EURO-COMMUNISM
37
Head. Simon Head is a contributo r to the
New Stat esman
and to
The
New York R eview of Books.
Simon H ead:
I have just one o r two
ad hoc
comments
lO
make. First o f
a ll , on the ques ti on of the rela ti onship of the ma in European
Communi st pani es to the Sov iet Uni on , I'd like to stress the extent to
whi ch it seems the es trangement of th ese pani es from the Soviet
Uni on is a dyn ami c p rocess. Tha t is to say, it is an erro r to speak as
though there was a decisi on of any human kind tha t to make a
gesture such as the renuncia ti on o f Ihe dicta to rship o f th e proleta ri a t
would constitute some son of brea k from the Sov iet Uni on .
It
seems to me tha t if one looks a t th e way thi s rela ti o nship has
evo lved since th e beginnin g o f the decade, rea ll y since the beginnin g
of detente .. . wha t is happening is the Soviet Uni on by condu ct
intern a ll y and by the very na ture of its fa ilure is constantl y generat–
ing facts in the world from whi ch the European Communi st pani es
must dissocia te th emselves in o rder to retain their credibility. T his
di ssoc ia ti o n may eith er ta ke th e fo rm of agita ti on on beha lf of a
cen a in indi vidua l o r it may ta ke the fo rm of a genera l di ssocia ti on
from the na ture of the Soviet rea lity, the way the Sovi et Uni on is
developin g.
T herefo re, I wouldn 't like to predict how in the future thi s
dynami c p rocess will end , though it seems to me extremely unlikely
that Ihere could be any reversion to a very antiqua ted dogma ti sm.
Insofar as the Communi st pani cs do return to such dogma ti sm o r
fa il to di sassocia te themselves from it, as in the case of the French ,
they will fa il and stagna te.
The second point I would like to ra ise is thi s:
It
is no t, I think ,
valid to try to estima te the future conduct of these Communist
panies simpl y by tr ying
to
es tima te their sincerity, because
change o f an y instituti on is no t simpl y a fun cti on of a ttitudes; it is
also a fun cti on o f the pressures to whi ch those in stituti ons a re
subj ect. Thi s isn 't simpl y a ques ti on of the European Communist
parti es.
If
one takes th e hi sto ry o f a very different kind of in stituti on ,
the Conserva tive pa rty in Brita in , in the course of its adapta ti on to
the ext ension o f the fr anchi se and to th e introducti on of the welfare
sta le, it could a lways be as ked a l an y given time whether its
acceptance of these measures in 1832 o r 1945 was sincere. And a
comprehensive answer to thi s qu esti on was no t to be had simpl y by
looking a t the utterances and th e a ltitudes of the Duke of Wellington
or Mr. Church iII in 1945. You a lso had to try to es ti ma te the strength
of the fo rces pushing them in a broadl y democra ti c directi on . Rea ll y,
