We may distinguish, schematically, three ‘models’ of the road to socialism, three types of strategy for transition. The first is the Leninist, or ‘classical’ model, on Which the revolutionary left bases itself. The growth and intensification of capitalist contradictions heighten working-class combativity and increase class consciousness until these culminate in a pre-revolutionary crisis: there is a generalized upsurge of struggles, dual power, a test of politico-military strength, then defeat or victory of the revolution. This was the pattern of February to October in Russia; November 1918 and March 1923 in Germany; 1936 in Spain; and, in a more ambiguous and embryonic fashion, 1973 in Chile and 1975 in Portugal. The second is the social-democratic model. Electoral victory brings a socialist government to power. With the support of the organized masses, this puts into practice a programme of social reforms which add up to socialism. Finally, there is the ‘reformist-revolutionary’ model, on which the Communist and trade-union left in Italy in the 1960s based itself. A government of workers’ parties comes to power and unleashes a lengthy process of transition to socialism. The dialectic between socialist government and masses gradually imposes a series of anti-capitalist structural reforms, which extend over a long period of time but are cumulative in effect. To which of these ‘models’ does the strategy of the Italian Communist Party [pci] correspond?

The pci’s strategy is not based on any of these ‘models’, for the very good reason that such models do not and cannot exist. I reject categorically the idea that there are one or several models of the transition to socialism from which we should draw our inspiration. There are only specific, unique, different societies, within unique, specific and different world contexts. It is pure metaphysics to seek a common model of revolution for all countries and in every context. Is there a classical model of the transition from feudalism to capitalism? Did the bourgeois revolution come about, I am not saying in the same way, but even in a comparable fashion, in France, Britain, Germany and Italy—to say nothing of the third world? If you try to deduce a strategy from a universal model, you inevitably fall into over-generalization and miss the main point: the specificity of a historical situation which requires a specific strategy.

Of course, every society and every revolution are unique. It is obviously not a question of mechanically projecting a concrete revolutionary process onto a historically different society and context. But every revolution involves a universal as well as a specific dimension. At least, that is what Lenin thought about the Russian revolution. There are countless articles, pamphlets and books—for example, the famous ‘Left-Wing Communism’—in which he attempted explicitly to draw out the general lessons of the Russian experience in terms of communist strategy. If we look at societies (and world situations) as different as Russia in 1917, Germany in 1918–23 and Spain in 1936, we find revolutionary processes which can nevertheless be theorized within the same problematic and with the same concepts.

We can speak of them in the same language, that of the Comintern. But even in the examples you have given, the purpose of historical analysis is to see what is different. You may employ a uniform academic language, while the reality to which you apply it is entirely heterogeneous. In Spain, there was working-class unity; in Germany, there was division and bitter struggle between socialists and communists; in Russia, it was different again. It is metaphysical to think that these diverse experiences involve one and the same model.

To come on to Italy, let me quote from the preparatory report for the 14th Congress, given by Enrico Berlinguer at the Central Committee of 10 December 1974: ‘There is no question of posing a socialist society as our short-term objective, because certain essential conditions for this—both domestically and internationally—are still lacking, but rather of putting into effect measures and orientations which are in certain respects of a socialist type.’ So what I want to ask you is this: in what way are national and international conditions today not favourable for the transition to socialism?

There are obvious international obstacles. Europe is divided into military blocs. Each country is conditioned by this; each has ‘limited sovereignty’. No country has absolute independence. The sovereignty even of France, a great independent country and the home of national independence, is limited; in the economic sphere by the multinationals and her financial dependence, and in the political domain by the Atlantic alliance. Even if she is no longer part of the pact, she still participates in the alliance. So these global divisions establish a balance of forces, which is a primary factor. . . .

It is one which did not operate in Angola.