36
PARTISAN REVIEW
power or to accomplish anything at thi s point, a ttracts probably the
best people in the country. And this is the paradox right now.
William Phillips:
To some ex tent you are describing a kind of grass
roots bureaucracy.
Jane Kramer:
Yes.
William Ph illips:
Thank you. 1 don 't care who goes first. Simon H ead
or Kenneth Maxwell.
Kenneth Maxwell:
1 would point out that many of these things we
have been told about are far from hypotheti ca l. We have had an
example in Portugal over th e las t two years. 1 think it is important to
look at what Cunhal, for exampl e, says about Euro-communism. H e
has been asked on numerous occasions, and he says we don ' t want
Euro-communism in Portugal because we have moved beyond the
stage where Euro-communism is a useful tacti c.
I think it is important to rea lize that the Portuguese Communist
party is the first party in Western Europe in recent years to formally
drop the idea that they were dependent on the proletariat. The other
thing is the dichotomy raised in the initial contradiction be–
tween whether a party is an indigenous party, or some kind of an
agent of Moscow. That seems to me quite fal se and decep tive and
indeed dangerous. I think a party can be both , or it can be neither.
The Portuguese Party is both . It is a popularly based party which is
authentically representing social groups within its own parliament.
It is also clearly a Stalinist party closely attuned to the Soviet Union .
The question is not whether it is one or the other.
It
is a ques tion of
whether it' responds, and how it responds, in given circumstances, to
the social conditions that might move it tacti ca lly in one way or the
other, or toward the geopolitica l objectives of the Soviet Union.
Just two anecdotes to end on-I don't know what they mean–
which I heard last week.... One came from a former member of the
Socialist party; he said, "You know, the most Stalinist party in
Europe today is the Portuguese Socialist party; it's centralized organ–
ized opposition. " And the other thing was said to me by one of the
richest men in Portugal , who didn't leave the country. He is in New
York now, was in Washington last week talking to people from the
Treasury and so on about a loan; there was a small group of bankers
there. And he said, " You know, th e key thing in Portugal , the most
important thing that happened, was that our Communists were
Stalinists." He said, "That saved us." So, I'd like to leave you with
those two anecdotes.
William Phillips:
You 're being rewarded for your patience, Simon
