Eurocommunism

Eurocommunism (also referred to as the Gramscians) was a revisionist trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties. They claimed to be developing a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe. During the Cold War, they sought to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was especially prominent in Italy, Spain and France.

The Eurocommunists came into conflict with the orthodox Marxist-Leninists in the various communist parties of the West. They sought to move the focus away from the class struggle politics of industrial workers, towards the petty bourgeois-based new social movements which instead focused on cultural hegemony theories (relating to feminism, gay rights, immigration politics, student politics, etc).

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 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 newsmagazine. Outside Western Europe, it is sometimes referred to as "Neocommunism". This theory stresses greater "independence". They are sometimes called "Gramscians" because of their reliance on the theories of Antonio Gramsci rather than Vladimir Lenin.

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