Western Communists, Mikhail Gorbachev and the 1989 Revolutions

Abstract

Western communists reflected two opposing responses to the final crisis of communism that had matured over time. The French communists represented a conservative response increasingly hostile to Gorbachev's perestroika, while the Italians were supporters of a reformist response in time with his call for change. Thus Gorbachev was the chief reference, positive or negative, against which Western communists measured their own politics and identity. In 1989 the French aligned with the conservative communist leaderships of eastern Europe, and ended up opposing Gorbachev after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Accordingly, the PCF became a residual entity of traditional communism. On the other hand, the Italian communists agreed with all Gorbachev's choices, mid to some extent they even inspired his radical evolution. But they also shared Gorbachev's illusions, including the idea that the fall of the Berlin Wall would produce a renewal of socialism in Europe. Unlike the PCF, the PCI was able to undertake change in the aftermath of the 1989 revolutions, thus standing as a significant 'post-communist' force. However, if conservative communism was destined to become marginal, reform communism also failed in its objective of renewing the Soviet system and the communist political cultur

Entangled Eurocommunism: Santiago Carrillo, the Spanish Communist Party and the Eastern Bloc during the Spanish Transition to Democracy, 1968–1982

“…115 The evident decline of Western communism after the disruption of the 1970s, especially clear in the case of the electoral results of the Eurocommunist parties, was temporarily halted in the mid-1980s with the beginning of the democratisation of the Eastern Bloc under Gorbachev in 1985. 116 But the changes in Eastern Europe finally put the PCE under intense pressure to change. Nuestra bandera, the theoretical journal of the party, was not published at all during the memorable year of 1989, and the first issue of 1990 spoke about 'the indispensable theoretical debate'.…”

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“…Aunque reprobaba sus métodos, justificaba su razón política de fondo, es decir, la voluntad de poner fin a la labor de Gorbachov: una labor que había sido caracterizada por "un exceso de tacticismo" y que, además de desmantelar las conquistas de la Revolución de Octubre, había llevado a la "pérdida de independencia de la política exterior soviética", a su "claudicación" ante EEUU 68 . En suma, coincidiendo con partidos como el PCF y el PCP (Pons, 2009;Patrício y Stoleroff, 1994), el sector duro del PCE presentaba ahora una valoración negativa de la perestroika, considerando que ésta no solo había apuñalado a muerte la "patria del socialismo", sino que había contribuido de manera decisiva al surgimiento del denostado nuevo orden mundial. Santiago Álvarez a este propósito afirmaba: "Desde hace ya algún tiempo la Perestroika no es ninguna reforma del socialismo, sino un proceso involucionista y desintegrador de lo que antes era la URSS y su sistema social, con una influencia negativa, por conservadora, en Europa y en todo el Orbe" 69 .…”