Fernando Claudin was a leader of the Spanish Communist Party until his expulsion in 1964, and is the author of the already classic The Communist Movement: from Comintern to Cominform.footnote1 The analysis of Eurocommunism and its relation to socialism put forward in his new book is very timelyfootnote2—both because Claudín produced it after his return to post-Franco Spain, when the debate about Eurocommunism in that country and the problems faced by it in France and Italy as well had become highly topical, and also because its appearance followed closely upon publication of the much-discussed Eurocommunism and the State by Santiago Carrillo, general secretary of the pce.footnote3 Claudín’s book can thus be taken as a kind of reply, by the most authoritative ‘left Eurocommunist’, to what was generally seen as a right-Communist book.

Claudín analyses brilliantly the conditions in which Eurocommunism arose and developed in Italy, France and Spain; the economic and political problems which, predictably, it is now confronting; and its party organization, political line/lines and inherent limitations. However, he then ‘derives’ political conclusions arguing for a democratic and socialist Eurocommunism which, as we shall see, unfortunately do not accord with his own very accurate analysis of Eurocommunism and its limitations, in whose light they do not seem realistically admissible.

Because of his judicious reflection upon historical and present reality alike, and because of the objective plausibility of his projections for the future, we can agree fully with Claudín on (among others) each of the following analytic theses. 1. World capitalism has since the mid-sixties entered a new deep structural crisis of accumulation, analogous to that of the inter-war period. This crisis engenders a host of political problems and responses: notably those of Eurocommunism, and the bourgeois austerity policies which are imposed with or without the agreement of the Communists.footnote4 2. In the present stage of capitalism, monopoly is an integral aspect which is only reinforced by the crisis, and which—contrary to the Eurocommunist thesis—can be combated only through a successful anti-capitalist policy, without which an ‘anti-monopoly’ policy is impossible, (pp. 101–2) 3. However, there seems to be a kind of ‘imperial historic compromise’ between the United States and the Soviet Union in opposition to socialist revolution in Europe—including, it may be added, in opposition to a Eurocommunist democracy. (pp. 136–7) Thus, more than ever, the problem of political and military power is the key question. (p. 117)