EURO-COMMUNISM
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Tha t can be very striking. It becomes more and mo re o ffi cia l ideol–
ogy.
Andrew Arata:
An y number o f fa irl y creative intell ectua ls h ave jo in ed
the Pan y. They a re no t impo rt ant in th e Pa rt y a t a ll. And one
wonders what will ha ppen to them over th e n ext five o r ten yea rs.
They jo in ed the Pany recently . The old guard everywhere in the
intern a ti on al Communi st movement is bankrupt.
Will iam Ph illips:
All right. Mi ch ael Ledeen , who is the execu ti ve
editor of the
Washington R eview of Strategic and Int ernational
Studies.
Michael Ledeen .
Michael L edeen:
First, I find m yself in the uncomfo rt a ble position o f
defendin g the intell ectua l qua liti es o f some o f the Ita li a n Commu–
ni sts. I don ' t think it is rea ll y fa ir to say tha t the o ld guard of Ita li a n
Communi sts is intell ectua ll y ba nkrupt. Indeed, to the extent th a t the
semi-inLellectual content o f Ita li a n communi sm comes from the o ld
guard and n o t from the n ew gua rd, a n Amendo la, a n In grao, a
couple of o thers rea ll y must ra nk as seri ou s int ell ect ua ls, no ma tter
what else we mi ght wanL to say a bo ut th em. This is a comment to
you
LOa
abo ut the influx o f '68. In It a ly, a t least, I suspect in France
too, in the lon g run , '68 was a kind o f ch a llen ge to th e Communi st
pani es whi ch th ey did no t like, which th ey ha ve now rea ll y ass imi –
lated, and with whi ch they are again confront ed today.
The extreme Left in Ital y, the ra ll y in Bo logn a. the fact th at the
new philosophers fl ock to Bo logn a to Walch thi s kind o f ch a ll en ge,
the fact the
New R epublic
wro te a bout the Bo logna ra ll y joyous ly,
say in g tha t this is aga in the revival of '68ism in the face o f these
monolithi c Communist parties, I think is sympt oma ti c. And quite
correcl.
But as to th e subj eCl o f European Communist parti es, I agree
with Wa lter, tha t thi s is a rela tivel y simple subj ect whi ch we h ave
succeeded in our brilli ant way in compli ca ting a lmos t beyond
recogniti on .
I simpl y want to remind e\'Crybody a bout the rudiments of thi s
game. First, a ll o f these Communist p a rti es-the French, Spanish,
Italian-are di ctatori all y organized. Even Ha bermas, who, God
knows, would be sympa theti c to an ythin g vaguely resembling a
commun ism with a human face, says, if th ey don ' t g ive up demo–
cratic centra lism , I will h ave n o thin g to do with them. So tha t is
point one. Po int two is fo reign poli cy. On a ll major Eas t-Wes t
questi ons, without excepti on , eve ry Western European Communist
party stands with the Soviet Uni on .. . .
