Eurocommunism

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 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.

== Terminology == 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 Croatian 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 the Soviet Union.