Eurocommunism Divided

For the second week in a row, Italy's Communist Party daily L'Unit`a flayed Moscow with a front-page attack on its policies. The arrest and internal exile of Dissident Andrei Sakharov, said the paper, "demonstrated an inability to resolve in tolerant terms and free confrontation tensions affecting Soviet society " A few days earlier, L'Unit`a had printed the charge of Party Boss Enrico Berlinguer that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was "an open violation of the principles of national independence and sovereignty." France's Communist daily L'Humamte also scored the arrest but in much more muted tones: "Measures such as those that have been just taken against Sakharov can only bring our disapproval." Unlike Berlinguer, French Party Boss Georges Marchais insisted that the Afghanistan invasion had been justified. This polarization of views between Western Europe's two largest Communist Parties underlined one byproduct of the Afghan crisis: a further fragmentation of Eurocommunism.

As usual, the Italians have led the way in declaring their independence of Moscow. At a meeting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg two weeks ago, Berlinguer introduced a resolution that condemned the Afghanistan invasion but also called upon the nine members of the European Community to preserve detente by negotiating with the Soviet Union on their own. In Rome Communist Spokesman Luciano Barca said: "We are closer to the Social Democrats of Germany and Benelux than to the party in France."

The Italian views were shared by Spain's Communists. Party Boss Santiago Carrillo, who is under attack from Stalinists in the ranks, issued no statement of his own, but an executive commission statement charged the invasion created "new dangers for world peace." Even the British Communists, who normally back Moscow's foreign policy down the line, openly questioned the Soviet rationale for invading Afghanistan. The assertion that Afghanistan's late President Hafizullah Amin had been an American agent, proclaimed the Morning Star, was simply "not credible."

The remainder of Western Europe's Communist Parties, however dutifully and meekly lined up behind Moscow. The most vociferous defense of Soviet actions came from Marchais. Interviewed on French television after his return from a six-day visit to Moscow, Marchais described Soviet troops in Afghanistan as peaceful forces" and the invasion as a "totally legitimate intervention" to counter "imperialist threats." Asked about the Italian and Spanish Communist condemnation, he answered tartly: "You still haven't understood that my name is Marchais, that his is Berlinguer and that the other's is Carrillo "

Some European pundits noted that the Italian and Spanish Communists had hedged their bets a trifle--neither party specifically demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and both balanced their attacks on Moscow with broad swipes at the U.S. In Italy, Berlinguer's zest to condemn the Kremlin was seen by many as a rather obvious attempt to project an image of his party as more European than Communist in order to improve its future electoral prospects Marchais's hard pro-Moscow line seemed to confirm the old quip of former Socialist Premier Guy Mollet, who said that the French party was "not on the left but in the East."

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