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51-605: Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties , which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe. During the Cold War , they sought to reject the influence of the Soviet Union and its communist party . The trend was especially prominent in Italy, Spain, and France. It is commonly considered to have been prompted by

102-741: A force across Europe in 1977, when the PCI's Enrico Berlinguer , the PCE's Santiago Carrillo and the PCF's Georges Marchais met in Madrid and laid out the fundamental lines of the "new way". Eurocommunist ideas won at least partial acceptance outside of Western Europe. Prominent parties influenced by it outside of Europe were the Israeli Communist Party , the Communist Party of Australia ,

153-599: A major split over the internal disputes regarding the Prague Spring, with the pro-Dubček faction breaking ties with the Soviet leadership and founding the KKE Interior . KKE's legal branch United Democratic Left (EDA) adopted a more moderate and democratic line over the years and was also described as eurocommunist. The emergence of eurocommunism is often linked to the events in 1968. However this fails to explain

204-835: A mild, generally humid climate, influenced by the North Atlantic Current . Western Europe is a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes. Western European languages mostly fall within two Indo-European language families: the Romance languages , descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire ; and the Germanic languages , whose ancestor language ( Proto-Germanic ) came from southern Scandinavia . Romance languages are spoken primarily in

255-625: A picture of Lavrentiy Beria in his office, to a revisionist , quite popular trade unionist Aarne Saarinen . The same happened even more drastically when the Finnish People's Democratic League also changed its leadership with the reformist Ele Alenius leading it. In 1968, these were the only parties to directly oppose the actions of the Soviet militarship in Prague in 1968, therefore the two organizations split de facto into two different parties, with one reformist and one hard-line Soviet. What

306-667: A result, critics argue that Eurocommunism does not have a well-defined identity and cannot be regarded as a separate movement in its own right. From a Trotskyist point of view in From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: The Bitter Fruits of 'Socialism in One Country ' , Ernest Mandel views Eurocommunism as a subsequent development of the decision taken by the Soviet Union in 1924 to abandon the goal of world revolution and concentrate on social and economic development of

357-702: A rise in Western proletarian militancy such as Italy's Hot Autumn and Britain's Shop Stewards Movement . Eurocommunism was in many ways only a staging ground for changes in the political structure of the European left. Some, like the Italians, became social democrats while others, like the Dutch, moved into green politics and the French party during the 1980s reverted to a more pro-Soviet stance. Eurocommunism became

408-530: A very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Although some countries were officially neutral , they were classified according to the nature of their political and economic systems. This division largely defines the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe and its borders with Eastern Europe . The world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. West Germany peacefully absorbed East Germany , in

459-735: Is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union . In this thesaurus, the countries of Europe are grouped into sub-regions. The following countries are included in the sub-group Western Europe: The Western European and Others Group is one of several unofficial Regional Groups in the United Nations that act as voting blocs and negotiation forums. Regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European members of

510-758: Is the largest religion in Western Europe. According to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center , 71.0% of Western Europeans identified as Christians. In 1054, the East–West Schism divided Christianity into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity . This split Europe in two, with Western Europe primarily under the Catholic Church , and Eastern Europe primarily under the Eastern Orthodox Church . Ever since

561-623: The Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe . Warsaw , Berlin , Prague , Vienna , Budapest , Belgrade , Bucharest and Sofia ; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to

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612-733: The Communist Party of Austria , the Communist Party of Belgium , the Communist Party of Great Britain , the Socialist Party of Ireland and the Communist Party of the Netherlands also turned Eurocommunist. The Socialist People's Party which already broke away from the Communist Party of Denmark after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was also sometimes described as eurocommunist. The PCI in particular had been developing an independent line from Moscow for many years prior which had already been exhibited in 1968, when

663-539: The Communist Party of Finland (Unity) (SKPy). At least one mass party such as the PCF as well as many smaller parties strongly opposed to Eurocommunism and stayed aligned to the positions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until the end of the Soviet Union, although the PCF did make a brief turn toward Eurocommunism in the mid-to-late 1970s. The PCE and its Catalan referent, the United Socialist Party of Catalonia , had already been committed to

714-601: The Communist Party of Spain (PCE) firmly denounced the occupation. The leadership of the Communist Party of Finland (SKP), the Swedish Left Communist Party (VPK) and the French Communist Party (PCF) which had pleaded for conciliation expressed their disapproval about the Soviet intervention, with the PCF thereby publicly criticizing a Soviet action for the first time in its history. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) suffered

765-759: The German reunification . Comecon and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had been part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. In 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands and the United Kingdom . It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference , when

816-808: The Italian Communist Party (PCI), adopting a Eurocommunist perspective. KKE Interior was greatly active in the struggle against the Regime of the Colonels that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974 through the Panhellenic Antidictatorial Front (abbrev. ΠΑΜ ) and its youth wing, the Greek Communist Youth – Rigas Feraios . During the period that followed the overturn of the Regime of the Colonels, known as

867-776: The Japanese Communist Party , the Mexican Communist Party , their successor the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico , and the Venezuelan Movement for Socialism . Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also referred to Eurocommunism as a key influence on the ideas of glasnost and perestroika in his memoirs. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War put practically all leftist parties in Europe on

918-468: The Prague Spring . Although the various parties converged against the Soviet factor, their own doctrines remained as different at the dissolution of the movement as they originally were before 1968. The origin of the term Eurocommunism was subject to great debate in the mid-1970s, being attributed to Zbigniew Brzezinski and Arrigo Levi , among others. Jean-François Revel once wrote that "one of

969-716: The Reformation in the 16th century, Protestantism has also been a major denomination in Europe, with Eastern Protestant and Eastern Catholic denominations also emerging in Central and Eastern Europe . During the four decades of the Cold War , the definition of East and West was simplified by the existence of the Eastern Bloc . A number of historians and social scientists view the Cold War definition of Western and Eastern Europe as outdated or relegating. During

1020-524: The Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture . As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek -speaking eastern provinces, which had formed the highly urbanised Hellenistic civilisation , and the western territories, which in contrast largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division

1071-753: The Soviet Union . According to Perry Anderson , the main theoretical foundation of Eurocommunism was Antonio Gramsci 's writing about Marxist theory which questioned the sectarianism of the left and encouraged communist parties to develop social alliances to win hegemonic support for social reforms. Early inspirations can also be found in Austro-Marxism and the democratic road to socialism . Eurocommunist parties expressed their fidelity to democratic institutions more clearly than before and attempted to widen their appeal by embracing public sector middle-class workers, new social movements such as feminism and gay liberation and more publicly questioning

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1122-514: The Soviet Union . With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain . This term had been used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and, later, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri : From Stettin in

1173-740: The Western European Union was established. It was declared defunct in 2011 after the Treaty of Lisbon , and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries. Additionally, it had 6 associate member countries, 7 associate partner countries and 5 observer countries. The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) which divides

1224-650: The " Far West ". The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty . The Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East . In Ricci's writings, Ricci referred to himself as "Matteo of the Far West". The term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Christianity

1275-606: The CIA classification a little more liberally and including "South-Western Europe", would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population. The Hague is the seat of government The climate of Western Europe varies from Mediterranean in the coasts of Italy , Portugal and Spain to alpine in the Pyrenees and the Alps . The Mediterranean climate of the south is dry and warm. The western and northwestern parts have

1326-614: The Communist Party of Spain nominally returned to Marxism–Leninism . Several criticisms have been advanced against Eurocommunism. First, it is alleged by critics that Eurocommunists showed a lack of courage in sufficiently and definitively breaking off from the Soviet Union (for example, the Italian Communist Party took this step in 1981 after the repression of Solidarność in Poland). This has been explained as

1377-775: The Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Carolingian Empire ), the division between Roman Catholic and Protestant became more important in Europe than that with Eastern Orthodoxy. In East Asia , Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as

1428-661: The Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire , survived and even thrived for another 1000 years. The rise of the Carolingian Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism , enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire , center of

1479-548: The PCI's intentions to build "a socialism that we believe necessary and possible only in Italy". The Historic Compromise ( compromesso storico ) with the Christian Democracy , stopped by the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978, was a consequence of this new policy. The SKP changed its leadership in 1965 with leadership post changing from the Stalinist Aimo Aaltonen , who had even

1530-734: The Soviet Union in 1968 became a turning point for the communist world. Romania's leader Nicolae Ceaușescu staunchly criticized the Soviet invasion in a speech , explicitly declaring his support for the Czechoslovakian leadership under Alexander Dubček . While the Portuguese Communist Party , the South African Communist Party and the Communist Party USA supported the Soviet position, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and

1581-464: The Soviet Union, the doctrine of socialism in one country . According to this vision, the Eurocommunists of the Italian and French communist parties are considered to be nationalist movements, who together with the Soviet Union abandoned internationalism . From an anti-revisionist point of view, Enver Hoxha argued in Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism that Eurocommunism is the result of Nikita Khrushchev 's policy of peaceful coexistence . Khrushchev

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1632-429: The Soviet Union. However, Eurocommunism did not go as far as the Anglosphere-centred New Left movement which had originally borrowed from the French nouvelle gauche , but in the course of the events went past their academic theorists, largely abandoning Marxist historical materialism , class struggle and its traditional institutions such as communist parties . The Prague Spring and particularly its crushing by

1683-446: The already weakened party. Pro-Soviet hard-liners from SKPy formed their own cover-organization called Democratic Alternative . In 1990, the new Left Alliance integrated the parties, but Alenius chose not to be member of it because they also took hard-line Taistolaists. Western European communists came to Eurocommunism via a variety of routes. For some, it was their direct experience of feminist and similar action, while for others it

1734-508: The countries of the world into regional and subregional groups, based on the M49 coding classification . The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories. In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as Western Europe: The CIA classifies seven countries as belonging to "Western Europe": The CIA also classifies three countries as belonging to "Southwestern Europe": EuroVoc

1785-665: The defensive and made neoliberal reforms the order of the day. Many Eurocommunist parties split, with the right factions (such as the Democrats of the Left or the Initiative for Catalonia Greens ) adopting social democracy more whole-heartedly while the left strove to preserve some identifiably communist positions (the Communist Refoundation Party or the PCE and the Living Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia ). The successors of KKE Interior, Renewing Communist Ecological Left (AKOA) and Greek Left (EAR), alongside other left-wing groups and politicians including EDA's last leader Manolis Glezos would go on and form Synaspismos . In 2017,

1836-411: The favourite amusements of 'political scientists' is to search for the author of the term Eurocommunism". In April 1977, Deutschland Archiv decided that the word was first used in the summer of 1975 by Yugoslav journalist Frane Barbieri, former editor of Belgrade 's NIN news magazine. Outside Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as neocommunism . This theory stresses greater independence from

1887-518: The fear of losing old members and supporters, many of whom admired the Soviet Union, or with a pragmatic desire to keep the support of a strong and powerful country. Other critics point out the difficulties the Eurocommunist parties had in developing a clear and recognisable strategy. They observe that Eurocommunists have always claimed to be different—not only from Soviet communism , but also from social democracy —while in practice they were always very similar to at least one of these two tendencies. As

1938-430: The final stages of World War II , the future of Europe was decided between the Allies in the 1945 Yalta Conference , between the British Prime Minister , Winston Churchill , the U.S. President , Franklin D. Roosevelt , and the Premier of the Soviet Union , Joseph Stalin . Post-war Europe was divided into two major spheres: the Western Bloc , influenced by the United States , and the Eastern Bloc , influenced by

1989-402: The group are: In addition, Australia , Canada , Israel and New Zealand are members of the group, with the United States as observer. Using the CIA classification strictly would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population. All figures based on the projections for 2018 by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs . Using

2040-613: The highest gross domestic product in Europe and the largest financial surplus of any country, Luxembourg has the world's highest GDP per capita, and Germany has the highest net national wealth of any European state. Switzerland and Luxembourg have the highest average wage in the world, in nominal and PPP , respectively. Norway ranks highest in the world on the Social Progress Index . Communist Party of Greece (Interior) The Communist Party of Greece, Interior ( Greek : Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας Εσωτερικού ), usually abbreviated as KKE Interior (Greek: ΚΚΕ Εσωτερικού ),

2091-400: The idea that communist parties in power in western Europe could be acceptable for the United States if they are independent from Moscow stating how " Tito is not under Moscow's control, yet his influence is felt all over the world" warning how a West European, communist ruled country, may potentially lead to "total redefinition" of the post-World War II order. Western Europe Prior to

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2142-432: The liberal possibilist politics of the Popular Front during the Spanish Civil War . The PCE's leader Santiago Carrillo wrote Eurocommunism's defining book Eurocomunismo y estado ( Eurocommunism and the State ) and participated in the development of the liberal democratic constitution as Spain emerged from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco . The People's Alliance in Iceland, the Sammarinese Communist Party ,

2193-412: The party refused to support the Soviet invasion of Prague . In 1975, the PCI and the PCE had made a declaration regarding the "march toward socialism" to be done in "peace and freedom". In 1976, the PCI's leader Enrico Berlinguer had spoken of a "pluralistic system" ( sistema pluralistico translated by the interpreter as "multiform system") in Moscow and in front of 5,000 communist delegates described

2244-408: The protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Western Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe. Western Europe is one of the richest regions of the world. Germany has

2295-403: The realignment between european communist parties and the Soviet Union from 1968 up to the early 1970s. Some communist parties with strong popular support, notably the PCI and the PCE, adopted Eurocommunism most enthusiastically. The SKP was dominated by Eurocommunists. In the 1980s, the traditional, pro-Soviet faction, the Taistoists , broke away, calling the main party revisionist and founded

2346-430: The southern and central part of Western Europe, Germanic languages in the northern part (the British Isles and the Low Countries ), as well as a large part of Northern and Central Europe . Other Western European languages include the Celtic group (that is, Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Manx , Welsh , Cornish and Breton ) and Basque , the only currently living European language isolate . Multilingualism and

2397-434: Was a Eurocommunist party existing between 1968 and 1987 in Greece . The party was formed after the Communist Party of Greece ( KKE ) suffered a major split following the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring . KKE Interior essentially broke ties with KKE's ideological supervision by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and later established bonds with parties such as

2448-414: Was a reaction to the political events of the Soviet Union at the apogee of what Mikhail Gorbachev later called the Era of Stagnation . This process was accelerated after the events of 1968, particularly the crushing of the Prague Spring . The politics of détente also played a part. With war less likely, Western communists were under less pressure to follow Soviet orthodoxy, yet also wanted to engage with

2499-501: Was accused of being a revisionist who encouraged conciliation with the bourgeoisie rather than adequately calling for its overthrow by the dictatorship of the proletariat . He also stated that the Soviet Union's refusal to reject Palmiro Togliatti 's theory of polycentrism encouraged the various pro-Soviet communist parties to moderate their views in order to join cabinets which in turn forced them to abandon Marxism–Leninism as their leading ideology. Henry Kissinger opposed

2550-424: Was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire . The Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the two divergent regions between the 3rd and the 5th centuries. The division between these two was enhanced during late antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed , starting the Early Middle Ages . By contrast,

2601-437: Was peculiar was that the youth wing was nearly completely Taistoist. Progress was hard to make as the party accorded that the Taistolaist strongly pro-Soviet movement named after their leader Taisto Sinisalo had equal rights of power in the party, although it was a minority and the vast majority of the party was Eurocommunist. In 1984, with a strong Eurocommunist majority the hard-line organizations were massively expelled from

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