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3 - The rise and fall of Eurocommunism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

By
Silvio Pons
Edited by
Melvyn P. Leffler  and
Odd Arne Westad
Melvyn P. Leffler
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Odd Arne Westad
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the leading West European Communist Parties – the Italian and the French – expressed their disapproval of the repression of the Prague Spring and of its ideological justification, known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. Such dissent marked a historic turn of events, given that both parties had unconditionally approved the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. For a brief moment, the creation of a Western Communist pole was conceived of as a possibility in Italy and France, and perceived as a danger in Moscow. However, in a few months, the scenario of a coup de théâtre – a new heresy in the Communist world – came undone. Under pressure from the USSR, Western Communism’s united front fell apart. The French Communists (Parti communiste français, or PCF) backtracked, happily accepting the authoritarian “normalization” in Czechoslovakia. The Italian Communists (Partito comunista italiano, or PCI), on the other hand, maintained their dissent, but were careful not to break with the Soviets, retaining the idea of “unity in diversity” inherited from Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the PCI from 1927 to 1964.

Nevertheless, such a prospect was kept alive by the Italian Communists, the most important Communist force in the West. They obstinately refused to brush the Prague Spring aside as a negligible episode and gradually increased their electoral strength in the country. During the early 1970s, the PCI under Enrico Berlinguer’s leadership developed into a party that promoted an Italian road to socialism within the framework of a parliamentary democracy.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Cold War , pp. 45 - 65
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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