Some Dilemmas—and Hopes

Our perceptions of Communist politics in Western Europe are critically linked to periods in the past. Is it our memories of the CPs in their pre-Stalinist forms—sectarian, aggressive, ultra-left parties; or of the CPs in the Popular Front period—Stalinized, endlessly opportunistic, and ruthlessly centralized; or yet the CPs of the Resistance period— when the clandestinity and hardness of the parties was an asset in resisting the Nazi Occupation? All these CPs are historically valid, and so are a number of others: the small Scandinavian parties, which are, with the exception of that in Finland, sects of true believers irrelevant to the political processes of their countries; there also are the stable city machines of the Italian Red...