Apostle Carrillo

A Eurocommunist on the road

Spain's Communist Party Chief Santiago Carrillo seems determined to establish himself as the St. Paul of Eurocommunism--a roving missionary for that brand of Western European Marxism that professes to be compatible with democracy and independent of Moscow. Earlier this year, Carrillo published a manifesto asserting that European Marxists should work toward reform through the ballot box rather than revolution. Now he is taking his gospel on the road.

In a ten-day U.S. visit beginning this week, the balding, volatile Carrillo, 62, will attempt to explain Eurocommunism in several American forums, including Yale University, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan. Doubtless to his irritation, he will not be the only Spanish leftist stumping in the U.S. Felipe Gonzalez, 35, leader of the Socialist Workers Party, whose 28.5% of the vote in the June elections far surpassed the Communists' slim 9%, will be in Washington for talks with Vice President Walter Mondale and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. No officials have invited Carrillo for a chat.

Carrillo's U.S. visit climaxes a series of image-building junkets. In Moscow for the 60th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, he got a much publicized snub from the Kremlin leaders, who decided--after looking at his prepared text--that they could not fit him into the speaking schedule. This only burnished his sought-after image of independence. Said one diplomat in Madrid: "The Russians were booby-trapped. Carrillo came out looking like a stalwart democrat."

Carrillo then flew to Yugoslavia, hoping to discuss his U.S. trip with Marshal Tito. The aging marshal was too fatigued to see him and begged off, but Carrillo dined with Yugoslavia's No. 2 man, Edvard Kardelj, who was just back from a successful visit to Washington. Next it was off to Rome for talks with Italy's Enrico Berlinguer, leader of Western Europe's largest Communist Party. In deference to Berlinguer, who has been careful not to antagonize the Kremlin despite his own protestations of independence, Carrillo shrugged off the snub he had received in Moscow. Said he: "I don't regard myself as the enfant terrible of Communism--if only because of my age."

By playing just that Marxist maverick role, however, Carrillo has won much attention. Cambio 16, a respected Madrid weekly, has described him as "one of the most Machiavellian, intelligent and chameleon-like politicians on the world scene." That is somewhat grand, considering the small size of Carrillo's party (claimed membership: 100,000) and the preference of most Spaniards for middle-road politics. Now Carrillo is trying to draw the more popular Socialists into a consensus on how to further democratize Spain, in order to blur their image as the dominant party on the left.

Carrillo's colleagues abroad are evolving their own definitions of Eurocommunism. Italy's Berlinguer, whose party is inching toward its goal of a direct role in government, won acclaim at home for his performance at the Moscow anniversary party. He skillfully managed to praise Soviet Communism while reasserting his own independence and calling democracy a "historical and universal" value. Said he: "It is obvious that there cannot be any leading parties or subordinate parties." Ugo La Malfa, the influential leader of Italy's small centrist Republican Party, praised Berlinguer's speech as "a clear-cut turning point" that made the Communists more worthy to participate in running Italy. Meanwhile, in France, Georges Marchais's Communist Party has split with its Socialist allies just when a leftist victory in next spring's elections appeared to be possible. They seem to have severed the alliance because they are unwilling to share power--thus confirming doubts in some quarters about the sincerity of the Eurocommunists' eagerness to work within the democratic framework.

Carrillo has scoffed at warnings by Henry Kissinger, among others, that the European Communists' vaunted independence from Moscow is untested, to say the least. Carrillo maintains that "Eurocommunism is a reality." While in the U.S., he will have a chance to explain some of the contradictions in his doctrine: how, for instance, he can profess a commitment to democracy while also insisting on "the possibility of reaching power by revolutionary means." To satisfy his U.S. audiences, Carrillo may need the persuasive powers of a St. Paul.

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