Soviet behavior and national responses: the puzzling case of the French communist party

JULIUS W . FREND

Soviet Behavior and National Responses: The Puzzling Case of the French Communist Party

Soviet policies toward the French Communist Party (PCF) over the past quarter-century have differed in important respects from those designed to deal with other large European CPs. France looms larger on the political-military scene than Italy or Spain, and opinion formulated in French reaches far into the Third World. In the 1940s and 1950s (until 1958) the PCF won more votes than the Italian Communist Party (PCI); for many reasons the Soviets must have thought the PCF more useful, domestically and internationally, than the PCI (the Spanish Communist Party--PCE--in those years, a negligible quantity). The international role of the PCF did not change after Charles de Gaulle came to power in 1958, but by the mid-1960s his conservative capitalist regime had stripped the PCF of a gratifying and central role. Where once it had been Moscow's lieutenant in France, it found the Gaullist regime installed as the favorite foreign policy interlocutor of the Kremlin; the PCF--where political action in France was concerned--had been reduced to a purely auxiliary role. But, different in another important way from the PCI, the PCF accepted the subaltern role and continued to display deference and loyalty to Moscow. In contrast, the PCI began to assert its own views as early as 1956, in a carefully articulated political strategy which moved steadily forward after its affirmation of support for the European Community in 1962; the PCE followed in 1967-1968. STUDIES IN COMPARATIVECOMMUNISM

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The PCF had thus become less important in Moscow's bilateral relations with France than was the PCI in Soviet-Italian relations, for there the Soviets had no other interlocutor. The French Communist response to this frustration was to strive continuously to prove their superior usefulness in international Communist affairs. There were three aspects of this service: the first was the continued glorification of the Soviet regime and its policies and the merits of Communism within France itself. As long as this domestic propaganda did not metastasize into political ambition, the Soviets found this useful and necessary. The second aspect was to propagandize Soviet policy in Europe and the larger world, particularly where linguistic and cultural ties lent authority to a Francophone voice. Finally, the PCF continued to aid the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the organizations of the international Communist movement, both ad hoc and permanent. This involved the organization and sponsorship of conferences on a regional and world level, together with much quiet work within the permanent front organizations: the World Federation of Trade Unions (Wb-TU) and World Federation of Democratic Youth (both led by PCF members), the World Peace Congress, and numerous lesser organizations for women, lawyers, journalists, scientists, etc. There were hidden tensions within the CPSU-PCF relationship, which came to the surface only occasionally at first. The conservatism of the PCF, the difficulty it experienced in formulating strategy, contributed to this process of suppression, but a larger factor still was a pro-Sovietism rooted in the French Communist view of France's own history. The PCF sees itself as the continuer in France of the great revolution of 1789, and the CPSU as the incarnation of that revolution in the twentieth century. The legitimation which the CPSU seeks from recognition of its leading role by other parties here received a special chrism. The CPSU expected French loyalty and received it; used it and abused it freely. There seemed to be no limits to French Communist masochism. There were none, while the PCF was content to be Moscow's servant. But when the PCF began seriously to entertain political ambitions a new factor was introduced into master-servant relations. The PCF began to behave almost as an equal, still loyal, but with regard for its own interests.

Thorez-Khrushchev, 1956-1964 There had been tensions between the two Parties----or at least their leaders----even earlier. PCF Secretary General Maurice Thorez, selfstyled "first and best Stalinist of France," reacted coldly to the advice

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urging reform and collective leadership that came from Moscow in the months after Stalin's death. When Nikita Khrushchev dynamited his idol in 1956, Thorez reacted in fury. "The dirt this Khrushchev has dumped on all of us! He has dirtied a past that is splendid, luminous, heroic ... !" he exclaimed to his old Comintern friend Giulio Ceretti. 1 He determined to take no note of the speech, and when Central Committee (CC) member Jean Pronteau, who had read and made notes on it during a trip to Poland, asked him about it he denied its existence. "Report? What report?" When Pronteau pulled his notes out, Thorez said "Oh, you have it. You should have said so at once. In any case, remember this. This report does not exist, soon it will never have existed. We need not take any account of it." Pronteau concluded that Thorez continued to hope for the overthrow of Khrushchev. Nevertheless, the PCF hastened to distinguish itself in support of the Soviets when the Eastern bloc exploded that autumn. Thousands of members quit in protest at Soviet actions in Hungary, but in partial elections in 1957 the PCF actually gained votes. It was not, however, going anywhere. The Algerian war was destroying the Fourth Republic. The PCF opposed the war--feebly and with words alone. For Moscow, it was not a war of national liberation. In May 1958 de Gaulle returned to power. More devoted to the Fourth Republic on its deathbed than ever in its life, the PCF clamored that Fascism was at the door. Thorez could see nothing in de Gaulle but the lineaments of a right-wing general. That he could take votes from the PCF was an added insult. In Moscow, despite de Gaulle's Cold War language, the Kremlin remembered his nationalism, his quarrels with the Americans during the war. France was tearing itself apart in the Algerian war, but Europe was pulling together; the Treaty of Rome had been signed in 1957. The French Communists, following a Soviet lead, had tried in vain to block it. Moscow now saw that de Gaulle could at least delay, might even frustrate the federation of Europe. Thorez continued his private bitterness against Khrushchev, while clinging in public to the Soviet line. Meanwhile, two Politburo members, Laurent Casanova and Marcel Servin, were moving closer to the new Soviet line. Regretting Thorez's obstinate grip on the past, they considered that de Gaulle was genuinely disposed to break with the "ultras," end the Algerian war, and move away from the U.S. Casanova, as Politburo responsable for the World Peace Movement and an old ComI. Cf. Philippe Robrieux, Maurice Thorez, Vie secrete et vie publique (pads: Fayard, 1975), p. 421; Giulio Ceretti, A rOmbre des deux T (Pads: Julliard, 1973), p. 343; "Le Rapport? Quel Rapport?" interview with Jean lh'onteau in Politique Hebdo, March 11, 1976.

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intern hand, had many Soviet contacts. Neither man apparently thought to rival Thorez, only to bring him to new positions. The Soviets played a well-practiced game, manipulating and flattering Casanova. It is unclear whether they intended to build him up as a potential successor to Thorez, or only to put pressure on the old leader. At any rate, when Casanova was awarded the Lenin prize in May 1960 and termed "an eminent son of the French people," a liturgical phrase echoing Thorez's own aggrandizement as "son of the people," the Secretary General thought himself the object of a factional intrigue mounted by Khrushchev. 2 Thorez was not defenseless, though he no longer expected to see the rapid disappearance of Khrushchev. He sympathized in part with Mao Tse-tung in the dawning Sino-Soviet split, though he could not adopt Chinese theories on the impossibility of peaceful coexistence. What he could and did do was to use his relation with Mao to make himself newly useful to Khrushchev in negotiating the 81-Party Communist summit conference of 1960. When the conference was successfully concluded in December (as it seemed then), Thorez's position was reinforced. He proceeded to effect a classical Stalinist maneuver. In January 1961 Khrushchev's partisans were removed from the Politburo; they and their supporters also lost their positions in the Central Committee. No clear reason was given, of course. The offenders had made "baseless and opportunist affirmations according to which the policy of the Party had been interpreted and applied in a restrictive manner by the leadership. "3 There is no evidence that Moscow objected; Khrushchev had already won his point. And whether by explicit or implicit agreement with the Soviets, Thorez now adopted elements of his rivals' policy. After the end of the Algerian war in 1962 and de Gaulle's veto of British entry into the Common Market in early 1963, it was easier to accept a new vision of de Gaulle--the enemy of one's enemy who was, if not a friend, at least a "positive" force. In the meantime Thorez had again proven his loyalty in 1962. As the Italian Party faltered in the struggle against the European Community, which was already making nonsense of Thorez's cherished notions about the increasing impoverishment of the working class, the PCF held high the torch of opposition. For the PCF, the Common Market benefited only monopolists, not workers. He who denied this was a re2. Robrieux, Maurice Thorez, p. 551. 3. Jacques Fauvet, Histoire du Parti communiste francais, 2rid ed. (Paris: Fayard, 1977), p. 489.

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visionist, pure and simple. 4 At the same time, Thorez approved the first post-Cold War entente with the Socialist Party in 1962. But this was not out of line with Soviet views on the value of alliances with socialist parties--if they were weak enough. Thus when Thorez died on a Soviet ship en route to the U.S.S.R. in July 1964 his own relations with the CPSU were again in order, while his Party remained almost entirely ignorant that any real quarrel had troubled joint relations. But should this account of a largely hostile relation between two secretaries general be treated as a case of subordinate behavior, or was it not a clear case of opposition? Opposition there was--but largely covert, and personal, not institutional. Thorez was obliged to intrigue against Khrushchev rather than oppose him openly. He overtly slowed the pace of French de-Stalinization, but cloaked the remainder of his hostility in pro-Soviet behavior. Indeed, after the Twentieth CPSU Congress, Thorez criticized the old notion of "unconditional" attachment to the U.S.S.R. by pointing out that the attachment was indeed conditioned--by the fact that there could be no divergences [!] between the interests of France and those of the U.S.S.R. 5 There is no reason to doubt that Thorez genuinely believed this. He might detest Khrushchev and cheer on his enemies, but he could not follow Mao into opposition against the CPSU. His quarrel with Khrushchev could not be brought into the open, sowing confusion in the ranks and delighting the class enemy. Nothing remained but the paths of backstairs intrigue.

Waldeck Rochet, 1964-1968 Thorez's successor had been the Party's chief agricultural expert. A veteran of three years in Comintern schools, he was at least as loyal to the CPSU as Thorez, and a good deal more naive. 6 But Rochet did want to take his Party out of its political isolation, deepened by the defeats of the early de Gaulle years. When an anti-Communist plan to run Marseilles mayor Gaston Defferre as a center-left candidate in 1965 against de Gaulle collapsed, Rochet threw all his prestige into an alternate plan--the rally of all leftist forces around a candidate who was neither Communist nor Socialist, Francois Mitterrand. 7 Moscow was not pleased. There may have been secret remonstrances. According to 4. Donald L.M. Blackmer, Unity and Diversity: Italian Communism and the Communist World (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968), pp. 305-319. 5. Cited in Andr6 Barjonet, Le Patti communistefrancais (Pads: Didier, 1969), p. 185. 6. Pierre Daix, Les Hdrdtiques du PCF (Paris: Laffont, 1980), p. 239. 7. Barjonet, Le Parti communiste francais, p. 200.

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Pierre Daix, "Soviet and Bloc diplomats in Pads did not hesitate in private to criticize PCF opposition to de Gaulle." But when a TASS dispatch stated that some of those opposing de Gaulle would vote for him anyway because of "certain positive and realistic" measures in foreign policy, the PCF did not reply directly. Instead, Rochet reiterated his support of Mitterrand. Pravda censored the report of his speech. 8 The Soviets were intervening in the domestic policies of the PCF---in an area where the French Party may originally have thought it had a green light. The interests of the U.S.S.R. and the PCF had clashed-briefly. Still, no one thought Mitterrand had a chance against de Gaulle; his candidacy was only a political demonstration. The PCF Politburo nevertheless found a characteristically indirect way to show its displeasure. In February 1966 it authorized the Party's leading cultural luminary, Louis Aragon, to protest against the impending trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel. Party daily l'Humanit# published his article, but was silent when the two men were sentenced. 9 Later in 1966, however, the Argenteuil Central Committee meeting promulgated a species of charter of cultural freedom that was an indirect criticism of Soviet practice. Criticism of Soviet shortcomings in the cultural area represented a half-hearted imitation of Italian practice. But the PCI used the technique consistently during the 1960s, building its domestic constituency by presenting a clear though limited disagreement with the Soviets. The French Communists, by criticizing only sporadically, emphasized the exceptionalism of their disagreement. There was no consensus in the PCF to adopt Italian ways. The signal sent--perhaps the signal intended--was "we are in almost total agreement with you; do not be displeased when we mutter occasionally, for it has little significance." The PCF continued to play its accustomed role of sheep dog among the Communist Parties in the period after the split with China had become institutionalizedmat the Karlovy Vary meeting of European Parties in 1967 and in aiding the Soviets to convoke a world conference to discipline the Chinese. In domestic politics, however, Rochet followed up the innovations of 1965, concluding an electoral agreement with the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left led by Mitterrand. The coalition took all but a slim majority from the Gaullists in the 1967 elections. But the PCF felt confident that it had the upper hand in its alliance--it had won 8. See Ronald Tiersky, French Communism, 1920-1972 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 243, and Daix, Les H~r~tiques du PCF, p. 332. 9. Ibid., p. 238.

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22.5 percent of the vote against 19 for the loosely organized Federation parties. Then came May, 1968. The events of May showed that the PCF, underneath its old-fashioned revolutionary rhetoric, was not a revolutionary Party. Its hopes of coming to power were bound up with the electoral process----or possibly with the fortunes of the Soviet Union, for it was still not sure which. But de Gaulle's lieutenant Georges Pompidou had an easy time identifying the PCF with the left that had frightened a majority of Frenchmen in May, and the PCF lost heavily in the elections de Gaulle called to resolve the May crisis. Thereafter, the Party should logically have redoubled its efforts to appear as a consequent democratic party of the Left--the Italian model. It did make some inconclusive moves in this direction--in its early criticism of Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, and in the Champigny manifesto on democracy in September 1968. But at the same time it held fast to its relationship with Moscow. In the early months of the Prague experiment, the PCF did take a formal position welcoming the new developments. But underneath, Rochet feared a repetition of the Hungarian process of 1956. He and the other PCF leaders hoped the Soviets would not intervene, but agreed with the Soviets that a Communist regime which allowed freedom of speech and press was a dangerous innovation. Once the June 1968 elections were over, Rochet turned his attention to international affairs. The first goal was to avoid Soviet intervention, and the PCF and PCI could agree on this. Together with fourteen other West European Parties, they proposed a conference to alleviate tensions. Neither Moscow nor Prague thought much of this. Rochet then flew to Moscow (July 17) and after listening carefully to the Soviet leaders and checking back with his own Politburo went on to Prague. Quite exceptionally, we possess the record of his talks with Dubcek and company on July 19-20. I° They show complete uniformity with Soviet views. Though the French leader protested that he was not in Prague as a Soviet emissary, nothing in the protocol of their talks suggests a French viewpoint--Rochet simply repeated what he had been told. Did he hope that he had gained something in Moscow-Brezhnev's promise that there would be no intervention?~! At any rate, the PCF leaders apparently took the precaution of warning Moscow during the ensuing month that they would be forced to oppose an invasion. ~2 For the first time, they were behaving as equals. 10. Text in Politique Aujourd'hui, May 1970. I I. Daix, Les H6rdtiques du PCF, p. 242. 12. Fauvet, Histoire du Parti communiste francais, p. 560.

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When the invasion did come, the French Party proclaimed its "reprobation," though it may be that the PCF acted less from principled disapproval than from annoyance at being gulled, plus the desire, after the setbacks of June, to put a new and patriotic face on the Party. At any rate, a former insider records the words of the very pro-Soviet Politburo member Gaston Plissonier to the Soviet ambassador who had just announced the news of the invasion, "It is our job now to defend the Party. ''13 Soviet reaction to the wave of unaccustomed criticism from almost all the West European Parties was to apply pressure. French language tracts printed in the U.S.S.R. and East Germany were circulated in the French Party. The rank and file, unprepared for the new position, was frequently critical. The PCF leaders wavered. Dubcek partisan Paul Noirot, editor of the PCF magazine Democratie nouvelle, was preparing a special number on Czechoslovakia. The director of the magazine was the old Kremlin loyalist Jacques Duclos, who at first posed no objections. But in October Duclos suddenly vetoed publication, though the issue was almost ready. 14 Thorez's widow Jeannette Vermeersch had resigned from the Politburo in late October to protest the "disloyalty" of the PCF. Some leaders may have feared that she would be used as a Soviet figurehead, if they did not weaken. But it is probable that a little-noticed conjuncture was more important. In October Rochet's doctors had diagnosed in him "an organic neurological sickness"---the disease which within a year was to make of him a living vegetable. 15 The diagnosis was kept very secret--Rochet was even reelected Secretary General from his hospital bed in 1970. But organization secretary Georges Marchais and senior pro-Soviets Duclos and Plissonier must certainly have known of it and probably the Soviets did too. The succession was about to be opened, with all the possibilities that implied for Soviet intrigue, at a time when the PCF could be torn apart by the Czechoslovak question.

Early Marchais Marchais was the logical successor to Rochet. He had come up fast, and was not so well liked that he could consolidate his position rapidly. 13. Francois Hincker, Le Parti communiste au carrefour (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981), p. 82. 14. Daix, Les H#r~tiques du PCF. p. 560. 15. Ibid., p. 337 n., quoting l'Humanitd of Match 24, 1980 (!) on the date of diagnosis.

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In any case, no one in the leadership---with the exception of Roger Garaudy--had any appetite for a continuing quarrel with the Soviets. Thus all reasons combined together to counsel retreat. In November 1968 Rochet led a delegation to Moscow, composed of Duclos, Raymond Guyot, Marchais, and Jean Kanapa. Differences were composed, although the PCF retained its newfound right to disagree. ~6 Was Marchais Moscow's candidate for PCF leadership? Many have said he was, and certainly Moscow did not try to block him, though it could have done so. If no one else had told Moscow about Marchais' past, Jeannette Vermeersch must have. For Marchais had a secret blot on his record--his voluntary departure in February 1943 to work in a German aircraft factory. The exact circumstances of this episode have never been clarified, and more important, neither have those of his late entry into the PCF and his rapid ascent in it. Bodyguard for Thorez in 1947 (which meant a thorough background check), then secretary of the important Seine-Sud federation, organization secretary after Servin's disgrace in 1961, Marchais had been favored for special reasons by the Thorez couple. These may or may not have been creditable-Marchais has never cared to explain. But since his background was murky, it presented a formidable opportunity for Soviet blackmail. If it was used, it was not used publicly. In late 1968, Mitterrand's Federation collapsed. After de Gaulle's resignation in 1969, the PCF could no longer ally itself on the left. The socialists, hoping to profit from Communist falling-off after Prague, put up anti-Communist Defferre, though centrist candidate Alain Poher seemed the strongest candidate against Gaullist heir Georges Pompidou. The Communists therefore put up their own candidate, Duclos, as engaging a politician as any who ever cracked a witticism in the West or urged cracking heads in the East. Defferre got a miserable 5 percent, Duclos 21 plus. Poher faced Pompidou in the second round, in which the PCF refused to throw its vote to Poher. Certainly the Soviets favored a Gaullist candidate over a pro-NATO centrist, but they may not have had to exert much pressure. For the PCF, as Duclos said, the choice was "bonnet blanc ou blanc bonnet." But the PCF had emerged very well from the elections, compared with the Socialists. Better still, the Socialists rapidly concluded from their disaster that they could only improve their fortunes through an alliance with the Communists. Thus when the world conference of Communist Parties met in Moscow in 1969, the PCF felt no domestic pressure forcing it to choose between loyalty to Moscow and domestic 16. Fauvet, Histoire du Patti communiste francais, p. 562.

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gains. Marchais, actual leader of the delegation (Rochet was in a Moscow hospital), could afford to be silent on Czechoslovakia, even while suggesting that his Party had not forgotten the subject. The PCF did not grant Brezhnev the pleasure of heating its voice joining his attack on Mary---too much discipline in the Communist camp might be dangerous--but it signed the full final document of the conference, whereas the PCI and five other European Parties had marked reservations, t7

Continued Loyalty, 1969-1975 The history of CPSU-PCF relations in the years after the 1969 conference again centers on domestic French developments. Moscow was content with Pompidou's continuation of Gaullist foreign policy. But after 1968 the PCF realized the dangers of praising Gaullist foreign policy while trying to distinguish it from "reactionary" domestic policy. The PCF compromised: it directed its fire against Pompidolian lapses-a slightly closer relation to NATO, encouragement of British entry into the European Community. Presumably Moscow was satisfied. In 1972, however, Marchais negotiated the Common Program of Government with the revived Socialist party, now led by Mitterrand. The Common Program was a favorite PCF idea, which first emerged in 1959, and alliance with an inferior Socialist party Was an approved Soviet tactic. But Mitterrand was no Kremlin favorite. Moscow also seems to have feared from the first that over-enthusiastic engagement in electoral politics would lure the PCF from its proper loyalties. When the PCF Twentieth Party Congress met in late 1972 the chief topic was the new Common Program. But Soviet delegate Mikhail Suslov was eloquently silent about it when he addressed the Congress. The events of 1972-1975 present a complex overlap of action and reaction between the CPSU and the PCF. For the first time the French Party was seriously taking the dangerous Italian path that led to the development of national interests which clashed with Soviet ones. The Soviets attempted to forestall this by warning that alliances with socialist parties could get out of hand if the CP was not strong enough. Marchais remained confident, and seemed justified by the 1973 legislative elections in which the PCF took 21.4 percent to the Socialists' 19.2. Moscow remained unconvinced. When Boris Ponomarev pointed up the moral in a Worm Marxist Review article on the lessons of the 17. Kevin Devlin, "The Interparty Drama," Problems of Communism, XXIV, 4 (JulyAugust 1975), p. 22.

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Chilean debacle, stressing the need for left coalitions to control the armed forces and police, the French Party pointedly dropped the article • 18 • from the French edition of the magazine. Stdl the PCF tried to prove itself a loyal ally, aiding the Soviets wherever it could and maintaining a strongly pro-Soviet tone in its press. But the forces of drift were powerful. Pompidou died in early April 1974, and Mitterrand became the sole candidate of the Left, losing in the second round by only a few tenths of a percent. The first reaction on the Left was that his defeat was really a triumph, presaging future victories in the near future• But by the end of that summer, as the PCF examined the way in which the unitary campaign had affected its own constituency, it realized that Mitterrand had emerged as the generally recognized leader of the Left--and this was not the PCF's idea at all. Beginning in October 1974, the PCF opened a bitter attack on the Socialists (PS) that lasted deep into 1975. But not everyone in the PCF leadership had despaired of the alliance• Some wanted to break, but others thought it sufficient merely to cut Mitterrand and his party down to size. The Mitterrand candidacy had provoked a serious quarrel with the Soviets, who had made clear their support first for Gaullist candidate Jacques Chaban-Delmas, then for Giscard. The PCF protested publicly. In January-February 1974, it had spent a good deal of political capital in a violent attack on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag Archipelago, just before the author was exiled from the Soviet Union. Its recompense was Soviet support for Giscard. But growing tension with the Soviet Union was obscured by the quarrel with the Socialists, and in the meantime international events complicated the situation even more. In 1974, the Soviets began again to beat the tub for an international conference of Communist Parties. A world conference was the goal, a European conference the intermediate step. The first preparatory meeting took place in October, 1974. In the previous April, the Portuguese revolution had opened sudden opportunities for the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Its leader Alvaro Cunhal believed that by allying his Party with the radical leaders of the Armed Forces Movement and the left fringe of the Socialist party he could repeat Lenin's 1917 tactics of using a tightly organized and purposive force, a minority with decisive strength in key places, to achieve Communist takeover. The PCF gave eager support to the Portuguese Communists. This cost them points in the domestic French polemic with the Socialists. At the same time, Kanapa, now chief of the PCF Central Committee 18. Boris Ponomarev, "The World Situation and the Revolutionary Process," World Marxist Review (Toronto-North American edition), Vol. 17, No. 6 (June 1974), pp. 3-15.

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foreign policy section and delegate to the preparatory sessions for the European Communist conference, was arguing that the final conference document should state explicitly that peaceful coexistence did not mean support for social and political status quo. 19 The link between Kanapa's strategy at the conference and PCF support for the PCP may well have been an attempt at consistency, trying to convince the Soviets--themselves somewhat skeptical about revolutionary chances in Portugal-that the European boat could be rocked. 2° By October 1974 the PCF had two strikingly divergent options. It could confirm its tentative break with the Socialists, take a domestic hard line, and back the Portuguese CP. For this, it needed an assurance that the Soviets favored a radical policy in Europe consistent with the implications of the Portuguese revolution. The alternative course was to renew relations with the Socialists, hoping thereby to win the 1978 elections and enter the government with a strong though not a dominant force. Whatever it wanted in Portugal, Soviet policy favored good relations with the Giscard government. In early December 1974 Brezhnev visited France, inviting Giscard for a return visit in 1975. He also met with Marchais. Their communiqu6 showed no evidence of strain, but at the December 1974 preparatory meeting for the European CP conference chief Soviet delegate Ponomarev said, "it would be useful to reaffirm at our conference the common stand of European Communists on the alleged 'incompatibility' of peaceful coexistence and the class struggle. ''2t In other words, the CPSU intended to pay no attention to the PCF. The year 1975 deserves study in depth. It presents a highly complex pattern of PCF-CPSU relations, in which the French began with gestures of independence coupled with diplomatic cooperation--apparently designed to put pressure on the Soviets and simultaneously reassure them--while the Soviets apparently ignored or underestimated the warning signs. The year ended with a near break in relations, though the evidence for it did not become plain until 1976. In mid-January Marchais suffered a heart attack, though it was immediately announced that he was not critically ill and continued to follow Party activities. Some writers suggest that Moscow took advantage of the illness to pro19. See Kevin Devlin, "The Challenge of Eurocommunism," Problems of Communism, XXVI, I (January-February 1977). 20. Robert Legvold, "The Soviet Union and West European Communism" in Rudolf T6k6s (ed.), Eurocommunism and Detente (New York: N.Y.U. Press, 1978), pp. 334-335. 21. Worm Marxist Review Information Bulletin (Toronto-North American edition), Vol. 13, No. 281 (1975), p. 15 (Ponomarev speech); p. 33 (PCF-CPSU communiqu6).

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pose that he accept the pro-Soviet Politburo member Plissonier as deputy. 22 Though hard evidence is lacking, a new Marchais-Kanapa line toward the Soviets certainly emerged in these months, marked by bad temper. While Marchais was still in the hospital a PCF CC meeting attacked Giscard's depiction of French foreign relations: "what cynicism to pretend that our country is the friend of everybody." But the Soviets in Brezhnev's December trip to Paris had just displayed conspicuous friendship with Giscard. In March, Prime Minister Chirac told reporters before leaving on a trip to Moscow that he would suggest to Brezhnev that there was a contradiction between PCF support for the independent French deterrent and the offensive carried out by the PCF to undermine it. The implication was that Brezhnev would discipline the PCF. Marchais, now convalescent, seized on this and denounced it as an invitation to the Soviets to interfere in French affairs. He added, "MM. Giscard and Chirac telephone Bonn before taking each important decision. We Communists do not telephone. Not even to Moscow." He enlarged on this two days later: "I never telephone Leonid Brezhnev. I never consult him, and if one day Leonid Brezhnev should allow himself to intervene in the policies of the PCF our relations would not be what they a r e n o w . ' ' 2 3 In these months, when the rift between the CPSU and the PCF was widening, Moscow took the unusual step of stationing a senior functionary from the CC International Department in Paris. This was Yuri Pankov, formerly chief of the Latin section (concerned with the nonruling CPs in Romance-language countries), who arrived at the Soviet Embassy in Paris in early 1975, with the rank of minister counsellor. In his previous job, Pankov had been responsible for all details of CPSU policy toward the PCF. Whether he was dispatched as a negotiator or a watchdog, his mission was a failure. 24 An old link with the CPSU disappeared when senior Stalinist Duclos died in April 1975; his Politburo colleague Benoit Frachon followed him in August. Inside the top councils of the PCF two pro-Soviet voices had been stilled. In May, the PCF published a Declaration of Freedoms including a number of items demarcating PCF views from 22. Claude Harmel, "La crise des relations entre le patti communiste francais et le parti communiste de I'Union sovietique," Estet Ouest (Paris), No. 638 (March 1-31, 1980), p. 82. 23. Harmel, "La Crise." Quotes from l'Humanitd, March 22, 197.5 and Le Monde, March 25, 1975. 24. Harmel, "La Crise." On the International Department, see Leonard Schapiro, "The International Department of the CPSU," International Journal (Toronto), XXXII, I (Winter 1976-77), pp. 45-48.

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Soviet practice: no coalescence of Party and state, condemnation of the practice of political exile and forced expatriation of dissenters, no arbitrary commitment to mental institutions. The PCF had never given much publicity to these practices in the Soviet Union. Now it was not only piously abjuring them in France, but pointing out their presence in the U.S.S.R. The rhythm of bilateral meetings slowed in 1975; no important member of the PCF leadership met with Soviet leaders. Two candidate members of the PCF Politburo led delegations in June, and both met with Ponomarev and Vadim Zagladin. Pravda duly noted these meetings, but curiously enough l'Humanitd did not. 25 What did the CPSU do, as it saw the PCF begin to slip its moorings? It could no longer control the PCF as it had in Stalin's time. Marchais would not come to Moscow, and Moscow's man in Paris Pankov was having no success. In these months Moscow was caught by pressure from two sides. At the continuing preparatory meetings for the conference of European CPs, the PCI, PCE and the Yugoslav and Romanian Parties refused any reintroduction of a "general line" into international Communist affairs. In the meetings held in February, March, and April 1975 the PCF still supported the view held by the Soviets that the conference should be broadly ideological. At the April session Kanapa even backed an East German document which marked a reversion to earlier Soviet proposals, rather than the compromise the East Germans had been expected to draft. Thus the PCF still sided with the Soviets, but insisted at the same time that mention be made of the PCF hard-line interpretation of peaceful coexistence. Moscow had to make some compromise, and preferred to side with the Itaio-Yugoslav group. These Parties espoused ideas which, if taken seriously, were subversive of Soviet concepts. But at this phase of conference preparation Soviet negotiators were evidently less interested in ideas than in timing. The European CP conference had been designed as an overture for the Helsinki conference. Though the scheduling was clearly going to slip, with the Helsinki conference meeting first, the CP conference theme still had to be consonant with the Helsinki meeting-and that meant that the leitmotif must be peaceful coexistence. Moscow could not afford to humor the PCF by supporting its parochial interests. It could only tell the French Communists to behave themselves and be patient. Precisely when did the leadership of the PCF decide to refrigerate relations with the CPSU? By summer 1975 the domestic timetable was 25. Branko Lazitch, "Les contacts PCF-PCUS en 1975/76," Est et Ouest, No. 584 (December 16-31, 1976), pp. 413-415.

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pressing. Cantonal elections were due in spring 1976, nationwide municipal elections a year later, legislative elections in March 1978. If the PCF could not win Soviet support, it must strengthen its position within France. That meant repatching the alliance with the Socialists, and in turn electoral competition with them, hardly likely to be successful if the PCF did not display a critical attitude toward the Soviets. Here the influence of Kanapa was crucial. He had become Marchais' principal advisor on foreign affairs, and was soon to take Duclos' vacated seat in the Politburo. Kanapa was generally considered to be proSoviet. But this chilly intellectual had long been reevaluating the worth of the Soviet tie to the PCF. He continued to approve the bulk of Soviet foreign policy except for Soviet support of the status quo in Europe. At the same time, he took a poor view of the Soviet record in domestic affairs and believed that the PCF must not accept subordination to the CPSU in international Communist affairs.26 Kanapa, however, was a foreign policy expert whose writ did not run in domestic affairs. He wanted to put more distance between the PCF and the CPSU, an action which made sense if the Union of the Left were to be continued. But after October 1974, the PCF was hesitating whether or not to do so, and Kanapa does not seem to have had much influence on this process. Kanapa's struggle to win Soviet approval for positions on peaceful coexistence, in the period between October 1974-October 1975, therefore, took place in a vacuum. The PCF leaders, Kanapa among them, may have hoped that a Communist victory in the Portuguese revolution, with full Soviet support, would open a new and different road for the PCF. But it would be dangerous to posit a tight logical connection between PCF domestic and foreign policy during this particularly confused period, and it is by no means certain that the PCF leadership (at odds with itself) had thought through its actions and its choices. By August 1975, however, the PCF leaders had apparently concluded that the CPSU would not back the Portuguese CP all the way, and that Cunhal was mistaken in pushing too hard. 27 If the Portuguese opportunity had proved illusory, and the CPSU remained opposed to resumption of the PCF alliance with the Socialists the PCF had a clear 26. See Hincker, Le Parti communiste au carrefour, p. 165 for a r~sum6 of Kanapa's ideas and importance in this process. 27. See Ronald Tiersky, "French Communism in 1976," Problems of Communism, XXV, I (January-February 1976), p. 39, for a suggestion that the PCF was urging caution on Cunhal by mid-1975. In early August Marchais made off-the-cuff comments on the famous Zarodov letter, saying "We will not allow our brothers in Portugal to be massacred.., we hope we are not alone in this struggle." Le Figaro, August 9-10, 1975.

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choice between a risky but potentially rewarding alliance with the Socialists, and political isolation in France accompanied by renewed subordination to the CPSU. Thus by autumn 1975 the CPSU and the PCF had arrived at a crisis point. In an obvious reference to Kanapa, an unidentified Soviet leader remarked in October, "it's about time the PCF understood that Soviet foreign policy is decided in Moscow, and only there. ''28 Kanapa was still trying to push his point in the October meeting of the conference preliminary committee---though perhaps only for the record. He came away discouraged, and published first an interview, then an article in l'Humanitd, and finally a longer article in France nouvelle, in which he said, "the political content of the conference draft has been impoverished .... that has not been our doing. ''29 It is unlikely that the PCF would have taken so much trouble to put these views on record if it thought they still had a chance.

The Day-Fly Life of French Eurocommunism In mid-November, Marchais flew to Rome, and in a clamorous break with previous tactics associated the PCF almost entirely with the PCI. There followed a series of other demonstrative acts: in early December the PCF Politburo took the occasion of a French TV program on concentration camps in Soviet Latvia to denounce this "intolerable picture" of imprisonment. This provoked Pravda to reproach the PCF for defending a crude anti-Communist forgery. Marchais then discovered that the dictatorship of the proletariat was incompatible with PCF doctrine, refused to attend the Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU, and sided with the Italians and Yugoslavs in the final preparatory sessions for the CP conference. When it was finally held in June 1976, he was quoted as saying that further meetings of this sort would serve no purpose. In late March 1976, Kanapa had given a highly critical report on the Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress to the PCF Central Committee, while front officials Pierre Gensous (then still Secretary General of the WFTU) and Raymond Guyot criticized Soviet influence in the WFTU and World Peace movefnent. The Soviet reply was a violent letter addressed to the Central Committee. The CPSU may have thought the French would take it as a warning and keep it secret from all but top officials. Instead, Kanapa read it to an indignant Central Committee at the next meeting in early May. Numerous members took the floor to 28. Le Monde, October 16, 1975. 29. France nouvelle, October 20, 1975.

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protest, for the Soviets had criticized the bases of the decisions taken at the Twenty-second Congress, and called on the PCF to rethink its positions. The letter could have been--and was--taken as an appeal to the PCF to overthrow the Marchais-Kanapa leadership. 3° Afterward, Marchais swore that he would never set foot in Moscow again if matters went on like this. There would be no retreat. The PCF did retreat, of course, and in as puzzling a manner as that of its advance. The new nastiness toward the CPSU survived the decease of the Union of the Left, which was left for dead in September 1977 and buried in March 1978. By then, the policy had outlived its purpose. But as late as September 1978 the PCF Politburo gave its much publicized seal of approval to a new book b y five PCF Sovietologists. Entitled I ' U R S S et nous, the book attempted a semicritical introduction to the Soviet Union for Party members, previously spared any criticism. The book was promptly attacked by the Soviets. A long article in K o m m u n i s t in December called it anti-Soviet, and wondered why the authors felt "so passionate a desire to take their distance from Moscow, the CPSU, the Communist parties of other Socialist countries." The article was promptly reprinted in a number of languages by N e w Times. 31 But between the book's publication and the K o m m u n i s t attack the PCF had begun to backtrack. Perhaps the fatal sickness and death in late 1978 of Kanapa, "the brain of a man who does not have one," had something to do with this. In October, a delegation from the East German SED, led by Hermann Axen, visited Paris and apparently laid the foundation for a gradual PCF reconciliation with the CPSU. On November 7, 1978, a Politburo statement, emphasizing that the PCF still had differences with the CPSU on the "democratic component" of socialism, nevertheless proclaimed that the global balancesheet of the sixty-one years since 1917 was "positive. ''32 The statement was repeated in May 1979 at the PCF Twenty-third Congress. Still, the Party continued to zig-zag, attacking repression in Czechoslovakia, while sparing the Soviet Union. Marchais did not go to Moscow in 1979, just as he had not gone for the sixtieth anniversary of the Revolution. Liaison continued on a lower level. Meanwhile the campaign against the "rightist course" of the Socialist party continued unabated. The PCF leader did, however, make a long trip to Yugoslavia in July 1979, and the communiqu6 of his talks with the ancient Marshal Tito 30. Hincker, Le Parti communiste au carrefour, p. 167. 31. New Times (Moscow), December 22, 1978. 32. L'HumaniM, July 6, 1979.

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stressed their conformity of views on the strict respect for the principles of equality among Parties, and the independent sovereign rights of each Party. 33 Later in the month, Kanapa's successor Maxime Gremetz visited Moscow, where his talks with Ponomarev and colleagues were reported as "frank and friendly.''34

Afghanistan, Mitterrand's Victory, and After A gradual improvement of relations had set in throughout 1979, but what were the Soviet inducements or the internal pressures which led the PCF, in late December 1979, to leap to approve the Soviet actions in Afghanistan? Marchais had spent his Christmas vacation in Cuba, where Fidel Castro, noticeably displeased at the damage done to his new position as leader of the "nonaligned" movement, may not have been an eloquent advocate for Soviet positions. At any rate, nothing was said about either the U.S.S.R. or Afghanistan in the communiqu6 on their talks. Marchais then flew off to Moscow, for his first visit since 1975. He may have thought he had gained a point in the final communiqu6, which said that "peaceful coexistence cannot be the political and social status quo." A statement issued by the PCF Politburo just before Marchais' talks in Moscow "took note" of the explanations of the Soviet government on Afghanistan; the communiqu6 after Marchais' talks did not mention Afghanistan.35 But Marchais then went on, in a television interview beamed from Moscow, to justify the Afghan intervention, and persisted in front of his Central Committee on January 22. In the television interview, he distinguished between the Soviet interventions in Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia, on the grounds that the Czechoslovak Party and people had wished to give a new direction to the construction of socialism. "Therefore, we condemned the intervention in Czechoslovakia, and continue to condemn it, and we condemn the trials and arrests that have recently taken place in Prague. ''36 If Marchais' principal aim was to reingratiate himself with the CPSU, why did he raise the subject of Czechoslovakia? According to newspaper reports, he had told PCI leaders in early January that the change in the balance of world forces made the Soviet Union more powerful than ever, while the United States, citadel of capitalism, had never been so weak. 37 If he was convinced of this, Marchais should 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

L'Humanitg, July 26, 1979. Le Monde, November 7, 1978. Kevin Devlin, Radio Free Europe Research, RAD BR/9, January 15, 1980. L'Humanitd, January 12, 1980. Daily Telegraph (London), February 4, 1980.

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have avoided any topic unpalatable to Soviet ears. After all, President Hafizullah Amin had found insufficient loyalty to the U.S.S.R. to be quite lethal, only two weeks before. Presumably strong Soviet pressure had been brought to bear on the PCF. But the context of this pressure was necessarily the anomalous position of the PCF. Having taken its distance from the CPSU because the Soviets had insisted that the PCF timing in wishing to come to power in 1978 was ill chosen, the PCF had ended by implicitly agreeing with the CPSU. This is not to say that when it broke with the PS in September 1977 the PCF obeyed Soviet orders; there is no evidence for this contention. Rather, the PCF had suddenly come to the realization that it was unwilling to go into government as a junior partner to the PS and accept responsibility to "administer the crisis." But the Party's post-1978 strategy was not very new--it was still predicated on an alliance with the Socialists. The PCF now hoped that it could grow stronger, the Socialists weaker, and nevertheless both together could win a majority. The mathematics for this theory were implausible in the extreme; clearly they could not work at all in the presidential elections of 1981, perhaps not in the legislative elections set for 1983. They required a long period of capitalist decay, Socialist dissolution, and Communist steadfastness. During this long wait PCF leaders may have thought that they needed a truce with the CPSU, guiding force of the increasingly powerful Soviet Union. Conjecturally restored, the recipe required enough reconciliation to satisfy the most pro-Soviet elements, in order to fend off any Soviet interference in PCF affairs, and also enough independence to assert to others both inside and outside the Party that the basic position of the PCF had not changed. The strategy is so implausible that it recalls the old definition of a camel, "an animal designed by a committee." Not reasoned strategy; only compromise could have produced it. Events in Poland soon made the compromise even more difficult. The initial PCF reaction was to downplay them, and then to stress the Polish Party's ability to manage things. While the PCI was pressing solidarity with the Polish workers, the PCF worried about the Party and the government. Accounts of the first strikes in l'Humanit~ were reminiscent of strike coverage by a strongly conservative Western paper--the same deep approval of law and order, the same fear of anarchy. Marchais had announced years earlier that the PCF would run its own presidential candidate in 1981. Since he was the Candidate, he

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took the precaution of not going to Moscow for the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, claiming that he was too busy at home. Evidently the Soviet relationship was again becoming a handicap. He had, of course, no hope of winning. But it was important to him to score as well as possible, improving on the 20 percent of the last two elections. The real strategy for the elections was to defeat Socialist candidate Mitterrand, not from love of Giscardmthat was left to Moscowmbut in order to discourage and disunite the Socialists, opening the way for gains in future years. The strategy miscarried badly. Disgusted with the zig-zag course of 1978-1981, aware that the leadership desired Giscard's reelection as a lesser evil, one-quarter of former PCF voters deserted and supported Mitterrand on the first ballot. Reduced to 15.3 percent, the PCF leaders could not use their presumptive plan to defeat Mitterrand, which would have been to withhold enough disciplined voters to defeat him. (If the arithmetic of 1978 had applied in 1981, 700,000 votes would have sufficed.) Nothing remained but to support Mitterrand and hope for whatever gleanings could be picked up. The Socialists announced that they would come to an agreement with the PCF only if the Communists recanted their earlier positions on Afghanistan. The PCF got away cheaply on this by announcing its support for a withdrawal of troops. Afterwards, Marchais told his Central Committee that the PCF had never really zig-zagged, because the Party's position had been presented in the media as the sign of "a total realignment of our party on Soviet lines, which is exactly the contrary of the common communiqu6." The realignment had in fact not been total~and of course PCF realignment with the Socialists was even more doubtful. Having refused to fight the 1978 election with the Socialists for fear of junior partnership, the PCF was forced to confront the wreckage of its policy in June 1981. It did not dare to remain out of the government and face the recriminations for past errors. But at the time of writing, it is unlikely that the Party will remain inside the government for very longMperhaps only until it can get what benefit it can from the nationwide municipal elections of 1983. During this interim, the difficulties of its position suggest little innovation in its relations with Moscow, unless outside events compel them. The Soviets were presumably as surprised as everyone else when Mitterrand won the presidency. They had indicated their preference for Giscard not once but twice---before the first and again before the second round of voting. Once they had digested the events and the PCF decision to enter the government, they decided initially to put a good

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face on a bad business, suggesting that the statements of officials of the new government hostile to the Soviet Union were not shared by President Mitterrand. 38 As the months went by and Mitterrand's foreign policy was more fully revealed, Soviet disapproval deepened. In midOctober Pravda chief editor Viktor Afanasyev wondered if the French loyalty to the Atlantic alliance was not growing into Atlanticism. "This would indeed be dangerous both for France and for peace in Europe. ''39 There is no reason to suppose that Soviet policy toward Mitterrand has altered since this first determination, for his government's policy in the Polish affair was notably less forthcoming than Helmut Schmidt's. The French government has, indeed, displeased the United States by its pronouncements on Central America and by its decision to go through with the French share in the purchase of Soviet natural gas. But these events have not sufficed to alter the wary tone of Soviet treatment of Mitterrand. The PCF, however, has been extensively praised. The CPSU sent no less a personage than Konstantin Chernenko to the Twenty-fourth Congress, and both Chernenko's address and Soviet press coverage accentuated the positive and lavished praise on Marchais and the PCF. Nevertheless, the PCF maintained some small area of independence toward the CPSU. The final resolution of the Congress noted with pleasure improved relations with the CPSU, but also had a kind word for Eurocommunism, and for China. It was announced that the Chinese Communist Party had invited a delegation from the PCF, which went to China in early March. On its return, the PCF noted that Marchais had been invited to China and would go in 1982.40 The PCF has thus moved nearly all the way back toward its prior relation with the CPSU--but not quite. It is impossible to believe that the Soviet leaders will ever have much confidence again (however much they may have had originally) in Marchais and his associates. The PCF, after so much chopping and changing, will have difficulty altering its position again, and no leaders who might accomplish this task are presently visible. More important even than these factors are the changes in the basic PCF-CPSU relationship since Mitterrand's election. Moscow no longer has a Gaullist friend in power, and its closest ally in France is once again the PCF, as it was before 1958. The PCI and the PCE are, after 38. V. Guscnkov, "France after the Elections," Pravda, July I, 1981, p. 4. 39. Viktor Afanasyev, in Pravda, October 16 and 17, 1981. 40. L'Humanitd, February 9, 1982, pp. 8-9. Marchais indeed visited China in October 1982.

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the Polish events of December 1981, on worse terms with the CPSU than ever before, in what may be a lasting schism. Thus the PCF is more important to the CPSU than it has been for a long time, perhaps more important than it has ever been. Clearly the CPSU does not hold the PCF responsible for what it dislikes in Mitterrand's policies--it would be unrealistic to do so. Warned by the struggles of the late 1970s Moscow is likely to treat the PCF with more tact than it showed in earlier years. For its part, the PCF cannot fail to be gratified by what its leaders must clearly see as their own increased importance in Moscow's scheme of things. Whether any of this is relevant to the political fortunes of the PCF as a competitor in the French electoral system is hard to say. The cantonal elections of 1982 showed a further decrease in the PCF's strength. It must decide in 1983 whether to go into the opposition or ride out the five year term of the present National Assembly inside the government. If it does, Moscow will almost certainly have new, perhaps unwelcome tasks for it, unless Mitterrand changes his foreign policy. Conclusion

This survey of PCF-CPSU relations over twenty-five years shows that although the CPSU has demanded a variety of services from the PCF, its basic interest has been constant: to combat American influence in France. This took the form of opposition to government policy during the Fourth Republic, and a demand that the PCF support de Gaulle and his successors in their foreign policy in the Fifth Republic. But once the PCF began to take electoral politics seriously, conflict with the CPSU was inevitable, since it was nearly impossible to applaud de Gaulle's foreign policy and simultaneously oppose him domestically. Nevertheless this contradiction did not determine the actual shape of PCF policy, which was moulded by the Party's inner confusion. The PCF did not have the luck to possess a subtle and far-sighted leader like Togliatti, and Thorez faced a more difficult situation than that of the PCI--whatever his own contributions to the confusion. Thorez was unwilling, but also unable, to fight in the open against the CPSU. His successors, no strategists, needing to solidify their own authority, were left to flounder. Even after they had asserted their rights as equals in the international arena, they found it easier to backslide than to move resolutely forward. The leaders of the PCF represent a Party profoundly conditioned by

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pro-Sovietism, a sentiment deeply rooted in the PCF's own view of French history. Seeing itself as a continuer in France of the French Revolution, seeing the CPSU as the incarnation of the French Revolution in the twentieth century, the PCF has never been able to escape from the mythic domination of October 1917. When one thinks of the influence of this event on the collective mind of even the PCI, it is easier to understand the profound importance of the October myth in France. But the work of Togliatti and his followers was to dissociate the October myth to some extent from the actual course of inter-Party dealings. The decoupling has never been complete even in the PCI, and determines the limits of that Party's historical-ideological independence from the CPSU. In France, the October myth was strengthened by the ouvrieriste tradition, a heritage from the earliest years of French socialism. The October heritage urges revolutionary action; the ouvrieriste tradition joins it. Both then halt immediately because the Soviets give no word to advance, and because in the words of the French historian Alexandre Adler (ex-PCF, class of 1980) the anarcho-syndicalist pessimism at the base of the ouvrieriste tradition "admits that the working class is not the governing class, that the working class should not burden itself with the state, because each time it enters even a little bit into the State, a trap closes on it." Thus revolutionary purity rejects political possibilism, and turns to the future hopes radiated from the Fatherland of the Workers. Adler points out that the ouvrieriste mentality has formed an extraordinary amalgam with the Cominformist mentality: "Relations with the Soviet Union were fundamental, one is living through a world revolution, and the solidarity of the revolutionary parties is infinitely more important than little day-to-day arrangements with the Socialist party. ''4~ Thus we see in the PCF a Party with no real plan to come to power except by legal means, yet too doctrinaire to accept the measure of power it might have gained in 1978. It has never entirely rejected the notion that the predominance of the Soviet Union in Western Europe might put the Party in power; nevertheless, it could quarrel with the Soviet Union and accuse it of not being revolutionary enough. Because of its profound confusion over what it is and should be, the PCF has a nearly narcotic need for a close relation with the Soviet Union. The myth of the CPSU's past legitimizes the PCF's present. When desire for power clashes with fear of power, the CPSU is a comforter in de41. Le Monde, November 5, 1980, quoting from a long interview in Critique Communiste, No. 33 (1980).

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spair. Here is a classic study in psychological dependency. Whether or not the Soviets see the relationship in exactly these terms, they have long known how to exploit it, and will continue to do so. The PCF professes to deal with the CPSU as an equal. But until that probably distant day when it comes to terms with its own identity and ultimate purposes, it will be unable to do so.

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country outside the Soviet Union where national Communism succeeded in producing its specific organizational form and particular ideology. 2 In the theoretical fields, Mac> Tse-tung may have preceded Tito when he set out to adapt Western Marxism to Asian conditions; but Tito was the first to put his brand of national Communism to a practical test, well before Mao's sinified Marxism had assumed institutional forms. Even though Titoism and Maoism were to drift in opposite directions along the wide-ranging Communist spectrum, they shared an identical commitment to the principle of autonomy within the ecumenical Communist movement. The question was how this principle was to be reconciled with the concept of monocentric "proletarian internationalism" as interpreted by Moscow. The Stalinist leadership had no doubts as to the nature of the developments that took place in Yugoslavia in the years following World War H. It evaluated them in antithetical terms; Titoist insistence on autonomy reflected " b a d , " or "bourgeois," nationalism, providing the antithesis to " g o o d , " or Soviet, patriotism. Significantly, it was on this particular aspect of the Titoist deviation that heaviest emphasis was laid in the 1948 Cominform statement denouncing the Belgrade leadership's efforts to follow a specifically Yugoslav road in building socialism. Although the indictment covered a wide field, in the final count each of the charges implied that Tito's error, or crime, essentially lay in succumbing to bourgeois nationalism. Thus, the Cominform resolution of June 28, 1948 declared that .the Belgrade leadership "considerably overestimated the internal, national forces of Yugoslavia when it t h o u g h t . . , that it can maintain Yugoslavia's independence and build socialism without the support of the peoples democracies, without the support of the Soviet Union." 3 Tito and his followers did not deny that national interests played an important role in determining their policies. In rejecting the Soviet charges they stressed their loyalty not only to the Soviet Union and proletarian internationalism but also to the ideals of patriotism. In a letter addressed to the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee on April 13, 1948, the Yugoslav leadership defined its position with the utmost clarity: " N o matter how much each of us loves the first 2. There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether the Titoist variety of Communism should be considered national Communism. According to Professor Uhm, Titoism is "not quite [national Communism] and at the same time much more than that." However, he identifies the essence of Titoism as "an amalgam of nationalism and socialism." Adam B. Ulam, "Titoism," in Marxism in the Modern World (Stanford, 1965), pp. 138, 159. 3. For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy (Bucharest), July 1, 1948.

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country of socialism, the Soviet Union, he should in no case love his country less which is also building socialism." ~ Throughout the polemics that fallowed Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Corninform, the question of nationalism remained in the center of the increasingly shrill discussions on Communist strategy and tactics. For by that time it had become apparent that in raising the problem of a Communist-run nation's right to choose its own road to socialism, the Belgrade leadership endangered Stalin's Imperial Design, which rested on a concept that regarded the Soviet Union as " t h e leading n a t i o n " and the Soviet party as " t h e leading party." Even though the Moscow-sponsored hierarchization of the international Communist system was not challenged openly, the assertion that each Communist country had the right to follow its own road to socialism clearly implied the rejection of the Soviet assumption that Moscow alone was entitled to provide the m o d e l on which the political, economic, and social systems of the newly emerging East European states should be built. Tito never admitted that his opposition to Moscow's political and ideological hegemony implied a revision of the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism, or that it was designed to create " a new ideology for export." But whatever his attitude toward Marxism-Leninism, it surely represented a serious opposition to the Kremlin's monocentric policies and the .then prevailing Stalinist ideology that had been successfully imposed on all Communist parties. Moreover, in justifying its position the Belgrade leadership was the first to voice a long series of grievances, which until then had been silently borne by all East European states: forced Russification, interference in domestic matters, economic exploitation, and the imposition of a system requiring subjection of the population to permanent terror. Thus, while Soviet interference considerably complicated the task of the Belgrade leadership, it was not only qua Communists but also qua Yugoslavs that Tito and his followers attempted to throw off the political and ideological shackles which their country had to bear in the name of proletarian internationalism as interpreted by Moscow. The Titoist Precedent and Eastern Europe •

It is against this background that the subsequent proliferation of national Communist trends in Eastern Europe and the ensuing 4. Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute (London, 1948), p. 19. Throughout the present article I am conforming to Marxist-Leninist usage in referring to Communist-run countries as "socialist" states.

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pendence of mind, the Spanish Communists followed the twists and turns of the Soviet line. During the Civil War, their principal objective was to keep the Spanish revolution in check so as not to damage Soviet efforts to develo p closer relations with France and Great Britain. This Soviet foreign policy imperative led the Communists to issue repeated appeals for moderation and restraint. The Spanish Communists thus distinguished themselves as a loyal and obedient arm of Moscow, never hesitating to move against those individuals and groups that Stalin considered his enemies. 2 The Communists precipitated the ouster of Francisco Largo Caballero from his post as premier in May 1937 because he was not sufficiently malleable to Soviet pressure. They infiltrated the highest levels of the Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries, providing Moscow with detailed information on the divisions within the Republican camp. They penetrated the military command structure, playing a major role in establishing the political commissariats in the armed forces in October 1936, and ultimately controlled approximately 90 percent of these positions. 3 The PCE also played a particularly noxious role in the destruction of the Anarchist movement and of the quasi-Trotskyite Partido Obrero de Unificaci6n Marxism (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification--POUM) in Catalufia in 1937. Although specific responsibility for the assassination of POUM leader, Andreu Nin, is impossible to determine and, understandably, no Spanish Communist has stepped forward to discuss his role in the affair, 4 there is little question that the PCE and security forces associated with it arrested Nfn, and then, in complicity with Soviet intelligence, murdered him in Barcelona. Meanwhile, Party leaders answered queries as to his whereabouts by insisting that Nin was a fascist agent and, as such, likely to be in Berlin or Rome. Further underscoring the close relationship that developed between the PCE and the Soviet Union was the identity of the man who assassinated Leon Trotsky in Mexico and subsequently won a Lenin Peace Prize--a Catalan Communist by the name of Ram6n Mercader. The end of the Civil War and the defeat of the Republican forces brought a sharp drop in the fortunes of the PCE. Isolated from other parties and organizations that had supported the Popular Front, its or2. Among the best analyses of Communist policies during this period are David T. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), and Fernando Claudfn, La Crisis del Movimiento Comunista (Paris: Edieiones Rue.do Ib~rieo, 1970), particularly pp. 168-196. 3. Cattell, Communism, p. 184. 4. Carrillo claims that PCE leaders did not know what was going on. "Eurocomunismo" y Estado (Barcelona: Editorial Grijalbo, 1977), pp. 147-152.

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ganization in shambles and dispersed in Latin America, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union, the Spanish Communists were no longer the bright star in the Comintern galaxy. In the meantime, leadership struggles among the exiles, between the exiled leadership and Communists operating in France or Spain, and the almost paranoid search for agents-provocateurs and infiltrators enmeshed the PCE further in the cloaca of Stalinism. 5 Not only were special commissions established at the end of the Civil War to determine the destinations of approximately 50,000 exiles, but, following the Soviet lead, after World War II the PCE carried out a purge of members who, having survived the detention or concentration camps, were now thought to be of questionable loyalty. Even prominent Civil War figures like Ibarruri (PCE Secretary General as of 1942) and Enrique Lister were not above suspicion; there were persistent rumors in the late 1940s that they had been arrested in the Soviet Union. The period encompassing the years from the end of the Civil War to the 1950s was a particularly dark one for the PCE. Some who lived through it suggest that former PCE Executive Committee member Fernando Claudfn, who broke with Carrillo in the early 1960s and developed an early version of Eurocommunism, became a visceral critic of the Soviet Union in part because of his experiences while heading the PCE organization in Moscow from the late 1940s to 1954. Other Spanish Communists developed and retained close ties to the Soviet Union, however. Ib~irruri, for example, who had lived in Moscow since the 1940s, had lost a son in the battle of Stalingrad, and had a daughter who married a Soviet general, could be counted as a fervent supporter of the Soviet Union. When she left Moscow to return to Spain in early 1977, no less a figure than Mikhail Suslov saw her off at Sheremetevo airport. Other PCE leaders--like Executive Committee member Francisco Romero Marin, who fought in the Soviet Union during World War II and attained the rank of colonel in the Red Army; former Central Committee member and director of Party Security Jos6 Gros, who fought with the partisans in the Ukraine and in the 1940s served as a link between the Communist leadership in France and the guerrillas in Spain; and former Organizational Secretary Eduardo Garcfa, who formed a pro-Soviet splinter group in 1969--were also known for their sympathies toward the Soviet Union. The CPSU and its East European allies reinforced these ties through the provision of financial and organizational assistance, such as meeting 5. For a detailed discussion, see my Communism and Political Change in Spain (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming), Chap. 1.

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sites for Party congresses and Central Committee plena, and solidarity funds for arrested strikers given through the Secours Rouge. De-Stalinization did not provoke an estrangement between the Spanish Communists and their Soviet counterparts. Indeed, Carrillo, who in 1956 used the revelations about Stalin to achieve a position of dominance within the PCE, readily adopted the Soviet line on the causes of Stalinism: 6 to wit, that individual errors, not faults in the system, had led to the excesses of the period. Even so, as the fragmentation of the international Communist movement increased and the attraction of the Soviet model lost its glamour in Western Europe, the PCE took pains to avoid appearing overly tied to Moscow, strengthening its ties with the Yugoslav, Romanian, and Italian Parties and shying away from an explicit condemnation of the Chinese. But ties to the CPSU remained strong during the 1960s. There was continuing broad agreement with Soviet foreign and domestic policies, as well as regular delegation visits and leisure trips to the Black Sea resort areas.

Czechoslovakia and Its Aftermath The invasion of Czechoslovakia marked a watershed in PCE-CPSU relations. The story has been told elsewhere, and there is no need to repeat it here. Suffice it to point out that the PCE Executive and Central Committees issued ringing condemnations of the Warsaw Pact invasion. But, while many Parties criticized the invasion and then let the matter die down quietly, the Spanish Communists did not, becoming instead vociferous opponents of the "normalization" in Prague. The Czechoslovak events confirmed for PCE leaders the importance of dissociating their Party from the Soviet model and of articulating a convincingly democratic program for change. A combination of factors-among them, pique with Soviet leaders for the disdain with which they treated the PCE; the enhanced possibilities for independent action created by the generally unfavorable reaction to the invasion; and the desire to galvanize broad-base electoral support in the post-Franco era--prompted this decision. The initial Soviet response to Spanish Communist criticism of the in6. Fernando Claudfn, Documentos de una Divergencia Comunista (Barcelona: lmelaUvas Editoriales, 1978), p. iii. As late as 1964, Carrillo still opposed the effort, urged by Claudfn and Jorge Semprtln, to analyze the Stalinist era more critically. In April of that year, he admitted that "there had had been political police, concentration camps, etc." in the Soviet Union, but he insisted that these "were necessary and I am not sure they might not be in other socialist revolutions, even though these be realized under more favorable circumstances." Cited in Jorge Sempr6n, Autobiografla de Federico Sdnchez (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1977), p. 280.

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vasion of Czechoslovakia and to the more independent stance the Party now began to adopt was to encourage opposition to Carrillo within the PCE. To this end, various Central Committee members close to MoscowmJos6 Moix and Luis Balaguer, who lived in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, respectively, and Lister and Garcia--registered their objections to the tone of Spanish Communist polemics over Czechoslovakia. While Garcia and Lister would eventually lead pro-Soviet splinter groups (the former was expelled in 1969; Lister joined him in late 1970, but then created his own party in early 1973), for the time being the Soviets urged them to remain in the PCE. Since his expulsion, for example, Lister has revealed that he, Boris Ponomarev, Vadim Zagladin, and other representatives of the CPSU International Department had several meetings in early 1969 where they discussed how best to proceed. 7 Garcia, too, engaged in lengthy negotiations with the official Party apparatus prior to being expelled for distributing an Open Letter denouncing Carrillo. When Lister broke with Garcia and formed the Partido Comunista Obrero Espahol (Spanish Communist Workers' Party--PCOE) in 1973, he was in many ways expressing his frustration with the way the CPSU used the dissident movement simply to pressure Carrillo and the PCE. 8 Although the Soviet Union and its close allies (the East Germans, the Bulgarians, and the Czechs) supported the dissidents by granting them publishing facilities and meeting places, by adopting a reserved attitude toward the PCE, and by supporting Lister's claim to representation on such bodies as the World Peace Council, the CPSU never gave them the sort of open-ended support that many dissidents had anticipated. In that decision, it is fair to say, IbLrruri played a major role. She was obviously in sympathy with CPSU policy, to the point that she refused to address the 1969 International Conference at Mos' cow on behalf of the PCE. Nevertheless, she never adopted an explicitly anti-Carrillo position. 9 Having lost her zest for internal Party battles after Carrillo displaced her and the old guard in the late 1950s, she retained an almost mystical devotion to the concept of Party unity, t° This more than anything else prompted her unwillingness to fight Carrillo. It also sealed the fate of the dissident movement. During this period, the Soviet Union also pressured the PCE by 7. Enrique Lister, Basta! (Madrid: G. del Tom Ediciones, 1978), p. 56. 8. See the Lister speech in his group's version of the PCE theoretical journal Nuestra Bandera, April 1974, pp. 3-35. 9. Ib&ruri had been particularly close to Garcfa. See Francisco Garcfa Salve, Por que somos comunistas? (Madrid: Ediciones Penthalon, 1982), p. 85. 10. For example, see the letter she wrote Lister in his Basta!, p. 137.

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threatening to normalize relations with the Franco government, t t Thus, it was hardly coincidental that the first significant diplomatic contacts between Spain and the Soviet Union--a December 1969 meeting of the U.S.S.R. Vice Foreign Minister Anatolii Kovalev and Spanish Foreign Minister Gregorio L6pez Bravo at the airport in Madrid----occurred at a low point in PCE-CPSU relations. Or that, in early 1970, the Polish government shipped coal to Spain during a PCE-supported mineworkers' strike in Asturias. Although the CPSU and other bloc Parties did not extend diplomatic recognition to Spain until after the June 1977 parliamentary elections, the threat that they might do so hung over the PCE. The Soviet Union, for its part, had a more explicit state interest in expanding cultural and trade exchanges. It hoped to woo Spain toward a more neutral foreign policy that might include abrogation of the Base Agreement with the United States and Soviet use of the Canary Islands as a port of call for their merchant marine and electronic surveillance fleet. As the crisis with the CPSU and the pro-Soviet dissidents deepened in late 1969 and early 1970, the Spanish Communist leadership strengthened its ties with other independent-minded Parties, consolidating as well its control over 6migr6 organizations. Strong Italian Communist support for the PCE, along with the dissidents' failure to rally more than a handful of disaffected elements to their side, precluded an all-out Soviet effort to bring Carrillo to heel. Ratification of this uneasy balance came in April 1970 when a PCE delegation headed by Ib,'irruri and Carrillo went to Moscow and signed a communiqu6 that recognized the Spanish Party's "struggle on behalf of the interests of the working class and of all workers. ''12 The CPSU-PCE communiqu6 did not restore peace between the two Parties; it only signaled a shift toward more indirect methods of confrontation. On the Spanish Communist side, there was the expulsion of Lfster in September 1970; then, some months later, foreign policy spokesman Manuel Azc~ate used the occasion of the Fourteenth Czechoslovak Party Congress to publish a biting critique of the August 1968 invasion and the subsequent "normalization. ''13 His article did not appear in an official PCE journal (it was published in the "unofficial" 11. Fernando Clandfn, "Las relaciones hispanosovi~ticas," Horizonte Espa~ol 1972, Vol. lI, pp. 237-265. 12. Mundo Obrero, April 30, 1970, p. 8. 13. The Realidad article has been translated in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FglS) (Western Europe), May 28, 1971, pp. XI-2; June 4, 1971, pp. XI-2; and, June 14, 1971, pp. XI-2.

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Realidad), but for the Soviet and Czechoslovak Parties this must have been a distinction that made no difference. Sarcasm dripped from Azcfirate's pen on this occasion. To the question "Was socialism really in danger [in Czechoslovakia]?" He answered, "To say yes is not only to laugh at truth but also to insult socialism." Finally, in November 1971, a Spanish Communist delegation visited Peking, signing a communiqud with the Chinese Party which declared that the "new" unity of the international Communist movement could not prosper if it were based on unconditional loyalty to the Soviet Union. 14 The Soviet response to these moves was not especially aggressive. The CPSU International Department had concluded that a frontal assault on the PCE would unduly strain its relations with other Western European Communist Parties. Perhaps it also felt that Carrillo would not be easily budged from his post as Secretary General. Whatever the case, the Soviets adopted a flexible response doctrine toward the Spanish Communists, continuing to give some material support to the dissident organizations, retaining their links with the PCE as a _P.arty, and focusing their polemical fury on selected Party leaders. This desire to avoid open confrontation led to another PCE-CPSU communiqud in August 1972 (recognizing the Spanish Party as "the principal force--not the only one, but the principal one----of the Spanish revolutionary present and of its democratic and socialist future"), 15 and to a message of solidarity sent to the Eighth PCE Congress a month later. 16 While the letter was not effusive and pointedly wished "the Spanish Communists success in consolidating their ranks," it did represent a major victory for Carrillo in his battle to retain the PCE's international legitimacy. Moreover, although the Spanish Communists now received financial and organizational assistance from the Yugoslavs and Romanians as well as from the PCI, the Soviet Union did not move to block traditional sources of PCE support. Solidarity funds received from the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) by Central Committee member (and representative to Problems of Peace and Socialism) Serafin Aliaga were especially important in helping the illegal, Communistcontrolled Comisiones Obreras (Workers Commissions---CC.OO.) survive a particularly harsh period of repression that had begun in 1967 and extended through 1973, costing over 50,000 labor activists their jobs. 17 14. Mundo Obrero, December 10, 1971, p. 8. 15. Ibid., September 7, 1972, p. 8. 16. VIII Congreso del Partido Comunista de Espaha (n.p., 1972), p. 342. 17. Interview in Madrid, June 18, 1977.

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Eurocommunism, the PCE, and the Soviet Response In the wake of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Spanish Communists had gone to great lengths to affirm their commitment to a democratic model of socialism, one that differed significantly (even if on many points it remained ambiguous) Is from the Soviet and East European experience. To that end, PCE statements and documents affirmed a commitment to political and civil rights, renounced any effort to impose an official state philosophy, and promised tO accept, and indeed encourage, political pluralism into the indefinite future. Coincidentally with these ideological reformulations, Party leaders also stressed Spanish Communist independence from Moscow, criticizing as well the precedence of Soviet state interests over those of the "international revolutionary movement. ''~9 The tone Of Spanish Communist statements became aggressive in the early 1970s as the PCE deepened many of its criticisms and articulated a more frontal challenge to the Soviet Union. Carrillo and Azcfi'ate led the way. The latter delivered major speeches to the Eighth PCE Congress in September 1972 and to a Central Committee plenum in October 1973, in which he called for a European-wide movement (comprising Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, and even some Christian Democrats) whose objective would be the affirmation of a "progressive" Europe, independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union and with its own specific weight in the international arena. 2° Joined to this regional perspective were acerbic criticisms of the Soviet Union--with Carrillo, Azcfi'ate, and other PCE leaders describing it as a "primitive" or "totalitarian" socialist society. 21 Their outspokenness and the growing publicity given to Eurocommunism (a term coined in the wake of a PCE-PCI meeting in June 18. These ambiguities were evident primarily in the ideological and organizational spheres. Among the most significant were the continued reliance on democratic centralism and the view that, the necessary fusion of socialism and democracy notwithstanding, "when a revolutionary moment develops, one has to take advantage of it and seize power." Santiago Carrillo, Escritos sobr¢ Eurocomunismo (Madrid: Forma Ediciones, 1977), Vol. I, p. 39. 19. Communism and Political Change in Spain, Chap. 5. 20. The report to the Central Committee is in Nuestra Bandera, No. 72 (1973), pp. 15-30; his speech to the Eighth Congress is in VIIi Congreso, pp. 183-206. 21. Carrillo argued that the Soviet Union was in an intermediate phase between capitalism and socialism, in a situation analogous to that of the absolute monarchies during the transition from feudalism to modern parliamentary democracy. See "Eurocomunismo," pp. 10S and 208. Azcftrate said that "primitive socialist" relations of production existed there, alongside an authoritarian state. In Tomfts Garefa and Manuel Azc~ate, Temas de Pol[tica y Sociedad: Cuestiones lnternacionales (Madrid: Editorial C6nit, 1977), p. 70. The "totalitarian" reference is in Mundo Obrero, July 16, 1976, p. 7.

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1975) earned the Spanish Communists a great deal of attention from the Soviet propagandists, who took up the cudgels of ideological battle against "contemporary revisionism." The first major blast came in the form of a vitriolic attack by Partiinaia zhizn against the foreign policy report delivered by Azc~ate in October 1973. 22 Accusing Azc~ate of "spreading all manner of lies about the absence of democracy in the U.S.S.R.," the anonymous polemicist also took him to task for his call--"which reeks with nationalism"--for a democratic and socialist Europe. This became the favored Soviet method for dealing with the Spanish Party: no direct polemics, rather attacks of varying intensity and in different press outlets against individuals like Carrillo and Azc~ate, suggesting that they were the ones to blame for the tensions between the two Parties. Such an approach did not exclude but rather presupposed formal ties with the PCE; the adoption of "anti-Soviet" positions could always be ascribed to individuals. The CPSU could thus pretend to its domestic audience that the Spanish Party remained a loyal member of the international Communist movement, all the while sending a message to other independent-minded Parties about the limits beyond which dialogue was impossible. Maintaining at least a formal relationship with the PCEwas also important because there was no visible short-term alternative to Carrillo as Secretary General. Ib~rruri would not break with him. There were several dissident groups-----Garcfa's PCE VIII y IX Congreso, Lister's PCOE, and the Oposici6n de lzquierda al PCE (Left Opposition to the PCE---OPI), an organization based primarily in Madrid and Valencia-but they were numerically weak and hopelessly divided. The OPI could not decide whether it wanted to remain outside or to re-enter the PCE, engaging in confused negotiations, first with the PCOE in mid-1976, then with the PCE in early 1977. Lister, consumed by a personal vendetta against Carrillo, was hardly a figure around whom many people might rally. 23 Garcia had an even more unsavory past, and his groupuscule consisted primarily of family and old cronies in Madrid and Asturias. 24. If the disarray and weakness of the pro-Soviet camp in Spain discouraged the CPSU from making more direct attacks on the PCE, so 22. For the version broadcast by Radio Moscow, see FBIS (Soviet Union), February 6, 1974, pp. AI-10. 23. He characterized Carrillo as "a gangster, opportunist and usurper" in Le Monde, November 10, 1977, p. 6. 24. Sempran accuses him of having close ties to the KGB. Autobiografta, p. 38.

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did the prospect of major changes taking place in the country after the death of Franco. The assassination of Spanish head of state Luis Carrero Blanco in December 1973 and the April 1974 overthrow of the nearly fifty-year-old dictatorship in neighboring Portugal suggested that rapid changes might occur in the Iberian peninsula. This possibility and the Soviet desire for a successful pan-European Communist summit (negotiations for which had begun in early 1974) may explain why, after accusing Azcfi'ate of "siding with the declared enemies of the Soviet socialist system" in February, the CPSU and PCE signed a joint communiqu6 in October which promised "by every means an improvement in relations and mutual trust, even when differences exist on certain questions. ' ' ~ Indeed, such a reversal was possible precisely because the earlier polemical thrust had had a personal cast. CPSU attacks on Carrillo and Azc~ate after 1974 also sought to drive a wedge between the Spanish leaders and their counterparts in other Parties, especially the PCI. Both the PCE and PCI had moved away from Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but the Spanish Party had done so with a much greater flair and with a more provocative style. For example, in an interview with the dissident Italian Communist journal II Manifesto, Carrillo had warned that no one should nourish excessive illusions . . . about the way the USSR will react to the formation of socialist countries---or ones in the process of becoming

such~not dependent on the USSR itself, and which will have a political structure different from those in the peoples' democracies. There is no doubt that the latter will look more and more toward European models of socialism, if we reach that point .... Whether one likes it or not, the socialism in Western Europe will become a pole of reference for the whole working class movement, and ... [we] cannot ignore the fact that this will be viewed with concern in Moscow.26 Later at the tripartite (PCE-PCF-PCI) conference celebrated in March 1977 in Madrid, Carrillo proposed that the absence of political rights in the Soviet Union be explicitly condemned in their joint communiqu6. 27 On both occasions, the Italian Party quietly dissociated itself from his remarks. 2s The clearest evidence that the Soviet Union wanted to exacerbate these differences within the Eurocommunist camp 25. Mundo Obrero, October 30, 1974, p, 8. 26. II Manifesto (Rome), November 1, 1975, p. 2. 27. Press conference mimeograph, March 3, 1977 (n.p., n.d.), p. 4. 28. L'Unitd, October 31, 1975, p. 18. Berlinguer also disagreed with Carrillo's characterization of the U.S.S.R. in "Eurocomunismo" y Estado, I'Unitd, February 11, 1977, p. 11.

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came in the June 1977 New Times article attacking Carrillo and his "Eurocomunismo" y Estado. 29 There, the Soviet polemicist argued that one interpretation of Eurocommunism belonged "to the Left and to the Communist parties," another "exactly to those of the imperialist adversaries of Communism." Carrillo evidently was in the latter camp, and this put him beyond the pale of discussion. The Soviet blast against Carrillo in New Times was another example of the personalization of the polemics between the CPSU and the PCE. As might be expected, the Spanish Communists rejected out of hand the suggestion that Carrillo, not the PCE, was the target. The immediate effect of the New Times article was to rally the Spanish leadership around Carrillo. After a flurry of commentary and activity involving the visit to Moscow of an Italian Communist delegation, New Times then published a second article defensively insisting it had not aimed beyond Carrillo. 3° This backpedaling led many observers to conclude that the Soviet Union, having failed to achieve its objectives with the first article, had been forced to back down. But the measure of success depended on Soviet hopes and intentions. Did the CPSU hope to prompt Carrillo's ouster or to force the PCI and other Communist Parties to break with him? Probably not, especially since New Times was hardly the sort of official journal where an excommunication would be announced. Indeed, Soviet objectives were undoubtedly more limited, consisting of an effort to draw the line on what were permissible subjects for debate (different conceptions of "revolutionary strategy" but not "anti-Sovietism") and to rally support for the Soviet position from ruling and nonruling Communist Parties. From this perspective, the New Times initiative did not produce entirely negative results. True, some East European Parties--the Poles and the Hungarians primarily-were reluctant to become involved in the controversy, but during the course of the summer even they produced statements that Pravda dutifully and extensively reported. 31 The aftermath of the New Times controversy also showed the fragmented state of the budding Eurocommunist coalition. 32 The Italian Communists had explained that they ob29. "Contrary to the Interests of Peace and Socialism in Europo--Concerning the book 'Eurocommunism' and the State by Santiago Carrillo, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain," New Times (Moscow), No. 26 (June 1977), pp. 9-13. 30. "Putting the Record Straight--Re Certain Comments Abroad on New Times' Article About Santiago Carrillo's Book," New Times, No. 28 (July 1977), pp. 16-17. 31. For a useful overview, see "The European Communist Media Debate on the Santiago Carfillo-Novoe Vremya Controversy: Search for or Avoidance of a Definition of Eurocommunism," United States Information Agency, Office of Research and Evaluation, Research Report R-25-77 (November 15, 1977). 32. Communism and Political Change in Spain, Chap. 5.

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jected to the tone of the New Times article because it implied a desire to reassert control over the international Communist movement; but they also understood why the Russians were upset, since they too disagreed with some of the opinions voiced by Carrillo. Even so, the PCI's extensive media coverage of the controversy was largely favorable to the Spanish Communists. That of the French Party was not. It protested only the effort "to detach a secretary general from his party, ... [an] inadmissible procedure." 33 The New Times polemic also revealed some deepening fissures within Spanish Communist ranks. We have already discussed the pro-Soviet sympathies of Ibfi'ruri (when asked in early 1977 if, as Carrillo charged, the dictatorship of the proletariat was outmoded, she told her interlocutor: "Go ask Santiago."), 34 but other members of the Executive Committee shared those views as well. For example, Ignacio Gallego, PCE Organizational Secretary during the early 1970s, was notably hesitant to endorse Carrillo's and Azcfi'ate's negative views of the Soviet state. Whereas they questioned its "socialist" character, Gallego stressed that "existing socialism represented a considerable advance over capitalism. ''35 More notably, at the Central Committee session where the Spanish reply to the New Times article was drafted, the motion made by an Executive Committee member to criticize explicitly the absence of liberty in the Soviet Union received the support of only about one-third of the Central Committee, with many prominent party figures (notably Ib~irruri) abstaining. 36 There were, moreover, other troubling signs: the distribution of copies of the New Times article in Comisiones Obreras offices in Madrid and Barcelona. Labor activists' reflexively pro-Soviet sympathies would become a special source of concern in the next few years, especially as their influence within the PCE increased. The level of polemics between the PCE and the CPSU decreased after the New Times articles. Generally, polemics over the next few months took place by way of surrogates (such as Alvaro Cunhal and Luis Corval~, Secretaries General, respectively, of the Portuguese and Chilean Communist Parties) attacking Eurocommunism. 37 There was 33. L' HumanitY, July 7, 1977, p. 3. 34. Cambio16 (Madrid), April 3, 1977, p. 42. 35. lgnacio Gallego, El Partido de Masas (Madrid: Editorial C~nit, 1976), p. 26. Lfster saw Gallego as representing the "third force" that the Soviet Union hoped to use against Carrillo. Lister, Basra!, p. 309. 36. Fernando Claudfn, "Euroeommunisme: L'Aggression Sovietique," Politique Hebdo (Pads), July 4-10, 1977, p. 6. 37. El Pats (Madrid), November 2, 1977, p. 7, discusses Pravda articles by Corval(m and Cunhal.

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no direct condemnation of Carrillo by Soviet analysts in the official press. Parallel to this development, talks between the CPSU and PCE began in September 1977 on the occasion of a visit to Madrid by Vladimir Pertsov, a Central Committee functionary with responsibilities for the Iberian peninsula. 38 A second round with Pravda editor and Central Committee member Viktor Afanasyev took place a month later. 39 The agreement worked out by the two sides cleared the way for a Spanish Communist delegation to attend the October Revolution's sixtieth anniversary. But the truce, if such it was, did not last long. Shortly after his arrival in Moscow, Carrillo caused an uproar by accusing the Soviets of not allowing him to deliver his speech. Then he embarked on a nip to the United States, where he announced that the forthcoming Ninth PCE Congress would drop the self-description "Leninist" from the Party program. The sequence of events provoked a storm of controversy. Whoever was responsible for the uproar in Moscow (and there is ample evidence suggesting that Carrillo was not an innocent victim),4° the "Leninism" proposal amounted to another frontal ideological challenge to the Soviet Union. Even so, the tenor of Soviet reaction was restrained. Criticism focused exclusively on Carrillo and Azc~ate, with the CPSU striving to maintain its ties with the PCE and taking no steps to recognize any of the splinter groups. The campaign of personal attacks picked up steam in early 1978 when New Times published another blistering attack, this time on Azc~ate. 4~ It accused him of "abandoning the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism," and wondered aloud whether remarks that he had made at colloquia in Cologne and Livorno as well as in a Der Spiegel interview "had been authorized" by the PCE. New Times was a particularly useful vehicle for disseminating Soviet views as it had a Spanish-language edition, but other Soviet journals also entered the fray. In February, Za rubezhom published an attack on Carrillo by Orestes Ghioldi, Secretary General of the Argentinian Communist Party, comparing his views to those of earlier "contemporary 38. Le Monde, September 14, 1977, p. 5. 39. El Pals, October 20, 1977, p. 11. 40. For an extended discussion, see my "The PCE in Spanish Politics," Problems of Communism, XXVII, 4 (July-August 1978), pp. 31-32. 41. "Playing Up to Imperialist Anti-Soviet Propaganda---Apropes of Some Pronouncements by Manuel Azcfu'ate, a Leading Functionary of the Communist Party of Spain," New Times, No. 3 (January 1978), pp. 12-14. A Spanish version was quickly put into booklet form by the Editorial Rubinos. Azcfuate charged that it had been paid for by the Soviet embassy. Taula de Canvi (Barcelona), Extra No. 1 (June 1978), p. 24.

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revisionists" like Roger Garaudy, Fernando Claudfn, and Ernst Fischer.42 And Kommunist published an ostensibly historical essay that described an earlier PCE Secretary General, Jos6 Diaz, as someone who "never belonged to that class of political leader who absolutized specific national characteristics and did without common principles. ''43 Despite the renewal of polemics, diehard anti-Carrillo elements within and outside Spain were not entirely pleased with the Soviet approach. Unidad y Lucha, the PCOE's newspaper, was explicit: "[They] commit an error by thinking--even if only implicitly--that by publishing two or three criticisms of the positions defended by Santiago Carrillo and company, they will prompt a reaction by Spanish 'communists.'"4'* For Lfster's group, the "formal personal" nature of attacks against Carrillo would not work. Speaking for the Czechoslovak Communists at a meeting of Agitprop secretaries in Bulgaria in March 1978, Vasili Bilak also urged a harder line, specifically proposing that no bloc delegation attend the PCE Congress, in retaliation for the Spanish failure to invite his Party. 45 But the Soviets were again cautious. They and other bloc Parties attended the Ninth Congress--their delegations composed of relatively low-ranking figures. Afanasyev, who headed the CPSU delegation, made a point of being accessible to the Spanish press, and received the strongest round of applause when introduced at the Congress. Carrillo was firmly in control at the Ninth Congress. 46 The proposal to drop "Leninism" (embodied in Thesis 15 of the Draft Program) provoked ample debate in early 1978, but by the time the delegates for the Congress had been chosen, its approval was a foregone conclusion. The measure passed by a vote of 968 in favor, 240 against, and 40 abstentions. Carrillo had won, but it was a pyrrhic victory. Not only did this public relations gambit fail to broaden the Party's electoral base of support (in March 1979 the PCE received only 10.4 percent of the vote), but the debate over "Leninism" struck a deep emotional chord within the Party, raising the question of what would now become the Spanish Communist identity. A battle over the identity would rage during the next three years, provoking a split in the Catalan branch of the PCE--known as the Partit Socialism Unificat de Catalunya 42. El Pals, February 21, 1978, p. 7. 43. M. Tikhonov, "Outstanding Revolutionary--Internationalist," Kommunist, No. 4 (March 1978), pp. 98-103; excerpts of the article, distributed by TASS, may be found in El Pals, March 15, 1978, p. 8. 44. Unidad y Lucha (Madrid), March 1978, p. 5. 45. lnformaciones (Madrid), April 10, 1978, p. 5. 46. Communism and Political Change in Spain, Chap. 7, discusses the Ninth Congress.

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(PSUC)---and leading to the resignation or expulsion of many wellknown Party figures, among them foreign affairs expert Azc~ate in late 1981. In the process, opportunities for the Soviet Union to exercise its influence increased.

CPSU-PCE Relations After the Ninth Congress During the debate over the "Leninism" proposal, the Soviets demonstrated an increased willingness to lobby actively against Carrillo within the PCE. Eastern bloc embassies entered into contact with Carrillo's critics, even when these were not known for their pro-Soviet sympathies but were instead proponents of further internal democratization and ideological reform. Distribution of Soviet periodicals like New Times increased markedly in the agrupaciones, and so-called C{rculos Comunistas distributed anti-Carrillo tracts, which, in a show of audacity, they placed in the mailboxes of Central Committee members at PCE headquarters. Subsequent to the Congress, contacts with the Comisiones Obreras also stepped up, with numerous labor delegations traveling to the U.S.S.R. under the sponsorship of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions for training seminars and vacations, and with East German unions giving Comisiones a modem prin.ting press. Although the pro-Soviet groups were emboldened by the internal turmoil provoked by the "Leninism" proposal, they were no closer to offering a unified or viable alternative to Carrillo and the PCE. The emergence of the Cfrculos Comunistas, which urged the creation of a comitd de enlace between "Marxist-Leninist" Parties, was an effort to overcome the fragmentation. But the Circulos (with whom the Soviet and East European embassies must have been in touch) did not make much progress in this direction; the personal and policy conflicts separating the dissident groups could hardly be overcome with a program based simply on support for the Soviet Union and "recuperating the PCE for the communists. ''47 While the CPSU retained its contacts with the splinter groups after April 1978, it followed an essentially conciliatory approach toward the PCE. On the one hand, a number of Soviet, Bulgarian, East German, Polish, and Hungarian delegations traveled to Spain. 48 The CPSU attended the PCE Festival in October 1978; and, in early 1979, as Ib~rruff returned from several weeks vacation in Moscow, the Soviets conveyed their "wishes for [Spanish Communist] success in the struggle 47. Documentos 3 (n.p., n.d.), p. 1. 48. Le Monde, November 17, 1978, p. 7.

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for the essential rights of workers, for the continued democratization of the country, for ddtente and a lasting peace. ''49 Later in the year, a delegation headed by CPSU Central Committee member Evgenii Tiazhelnikov visited Madrid for talks (at which Carrillo was not present) that took place "in an atmosphere of good will and sincerity. ''5° Although the CPSU combined these overtures with periodic calls to order against the PCE and other Parties (the most noteworthy attack was a speech delivered by Ponomarev to ideological cadres in which he promised that the Soviet Party would use "all means to overcome deviations from Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism"), 5~ there were no direct attacks on the Spanish Party. As a complement to the policy it pursued toward the PCE, the CPSU also sought to expand its links with the Communists' major rival on the Left, and the Partido Socialism Obrero Espafiol (Spanish Socialist Workers' PartymPSOE). The Socialists, who had surprised everyone, including themselves, by capturing 29 percent of the votes in 1977, were contenders for national power. This and the neutralist thrust of their foreign policy (the PSOE opposed Spanish entry into NATO as well as renegotiation of the Base Agreement with the United States; it also supported the denuclearization of Spain and more general initiatives for European disarmament) encouraged the Soviet Union to make overtures. 52 A Socialist delegation, headed by First Secretary Felipe Gonz;ilez, had traveled to the U.S.S.R. shortly after the incident with Carrillo in November 1977, and lower level contacts, including a Federal Committee visit in August 1978, took place later. Further exchanges occurred through the Socialist International's Disarmament Committee in which the PSOE participated. Although contacts with the Spanish Socialists remained rather formal, 53 they were nevertheless useful to the CPSU. Not only did the PSOE remain an outspoken opponent of Spanish entry into NATO (repeatedly saying that it would call a referendum upon gaining power, if the government went ahead with the move), but relations with the PSOE provided a not so subtle reminder to the PCE that the pursuit of Soviet interests in Spain did not re49. El Pals, February 7, 1979, p. 14. 50. Pravda, December 19 and 23, 1979. 51. Excerpts of the Ponomarev speech may be found in Mundo Obrero, October 25, 1979, p. 3, along with the PCE reply. Curiously, the phrase was stricken from later TASS reports and from newspaper accounts as well. L'Unitd, October 19, 1979, p. 1. 52. For a useful discussion of PSOE foreign policy, see Antonio Marquina, Espafia en la OZ~N (Madrid: Ediciones Defensa, 1978), pp. 215-227. 53. One anecdote told me by a high-ranking Socialist figure suggests the limits of the CPSU-PSOE relationship. Gonzillez deliberately included Rodolfo Guerra, a gulag captive in the 1940s, in the delegation he led.

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quire, indeed perhaps precluded, a strong Communist Party. In the year and a half after the Ninth Congress, the Spanish Communist leadership was careful not to provoke a major confrontation with the Soviet Union. Having scored virtually no gains in the March 1979 parliamentary elections, and with the Socialist party on the upswing, the PCE was now especially vulnerable. Developments elsewhere in Western Europe reverberated in Spain. The once-bright star of Eurocommunism dimmed after the French Left lost the March 1978 National Assembly election, and the PCI became the target of a withering political crossfire from Socialists, Christian Democrats, and extraparliamentary groups after Aldo Moro's assassination in May 1978. The cumulative effect of these problems was a sharp decline in PCE membership and severe deficits for the Party newspaper, Mundo Obrero. Aware of their increased vulnerability, Spanish Communist leaders tried to maintain some momentum for their Eurocommunist image by exchanging regular visits with Enrico Berlinguer and the PCI, condemning the trials of dissidents in Czechoslovakia, refusing to attend the Paris "peace" conference sponsored by the French and Polish Communist Parties, and redoubling contacts with European Socialist parties, particularly with Francois Mitterand and the French Socialists. At the same time, the PCE moved to mend its fences with Soviet bloc Parties. Most noteworthy was the effort to improve relations with the Portuguese Communists--all the more remarkable given the nadir reached during 1974-1975 and the personal antipathy between Carrillo and Cunhal .54 Significantly, the "plague on both your houses" attitude that had been present in Spanish Communist commentaries on the Soviet Union and the United States now began to change. The PCE official press stepped up its attacks on the United States and the prospect of Spanish entry into NATO. Looking at various Third World troublespots, the Spanish Party stressed its solidarity with those fighting "imperialism." As international tensions increased, the Party rallied around the traditional verities. At one Catalan Central Committee meeting devoted to international issues, PSUC Secretary General Antonio Guti6rrez approvingly quoted the remarks of another Communist leader. We are not neutral . . . . That is the first fundamental question. It is necessary to leave quite clear the fact that we are not neutral in relation to the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact and the socialist countries 54. El Pals, February 24, 1979, p. 6, noted a Spanish Communist desire to normalize relations with the PCP, and in June Executive Committee member Santiago Alvarez attended the Ninth PCP Congress.

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. . . . [there are] anti-imperialist contradictions which we should know how to stimulate and take advantage of in favor of a policy of peace, disarmament, d~tente and the overcoming--in any case simultaneous---of the blocs. This policy is not only best for us but for the socialist countries as well. s5

With the consensus on foreign policy fraying, it now became fashionable for PCE members to laud the Soviet Union and its accomplishments as well as to speak openly of the pro-Soviet and hardline (the two coincided even if they were not identical) orientation of such Executive Committee members as Armando L6pez Salinas, Antonio Palomares, and Ignacio Gallego. More significantly, perhaps, the Eurocommunists now became divided, with one group (identified with the Party apparatus) rallying around Carrillo, and another, which took the name of "renovators," agreeing with Carrillo's policies but criticizing his iron-handed organizational style. Not unconnected to the tempering of official PCE statements was the Party's weakened financial position. What is known suggests that the PCE was burdened by an enormous debt. There had been three national campaigns (the costs for the 1979 parliamentary and the municipal elections totaled nearly 140 million pesetas), a new Party headquarters at Santfsima Trinidad costing 280 million pesetas in 1980, and then a two-year deficit of 250 million pesetas for the daily version of Mundo Obrero. 56 The state covered some of these costs through its electoral subsidy, and approximately 200 million pesetas had been collected prior to the launching of the newspaper, but the losses were staggering, if one takes into account the decline in Party membership after 1978 and normal operating costs. One source of additional revenue might have been export-import firms--such as Centrocommerci in Italy and the Banque Commerciale de l'Europe du Nord in France--used for trading with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; but, unlike their French and Italian counterparts, the three most important Spanish firms (Prodag, CIEX, and Sovhispan) were not directly controlled by the Communist Party. The commissions they earned did not go automatically into PCE coffers. The Communist financial crisis put a great deal of pressure on Carrillo (the Central Committee closed the daily Mundo Obrero in June 1980) and undoubtedly played a role in his careful 55. Reuni6n del Comit~ Central del PSUC, April 26-27, 1980, pp. 35-37. For the depth of pro-Soviet sentiment, see a letter in the PSUC weekly Treball (December 11, 1980) that spoke of those "who carry the hammer and sickle etched in our deepest being." 56. The PCE admitted to 250 million pesetas in total losses through June 1980. Mundo Obrero, Suplemento No. 2 (July 29, 1981), p. 8.

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courting of Romanian President Ceausescu and North Korea's Kim I1 Sung (the latter Carrillo visited three times in 1981). 57 Specific information as to how the Soviet Union manipulated this situation is (quite understandably) unavailable, but there is little question that Moscow tried. On several occasions, Soviet sources released information that embarrassed the Spanish Communists. Thus, in late 1978 the Spanish press carded very detailed accounts about the presumed ties that Prodag, where one of Carrillo's children worked, had with the KGB. 58 A few months later, information given the El Pais correspondent in Moscow resulted in an article indicating that the Soviet Union would fund the Spanish Communist March 1979 electoral campaign. 59 The invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979 led to renewed CPSU-PCE polemics. Once again, the Soviet Union chose to ignore official PCE criticisms of its action, and to focus on individual Spanish Communist leaders. A Soviet writer in New Times, for example, attacked Azc~rate and an editorial article he published in the PCE theoretical journal, Nuestra Bandera. 6° There, Azc~ate had written how the Soviet argument about saving socialism in Afghanistan "had no real base," that the invasion was "a shameless violation of the principle of nonintervention." In rejecting this argument, the New Times author stressed how the chain of events in Afghanistan had to be viewed from "international and class-based" positions, and he reminded his "Spanish friends" that the Soviet Union had also come to the aid of the Spanish Republic during the Civil War. The New Times article was not an especially sophisticated defense of Soviet actions, but it reflected a subtle appreciation of internal PCE dynamics. The Nuestra Bandera editorial had been very direct in its criticism of the Soviet action, more so than official PCE statements. 6~ Moreover, within the Spanish Party, an undercurrent of sympathy toward the Soviet Union was visible. Thus Central Committee member Joaquim Sempere, writing in the PSUC theoretical journal, argued that "the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan could not be judged simplistically,''62 and numerous agrupaciones in 57. Pedro Vega and Peru Erroteta, Los Herejes del PCE (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1982), p. 253. 58. Cambiol6, October 22, 1978, p. 13, and December 31, 1978, p. 37. 59. El Pais, February 14, 1979, p. 1. 60. "La Agravacion de la situaeion internacional," Nuestra Bandera, No. 102 (JanuaryFebruary 1980), pp. 1-4. 61. Compare, for example, the Mundo Obrero editorial (January 3, 1980, p. 3) and the February 1980 Central Committee statement (Mundo Obrero, February 5, 1980, p. 5) with the Azc~trate article in the same paper on January 11, 1980, p. 11. 62. Joaquim Sempere, "Afganistan i el Context Mundial," Nous Horitzons (Barcelona), No. 60 (February 1980), pp. 2-3.

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Madrid, Asturias, and Catalufia also approved resolutions supporting the Soviet action. Internal PCE Crisis and the Soviet Role

The decline in Communist political fortunes (as manifested in the polarization of Spanish politics around two parties, the PSOE and the governing Uni6n de Centro Democr6tico, and in the rise of Socialist influence in the labor movement) exacerbated latent ideological and organizational tensions within the PCE, weakening Carrillo's hold over his Party. Although he remained in charge and in control of the apparatus, opposition to him and his version of Eurocommunism gathered impetus, especially among labor cadres and in the very important Catalan branch of the PCE. Communist labor leaders were growing restive with the moderate policies that Carrillo pursued, demanding a turn to mass mobilizations and strikes as job layoffs and inflation increased. But the disaggregation of the Spanish Party was most clearly visible in Catalufia, where personality conflicts, resentment over Carriilo and the national leadership, the loss of Communist identity, and the radicalization of labor cadres led to the emergence of several factions-denominated the "white flags," "Eurocommunists," "Leninists," and "Afghans"--whose internecine battles virtually paralyzed the PSUC after 1979. 63 "Leninists" and "Afghans" (the latter took their name because they supported the Soviet invasion of that country) especially resented Carrillo's concessions to "electoralism" and his downplaying of the Communist commitment to radical structural change in Spain. Adding an international dimension to their views was their open support for the Soviet Union and their emphasis on diversifying contacts beyond the Italian, Romanian, and Yugoslav Communist Parties. The two factions joined forces inearly 1981 at the Fifth PSUC Congress, modifying the Catalan Party program by eliminating the word "Eurocommunism" from it. No sooner was the PSUC Congress over than PCE leaders blamed Moscow for the Catalan events. Predictably, the CPSU denied the charge, referring to such reports as "bankrupt allegations" invented by the "bourgeoisie" and especially lamenting that "certain leaders of the Spanish Communist Party are joining in this slanderous chorus. ''64 There was, it is true, much indirect evidence pointing to Soviet involve63. For details, see my "Catalufia,Carrillo and Eurocommunism,"Problems of Communism, XXX, 2 (March-April 1981),pp. 25-47. 64. Pravda, January 17, 1981, p. 5, as translatedin the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XXXITI, 3 (February18, 1981),p. 16.

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ment in Catalufia: the influx of New Times to Party and trade union offices in the months prior to the Congress; trips to the Soviet Union organized by a travel agency controlled by the Comisiones Obreras, an agency whose director had well-known pro-Soviet sympathies; and embassy contacts with Catalan dissidents. And yet, despite this activity, the CPSU can hardly be described as the detonator of the Catalan crisis. 65 To do so is to underestimate the depth of the malaise in Spanish Communist ranks during this period, as well as the political errors committed by the Catalan leadership. The "Afghan" faction did not control events in Catalufia; it used deep-seated resentments and frustrations to rally support against Eurocommunism. Thus, one delegate was heard to say: "'Eurocommunism' is not just a word; it is a strike-breaker." The "Leninist"/"Afghan" victory in Catalufia was shortlived as the other factions and the Madrid-based national leadership moved to contain the damage and put the PSUC back on track. The process was a slow and tortuous one: first came the breakup of the "Leninist"/"Afghan" entente (in May 1981, the Central Committee overruled the proSoviets and approved a motion reintroducing Eurocommunism into the Party program; and in July, PSUC President P~re Ardiaca, the visible head of the "Afghans," resigned); then came the expulsion of the "Afghan" faction in December 1981, after it had set up a parallel, quasiclandestine leadership structure within the PSUC. The Catalan turmoil occurred as the PCE, preparing for its Tenth Congress in July 1981, was itself torn by bitter infighting. Against a backdrop of declining expectations, several issues divided the Spanish Communists. Should the PCE pursue a traditional coalition strategy focusing on the Socialists and premised on polarization, or a broader one to include Centrist groups; should it federalize its structures and grant further autonomy to its Basque and Catalan branches; should it democratize its internal structures by granting factions the right to organize and dissent publicly; or should it change its foreign policy outlook by moderating its commitment to Eurocommunism and normalizing its relations with the CPSU? Each group within the PCE had its own answers to these questions, but, more importantly, Carrillo himself now became a target. Although he was reelected Secretary General at the Tenth Congress, the battle for his succession had begun; the "renovators" concluded in mid-1981 that he was the principle obstacle to 65. Sequentially, the references are to Cambio16, January 12, 1981, p. 19; El Pals, January 13, 1981, p. 12, citing sources in the laCE Executive Committee; and Los Herejes del PCE, p. 175.

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the democratization of the Party. 66 The confrontation took place at a November 1981 Central Committee meeting. Carrillo won as Azc&ate and several other prominent Party leaders were ousted for breaches of Party discipline. One consequence of this turbulence was a changed emphasis in the international policies defended by the PCE. This shift had been building since early 1980 in response to internal contests; it now became especially palpable. The ritual invocations of Eurocommunism still found their way onto the pages of Mundo Obrero and into Carrillo's speeches, but the tone of Party policy became much more favorable to the Soviet Union. At a May 1981 Central Committee meeting called to draft the theses for the Tenth Congress, an amendment to delete the phrase referring to the United States and imperialism as "the greater danger" to world peace lost handily.67 As the Polish and Central American crises deepened, so did Spanish Communist criticisms of the U.S. role. 6s Articles on the European "peace" movement and calls for solidarity with the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions were prominently displayed as well. After the Spanish government decided, in September 1981, to request admission into NATO, the Communists announced their vociferous opposition. 69 Although Carrillo sought to portray these positions as contributing to a lessening of "the infernal dynamic of extending and developing the [Soviet and American] blocs, ''7° a more objective assessment would suggest a retreat toward traditional Communist rhetoric and positions. This was certainly the perception of the "renovators," one of whose leaders, Pilar Brabo, demanded in October 1981 a radical break with the so-called countries of "real socialism. ''Tt The Soviets could not but have been gratified by the decline of Carrillo and the battles shaking the PCE. Although the CPSU benefited from, and indeed probably fueled, this discontent, the Soviets by and large adopted a measured approach to the crisis. At a formal level, they maintained links with the PCE. A low-level CPSU delegation (headed by an alternate member of the Central Committee) attended the Tenth 66. La CaUe (Madrid), November 10-16, 1981, pp. 7-9, carded an excellent discussion of the issues involved and the debates in the Central Committee. See also Mundo Obrero Semanal, November 20-26, 1981, pp. 25-43. 67. El Pals, May 6, 1981, p. 17. The text of the Draft Theses is in Mundo Obrero Semanal, October 16-22, 1981. 68. Among the articles, one by PSUC leader Andreu Claret Serra called the United States "the principal responsible" cause for international tension. Treball, October 8, 1981, p. 2. 69. See the statements in Mundo Obrero Semanal, November 13-19, 1981. 70. Mundo Obrero Semanal, November 6-12, 1981, pp. 4-9. 71. Ibid., p. 30.

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Congress, and later Afanasyev expressed t h e hope that "the PCE [would] play a potent and influential role in [Spanish] society. ''72 But, if the Spanish Party remained a formal part of the international Communist movement (being invited to and attending several conferences sponsored by the Prague-based Problems of Peace and S o c i a l i s m ) , 73 its leaders were treated as little more than outcasts by the CPSU and its allies. Carrillo had been the subject of another New Times attack in late 1980 on the occasion of his trip to China. 74 The Spanish delegation to the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, headed by Executive Committee members Leonor Bornau and Francisco Romero Matin, did not address the assembled delegates, but was sent off to speak in Minsk. 75 Similarly, another Executive Committee member, Santiago Alvarez, in attendance at the March 1981 SED Congress in Berlin, spoke at a provincial gathering and his remarks were not published in Neues Deutschland. 76 Consistent with this approach, Pravda's reporting of the Tenth PCE Congress focused on Carrillo, "his superficial observations about existing models of socialism," and how he had failed to mention the 60,000 members who had left the PCE in the recent past. ''77 Taking advantage of the Spanish Communist crisis in 1980 and 1981, the Soviets and their allies stepped up their contacts with dissidents. In June 1980, official Czechoslovak and East German publications reported the formation of a Partido Comunista Espa~ol Unificado (Unified Spanish Communist Party--PCEU). 78 Describing its Congress as one where two Parties, Garcia's PCE VIII y IX Congreso and the Partido Comunista de los Trabajadores (Workers' Communist Party-PCT), heir to the now-defunct OPI, had merged, the Czechoslovak article also noted that the Congress did not mean "an end of the process of amalgamation... [with] all Spanish Communists who agree with the Marxist-Leninist program [finding] the door to the new party open." 72. The statement was by Pravda editor Afanasyev to El Pals, December 9, 1981, p. 8. The bloc Parties, with the exception of Cuba, which sent an alternate member of the Political Bureau, sent no delegate above the rank of Central Committee member. 73. The laCE attended conferences sponsored by Problems of Peace and Socialism in April 1977, December 1978, April 1979, March 1980, and May 1981. 74. "Peking Changes Tactics--On the Visit of a Communist Party of Spain Delegation to: China," New Times, No. 51 (December 1980), pp. 10-12, at If. See also Pravda, November 25, 1980, p. 5. 75. Mundo Obrero Semanal, March 13-19, 1982, p. 10. 76. El Pa(s, April 17, 1981, p. 7. 77. EI Pafs, August 2, 1981, p. II, quoting Pravda, August I, 1981. 78. Horizont (Berlin), No. 20 (1980), p. 12, and Rude Pravo, May 4, 1980. The latter as quoted in Radio Free Europe, Czechoslovak Situation Report/12 (May 14, 1980), pp. 7-8.

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The Soviets remained more publicly restrained until early 1982, when Pravda announced the formation of a new regional party, the Partit dels Comunistes de Catalunya (Party of the Catalan Communists-PCC). 79 Although the article did not explicitly support the new Party, except by saying that the PCC program lauded Marxism-Leninism as well as proletarian internationalism and criticized Eurocommunism, several Parties known for their adherence to the Soviet line, notably the Portuguese and Czech Communists, attended the inaugural PCC Congress. The Soviet decision to raise their profile in support of the new Party reflected a judgment that the PCC, with a strong, presence in the labor movement, not only could compete with the Carrillo-backed PSUC but would be useful in pressuring the national laCE as well. Significantly, these were still far from presenting a viable challenge to Carrillo and the PCE. Alongside the PCOE and other dissident groups, the pro-Soviet contingent in Spain included some individuals who had never joined the PCE and others who had remained in the Party. Among the former was Fernando Sagaseta, a deputy in the Spanish parliament elected by an electoral coalition known as the Unirn del Pueblo Canario. Noted for their radical and anti-NATO rhetoric, 8° Sagaseta and his party, the Partido de la Revolucirn Canario (PRC), entered into ultimately unsuccessful negotiations with the pro-Soviet Catalan Party and other PCE dissidents with a view to forging a national, Marxist-Leninist list for the October 1982 parliamentary election, sl Of those pro-Soviet elements who remained in the PCE, one could distinguish between individuals like Central Committee members Garcia Salve (an ex-Jesuit) s2 and Fidel Alonso, both of whom were active in the Comisiones Obreras, and other, more important figures in the PCE hierarchy, who by and large were loyal to Carrillo and the PCE even as they also felt a strong attachment to the Soviet Union. Garcia Salve had made evident his opposition to the Carrillo line in 1977, criticizing the decision in support of monarchy under King Juan Carlos and later opposing the effort to drop "Leninism" from the Party program. Soon, he dropped all pretense of adhering to Party discipline, publishing articles critical of Carrillo in a conservative Madrid daily 79. Pravda, April 17, 1982, p. 4, as translated in FSlS (Soviet Union), April 13, 1982, p. 13. 80. See his article "No a la OTAN" in El Pals, May 23, 1979, p. 18. For a profile, see Triunfo (Madrid), March 24, 1979, pp. 22-23. 81. El Pals, February 7, 1982, p. 21. 82. For his political autobiography, see Per que seines comunistas?

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and blasting his leadership at neighborhood and Party meetings in the "red belt" around Madrid. "El Cura Paco" ("Paco the priest"), as he was with some affection called, was a charismatic figure in the labor movement, being initially treated as a minor irritant by the Party leadership. This changed as the PCE crisis deepened and he became a forceful advocate of more radical responses to the economic crisis. Although an effort to drop him from the Comisiones Obreras' Consejo Confederal backfired (he was instead elected on a list headed by a proSoviet Catalan), the Central Committee formally expelled him from the Party in July 1981. He and Alonso--who headed the Comisiones provincial organization in Madrid--were the most visible leaders of a hardline contingent composed primarily of Communist labor cadres in Madrid, M~ilaga, and Valencia. 83 Viewed with a mixture of suspicion and resentment by traditional pro-Soviet groups like Lfster's PCOE, these activists were torn between carrying on the battle within the PCE and creating a new party. Garcfa Salve eventually formed the Partido Revolucionario de Unificacion Comunista (Revolutionary Party of Communist Unification), but it performed very poorly in the October 1982 election, receiving less than one percent of the vote. Relations between the Soviet Union and the PCE took another downturn with the Jaruzelski military coup in Poland. The Spanish Communists reacted to the December 1981 Polish events by issuing immediate sharp and critical statements, first by the Secretariat and the Executive Committee, then in January by the Central Committee. 84 The latter coincided with a PCI Central Committee declaration arguing that "the propelling force" of the October Revolution had dissipated. 85 Thereupon, Pravda and Kommunist published diatribes whose acerbity suggested that a definitive CPSU offensive against the Eurocommunists was imminent. 86 But the showdown did not materialize. The death of CPSU ideologue Suslov, the consolidation of Zagladin's influence as First Deputy Head of the CPSU International Department (with close ties to Brezhnev's entourage), and the ralliement of PCI members around their leaders probably encouraged Soviet leaders to pause. They may, in any case, have wanted only to sound an alarm and then step back to see what developed. Such flexibility made sense in the context of the Spanish Communist 83. 4-10, 84. 4-9. 85. 86.

El Pals, July 25, 1981, p. 15 discusses the hardline sector. Also La Calle, August 1981, p. 15. Mundo Obrero Semanal, December 18-24, 1981, p. 5, and January 8-14, 1982, pp. Mundo Obrero Semanal, January I-7, 1982, pp. 7-10. See Joan Urban's article in this issue.

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crisis. As a critic of the Jaruzelski coup and a close ally of the PCI, the PCE had felt itself alluded to in the Pravda and Kommunist attacks, as well as in subsequent articles that criticized Carrillo, Berlinguer, and other PCI leaders. 87 From a public relations point of view, Carrillo found it useful to identify with the PCI, but the logic was a bit forced on this occasion. Not only were the Spanish Communists a much weaker force than the PCI (by the order of one-third), but since early 1981 the PCE's Eurocommunist credentials had faded considerably. Azc~irate, the b~te noire of the Soviet Union, had been expelled from the Central Committee, his close relationship with Carrillo a thing of the past once he joined the chorus of "renovators" who wanted "Eurocommunism within the party. ''s8 Carrillo also had changed. The man who had written "Eurocomunismo" y Estado was quite unwilling to break with the tradition and myths of October 1917. Invariably now his speeches called for discipline and loyalty, reflecting a sense of attachment to Party close to what in the Soviet context is referred to as partiinost. 89 Nowhere was this more evident than in the PCE Central Committee statement on Poland, where the Spanish Communists, although fiercely attacking the Soviet model, blamed the bureaucracy, not the Party ("the party, believing it commands the state apparatus, has been devoured by it") for the errors committed in Poland and elsewhere in the Soviet bloc. The argument, in effect, reaffirmed the legitimacy of Communist Party rule in Eastern Europe. Symptomatically, the PCE Central Committee turned aside various amendments to the resolution, includin~ one by Jordi Borja that demanded a definitive break with the CPSU.:" For his part, Carrillo was careful to emphasize his Party's continuing links with other Communist Parties, while defending similar links "with socialist parties and national liberation movements." In line with this perspective, the Spanish Party retained its international Communist contacts during early 1982: one delegation attended a conference in Moscow celebrating Pravda's 70th anniversary and another the Dimit87. For example, in statements by CPUSA Secretary General Gus Hall reprinted at length in Pravda, March 10, 1982, p. 4, as translated in FBIS (Soviet Union), March 12, 1982, pp. G8-13. Relations between the PCE and PCI had cooled in late 1981 as the Italians tried to mediate in the battle between Carrillo and the "renovators." A Spanish delegation traveled to Rome in December to iron out these differences. 88. Los Herejes del PCE, pp. 152 and 175 discusses how Aze~lrate came under increasing fire within the PCE. 89. Whereas the "renovators" had urged clearcut support for Solidarity in Poland, Carrillo had been curiously ambivalent. Ibid., pp. 41 and 273. See also his speech to the Central Committee in Mundo Obrero Semanal, September 18-24, 1981. 90. Mundo Obrero Semanal, January 18-24, 1982, p. 12.

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rov centenary in Bulgaria. 9~ Internally, Party leaders moved cautiously against the pro-Soviets, resorting to expulsions only in the most flagrant cases of disciplinary infractions. The moderation of the Spanish Communist attitude toward the Soviet Union reflected Carrillo's increasingly tenuous hold on his Party as well as the depth of pro-Soviet sentiment among those who had stayed in the Party despite its membership hemorrhage. Such sentiment was also visible in the highest reaches of the Party, among members of the "old guard" who supported Carrillo's defense of the Party as an institution. Their support had now become crucial to his survival. This was evident at a marathon, thirty-four-hour Central Committee meeting in June 1982 that had been called to examine the disastrous Communist showing in the Andalucian regional elections where the PCE lost half of its votes relative to March 1979. During the meeting, Carrillo beat back a challenge to his leadership by Vice Secretary General Nicolas Sartorius by rallying traditional elements with his calls for discipline. 92 The June 1982 Central Committee session confirmed Carrillo as Secretary General, but the results were by no means unfavorable to the Soviet Union. Not only had the last great hope of the "renovators" been defeated, b u t Carrillo was in a weaker position than at virtually any time since his accession to power in 1956. The October 1982 election results led him to resign, and in his place the PCE Central Committee elected the man he designated as his successor, Gerardo Iglesias, Regional Secretary of the Asturias organization. The change in leadership (even if Carrillo remained as the head of the Party's parliamentary delegation and retained a good deal of behind-the-scenes power) cannot help but weaken the "Eurocommunist" thrust of the PCE and certainly renders the Party more susceptible to Soviet pressure. In their attempt to recover the 1.1 million voters who shifted to the Socialist standard in October 1982 (the PSOE won 46 percent of the vote), the Communists will adopt more leftist policies than before. This should reinforce the hand of hardliners within the PCE to the point that Spanish Communist foreign policy positions (especially on the question of NATO and relations with the Atlantic Alliance) will dovetail more closely with those of the CPSU. The Soviet Union has thus emerged doubly a winner from the latest election. Not only could the Socialists' commitment to withdrawing Spain from NATO work to Soviet advan91. Mundo Obrero Semanal, May 21-27, 1982, p. 35, and June 25-July 1, 1982, p. 16, respectively. 92. Mundo Obrero Semanal, June 18-24, 1982 carded excerpts of the debate. Also the reports in El Pals from June 11 through 14, 1982.

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tage, but a weakened, and indeed a moribund, PCE will be useful in the battle to keep the Spanish Socialists from turning toward a more Atlanticist and pro-Western foreign policy. Conclusions

The preceding discussion has focused on the negotiating behavior and tactics adopted by the CPSU toward the Spanish Communists since the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The analysis shows the CPSU not to be an invariably heavyhanded and ineffective force, but rather a cautious Party, quite capable of acting flexibly with a good deal of subtlety. With their policies driven by the twin imperatives of legitimating and consolidating rule at home and of advancing state and revolutionary interests abroad, the Soviets have used a broad array of instruments to further their goals in relation to nonruling Communist Parties. The CPSU has used surrogates for polemics and different newspapers and journals (ranging from reprinting articles from the "fraternal" press through the use of "unofficial" New Times and extending to pronouncements in Partiinaia zhizn and Kommunist), as well as a strategy that distinguishes the erroneous views of leaders from the ostensibly correct views of their Parties. Ample evidence exists of covert support for splinter groups and of organizational and financial assistance to front organizations and trade unions, as well as to the Parties themselves. Soviet behavior and tactics toward the Spanish Communists have evolved during the past decade. At first, in the early 1970s, Soviet policy aimed primarily at tempering the newly demonstrated independence of Carrillo and the PCE. Public polemics were few during this period. For the most part, the CPSU exerted pressure through Communist leaders sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Using the mechanisms provided by democratic centralism and the reflexive adherence to the myth of Party unity felt by many Party militants, Carrillo successfully parried efforts to oust him or to moderate his positions. Indeed, by the mid1970s, Spanish Communist leaders had deepened their criticisms of Soviet domestic and foreign policies and were consciously striving to articulate a democratic model of socialism. In response, the Soviets stepped up the level of their attacks, publishing bitter diatribes first against Manuel AzcArate (as in the Partiinaia zhizn article in February 1974) and subsequently against Carrillo. Soviet objectives also changed by this time: the CPSU was still interested in bringing the PCE to heel, but more important was the desire to contain the noxious effects of Eurocommunism. Attacks on Carrillo and the PCE thus became warn-

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ing shots, directed at the PCI and other independent-minded Parties, whose purpose was to indicate the boundaries of political debate. In the years after 1974, Soviet policy toward the Spanish Communists developed against this background. The use of aggressive or conciliatory tactics varied, with such factors as the international situation, the state of CPSU relations with other Parties (particularly the Italian), the Spanish domestic context, and internal PCE developments affecting Soviet choices. Nevertheless, even as the PCE became consumed by internal crises after the March 1979 parliamentary elections, the CPSU behaved cautiously, always stepping back from too open a confrontation. But the Soviet Union has not been the detonator of the contemporary Spanish Communist crisis. Domestic failures-have played that role. The PCE's failure to assume a preponderant role on the Left, which was the principal objective behind the transformation impelled by Carrillo during the 1960s and 1970s, broke the confidence of the Party, leaving the PCE denuded by a dramatic loss of membership, searching for a role in Spanish politics. Ironically, it is among those cadres and members who have remained loyal to the PCE that pro-Soviet sentiments and sympathies are strongest. The leverage that the Soviets have thus gained in dealing with the Spanish Party will dissipate only as the Spanish Communists regain the ground they have lost. That will take time, and in the meantime Soviet influence within the PCE is only likely to grow.