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ABSTRACTToday the interest in Eurocommunism is declining. Between 1976 and the end of 1978 some observers had seen it as a new sort of Communism characterised by a readiness to adopt the principles and practices of Western democracies and by an emphasis on independence from the Soviet Union and its socialist model. The author examines the tactical reasons for and the scope of this "liberal Communism" and underlines that the PCI has gone much further than the PCF. In any case this liberal Communism has preserved its Communist identity. Eurocommunism represents a further step in the process of polycentric decentralisation of the International Communist Movement. It does not, however, constitute a threat to the hegemony of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. A modus vivendi seems to have been established between orthodox and Euro‐communisms.

The intellectual structures which can easily be applied to the political and social realities of Northern Europe are largely irrelevant to those of Southern Europe, and certainly, to those of France.Three postulates are implicit in considering the problem of the changing relations between the trade unions and the working-class parties.One is that in every European industrial country there are working-class parties. In addition there are parties which are not working class, but bourgeois middle class, conservateurs, popolare or volksparteien (and the logic of this postulate even implies that there is, in fact, only one working-class party of any real political significance).

The concepts applicable to Northern European political & social realities are largely irrelevant to those of France & other Southern European countries. While every European industrial country has working class parties, an overall homogeneity of ideas across trade unions, & a stable set of ties between trade unions & working class parties, according to postulates derived from northern countries, these postulates do not fit the French situation. There are no working class parties as such in France, while ideological considerations are much more important than any class considerations; unions differ in both political orientations & union practices; & there is no stable pattern of relations between unions & parties. Between 1972 & 1977 a united leftist party evolved, with the Socialist Party growing in strength; after autumn 1977, this union collapsed, forcing the trade unions to abandon political hopes & go back to bargaining with employers. The various unions, exemplified by the Confederation Generale du Travail & the Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail (CFDT) reacted differently to the Union de la Gauche, with the CFDT concentrating on preserving its autonomy. The decisive facts about the French situation are the presence of a strong Leninist Communist Party & of a strong anarchosyndicalist tradition among the working class. W. H. Stoddard.