European Communism and the Sino-Soviet Schism

Abstract

East European communism has two subgroups: the more moderate Yugoslavs, Poles, and Hungarians and the more rigid East Germans, Czechoslovaks, Rumanians, and Bul garians—plus the pro-Chinese Albanians. West Europe has two mass Communist parties, the semirevisionist Italians and the rigid French, and many other small, sectarian ones. The effect of the Sino-Soviet schism has been decisive only in Al bania, which, out of fear of Yugoslavia, has deserted Moscow for Peking, and primary only in Yugoslavia, where it furthered but did not primarily cause the new Soviet-Yugoslav rapproche ment. Elsewhere throughout Europe, Communist parties have remained pro-Soviet. Even so, by giving party leaderships more room for maneuver, the schism has significantly con tributed to, although not primarily determined, the consolida tion of Polish moderation, the extension of liberalization in Hungary, and ideological revisionism and reformism in Italian communism. In the long run, it seems likely to further still more increasing differentiation and moderation throughout European communism.