The end of Eurocommunism and the Spanish Communist Party (PCE)

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the end of Eurocommunism and the situation of the Spanish Communist Party in the late seventies, offering at the same time, a comparative study of the cases of Italy and France. Eurocommunism represented a trend of interior renovation within the communist camp, which finally produced few results. In the sixties and seventies, the Communist Parties of France, Spain and Italy began to consider democracy as a fundamental value and vehicle on the road to socialism. Its attempt did not produce the expected results and the Spanish, French and Italians Communists were increasingly marginal (and marginalized) as a political force. Probably the case of Spain was the most complicated and interesting because it was where the Eurocommunism crisis was most intense. The failure of the eurocommunist project produced the implosion of the Spanish Communist Party: after poor election results, the internal disagreements increased threatening the survival of the party.

Keywords

• Eurocomunismo
• Partido Comunista español
• Italia
• Santiago
• Carrillo
• Comunismo