Communism

VIII

Communist Influence in Noncommunist Countries

Communist parties have existed in many countries of the world, but in most of them communists have failed to win control of the government and have existed as opposition parties. A report by the U.S. Department of State in 1970 identified 88 countries with communist-type parties or movements. By 1989, according to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the number was up to 106, with ruling communist parties in 23 countries. The influence of communist parties throughout the world diminished with the collapse of numerous communist systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most modern communist parties have stopped advocating violent revolution and single-party rule. In many cases, they operate as part of multiparty liberal democracies, seeking to achieve success and a share of power through free elections.

Since the Cominform was disbanded in 1956, no single agency has coordinated the activities of communist parties throughout the world. A world conference of communist parties was held in Moscow in 1969, but it was marred by disagreements between pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese delegates. Until the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union held clout over most Marxist-Leninist movements through its guidance on communist doctrine and its training and financing of party members.

A

Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

The mighty Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) died with its brainchild, the Soviet Union, in 1991. The CPSU’s central headquarters was disbanded in August 1991, and many of the 15 Soviet republics banned the Communist Party or suspended its operations. The communist organizations of the republics had already begun to change before the 1991 crisis, and the transformation accelerated as the republics began life as independent states.

In the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—the communist parties restyled themselves as postcommunist, social democratic entities, retaining some socialist ideals but supporting free elections and representative democracy. The Lithuanian party, the largest of the three, has been the most successful and has formed several national governments.

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In the majority of the post-Soviet states—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine—the former republic-level communist parties chose to hold onto their communist terminology, heraldry, and aspirations after independence. These parties became known as neocommunist parties. In most places, the neocommunist parties have been opposition parties. One exception has been Tajikistan, where the neocommunists have been closely allied with the governing People’s Party of Tajikistan. In Moldova, the neocommunist party won a national election in 2001. Its leader became president, pledging to follow socialistic economic and social policies and to pursue integration with Russia. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is the country’s largest party and remains one of its most powerful political forces. In the Russian presidential elections of 1996 and 2000, for example, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov finished second to the winners, Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and Vladimir Putin in 2000.

In two of the Central Asian states—Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—the communist party was simply renamed and its last leader from the Soviet period retained office as president. The renamed Democratic Party of Turkmenistan remains that country’s only legal political party. In Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov ceased to be the leader of the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan in 1996, but he continues to rely on officials inherited from the CPSU apparatus and allows only token opposition.

In Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, every communist government surrendered its monopoly on political power. Communist parties underwent decisive changes as their regimes gave way to multiparty governments. Bowing to new political realities, most Eastern European communist parties sought to mask their origins by changing their names. Communist was replaced by terms such as socialist, social democracy, democratic socialism, and the democratic left. For example, the Bulgarian Communist Party restructured itself as the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

The effectiveness of the neocommunist and postcommunist parties of Eastern Europe has varied widely. In Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and several of the Yugoslav successor states, these parties have controlled either parliament or the presidency for extended periods. In Slovakia the party has participated in a governing coalition. In Serbia the former communist party, called the Socialist Party of Serbia and led by Slobodan Miloševi, held power until 2001, when Miloševi was unseated in a Yugoslav presidential election. Only in Albania, the Czech Republic, and Germany did the successor party fail to win a share of government power.

B

Western Europe

The communist parties of Western Europe were all established between 1918 and 1923, following the Russian Revolutions. They were responsive to Soviet directives, yet at the same time drew on European socialist roots going back to the 19th century. Most improved on their popularity during the hard times of the 1930s. During and immediately after World War II, the majority of communist parties in the region cooperated with sympathetic political forces in pursuing the war effort and postwar recovery. One exception was Greece, where the communists fought a full-scale guerrilla war against the royalist government from 1946 to 1949. From 1948 to 1956 the Western European communists generally adhered to a confrontational approach. They incited strikes, mobilized peasants for land reform, and organized mass demonstrations against the European Recovery Program (commonly called the Marshall Plan) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The communists’ strident tactics and opposition to programs that spurred economic recovery greatly diminished their appeal. Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956, the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to confusion and disillusionment among the party faithful. Communist parties in Western Europe went into steep decline in the 1980s, as communism unraveled in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

B

1

Italy

The Italian Communist Party was one of the most potent communist parties in Western Europe after World War II. It was established in 1921 by a radical group of the Italian Socialist Party. The party was outlawed by the Fascist regime but reappeared as a major force in Italian politics in 1944.

Captained by Palmiro Togliatti and later by Enrico Berlinguer, the Italian Communist Party governed many regions and cities, and attracted numerous intellectuals, young people, and trade unionists. At the height of its popularity, in 1976, the party captured more than one-third of the votes in the national elections. That same year the party approved a stance of “historic compromise” with groups once considered opponents, among them bourgeois liberals, social democrats, the Catholic Church, and even the NATO alliance. In addition, the Communists deepened their detachment from the Soviet regime and adopted a more moderate line, rejecting those Soviet policies that were considered repressive of human rights. This approach was widely labeled Eurocommunism. The adjustment in course, however, did little to forestall a profound crisis. The Italian middle class and peasantry remained skeptical of the feasibility of Eurocommunism and disengagement from Soviet policy, and the party’s policies held little attraction for some radical left-wing factions, which turned to terrorism instead. In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, the Italian Communist Party lost half of its members. Two years later, under a new chairman, Achille Occhetto, it renounced the principle of class struggle and changed its name to the Democratic Party of the Left. The party received 15 to 20 percent of the vote in subsequent Italian elections.

B

2

France

The French Communist Party, founded in 1920 by members of the French Socialist Party, was another influential communist party in Western Europe. It had considerable strength in the electorate, the unions, and the universities. Communist mayors governed many cities. In the 1950s and 1960s the party typically won 25 percent of the national vote, and by the late 1970s it was the largest of all French political parties. Although the French Communists flirted with Eurocommunism in the 1970s, their path soon diverged from that of the moderate Italians. Under the leadership of Georges Marchais, the party remained rigidly loyal to Moscow’s Cold War policies. As a result, its electoral share faded from more than 20 percent of the parliamentary votes in 1978 to less than 10 percent today.

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