The “Eurocommunist” Perspective: the Contribution of the Italian Communist Party

Does “Eurocommunism” exist or not? What is “Eurocommunism”? To similar questions, often asked of them, the leaders of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) usually reply more or less in the following terms. An idea exists of the characteristics of socialism that are both desirable and possible in Western Europe and, more generally, in advanced capitalist countries; and there exists also a consolidated parliamentary experience which is common, by now, to a number of communist parties. These are, in the first place, the Italian, Spanish and French Communist Parties, which base their action for socialism on common principles which unite old and new values of “political democracy”: the defence of all individual and collective freedoms; the guarantee of plurality and autonomy for organisations of a political, economic or cultural character; the method of alternation between government and opposition in the management of the State; the necessity to develop institutions for workers’ control and to create a framework for democratic programming of the economy; representative democracy as the general form of the State and as the method for the formation of government trends. As can be seen, these are positions of principle, which espouse “political democracy” as a “value in itself” (Berlinguer). They are expressed in common documents, signed by these parties at the end of the bilateral meetings held over the last three years. 1 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.