The New Euphoria

In Western Europe there are distinct signs of euphoria engendered by the Communist Summit in East Berlin. At this meeting, the leaders of the crucial Western Communist parties—the French, Italian, and Spanish —gave convincing speeches about their conversion to democracy, liberalism, and modified capitalism. But, somewhat puzzlingly, the Muscovites in East Berlin hardly protested these deviationist trends.

How should one evaluate this evolution? Conservatives tended to pooh pooh the rift between Moscow and Peking as a put-up job designed to fool the West. By now it is quite evident that this was not just a piece of the time-honored Chinese sport of shadow boxing, but the real thing—the purely ideological element, of course, taking a back seat to more important issues of nationalism and territory. The turnabouts of the Italian, French, and Spanish Communist parties, however, would appear to have no such geopolitical motivation. In order to arrive at a sane judgment, therefore, we must undertake a close scrutiny of the Socialist-Communist camp, past and present.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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In Western Europe there are distinct signs of euphoria engendered by the Communist Summit in East Berlin. At this meeting, the leaders of the crucial Western Communist parties—the French, Italian, and Spanish —gave convincing speeches about their conversion to democracy, liberalism, and modified capitalism. But, somewhat puzzlingly, the Muscovites in East Berlin hardly protested these deviationist trends.

How should one evaluate this evolution? Conservatives tended to pooh pooh the rift between Moscow and Peking as a put-up job designed to fool the West. By now it is quite evident that this was not just a piece of the time-honored Chinese sport of shadow boxing, but the real thing—the purely ideological element, of course, taking a back seat to more important issues of nationalism and territory. The turnabouts of the Italian, French, and Spanish Communist parties, however, would appear to have no such geopolitical motivation. In order to arrive at a sane judgment, therefore, we must undertake a close scrutiny of the Socialist-Communist camp, past and present.