Eurocommunism: Its Roots in European Working Class History

Author(s): IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Contemporary Marxism, No. 2, The European Workers' Movement (Winter 1980), pp.
1-7
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 IMMANUELWALLERSTEIN

Eurocommunism: Its Roots in

European Working Class History

The earliest manifestations of workers' move? It iswellto remember that themost significant
ments occurred in Western Europe. This was single attempt of workers to seize power in the
natural. It was Western Europe that was the nineteenth century, the Paris Commune, was not
locus of the expanded development of urban the consequence of prior organized activity. Henri
industrial centers in the late eighteenth and early Lefebvre has called it "the last popular festival,"
nineteenth centuries. And it was Western Europe and the Commune was probably inspired more by
that was the first locus of bourgeois revolutionary Bakunin's ideas than by those of Marx, however
ideologies with their legitimation of anti-state much Marx hailed it. 1 The Commune indeed was
political activity, including ultimately the right the occasion of the final split between Bakunin
to rebellion. Everyone knows this of course. But and Marx at the Hague Congress of the Inter?
we occasionally forget that, despite these facts, national Workingmen's Association in 1872,
the lot of working class organizing was an ex? at which Congress Marx's faction was outvoted.
tremely difficult one in Western Europe, all the However, by the time of the founding of the
way up to the Second World War. It was not easy Second International in 1889, the Marxists had
to organize a trade union, or a socialist party. The gained great ground against those who were now
dominant parties and trade unions of today?both being labeled Anarchists, which, as James Joll has
communist and social democrat ?claim "came to be a name to be applied to
pride in noted,
and draw enormous who the Marxist ideas of a
strength from these class anybody rejected
with a rationalist
struggles of the past century. disciplined political party
the first battle was within the 'scientific' "2 the growth
Historically, philosophy. Despite
class itself, among its activists and its of "Marxist" movements, "Anarchism" continued
working
issue was whether or not to to have a significant following in a few countries ?
sympathizers. The
at all. There is nothing obvious about particularly, be it noted, in France, Spain and
organize
Italy. The first important legacy therefore of the
long-term organizing. Throughout history, op?
three key "Eurocommunist" is their
pressed groups have complained, demonstrated, parties
risen up. But it was not until the nineteenth continuing struggle against the regularly reappear?
that anyone took the idea ing "Anarchist" tendencies on the left in their
century seriously
that they should create formal organizations respective countries ?a struggle which came to
which would collect and mobilize force over a the fore again in May 1968 in France and with
long period of time in order to achieve political the rise of the Red Brigades of the 1970's in Italy.
objectives. Nor was the idea immediately and It is not that such tendencies were unknown in
wholeheartedly endorsed, even by politically other countries?say Germany or the Netherlands?
conscious workers. Indeed, one might say that the but they have always been stronger in France,
great debates within the European social move? Italy and Spain than in Northern Europe.
ment were precisely about the wisdom of this Nonetheless, with the founding of the Second
strategy. Some thought conspiratorial and rapid International, the day was essentially won for
insurrection by a small elite was the correct those who believed in "organization." Everywhere
strategy. Some thought withdrawal into ideal in Western Europe, the workers' movement took
communities was the way. Some believed in on the form of institutionalized mass
parties, and
terrorism via secret societies. But against the once organized, these parties naturally sought to
multiple versions of individual or "survive" ?against very great odds, as we have
small-group
voluntarism stood another tendency, of which said. Nonetheless, the die was cast along certain
Marx was a champion, which believed that only lines which made more likely certain strategic
the organized efforts of the proletariat as a whole choices of the future.
could bring capitalism to an end and create Among the "Marxists," a great internal debate
socialism. Both the Second and the Third Inter? now occurred, about strategy. The
precisely
nationals were the heirs of this latter tendency. fundamental issue was the position organized
2 Contemporary Marxism: Wallerstein

class movements should take vis-?-vis with the German socialists of Austria his com?
working
institutions. Two basic rades had considered the possibility of a general
bourgeois parliamentary
that of Bernstein and that of strike. Both parties had reached agreement.
positions emerged,
Lenin. This is sometimes termed the split between Their organizations were at stake
and revolutionary roads to socialism. All the other delegates were said to have been
evolutionary
was It led to different disturbed, even outraged, by the Austrian
The issue quite fundamental. pessi?
on the structure of the party and on mism. Serbian attended.)5 But
positions (No delegate
the role of violence in the revolutionary process, behind their disturbance lay an optimism, not
as crystallized in the debate in Russia between the about their own proletariats but about their
only
Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. own bourgeoisies, which turned out, a mere one
There was a third debate in the nineteenth week later, to have been totally misplaced. As
It was the debate between socialists and as the French and German socialists in
century. long
between those who the thought that their (bourgeois) govern?
nationalists, argued particular
primacy of class factors and organization and ments were seeking peace, they were ready to
in terms of inter discuss militant international action the
those who sought to organize by
class alliances to achieve the political objective of war. But once their
European proletariat against
creating a new state. Essentially, these two governments showed they were ready to wage
groups saw themselves as quite different and war, the French and German parties (and all the
too were
strongly opposed
to each other. Despite some others), realizing that their organizations
occasional nineteenth century social? at stake, adopted the very same attitude of the
ambivalence,
ists saw themselves as mternationalist ("workers
Austrians which had provoked their dismay one
of the world, unite!") and saw nationalism (even week earlier.
The was the
in Eastern and Southern Europe, even in oppressed only significant exception
Bolshevik And was this so? Here too a
and colonized areas) as a bourgeois ideology. party. why
as we all know, the internationalism of clue was given by the Russian representative (of
Again,
the Second International with the onset the Mensheviks) at the Brussels meeting (the
collapsed
I.A.
of the First World War. The various national Bolshevik delegate having failed to come).
workers' their Rubanovich said of Adler's remarks: "The Russian
parties supported (bourgeois)
in the war. Why? A major clue is to situation is different from that in Austria. We
governments
be found in the minutes of the International are a secret and unorganized party. Our preoccupa?
Socialist Bureau meeting on July 29-30, 1914, on tions therefore differ."6 Precisely!
the eve of war. At that moment, the delegates The Marxists advocated organization against
anarchist individualism on the grounds that no
believed that war was threatened between Austria
and Serbia, but that France, Germany and Great serious revolution could occur without organiza?
to be restraining forces. The tion. This was unquestionably true. But the other
Britain continued
Austrian delegate, Victor Adler, deeply pessimistic side of organization was the fact that the organiza?
about the ability of the Austrian party to prevent tion's survival became the first priority, partic?
the idea that a where it was a legal party. A
war, was very skeptical about ularly already
in fact succeed: became the primary weapon
European general strike could strong organization
of revolution; it simultaneously served as a

Ideas of striking, etc., are mere fantasies. constraint on revolutionary activity. This primary
The matter is very serious and our only contradiction explains much of the subsequent

hope is that
we alone will be the victims, history of workers' parties.
that the war will not spread. Even if it The Russian Revolution seemed to break the
remains localized the party is in a but it did so in a very particular way.
very impasse,
.... We that the Like the Commune, the Russian Revolution was
sad position hope
Bureau believes us when we say that we not primarily the result of prior organizational
could not have acted We activity, whether above or underground. Rather,
differently.
want to save the party.3 it was a largely spontaneous due to the
explosion
of the Czarist the war. The
collapse regime during
difference with the Commune was that this time
The same language was spoken by A. Nemec,
the Bohemian party: "Together there was a structured underground group of
representing
 Roots in European Working Class History 3

cadres ready to exploit the situation and seize From 1920 on, the West European communist
once the of existing power a two-fold commitment to
power disintegration parties found they had
had occurred. The October Revolution could be survival: survival of their own party and survival
said to be the only serious example of the success? of the USSR. It would not always be the case that
ful application of Blanquist ideas.7 In this sense these two objectives were entirely consonant one
the Bolshevik route to power was profoundly with the other. What became clear in the period
different not only from that of the European from 1920 to 1945 was that, wherever a conflict
parties of the Second International but also from was posed between these two objectives, the
that of the "long march" practiced by the national Comintern existed to enforce priority for the
liberation/socialist movements, as in China, survival of the USSR, and even more narrowly
Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Mozambique. for what Stalin believed was most likely to ensure
Each of the latter involved a guerrilla movement the survival of the USSR, no matter what its
which mobilized popular support over time and a consequences were for revolutionary activity in
protracted armed struggle which culminated in that particular Those who disagreed
country.9
the collapse of the regime, whereas in the Russian were purged.
case it was the collapse of the regime which What did Stalin believe were most
policies
permitted the seizure of power by a party which likely to ensure the survival of the USSR? At
had never engaged in serious guerrilla activity. first, the Comintern advocated armed insurrection
The Russian Revolution had two significant
by communist parties as soon as itwas feasible. In
organizational consequences. First, there was a manual in 1928, under the direction
compiled
created a Marxist regime in a major country that of none other than Palmiro Togliatti, the position
was immediately surrounded and beleaguered is unmistakably clear:
by
the great (bourgeois) powers and which had to
fight for its survival. This desperate struggle for Armed insurrection,... at a determinate
survival placed the Bolshevik party/government in historical state ... is absolute, an inexora?
the same dilemma as had faced Victor Adler in ble necessity .... Denial of the inexorable
1914. On the one hand, the organization (now for armed insurrection . . .means
necessity
not only of the party, but of the was seen denial of the class struggle
regime) automatically
as the primary tool of .... All the other
promoting revolution (both as a whole conceptions
in Russia and the world); but on the other hand, which strive to prove the possibility, and
the need of the USSR to survive became once of a
necessity, different path [than the
a constraint on revolutionary of ?
again simultaneously dictatorship the proletariat]
activity throughout the world. non-violent, i.e., non-revolutionary
?from
This this contradiction, to socialism
dilemma, operated capitalism deny the historic
most explicitly via the second role of the proletariat as the vanguard of
organizational
consequence of the Russian Revolution, the society
.... 1?

creation of the Third International. The Third

International was intended to operate at the But this book, in the wake of the
published
international level just as the Bolshevik party did leftward turn of the 6th World Congress of the
at the national level. Not anyone could Communist International in 1928, turned out to
join
the Bolshevik party. It was a party of
professional be less a manual for the communist parties of
revolutionaries. Similarly, not any party could Western Europe than a last gasp of insurrectionary
join the Third International. They had to meet rhetoric.
the Twenty-One Conditions laid down in 1919, It should be noted that all three Communist
which required a total break with "reformism" Parties?in Spain, Italy and France?conducted
and a commitment to defend all soviet armed warfare in the twentieth century. But in
republics.
These demands led to internal divisions in most Spain, it was not conducted to conquer power,
existing parties, the most significant case undoubt? but in defense of a bourgeois republic against a
edly being that of France where, at the Congress fascist insurrection militarily supported by two
of Tours in 1920, the Socialist Party split foreign powers, Germany and Italy. In Italy,
relatively
evenly in two, a split which has remained up to armed struggle began in 1943, after the German
today.8 occupation of northern Italy and the establish
 Contemporary Marxism: Wallerstein

ment of a puppet regime in Salo. In Italy,

as in not under the
wing of their own army ?a policy
France, the armed struggle was not primarily that derived in part from inter-state accommoda
against the bourgeoisie. It was primarily an tionism, but in part from the fear of independent
anticolonial, anti-German Resistance. At no communist There was thus no
governments.
point, in the 1930's or later, did any communist contrary pressure on the Western European
even
party in Western Europe seriously plan or parties within the framework of the world com?
seriously contemplate an armed insurrection munist movement. On the contrary, the leaders of
its national In 1945, the
against bourgeoisie. the official communist parties were required to
French and Italian parties had significant armed toe the line, whenever they were tempted by local
units at their disposal. The U.S. Army had gone circumstances to go astray. And yet, of course, so
home between 1945 and 1949. These parties might it be thought were the leaders of the
were in as good a position as they ever had been Chinese and Vietnamese parties. Nonetheless,
or ever were likely to be again to engage in later history reveals that these latter parties
insurrection. If not then, it is probably never. did organize a revolutionary army. There are
If they de facto renounced insurrectionary three objective differences about the social
tactics, we must ask why. It seems to me the structures of Western Europe and that of Asian
answer is simple: neither the Soviet nor the West countries like China and Vietnam which are
communist ever fundamental to an appreciation of the strategic
European leadership really
thought the situation permitted it. The three options of the Western European working class
European parties that did engage in movements. 1) The bourgeoisie (broadly defined)
indigenous
insurrection were all minuscule before World War is demographically a of
significant proportion
II. They were the parties of Yugoslavia, Albania the population in Western Europe, and therefore
and Greece. Yugoslavia and Albania ended with politically stronger. 2) The proletariat (broadly
communist regimes which both had defined) is deeply split politically in Europe, at
subsequently
spectacular breaks with the CPSU, which may least half being committed objectively and
have justified retrospectively to the Soviets their subjectively to a reformist ideology, which is
policies on insurrection. The Greek party's efforts simply not true in Asia. This split weakened the
were squelched by the USSR as much as by the European proletariat in any class struggle. 3) Asia
U.S. and Great Britain.H was colonized and nationally by
oppressed
The basic decision was made in the 1930's Western Europe, and not vice versa. Hence
with the adoption of the "Popular Front" strategy. anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism had a natural
The arguments for a Popular Front were very congruence in Asia which they lacked inWestern
ones. There was the threat of Fascism.
powerful Europe. This congruence strengthened revolution?
The noncommunist left has never ceased reproach? ary movements in Asia.
ing the German Communist Party for its failure to For all these reasons, contrary to what must
adopt Popular Front tactics in the years immedi? now be seen as the naive tactical analyses of (all
ately preceding 1933. The lesson has been well the factions of) the nineteenth century workers'
learned. And despite the tactical pendular shifts, movement in Europe, there was and is far less
which continue right up to today?in 1980, for popular support for armed struggle of the prole?
example, the French Communist Party is in a tariat in Western Europe than in Asia?and this
distinctly non-Popular Front mood ?the fact is must already have become clear by the 1930's to
that this strategy is now deeply anchored in the the leadership of the Western European parties,
West European parties. The continuing fear of the even if they were not yet prepared to state it
far right, plus the need for organizational survival, openly.
are telling arguments, for parties, as in Far less support did not of course mean that
especially
France and Italy, which can command 20 to 35% there was no support. Ergo, at a verbal level, the
of the electorate, enough to make one recoil of Western communist
leadership European
before adventurism, but not enough to win parties did not abandon insurrection; they merely
an election is put off the day, in favor of a presumably
outright. This the structural basis of interim
a "Gramscian"
strategy. tactic of survival and incrementalism. If the
The Soviet Union, since at least the 1930's, Western European parties are to be accused of
has been clearly hostile to insurrections that were abandoning their "revolutionary" stance, the
 Roots in European Working Class History 5

moment of decision was not the 1970's but the as uncertain in their nationalist credentials. If
1930's. Their justification, if one seeks to justify, today Georges Marchais proclaims "le socialisme

lay in the assessment that even mere survival aux couleurs de la France," it is in large part to
would not be easy. Lest we think this is pure expiate the fact that Maurice Thorez refused to
rationalization, let us not forget that one of the support the Resistance during the period of

strongest communist movements in the world, the Soviet-German pact.

that of (West) Germany, is no more. It was laid Eurocommunism involves, however, another
low by Hitler and finished off by the postwar kind of expiation as well. The 20th Party Congress
of the world It was thus not of the CPSU transformed the organizational life
policies bourgeoisie.
unreasonable for the French, Italian or Spanish of all communist parties. The psychological shock
communist in the 1930's to have of the "revelations" about the Stalin era was
leadership
feared the same fate. Nor is it unreasonable to say immense, as all sorts of autobiographical docu?
that their policies them avoid that fate. ments attest. Once this had occurred, it was
helped
One may of course take the (ultra-left?) line that inevitable for the very survival of their
that,
survival in the forms in which they exist today organizations, the Western European parties
was somehow not "worth" it. had to take their distance from the USSR. The
The Second World War changed many things. clarion call of Eurocommunism was undoubtedly
For one thing, the USSR as a state and a regime Togliatti's vision of "polycentrism" in the world
did in fact survive and, despite massive physical communist movement. He made this statement in
destruction, emerged ultimately far stronger. 1956, in direct response to the 20th Party Con?
Whereas up to 1939 itwas plausible to argue that gress. And yet, of course, the Eurocommunist par?
the very survival of the only communist govern? ties cannot split irremediably from a strategic alli?
ment in power was still unsure and hence was the ance with the CPSU in some form or other. For this
number one priority of the world communist too would threaten their organizational survival
movement, this ceased to be with all barriers from a complete, Atlan
plausible by removing
the emergence of a mighty Soviet military estab? ticized "Socialdemocratization," and hence inevi?
lishment on the one hand and the creation of tably a merger into the social democratic parties.
other communist governments on the other. Keeping distance from the USSR without breaking
the
century-long battle between with it has been the continuing tactical dilemma
Secondly,
nationalist and socialist movements was being of the Eurocommunist parties.
in one country after another by an overt Destalinization was linked, let us also remem?
replaced
or covert convergence of the two movements. ber, with desatellization. 1956 was the year not
This happened inAsia,in Africa, in Latin America? only of Khrushchev's speech, but of workers' riots
in Yugoslavia, Albania and even in Canada. In a in Poznan and of the Hungarian uprising. National?
way it could even be said to have occurred a ist revolt there, too, but was it socialist? Only for
(in
very centrist in Germany, Britain, Scandi? some. This reassertion of nationalism in Eastern
form)
navia and the U.S. The one part of the world Europe led almost inevitably to the Prague spring
where this didn't seem to be true was France, and then its suppression by Soviet troops in 1968.
Italy and In this sense, the phenomenon of Poland in 1980 shows once again the power of
Spain.
Eurocommunism in this same issue by blending social demands of ordinary workers
(defined
Morosini as "national with nationalist sentiments. Destalinization too
Giuseppe Communism")
may be as the attempt of the Western has caused serious problems for the Western
interpreted
European communist parties to catch up with the European communist parties, but of a kind that
rest of the world. Marcel Padovani caught the has not gotten the attention it should. The

spirit of this when he entitled his account of the suppresion of the Dubcek regime meant that the
history of the Italian Communist Party as "the face of Eastern European nationalism was likely
The fact is that no communist to get less and less socialist. If nationalism once
long march."12
or reverted to being an exclusively
party has come to power, through insurrection again right-wing
the ballot, if it did not incarnate the nationalist force in Eastern Europe, could nationalism
thrust. Because of the particular history of the acquire a left-wing face inWestern Europe? The
Western in relation to the Eurocommunist parties feared not. Hence, the
European parties
Comintern, these parties have been deeply marked continuing and openly expressed concern of these
6 Contemporary Marxism: Wallerstein

parties about Soviet policy in Eastern Europe

was comradely fashion, we must recognize that we are
not a question of liberal idealism; it was once raising questions about issues far larger than
a question of national whether or not Eurocommunist parties are
again organizational
survival. like social democratic parties. The
becoming
We have thus argued
that Eurocommunism, in questions concern the fundamental strategy of
the of European class the workers' movement inWestern Europe, as it
light working history, ?
represents of national
the dilemmas organization has been shaped by two fundamental decisions
as the political weapon of the proletariat?both the decision in the 1880's to organize as legal,
of organization at all, and then of organization at mass parties; the decision in the 1930's to seek
the level of the nation-state. The decisions of the power via a Popular Front. Eurocommunism is
Eurocommunist are the application to the culmination of these two
parties merely logical
their concrete historical situation of the same decisions in the context of the history of the
fundamental option of the Soviet, Chinese, Third International. A "Gramscian" strategy may
Vietnamese and Cuban If we are to be logical; the question is whether it will be
parties.
applaud, to condemn, or merely to discuss in a successful.

NOTES

1. Lefebvre's "La Commune: derniere fete popu? of disciplined revolutionaries, trained in

essay, minority
arms and to use them. In his successive
late," is in James A. Leith, ed., Images of the Commune prepared
he refused to all comers: he
(Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978), pp. societies, accept
33-45. On Bakunin and the Commune, see, in the same aimed at creating, not a mass party, but a rela?
Bakunin: small elite of picked men ....
collection, Arthur Lehning, "Michael Theory tively revolutionary
and Practice of Anti-State Federalism in 1870-1871," pp.
225-44. Of course the Blanquists also played a major role [Blanqui's] fundamental belief was in the
in the Commune, and were at that point on the same side efficacy of a small highly disciplined armed party
as Marx. for revolution and destined to establish
organized
a dictatorship which would control the education
2. James Joll, The Second International, 1889-1914 (New of the people with a view to the introduction of
York, Harper Colophon, 1966), p. 24. the new social system of Communism.

3. Quoted in Georges Socialism and the Great War Socialist Thought: The Forerunners, 1789-1850 (New
Haupt,
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 252. Italics added. York, St. Martins, 1953), pp. 161, 164.
An official document
Comintern of the 1920's speaks
4. Quoted in ibid., p. 253. Italics added. Nemec continued: of doctrine ... is
very favorably Blanquism: "Blanqui's
"We in Prague are not afraid of the struggle, we are only very close to modern Marxism, and is the latter's direct
"
afraid of the destruction of our party (p. 254). precursor." A. Neuberg, Armed Insurrection (London,
New Left Books, 1970, originally published inGerman in
5. See the detailed discussion in Chapter 10 of Haupt, p. 42. The document suggests merely that his
1928),
ibid., pp. 195-215. theory was "immature" in that "Blanqui did not under?
stand and could not understand that certain conditions
6. Quoted in ibid., p. 261. Italics added. When he says the were before the insurrection could succeed.*'
required
Russian party is "unorganized," he obviously means that
it is not a legal structure operating in the conventional 8. See the detailed discussion of the split in the firstseven
political arena. He does not mean that it is unstructured. chapters of Gerard Walter, Histoire du Parti communiste

7. Notice how much this by G.D.H. Cole of francais (Paris,Aimery Somogy, Ed., 1948).
description
Blanqui's ideas sounds like a description of Bolshevik
9. For a good account of how this constraint see
operated,
tactics:
Fernando Claudm, "Spain ?The Untimely Revolution."
In 1848 Blanqui was prepared to uphold the New Left Review 74(July-Aug. 1972), pp. 3-32.
Provisional Government, while subjecting it to
continual pressure from the left-wing societies 10. Neuberg, op. cit., p. 29.
and the working-class groups. But this did not
mean that he had given up the idea of further 11. On the non-insurrectionary politics of European
revolution that he wished to bide his see in general Fernando Claudm, The Communist
?merely parties,
time. His idea continued to be that of a seizure Movement: From Comintern to Cominform (New York,
of power by a coup d'etat, organized by a Monthly Review Press, 1975). On the squelching of Greek
 Roots in European Working Class History 7

insurrectionary tendencies, see in particular Vol. II, pp. Correspondingly, it is impossible to exag?
strengthened.
309, 379-81, 416, 449. Claudm sums up his views as gerate the negative effect of the frustration of this possi?
follows: "It is clear that, in the conditions of 1945, with bility on the further development of the world revolution?
the Red Army on the Elbe, the confirmation of the ary movement. Without any it can be
exaggeration,
"revolutionary possibility" created in France and Italy compared to the consequences of the defeat of the
would have meant the victory of revolution in continental German revolution in 1918-19" (p. 316).
and a radical in the world balance of
Europe change
power, to the detriment of American imperialism, the 12. Marcel Padovani, La marche Calmann
longue (Paris,
state which had come out of the war
only large capitalist Levy, 1976).

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