Some Euroquestions

I believe that the French general election, scheduled for March 1978, is the most important event visible on the global horizon—more important than the Belgrade conference, the further SALT discussions, the Geneva meeting on the Mideast, the gathering storm in southern Africa, or the negotiations with China and Cuba. In the last analysis, the global equilibrium rests on the underlying solidarity between the United States and Western Europe—the Atlantic Alliance. Because of the French Communist party’s united front tactic, currently termed Eurocommunism, this North Atlantic relationship will be at issue in the election. A victory of the Common Front could prove to be a first critical step in the detachment of Western Europe from North America—that is to say, in the isolation of the United States. I have been continuing these comments on Eurocommunism because of this estimate of the importance of the political shifts in France, first of all, and in Italy, Spain, and Great Britain. I add a few miscellaneous data before suspending this series, which I plan to reopen as the date nears for the French election.

1. There was worldwide comment last winter when Georges Marchais announced that the French Communist party was abandoning as outmoded the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” No notice has been taken of the fact that “dictatorship of the proletariat” was dropped in the new Soviet constitution that Leonid Brezhnev presented this spring. Nor of the fact that “dictatorship of the proletariat” continues to be listed as an objective of the French Communist party in its official statutes.

JB

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James Burnham

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I believe that the French general election, scheduled for March 1978, is the most important event visible on the global horizon—more important than the Belgrade conference, the further SALT discussions, the Geneva meeting on the Mideast, the gathering storm in southern Africa, or the negotiations with China and Cuba. In the last analysis, the global equilibrium rests on the underlying solidarity between the United States and Western Europe—the Atlantic Alliance. Because of the French Communist party’s united front tactic, currently termed Eurocommunism, this North Atlantic relationship will be at issue in the election. A victory of the Common Front could prove to be a first critical step in the detachment of Western Europe from North America—that is to say, in the isolation of the United States. I have been continuing these comments on Eurocommunism because of this estimate of the importance of the political shifts in France, first of all, and in Italy, Spain, and Great Britain. I add a few miscellaneous data before suspending this series, which I plan to reopen as the date nears for the French election.

1. There was worldwide comment last winter when Georges Marchais announced that the French Communist party was abandoning as outmoded the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” No notice has been taken of the fact that “dictatorship of the proletariat” was dropped in the new Soviet constitution that Leonid Brezhnev presented this spring. Nor of the fact that “dictatorship of the proletariat” continues to be listed as an objective of the French Communist party in its official statutes.