30
PARTISAN REVIEW
Simon H ead:
T ha t is essenti a ll y untrue, an d th at is a factua l untru th .
T he Communi st Ita li an pany suppon ed the ex istence of N.A.T. O .
And the pa rti cipa ti on of Ita ly in N.A.T. O .
Michael L edeen:
Indeed , so does the Sov iet Uni o n . T he po in t is th a t
wha t Ita ly is supporting is the Soviet po li cy o f n o t d istur bing the
ba lance of power. T he fact of the matter is tha t even o n m inor
ques ti o ns, like Soma li a-Ethi op ia, as th e Soviet Uni o n shifts from
Soma li a to Ethi opia, magicall y, a lmos t hypno ti ca ll y, the French , the
Spanish , and the Ita li an Pani es shift right a lon g with them . A
coupl e of days before th e offi cia l anno uncement was made, we
o bserved some striking shifts in poli cy.
In
fact, on a ll kin ds of
apparentl y tri via l arguments. Israeli s in Entebbe are violat in g
Uganda's nati ona l sovereignt y, Cubans in Angola are freedom
fighters ... a ll of these thin gs one a fter another. Every Communi st
party, pri o r to coming to power, spo ke exactly th e samc way tha t
these Western European Communi st pa rti es are speaking today.
No Communist pa rty, once it
came
to power, behaved in a
democr a tic mann er. There is no thing tha t woul d p lease me more
than to see Western Eu ropea n Communi st pa rti es mov in g toward a
Bad Godes berg o f their own . But they a re no t do in g tha t. And I ca ll
to
your a ttenti on severa l recent votes, th e French vo tes on the
abandonment of the di cta torship of th e proletaria t, from th e 1700's
on up. T he Spani sh Communi st pa rty, th ree weeks ago, had a
questi on ra ised in the Cen tra l Committ ee: Shoul d we democra ti ze
the structure? On e hundred and fift y nine for to two aga inst. T he
Ita li an Communi st party, last winter, had T ervc tLi , one of the mos t
powerful members of the Centra l Comm itt cc, introduce a rcso lu ti on
fo r democra ti za ti on of the pa rt y stru ct u re. It was voted down. It has
never been ra ised aga in . Lombardo Radi ci a few weeks ago sugges ted
tha t th e party mi ght be willin g to sugges t the abandonment of
Marxi sm-Lenini sm. T hi s was stru ck down immt'C\i a tcl y by Berlin–
guer and nobody hea rd an ythin g abo llt it aga in .
There a re people in these pa rti es who do no t likt' th e statc of
affa irs. But th ey are mino riti es of one and two and thrcc. T he
Amendo la faction in the Ita li an Communi st pa rt y is a facti o n of o ne.
The op pos ition of Ameri ca to thc entry of Wes tern Eu ropea n
Communi st pa rti es in to the government sccms to be esscnti a l fo r the
interests o f the United Sta tes, in tha t it wishes to li ve in a mo re
democra ti c wo rld and to conta in th e sp read .of Sov iet inft uence and
Soviet power.
If
th ese pani es are indeed interes tcd in ma ki ng a genuin e
