Commentary by Wallerstein: What Are Communist Parties Today? April 1, 2000

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Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University


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                                    Comment No. 37, Apr. 1, 2000



                                  "What are Communist Parties Today?"



The French Communist Party has just held an historic meeting in which it
renewed its leadership. It was considered a great victory for Robert
Hue, the current Secretary-General, who is generally considered someone
who has wanted to expunge the last traces of a Stalinist past from the
party, especially in the forms of internal organization of the party. He
was opposed by a small group of "orthodox" Communists, who said that he
was trying to "social-democratize" the party. Hue denied this, saying
that the French Communist Party would not simply be a somewhat more
left-wing social-democratic party but would stand for something
distinctive.



It is not however clear to most observers, and perhaps not to Hue
himself, what this something distinctive is. Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, there are no longer too many parties around the world that
call themselves Communist parties. There
remain such parties, of course, in the one-party states where they still
govern, notably China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. And while there
are differences among these parties, they still more or less resemble
the version the whole world knew before
1989.


But in the east/central European states as well as in the states that
constituted the U.S.S.R., almost all the ex-Communist parties have
changed their names, and now have programs that seem "social-democratic"
to many observers. For example, they almost
all insist that they are in favor of permitting (indeed encouraging)
private enterprise in their countries. The Russian Communist Party did
retain the name, but their program too does not seem very "Leninist."
The Czech party too refused to go along with
the change in name, and has remained perhaps the most "orthodox" of
these parties.



Outside the countries that constituted the ex-socialist bloc, there are
only a few countries in which Communist parties were (and to some extent
still are) politically important. The largest such party was in Italy,
and it has gone avowedly social-democratic.
The group that refused to go along calls itself Refondazione Comunista.
But it should be noted that this group includes many of the historically
strongest anti-Stalinists. In South Africa, the Communist Party holds on
to the name. It is a member of the
government, whose world market policies are in the hands of Communist
ministers, and these ministers are not exactly waving the banner of the
nationalization of basic industries.


So what do such parties stand for? First, let us note that they continue
to get important percentages of the votes. In a number of the countries
of east/central Europe and the former U.S.S.R., they have won elections
and formed governments, without in any
way trying then to reinstitute the pre-1989 structures, at least in most
cases. Quite the contrary! The ex-Communist, still "socialist" President
of Poland spoke strongly in favor of joining NATO, for example. In
France and Italy, the parties get under
10% of the votes, but still enough to be taken into consideration in the
formation of coalitions. And in South Africa, the historic alliance
between the African National Congress (the clearly dominant party) and
the South African Communist Party remains a
political reality.


If one asks why such Communist or ex-Communist parties get the votes
they do, it seems clear that, in part, it is nostalgia on the part of a
group of older persons and, probably in far larger part, because they
represent a "social" protest vote against the worst ravages of the world
capitalist system. These parties speak for the defense of the rights of
workers and poor persons. But then so do social-democratic parties of
more traditional lineage, for the most part. So even does the Democratic
Party in the United
States.

So is there a future for such Communist parties? Or are they destined to
merge into an enlarged social-democratic party, as many believe (and
some fear) will happen in France in the next decade or so? Of course,
the same question could be asked of
the Green parties around the world, and especially in western Europe.
What we are really asking about is the future of the world left in
organized form. It seems clear that there are a range of positions in
the world "left" parties, going from those who want to
become centrist quite officially (Blair's Third Way) and those who wish
to cut their ties with groups that even smell of "centrism," with a
whole series of in-between positions as well as persons who insist on
"ecumenicism." Furthermore, there are differences
as to what base should be considered essential politically: the less
well off, the workers, the "minority" ethnic groups, the women, or some
combination of these. And once again, there are arguments between those
who insist on making priorities
among these groups and those who wish to be "ecumenical."


We may not know for another decade how these debates, which are now
quite active everywhere, will sort out. And therefore we may not know
for another decade whether there is, or can be, any role for parties
that call themselves "Communist"
distinctive from that played by parties that eschew this name. At the
present time, to be a Communist is almost a matter of historical
sentiment, the embrace of a tradition of combat. And this embrace is
exactly the reason why others refuse the
appellation, because they associate it with Stalinist terror and
Leninist centralized party structures.

What being or not being a Communist today does not indicate is a
particular political program, either in the short run or even in the
long run. It may once again mean that, although for the moment there are
no signs of it. But if being a Communist party does
not come to represent more than a memory of the past (positive or
negative), then there will not be much point to it.



Immanuel Wallerstein


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