The New Communism

A major political drama is unfolding in Western Europe: the Communists' attempt to gain power by asserting that their brand of Marxism is just a benign, reformist force, quite unrelated to Moscow. They have said this before, of course, but they are now pushing the line to the point of no longer even sounding like Communists. Will non-Communist parties believe the line? If not, what will they do about it? All this may well be the most serious challenge to democratic values and security in Europe since the cold war.

The latest episode happened last week. In the "Red Belt" Paris suburb of St. Ouen, 1,600 French Communists filed into an oyster-shaped sports arena for their 22nd Party Congress. A sign inside the hall proclaimed: A DEMOCRATIC ROAD TO SOCIALISM--A SOCIALISM FOR FRANCE. Party Leader Georges Marchais amplified that soothing slogan in a five-hour opening address that amounted to a cautious declaration of independence from Moscow.

Repressive Measures. Marchais did pay some of the traditional tributes to Soviet Communism, lauding its social accomplishments and democratic structures, even pledging to fight "anti-Sovietism." But he also underscored French Communism's new autonomy by attacking "repressive measures" taken by the Soviet Union against dissidents (see following story) in extraordinarily blunt language. Said he: "We cannot agree to the Communist ideal being stained by unjust and unjustifiable acts.

Such acts are in no way a necessary consequence of socialism." The party boss went on to argue that "our road to socialism is an original road . . . a French road. France today is neither Russia in 1917 nor Czechoslovakia in 1948." Thus "no party or group of parties"--meaning, clearly, the Soviet bloc--"can legislate for the others." France's Communist way, he urged, should be to seek a broad coalition beyond just the left--not merely with socialists but with "all forces of the nation active against the barons of large capital." Though he has variously favored and rejected power sharing in the past, Marchais again prefers some role in government to sterile opposition from the outside. "Because the workers and their Communist Party were excluded from responsibility," he told the congress, "a policy was followed that was against the interests of the workers and the nation."

Disavowing the central Marxist doctrine of a dictatorship of the proletariat as out of date, Marchais argued instead that his party's call was to unite the working class with the salaried middle class. In a blatant appeal to Roman Catholic voters, he decried loose morals and praised Franc,ois Cardinal Marty, the Archbishop of Paris, for his recent outspoken criticism of the lucrative French armaments trade. Marchais also scorned collectivism as a "barracks Communism that casts everyone and everything in the same mold." The French party, he insisted, does not want "uniformity that stifles, but diversity that enriches."

Marchais's unorthodox party policy statement was particularly notable in light of the French party's half-century record of slavishly backing Moscow. It was the outcome of a bitter intraparty struggle between Marchais and hardliners--notably L'Humanite Editor Roland Leroy--who wanted to maintain the traditional pro-Soviet stance.

Thanks in part to the spectacular electoral successes of Enrico Berlinguer's moderate-sounding Italian party (TIME, June 30), Marchais defeated Leroy's challenge to his policy and won a majority of key comrades over to his proposal for presenting a Communism with a human face.

But could Marchais's declaration of belief in democratic principles be taken at face value? French opinion last week was mixed. Annie Kriegel, a former Communist and one of the nation's leading experts on party affairs, was cautiously optimistic. "In a party where doctrine and words are so important, so constraining, the abandonment of a formula like 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' is not a minor event," she wrote. "One cannot say that nothing has changed and that everything continues as before." France's Minister of Justice, Jean Lecanuet, demurred. "The Communists are in the middle of an identity crisis and are taking up the mask of a certain reformism. If they ever came to power, the mask would fall." A more pragmatic concern was voiced by Franc,ois Mitterrand's French Socialists, who are now loosely allied with the Communists in backing a reform platform called the Programme Commun. Even before the congress opened, the Socialists issued a report warning that Marchais's "union of the people of France" might be a maneuver to counterbalance Socialist influence in any coalition.

Dutiful Delegates. Moscow did not immediately react to the new French posture, but a Czech Communist observer considered the ideological shift "very serious. It is unacceptable to our party." The ideas seemed quite acceptable, however, to the dutiful delegates in Paris. After Marchais delivered his opening address last week, the party rank and file began a series of speeches adopting their leader's main points as if they were following a script. Party discipline clearly had not yet succumbed to the new temptations of democracy.

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