Beginning of the End in Contemporary Perceptions – The Case of Debates Waged by the Last Politically Significant Western European Far-Left Parties over Neoliberal Reforms (1979–1981)

Abstract

An analysis of the archival sources indicates that numerous contemporaries on the European far-left failed to recognize neoliberal strives as a growing threat to their political influence. The leaderships of Eurocommunist parties, including that of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, formed diverse and often opposing attitudes towards the question of whether or not the European far-left parties should form an international initiative in order to slow down the approaching tide of neoliberal reforms. In some cases, such as that of the Communist Party of Italy, contemporary leftists severely underestimated the swiftness with which neoliberalism was able to gain popularity through the political exploitation of fears and reactions towards the new age phenomenon, as well as the newly articulated consumptionist aspirations of the welfare-state middle class. In other cases, most notably within the Communist Party of France, radical leftists refused to engage in debates on neoliberal trends, judging that such engagement would contribute to the relativization of the Marxist cause by imposing a distinction between more or less acceptable forms of capitalism, as well as by overshadowing the boundary between the communists and their socialist competitors. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia found itself in-between these two camps on the European far-left, first supporting the Italian party in the efforts to form a united front of European Marxists against neoliberalism, before increasingly shifting towards the more radical approach advocated by the French communists. As Yugoslav communists gradually abandoned their reformist course, the current problems that had preoccupied the declining Eurocommunist parties slowly faded away from dominant perceptions within the Yugoslav party, giving way to the growingly complex internal crisis.