THE NEW FACE OF THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R001900220040-8
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• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
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No. 16
The Heritage Foundation ? 513 C Street ? N.E. ? Washington, D.C. ? 20002 ? [phone]
October 1981
THE NEW FACE OF THE S?CI ST IN L
In the battle against .communism, the Socialist International
long stood in the front ranks. Committed to democracy and the
West's tradition of individual liberties, for decades it waged an
ideological and political battle against Leninism and other
totalitarian variants of Marxism.. In recent years, however,'the
Socialist International has begun to waver in its opposition, to
communism. Whether inadvertently or by design, the policies and
proclamations of the organization seem to be converging, to an
alarming extent, with those of Moscow on a number of critical
.matters.. By. so doing, the Socialist International betrays some of
its most fundamental principles.
ORGANIZATION OF THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
Based in London, the Socialist International is a worldwide
association of socialist. and social democratic parties with a
president, twenty-one vice presidents and a secretary general.
The SI currently consists of forty-seven full member parties,
fifteen consultative parties, three fraternal organizations and
eight. associated organizations. The twenty-two West European
member parties provide not only the leading personalities and the
bulk of the funds available to the organization, but also the
historical-ideological bonds of the SI. This stems from the
organization's antecedents, dating from the establishment of the
International Workers' Association (First International) in
London in 1864. The remaining twenty-five member parties are in
the Latin America-Caribbean area (eleven, most of which are
relatively recent members), the Asian-Pacific area (five, includ-
ing two in Japan), the Near East (three), Africa (three) and
North America (three, including two in the United States -- the
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the Social Democrats
USA).
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The consultative parties-include nine exile socialist and
social democratic parties from.Eastern Europe, including the
Baltic states. The fraternal organizations are the Socialist
International Women, the International Union of Socialist Youth
(IUSY) and the International Falcon Movement/Socialist Educational
International. The SI also recognizes associated organizations
of a regional or international nature, such as the Confederation
of Socialist Parties in the European Community, the Asia-Pacific
Socialist Organization (APSO), the International Federation of
the Socialist and Democratic Press and the International Union of
Social Democratic Teachers.
The SI consists of four principal elements:
* The Congress, the supreme body, which meets every two
years, decides on the admission or expulsion of members,
determines the statutes, proclaims the principles of the
SI, adopts specific and general resolutions, adopts the
reports of special study groups and establishes the tone
and content of SI activities.
* The Bureau, which is in effect the executive council of
the SI, meets two or three times a. year and decides
actions and policies between Congress meetings, convenes
special, expert and regional conferences, decides the
composition of study groups, convenes party leaders'
conferences and approves the annual budget.
* The Finance and Administration Committee, which consists
of seven member parties and fraternal organizations
elected by the Bureau, meets two or three timesa year
and recommends the dues to be levied by the SI, supervises
the financial administration of the organization-and
approves the complement of the Secretariat staff.
* The Secretariat, supervised by the Secretary General of
the.SI, who is elected by the Congress and prepares
agendas for SI meetings, is responsible for the archives,
prepares initial budget estimates, monitors the activities
of member parties, attempts to coordinate these activities,
coordinates the drafting of resolutions for Bureau and
Congress meetings and frequently participates in SI
missions and study groups.
According to SI statutes, its purpose is "to strengthen
relations between the affiliated parties and to coordinate their
political attitudes by consent; to this end, the SI will seek to
extend the relations between the SI and other socialist-oriented
parties not in membership which desire cooperation." Statutes,
however, rarely provide insight into the true purpose or nature
of an international association of political parties with divergent
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national considerations and a diversity of reactions to interna-
tional affairs. Probably the most accurate description of the SI
was that provided by Willy Brandt in his speech to the SI's
Thirteenth Postwar Congress in Geneva in November 1976 after his
election as president:
This is a working group of. sovereign parties based on a
number of common fundamental convictions and -- in some
cases for many decades -- with a bond of common feeling.
It is not instructions or unrealistic majority decisions
that determine our cooperation, but ideas and moral
impulses and not least the search for common solutions.
The SI does not prescribe the courses its member
parties
should follow in their own countries.. The resolutions adpted
and decisions taken on international. problems are no more than
recommendations and action guidelines for the individual parties.
Under the Brandt presidency, however, coordination among member
parties in matters of substance has been steadily improved and
international actions by the parties have been increasingly based
on agreements reached in Bureau meetings. What the SI accomplishes
as a result of these agreements depends on the actions of the
individual parties and the means available for those actions,
just as the agendas for Bureau meetings and the issues on which
the SI focuses its attention depend in largest part on what is
submitted by the parties.
It would be inaccurate to regard the SI as a fully cohesive
organization. West European member parties confront domestic and
transnational problems in ways vastly different from those of
Latin American or African member parties. The West European
parties share an ideology rooted in the international workers'
movement and a history of association from the First International
through the Second International (1889-1914) to the Socialist
International founded in Frankfurt in 1951. Nonetheless, differ-
ences in concerns exist and diverse approaches to topics arise in
SI meetings. Some member organizations are in NATO countries,
others are not; some are in European Community countries, others
are not; and some must contend with significant communist parties
in their countries, whereas others enjoy clearcut predominance on
the left of the national political spectrum.
? SI leaders regard the organization as a dialogue partner for
progressive" forces throughout. the world and. as a bridge-builder
for international cooperation. Thus, they believe that they can
fulfill their "moral duty" to assist in the relaxation of tensions
by supplementing the work of governments, for, as Brandt declared
in his address to the SI Congress in Vancouver in November 1978,
"International cooperation is far too important to be left to
governments. alone."
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Financially, SI is an organization of relatively limited
means. Its 1981 budget (converted here from British pounds to
dollars at mid-1981 rates) totals $706,353, of which $325,674, or
just over 46 percent, is for staff and office costs of the Secre-
tariat in London; $189,330, or 26.80 percent of the budget, goes
for SI meetings and missions, $96,200 for the Socialist Interna-
tional Women, $74,731 for the publication of Socialist Affairs,
$7,400 for the International Union of Socialist Youth, and the
remaining $13,018 for activities at the United Nations, the
consultative exile parties from East Europe and unforeseen expenses.
The SI's income is derived primarily (89.54 percent) from
the membership fees paid by full member parties and consultative
parties, the fees determined in relation to the finances and
membership of the individual parties. Subscriptions to Socialist
Affairs raise $55,500 (which fails even to cover the expenses of
publication), income from investments provides $7,285 and miscel-
laneous donations add another $11,100. The total income of
$706,353 just matches outlays.
The parties paying the largest affiliation fees are:
German Social Democratic Party (SPD)
$111,000
Swedish Social Democratic Party
75,023
Austrian Socialist Party
66,600
Italian Socialist Party (PSI)
37,000
British Labor Party
30,525
Norwegian Labor Party
25,900
Dutch Labor Party
22,866
French Socialist Party
22,200
Salary and allowances costs for the Secretariat staff,
consisting of no more than eight persons, total $175,196, or
24.80 percent of the budget. (In contrast, employees at the
London-based Amnesty International Secretariat number about 150.)
In short, allegations. that the SI.as an organization supplied
funds and other material support to the Portuguese Socialist
Party in 1974-75 or to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
following the death of Franco or to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
or to the National Revolutionary Movement in El Salvador have
been greatly exaggerated. Such aid, however, has often been
supplied by individual parties and in some cases by their allied
trade union organizations or by party foundations on a strictly
bilateral basis.
For a number of reasons the SI deteriorated steadily during
the period 1972-76, to the extent that by 1975 Brandt, Bruno
Kreisky of Austria and Olof Palme of Sweden, the three "greats"
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of the SI with particularly close personal ties, began to despair
of ever being able to revitalize the organization. The president
of the SI during that period, Bruno Pittermann of Austria, was
ailing, and the Secretary General, Hans Janitschek of Austria,
was inefficient. Bureau meetings in those years resulted more in
divisiveness than cohesion, as resolutions were churned out
breathlessly but practical achievements were correspondingly rare.
One of the major reasons for this deterioration was disagreement
over the issue of the extent to which social democrats should
collaborate with communists on the national and international
levels, leading to bitter debate in Bureau meetings on this
question of fundamental importance. In practically all respects
the SI was then in a desolate condition.
On election as president, Brandt in his acceptance speech
called for "a fresh start of our cooperation." He was determined
to do away with divisive issues of principle in Bureau meetings
and other SI activities. "Integration," the main characteristic
of Brandt's behavior as chairman of the SPD, was the essence of
his SI presidency. Ideology, principles and values were relegated
to a distant second place in favor of "pragmatism." Brandt
declared in the same acceptance speech, "I do not want us to
neglect the debate on programmatic fundamentals," but he has gone
on to neglect it. With regard to communism, he noted, "it cannot
be our objective to blur the dividing lines [between social
democracy and communism] or to gloss over dangers," but his
allegedly pragmatic and integrationist approach, necessarily
resulting in a neglect of traditional SI principles, has in fact
led to a blurring of the dividing lines.
To focus the SI on "practical matters" as a basis for the
"fresh start" of the organization, Brandt proclaimed three princi-
pal concerns or "offensives" which. to this day have been the
focus of SI activity:
* The offensive for a secure peace. His comments on this
offensive left no room for doubt that arms control. and
disarmament were to become the priority of the SI under
his presidency and that he directly connected disarmament
to aid to the Third World.
* The offensive for new relations between North and South.
Essentially, according to his comments, "This also means
to continue with patience and energy to work out the
elements with which a new world economic order is to be
built."
* The offensive for human rights. In carrying out this
offensive, "Our vision must be unobscured in all direc-
tions."
The concerns implicit in this declaration were by no means
new in the Socialist International's history. SI declarations
and resolutions since 1951 have been replete with expressions of
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concern for peace, complete disarmament, the underdeveloped
countries and human rights.
If there was nothing really new in Brandt's "fresh start"
for the SI on the basis of his three "offensives," his approach
proved rejuvenating for the SI. It is to the credit of Brandt,
SI Secretary General Bernt Carlsson of Sweden and several of the
SI vice presidents that in the almost five years of Brandt's
presidency the Socialist International has not only been pulled
out of its doldrums, but has attained a degree of cohesion and
consistency of purpose which most party leaders in 1976 thought
impossible to achieve.
Nobody in the SI would dispute the contention that there is
still much room for improvement, both structurally and functional-
ly, but the accomplishments have been notable. Bureau meetings
have been reduced in frequency and are now devoted to specific
topics on the basis of relatively well-prepared agenda, unlike
the directionless discussion which formerly characterized such
meetings. Individual areas of responsibility have been assigned
to several vice presidents: human rights to Francois Mitterrand
(until his election as president of France), southern Africa to
Olof Palme, the Middle East to Bruno Kreisky, who in the period
1974-76 had led several SI fact-finding missions to the Middle
East and North Africa, and Latin America to Mario Soares of
Portugal. Special conferences are held on problems of common
concern to the member parties, such as unemployment. Attempts
are made to plan activities one to two years in advance. The
result of all this has been, if not less talk, at least more
targeted talk and specifically targeted action, with the Socialist
International's Eurocentralism a thing of the past.
There have been other results of the "fresh start" based on
"practical work" which give rise to serious questions. Does the
SI still represent a social democratic bulwark against communism?
Are the activities of the organization in the interest of western
democracy and do they contribute to the defense of western value
systems? Given the Soviet definition of detente -- a relationship
between states to exclude the possibility of war but which "signi-
fies neither the preservation of a social or political status quo
nor the moderation of the ideological struggle... and facilitates
the development of the class struggle against imperialism inside
individual countries as well as on a world scale" (Kommunist,
September 1970) -- has the SI accepted the Soviet challenge to
the social democratic identity implicit in this definition? In
"supplementing" the work of governments, has the SI under Brandt's
presidency resisted or succumbed to Soviet attempts to reach an
identity of interests and create "unity of action" with social
democrats in the interest of peace, thus overcoming the breach
between social democrats and communists which resulted from the
creation of the Communist (Third) International in 1919?
An assessment of what the SI currently represents in the
East-West conflict must be based on the answers to these and
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related questions, and the answers are best derived from an
examination of SI principles, the results of the SI's three
offensives, and a Soviet offensive within Moscow's detente concept,
which was initiated some years before the Brandt presidency.
PRINCIPLES
The 1951 Frankfurt declaration issued at the founding of the
modern-day Socialist International emphasized the socialist aims
regarding political, economic and international democracy. It
rejected "uncontrolled" or "monopolistic" capitalism but, after
noting that "communism has split the international labor movement,"
stated unequivocally that "international communism is the instru-
ment of a new imperialism," and declared "Wherever it has achieved
power it has destroyed freedom or the chance of gaining freedom."
With regard to peace, the declaration stated: "Democratic social-
ists recognize the maintenance of world peace as the supreme task
in our time. Peace can be secured only by a system of collective
security. This will create the conditions for international
disarmament."
The 1962 Oslo declaration of the Socialist International
referred to the "evils of capitalism and communism alike," in the
particular context of the problems of the emergent nations.
Several passages referring to the Soviets are noteworthy because
they stand in stark contrast to the current SI attitude: "They
[the Soviets] now claim to base their foreign policy on the
principles of peaceful co-existence. In
practice,
is only a change of tactics, and the struggle against wthernon-
communist world is continued in a different form .... East-West
rivalry has largely been imposed upon an unwilling world by the
communist leaders. Although the communist countries claim to be
peace-loving, the way in which they have used their military
power has aggravated tension in the world." With respect to
western defense and the value of deterrence, the declaration was
strongly positive: "Democratic socialists... reject the idea that
democracies should disarm unilaterally. The power of defense in
the event of attack must therefore be
aggression." As for NATO, "The democratic e socialist parties to
frties in
the countries of the Alliance consider this is a powerf
of peace and declare their firm determination to uphold it."
It was not long after the Oslo declaration that a change in
the tone and content of the Socialist International's consideration
of the possibilities of detente became noticeable. The change
was inspired in large part by West Germany's SPD, which in the
late fifties, supported by the British Labor Party, had first
begun advancing the theme of detente in SI forums. New impetus
was given to this theme in 1963 by Brandt, who in writings and
speeches began to emphasize coexistence, and by Egon Bahr, the
architect of the Ostpolitik later implemented by the Brandt
government, who in his famous speech in Tutzing, Germany, first
used the theme, "change through rapprochement" (Wandel durch Annae-
herun)-
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The joint efforts of the SPD and the British Labor Party to
move the Socialist International towards a policy of detente were
buttressed by the Finnish Social Democratic Party, which strived
to convince other parties to establish contacts with communist
parties of the socialist countries in order to open a dialogue
between the two main branches of the international labor movement --
social democracy and communism. Finnish efforts were, by and.
large, fruitless, as most other parties of the SI were aware of
the "special Finnish situation." But the result of the efforts
of all three parties was a series of debates in SI meetings with
the aim of achieving a uniform concept of detente within the
organization.
By the time of the Eleventh Postwar Congress of the SI in
Eastbourne in June 1969, the groundwork for a softening of the
previously unqualified rejection of communism had been laid. The
Eastbourne resolution took note of the totalitarian philosophy of
communism and recognized that popular-front overtures from commu-
nist parties are aimed at establishing communist hegemony. Then,
instead of reaffirming SI's long-standing total rejection of
collaboration with communism, it simply warned socialist parties
which may collaborate with communists for electoral reasons or in
order to form governing coalitions that communist attitudes
remain unchanged. With regard to arms control and disarmament,
the Eastbourne Congress demanded quick and effective measures,
including bilateral negotiations between the United States and
the Soviet Union. The Oslo Declaration's recognition of the fact
that the Soviet concept of peaceful coexistence meant the continu-
ation of "the struggle against the non-communist world in another
form" -- the subversion of social democracy and the erosion of
social democratic principles -- was omitted at Eastbourne, and
the Oslo expression of the will to maintain a military deterrent
in the West was replaced at Eastbourne by emphasis on disarmament
issues and on human rights.
Two years later, in May 1971, the SI General council meeting
in Helsinki formally endorsed the Ostpolitik of the Brandt govern-
ment by formulating its detente concept. Peace was to be made
"more secure" by negotiations, without blurring ideological
differences. How the SI, a non-governmental organization based
primarily on ideological concepts, could contribute to a government
policy vis-a-vis the East and at the same time face the challenge
to Socialist International principles implicit in the Soviet
definition of detente without blurring ideological differences
was left unexplained.
During the period 1972-76, the SI took hesitant steps toward
a new declaration of principles, but not until the era of the
Brandt presidency was "action" taken. True to his word in Geneva
in November 1976, Brandt concentrated the SI's efforts on the
"practical. work" of his three offensives with a notable consisten-
cy of purpose. False to his word, however, he in fact neglected
the "debate on programmatic fundamentals." In February 1978, the
task of reformulating the principles of the organization was
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referred to a committee headed by Felipe Gonzales, Secretary
General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and
composed of Reiulf Steen, chairman of the Norwegian Labor party,
and Karel van Miert, chairman of the (Flemish) Socialist Party of
Belgium.
If there was a ,conscious or subconscious desire on the part
of SI leaders to blur the differences between social democracy
and communism, the composition of the Working Group on a New
Declaration of Principles could scarcely have been more appropri-
ate. On his way to Tokyo for an SI party leaders' conference in
December 1977, Gonzales stopped in Moscow, where, after discussions
with Mikhail Suslov of the CPSU Politburo and Boris Ponomarev,
head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee,
he signed a joint communique with the Soviet party expressing
agreement on international issues and calling for cooperation
between the two parties. In August 1980, a delegation from the
Executive Committee of Gonzales' party visited Moscow and, in
another joint communique with the CPSU, noted "the coincidence in
the positions of the PSOE and the CPSU on issues of the struggle
for detente, disarmament, security, cooperation and the strengthen-
ing of friendship between peoples...." In.July.1981, on the
.occasion of a visit to the PSOE by a delegation from the CPSU,
Gonzales proclaimed "the further broadening of cooperation between
the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the CPSU...in the name
of the struggle for peace." Gonzales' earlier formal agreement
with the CPSU was not unknown to the SI leadership at the time he
was appointed chairman of the working group.
Steen, who gave up the chairmanship of the Norwegian Labor
Party in the spring of 1980-and who is distinctly in the left
wing of his party, has for several years been maintaining contact
with the CPSU to an extent which, ironically, has been disturbing
even to Palme's Swedish Social Democratic Party, which itself has
had "informal" contact with the CPSU for more than a decade.
Steen played a central role earlier this year in forcing the
Norwegian government to back down from the Norwegian-American
project of pre-positioning American military equipment in northern
Norway. The government now allows the pre-positioning in central
Norway only, to the dissatifaction-of Norwegian and American
military authorities.
Van Miert has distinguished himself as one of the foremost
Belgian agitators against the NATO decision to modernize the
Theater Nuclear Forces and has frequently and irrevocably commit-
ted himself to ensuring that no American medium-range missiles
will be deployed on Belgian soil. His contribution to Gonzales'
group thus far has consisted of a document which stresses "the
kind of economic growth socialism aspires to" and asserts that
the 1951 Frankfurt Declaration is attributable to "the cold war
and the fear of totalitarian Stalinist expansionism."
in his report on the work of his group to the SI Congress in
Madrid in November 1980, almost three years after the appointment
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of his working group, Gonzales left little room for doubt that
the group will proceed-at its snail's pace and that whatever
recommendations it finally produces, possibly by the time of the
next SI Congress scheduled for March 1983, will focus on interna-
tional economic democracy. At no point in his report did he
refer to the fundamental question of social democracy versus
communism, nor did he treat the question of ideology other than
by announcing that "with regard to ideological sources (of the
SI), there is a certain reticence to identify with any particular
historical-political point of view." This dismissal of fundamental
tenets had been presaged by Secretary General Carlsson, when he
told the SI Congress in Vancouver in November 1978, without the
slightest contradiction by Brandt or any vice president of the
organization, "We must tackle the problem of how to move forward
from the traditional preoccupations about social democracy towards
greater attention to the problems of achieving real economic
democracy."
In 1959, the Central Committee of the CPSU addressed a
special letter to the Sixth Postwar Congress of the Socialist
International suggesting cooperation by "all detachments of the
international workers movement" in "one common historical task:
to prevent a destructive new war and to rebuff the attempts at a
reactionary offensive." The letter was coldly ignored by the SI.
In an alarming contrast, in his report to the 26th CPSU Congress
in February 1981, Leonid Brezhnev noted the links established by
the CPSU with the socialist and social democratic parties of
Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, Spain and a number of other
countries. He said: "Of great importance have been the contacts
with the leadership of the Socialist International, our participa-
tion in the Socialist International's conference on disarmament,
the contacts with the working group created by it on this problem,
the reception of its delegations by the CPSU." Recognizing that
"contemporary social democracy has considerable political weight,"
Brezhnev then urged it to "do more to defend the vital interests
of the peoples and, primarily, to strengthen peace, [and] improve.
the international situation...."
This tribute to the Socialist International by Brezhnev, the
first of its kind by a CPSU secretary general, was followed,
after Brandt's ill-advised and ill-fated visit to Moscow, by
another tribute which, coming from the CPSU, may be described as
glowing. In an article entitled "Communists and Peace," which
appeared in Pravda on July 23, 1981, Vadim V. Zagladin., first
deputy chief of the CPSU International Department and one of the
key CPSU officials in the Soviet thrust to achieve unity of
action with West European socialist and social democratic parties
for Soviet foreign policy purposes, wrote:
Today, however, the situation has also changed within
the ranks of social democracy. Over the last decade
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the Socialist international and many parties belonging
to it have made a definite swing in their policy and
have begun to advocate ensuring world peace and ending
the arms race.
It is important that the Socialist International,
advocating peace, has removed several obstacles to
contacts with communist parties. Thus CPSU representa-
tives were invited at the time to the Socialist Interna-
tional conference on disarmament. The recent meeting
between L. I. Brezhnev and W. Brandt.. .was of great
political significance (emphasis added).
What happened during the decade to which Zagladin referred
is of fundamental importance in understanding the present course
of the Socialist International.
The CPSU has not concealed its intentions concerning socialist
and social democratic parties; these intentions were announced on
many occasions by CPSU luminaries with remarkable straightforward-
ness and clarity, leaving no rooom for doubt as to how the Soviets
planned to use detente for the intensification of the "ideological
struggle." In a watershed speech in Tiflis on May 14, 1971,.
B-rezhnev announced CPSU readiness "to develop cooperation with
the social democrats, both in the struggle for
peace and for socialism, without, of course, foregoing its ideoloogycady
revolutionary principles." g and
y principles. The Brezhnev offer, combined with the
fact that the CPSU had ceased referring to social democrats as
"social fascists," produced a feeling tantamount to jubilation on
the part of some officials in West European parties of the Social-
ist International. They saw the dawn of a new era in relations
between social democrats and communists in the atmosphere of
detente.
In "Topical Problems in the Theory of the World Revolutionary
Process," a 1971 article in the CPSU journal Kommunist, Ponomarev
noted the importance of "strengthening of the left-wing currents
within parties such as the British Labor Party, the German Social
Democratic Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party." He
then expressed CPSU purposes in a nutshell:
The struggle against the social democratic ideology and
policy remains a major task of the CPSU and the entire
communist movement. The communists have always waged
this struggle for the sake of unity within the workers'
movement and not to divide it even further. Making
unity of action the cornerstone of their policy, the
communists have initiated ever new suggestions for
cooperation.
Our party'does not implement random international
measures. It would be entirely justified to consider
them as the expanded foreign political offensive for
the sake of peace and the security of the peoples.
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The offensive cited by Ponomarev was launched on several
fronts. The CPSU courted individual SI parties, urging coope-
ration. This was supplemented by similar efforts by the Italian
Communist Party in European Community institutions. Meanwhile,
some SI parties, notably the Dutch Labor Party, Belgian Socialist
Party and Finnish Social Democratic Party began acting as if the
cold war were a matter of the distant past and even the 1969 SI
qualified rejection of cooperation with communism was no longer
relevant.
Just how much views had changed was apparent in April 1972
at a special meeting of the SI Bureau in Amsterdam, at which
Dutch Labor Party representatives vigorously expressed the view
that by collaborating with communists, social democrats can
educate and change them. The Belgian, French, Finnish, and to
some extent, the British representatives shared the Dutch views.
The SPD, on the other hand, stoutly supported by. the Austrian
Socialist Party, defended the view that party-to-party collabora-
tion with communists should be rejected in all its forms. The
outcome of the debate was a general agreement on a position
somewhere between these two views: each member party would make
its own decision on relations with the communist party in its
country, but collaboration or institutionalized contact with
communist parties on the international level was to be avoided.
The Amsterdam Bureau meeting marked the last serious attempt by
the Socialist international to grapple with the fundamental, but
increasingly divisive, issue of social democracy versus communism.
Although the Finnish and Swedish parties had maintained
their dialogues with the CPSU for some years, the Finns much more
intensively than the Swedes, it fell to the Belgian Socialist
Party (PSB) to become the first in the SI to establish a formal
cooperative relationship with the CPSU. In November 1972, a PSB
delegation, led by the Flemish and Walloon co-presidents of the
party, visited Moscow for discussions with the CPSU; their main
interlocutor was none other than Boris Ponomarev. As a result of
the talks, the PSB and the CPSU issued a joint communique, in
which the PSB agreed with the CPSU that the two parties would
develop their cooperation "in the interest of peace,. international
detente and the reinforcement of the friendship of the peoples of
Belgium and the USSR." The two delegations reached the conclusion
that "concerted actions could be envisaged in the interest of
peace, democracy and social progress."
This agreement, a milestone in the CPSU effort to erode what
remained of cohesion in the Socialist International through
bilateral agreements with member parties, has been repeatedly
reaffirmed by the PSB. (In late 1978, the PSB split into two
parties, the Flemish and the Walloon, but they are still counted
in the SI as one.) The PSB became the first SI member to forge
formal ties with CPSU probably because prominent PSB members
Lucien Radoux and Victor Larock had participated in 1970-72 along
with the Belgian Communist Party in the formation and activities
of a new Soviet front organization, the Brussels-based Internation-
al Committee for European Security and Cooperation. Undeterred
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by criticism of the agreement with the CPSU from some SI parties,
the PSB subsequently concluded similar agreements with the Social-
ist Unity Party (SED) of East Germany, the Polish United Workers
Party, the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, and the Bulgarian
Communist Party.
The effect of the CPSU's cultivation of the PSB became
evident, for example, when Flemish and Walloon socialist leaders
announced their unqualified opposition to the modernization of
the Theater Nuclear Forces, much to the distress of Henri Simonet,
then the socialist Minister for Foreign Affairs. The occasion
for this final decision by the Belgian socialist leaders was a
forum on security and disarmament sponsored by the International
Committee for European Security and Cooperation that was held in
Belgium at the end of October 1979. The forum, proudly touted in
Soviet propaganda, was attended by Ponomarev's first deputy,
Zagladin. He called on the spirit of seven years of cooperation
between the Belgian socialist leaders and the CPSU to manipulate
his Belgian hosts on the TNF question.
The CPSU achieved its second major breakthrough in the
erosion of the SI and in setting the stage for multilateral
cooperation with social democracy in April 1975, when a French
Socialist Party delegation, led by Francois Mitterrand, visited
Moscow for talks with the CPSU. After discussions of international
affairs with Brezhnev, Suslov, Ponomarev and others, Mitterrand
signed a joint communique in which the French Socialist Party
"expressed its appreciation of the USSR's constructive contribu-
tion to the process of international detente" and in which the
two parties noted "that the imperialists and reactionaries are
still continuing their efforts to revive the spirit of the cold
war." Of greater, significance to the SI was the following passage:
"The two delegations consider that the reinforcement of contacts
between communist and socialist parties, irrespective of-their,
ideological differences and their individual traditions, is of
the highest importance for the international workers' movement as
it would reinforce the movement's cohesion and solidarity and
therefore, ultimately, its capacity for victory." In his remarks
to the press about his Moscow visit, Mitterrand spoke of the
"renaissance" in relations between his party and the CPSU.
Some others in the Socialist International did not share
Mitterrand's apparent delight in the "renaissance." Kreisky, for
example, who throughout the 1970s consistently and firmly rejected
international cooperation between social democrats and communists,
was appalled by the extent of Mitterrand's opening to the CPSU.
Equally disturbed were some influential members of the West
German SPD, who saw in the Mitterrand-CPSU agreement,;far more
significant to the SI than the PSB-CPSU agreement had been, a
major advance for the CPSU in undermining basic tenets of the SI.
Soviet cultivation of individuals and groups in other Social-
ist International parties in 1972-76 -- the SPD, the Dutch Labor
Party, the British Labor Party, the Norwegian Labor Party -- did
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not lead to formal written agreements with these parties. It did
allow Moscow to exert influence and stimulate cooperation with
the CPSU and help undermine the SI's traditional rejection of
cooperation with the communists. In the SPD, for example, the
Young Socialists (Jusos), which includes all party members younger
than age 35, in October 1973 concluded a formal agreement with
the Committee of Youth Organizations of the USSR, calling for
cooperation in international youth policy, the exchange of informa-
tion between the two organizations, partnerships on national,
regional and district levels, exchange programs, mutual use of
the media available to the two organizations and joint work
towards the establishment of an all-European youth framework.
With the assistance of the SPD Young Socialists and the Interna-
tional Union of Socialist Youth of the SI, working hand in glove
with the Budapest-based Soviet front World Federation of Democratic
Youth (WFDY), the Soviets succeeded in 1980 in establishing the
"Framework for All-European Youth and Student Cooperation."
The 1973 SPD Young Socialist agreement with the Soviet
organization violated SPD statutes and rules, but the SPD leader-
ship took no disciplinary action then or later when the agreement
was revalidated. The reason was that Brandt believes in "integra-
tion" rather than conflict. It may be this determination to
avoid conflict that has allowed the Young Socialists to play very
prominent roles in the so-called peace movements in West Germany.
In part, this also may be caused by Brandt's obsession with
disarmament.
Although the British Labor Party leaders refrained from
emulating the agreements of the Belgian and French party leaders,
members of the national executive committee of the British party
agreed with the CPSU in 1976 that "despite serious ideological
differences an extensive potential exists for the development of
cooperation within the international workers movement." The
current British Labor Party stance in favor of unilateral nuclear
disarmament is one aspect of the realization of this "extensive
potential."
The 1977 formal agreement for cooperation, later reaffirmed
between the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the CPSU, was
followed in 1979 by similar agreements between the CPSU and the
Danish Social Democratic Party and Norwegian Labor Party. In
October 1980, Olof Palme visited Moscow to "offer" West European
social democracy and the Socialist International to Brezhnev as a
partner in the search for a "secure peace." Palme's public
comments on his return to Stockholm. might have given innocents
the impression that the CPSU had overlooked the possibility of
developing a "partnership for peace" with social democrats!
By 1976, the network of relations developed by the CPSU with
West European member parties of the SI had reached a stage which
permitted Ponomarev to write, with justifiable pride, in another
article in Kommunist: "Under the influence of the changes which
have occurred in international life, a 'revision of values' was
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undertaken within the social democratic movement as well. A
number of social democratic party leaders concluded that the time
had come to-abandon the trenches of the cold war and to adopt
more independent and realistic positions." While Ponomarev
dispensed compliments to several SI party leaders in his article,
he castigated Kreisky: "Of late, Austrian Socialist Party Chairman
Kreisky, one of the leaders of the Socialist International, has
been evidencing his anti-communism more loudly than anyone else.
This enabled parties such as, for example, the Social Democratic
Party of Germany, the French Socialist Party, the British Labor
Party and the Finnish, Belgian and Swedish social democratic
parties to make a certain contribution to the process of detente."
The thrust of Ponomarev's article consisted of a summons to
socialists and social democrats to cooperate more closely with
communists and thereby increase "the political potential of the
international workers' movement... in the struggle against the
threat of a new world war...." The fact that Ponomarev's article
appeared only a few days before the opening of the socialist
International Congress in Geneva at which Brandt was elected
president was certainly not accidental.
At this Congress, SI accepted Brandt's three "offensives"
and his consignment of "programmatic fundamentals" to a blurry
fate and moved towards the convergence of interests with the CPSU
which elicited the 1981 Soviet tributes to the Socialist Interna-
tional cited earlier.
Although the CPSU reacts with abhorrence at the very thought
of convergence with social democracy -- this would connote a
departure from or compromise of Marxist-Leninist principles -- no
corresponding consideration appears to bother most SI leaders.
Their "revision of values," as Ponomarev described it, concomitant
with the execution of.Brandt's three offensives, produced the
present stage of convergence of SI and CPSU interests, albeit
with different motivations. When Egon Bahr's "change through
rapprochement" thesis became a topic of discussion in Socialist
International circles, the question who would change was given
depressingly little consideration.
The Offensive for .a Secure Peace
At the conclusion of an SI party leaders conference in
Vienna in February 1980, in which the Soviet invasion of Afghani-
stan was the priority topic, Palme stated in an interview: "At
the party leaders meeting everybody has spoken about disarmament.
Ten years ago it would not have. been possible." .
As the SI pursued a "secure peace" in its meetings following
the November 1976 Congress in Geneva, it quickly became evident
that this phrase meant nothing less than disarmament, the SI's
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"first preoccupation." The crescendo of calls for disarmament in
Bureau meetings and party leaders conferences in 1977 led in
February 1978, during a Bureau meeting in Hamburg, to detailed
consideration. of a proposal to establish a special study group on
disarmament. It was decided, however, to postpone this step
until after the SI's special conference on disarmament that was
to be held in Helsinki in April 1978.
The Helsinki conference and its aftermath have received too
little attention from those who are puzzled as to what the SI
represents today. Brandt, Palme, SI Secretary General Carlsson,
Gonzales, van Miert, Dutch Labor Party leader Joop den Uyl, Sorsa
and others never tire of referring to the Helsinki conference
with the same pride which was so evident in Brandt's statement to
the SI Congress in Madrid in November 1980, "We are, above all,
the worldwide party of peace." In order to demonstrate balance
in its concern with disarmament, the Socialist International
invited the United States and the USSR to send representatives to
address the conference. Demonstration of balance was only one
consideration; another probably was the thought that representa-
tion from the two superpowers would constitute recognition that
the SI, a non-governmental organization, was a significant force
in the process of detente.
The United States sent Ambassador James Leonard, deputy
representative at the U.N. The Soviets, never slow in recognizing
an opportunity, sent Boris Ponomarev as head of a delegation
which turned out to be the largest at the conference. Leonard's
address to the conference revealed a notable, perhaps blissful,
unawareness that he was addressing a gathering of socialists and
social democrats whose combined efforts were having the effect,
whatever their motivation, of moving the Socialist International
toward serving the CPSU purpose: undermining the will of the
West to maintain a credible. military deterrent as a basis for
negotiations with the Soviets. After describing Brandt's Ostpoli-
tik as a "towering, monumental achievement on the international
plane," he encouraged his audience to apply themselves to the
struggle for peace: "What bothers me is a passivity, an apparent
lack of ferment [sic], an apparent absence of novel ideas and
approaches.... Disarmament is not a spectator sport .... There must
be mobilization of political will."
Unwittingly, in his call for mobilization of political will
with regard to disarmament, Ambassador Leonard eased the way for
the accomplishment of Ponomarev's task. The latter's introduction
to the conference as alternate member of the CPSU Politburo, a
secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Commission of the Soviet of Nationalities of the
Supreme Soviet conveniently omitted mention of another position
that he held -- chief of the CPSU International Department,
making him responsible, among other tasks, for the subversion of
West European social democracy and the creation of unity of
action between.social democrats and the CPSU to serve Soviet
foreign policy. purposes. Unlike Leonard, he was acutely aware
of the composition of his audience and exploited it.
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Noting that "both communists and social democrats possess
enough influence to do very many things for the maintenance and
consolidation of peace," Ponomarev stressed the "tremendous peace
potential in uniting the efforts of communists and social demo-
crats." After complimenting the Socialist International for
speaking out for disarmament in its latest documents, he expressed
the CPSU's appreciation for the "contacts established with a
number of socialist and social democratic parties in the past few
years," contacts which the CPSU "is seeking to strengthen."
"Practical deeds are the real test of any, even the best, declara-
tions," Ponomarev urged, and for this purpose he then baited the
SI:
On the instructions of...Brezhnev, allow me to invite
to Moscow a representative delegation of the Socialist
International and its President, Willy Brandt, to
discuss to the fullest extent at summit level the
problems of ending the arms race and subsequent disarma-
ment.
.. it would be useful to examine the question of
possible forms of developing and maintaining contacts
on a permanent basis between communist and social
democratic parties in order to exchange information and
to coordinate joint actions on questions of disarmament.
In his summation speech at the end of the conference, Brandt
stated, "The Socialist International will move on realistic
ground, and it corresponds with our self-interpretation that the
International will not be at.the disposal of one-sided activities."
Subsequent actions belied his words. The CPSU invitation had
opened an important perspective which could not be avoided in
future SI deliberations. Ambassador Leonard's ill-advised address
was a major contribution to those in the Socialist International
who were seeking to rationalize their plans for a positive response
to the CPSU. They had, after all, been criticized by the United
States representative for being too passive and not innovative
enough with respect to disarmament.
It required no painful effort on the part of the Socialist
International during its Bureau meeting in Dakar in May 1978 to
establish a Study Group on Disarmament, headed by Kalevi Sorsa,
chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party and then Finnish
Prime minister, who for more than a decade had pleaded in SI
meetings for greater international cooperation between communists
and social democrats. Of the seven West European member parties
represented in the Study Group, six had already developed varying
degrees of relations with the CPSU.
Those in the SI who denied that the Study Group was being
established in response to Ponomarev's invitation were less than
candid. During the Dakar Bureau meeting, the group was especially
charged with studying proposals made by Ponomarev during the
Socialist International Conference on Disarmament. It is true
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that the SI had contemplated the establishment of such a group
prior to the Helsinki conference, but it is equally true that the
decision in Dakar was in direct response to the CPSU offers.
After receiving submissions from several Socialist Interna-
tional member parties, the Sorsa Group undertook a number of
high-level discussions, in which, of course, balance had to be
demonstrated. Accordingly, the group visited Washington in May
1979, where it was received by President Carter, who praised its
work and encouraged it to proceed to Moscow to explore possibili-
ties of general disarmament. This encouragement at the highest
level of the U.S. government has been cited frequently since by
members of the group, especially Secretary General Carlsson, as
partial justification for the behavior of the group in its subse-
quent visit to Moscow.
The October 1-4, 1979 visit of the Sorsa Group to Moscow
marked the first instance of a direct Socialist International
dialogue with the CPSU in the 28-year history of the organization."
Pravda did not exaggerate when it commented on November-5,.1979,
"The recent visit to the USSR by a Socialist International working
group on disarmament and the working group's talks with Comrade
L. I. Brezhnev were of great significance ... in the struggle for
peace and disarmament." After talks with Brezhnev, Ponomarev and
other CPSU luminaries, the Sorsa Group issued a joint press
release emphasizing the importance of disarmament. However, it
was Carlsson who signalled the end of the SI's rejection-of collabo-
ration-.-with communism, and with the CPSU in particular. Challenged
during a press conference in Moscow, he stated that despite "past
differences" between social democrats and communists "we must
jump over our shadows" in a matter so important as peace. During
the SI Bureau meeting in Lisbon at the end of October 1979, there
was no criticism of this statement; on the contrary, appreciation
was expressed for the work of the Sorsa Group.
The product of the Sorsa Group's work, its "final report,"
was adopted unanimously at Madrid during the Socialist Interna-
tional's Fifteenth Postwar Congress in November 1980. Brandt,
who considered the adoption of the report as the greatest success
of the Congress, has since consistently urged SI parties to
implement the action program contained in the report, which,
incidentally, went virtually unnoticed in western press reports
on the Congress. The action program, entitled "The Role of the
SI and its Member Parties," embraces a variety of activities:
The SI Bureau and party leaders conferences should keep
disarmament on their agenda as one of the main items.
The SI Bureau will on a continuous basis follow up and
enhance the implementation of the recommendations of
the Study Group and other decisions of the SI as well
as all work for disarmament done by the member parties.
The socialist and social democratic parties will
fight against militarism... and revived tendencies to
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rely on military potential in pursuit of national
interests and goals in international relations.
The military sector of societies must be as a
whole subjected to democratic control.
The socialist and social democratic parties work
for increased openness in military affairs. One instru-
ment for this end is the publication of a government
white paper on defense planning and expenditure.
Member parties should establish their own bodies
on disarmament policies. These bodies could, for
example, plan and program information, training and
educational activities both at party and national
levels, and make initiatives for international action.
Member parties should cooperate with appropriate
organizations such as the trade unions and fraternal
organizations especially in the fields of training and
education as well as mobilization of public opinion.
In commenting to the SI Congress in Madrid on the Sorsa
report and its action program, Carlsson noted that the report has
a special importance "for developing and strengthening the role
of the Socialist International as an international force." It
could scarcely have escaped the attention of SI leaders that
strengthening the role of the SI through implementation of its
action program on disarmament, in which "mobilization of public
opinion" is the core purpose, would have no effect whatsoever on
policymakers in the Warsaw Pact countries, but would greatly
affect developments in the western democracies, where public
opinion is influential. One might justifiably conclude that in
adopting this program, it was the intention of the SI leaders to
enhance the disarmament atmosphere in the West, to the detriment
of western defense and deterrence and to the advantage of the
Soviet "peace and disarmament" campaign in western Europe.
The Sorsa Report remains to this day the cornerstone of the
SI international role. "Defense" and "deterrence" have been
totally dropped from the vocabulary of SI meetings. Even after
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the SI party leaders conference
in Vienna in February 1980, while condemning the invasion, urged
that "in the interest of peace and in order to safeguard detente"
member parties should use "all opportunities for bilateral and
multinational dialogue" and "all their possibilities of contacts
in order to promote a policy for the continuation of detente."
In brief, far from envisaging suspension of contact with the
CPSU -- a step which might have made some impression on the CPSU
leadership -- the Vienna conference participants deliberately
encouraged such contact and emphasized disarmament, as Olof Palme
noted after, the conference. The encouragement of contact with
the CPSU was reaffirmed in April 1981 during the SI party leaders
conference in Amsterdam and again in mid-July 1981 during the
meeting of the SI presidium in Bonn.
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The so-called "Scandilux" effort which was initiated in
January 1981 originally consisted of Norwegian, banish and Benelux
parties. Since joined by the SPD in the person of Egon Bahr and
by the British Labor Party, it is an outgrowth of the action
program in the Sorsa report and has the long-range purpose,
unstated to the press, of influencing the Italian Socialist Party
and the Italian Social Democratic Party to withdraw their support
from the Italian commitment to accept American Euromissiles, in
effect negating the December 1979 NATO decision. The initiative
for the "Scandilux" effort came from Dutch Labor Party leader
Joop den Uyl, an effective spokesman for unilateral nuclear
disarmament in NATO. The rapporteur of the group is Flemish
Socialist leader Karel van Miert.
Olof Palme's currently very active Independent Commission on
Disarmament and Security Issues, although it includes non-SI
personalities such as Cyrus Vance, David Owen and Leslie Gelb, is
another offshoot of the SI's disarmament program and, because of
the participation of Georgi Arbatov and one of his deputies,
presents the CPSU with another forum for advancing its disarmament
(of the West) campaign.
As noted, both the Sorsa group and Palme's commission have
been praised on several occasions by the CPSU. In the letters
sent by the CPSU Central Committee in May and June 1981 to West
European SI party leaders, there was a laudatory reference to the
work of the Sorsa group and a clear expression of interest in
continuing cooperation with the group. In accordance with Soviet
desires, which were also conveyed to Brandt during his early July
1981 visit to Moscow, the SI presidium decided during its meeting
in Bonn on July 15-16, 1981 to reactivate the group, known since
the November 1980 Congress as the Advisory Group on Arms Control
and Disarmament. Still headed by Sorsa and with essentially the
same composition, this group plans to visit Washington in late
1981 for talks at the highest level of the U.S. government,
hoping to reap the same respectability and importance conferred
upon it by Jimmy-Carter. The ultimate goal of the group, of
course, is to continue the partnership for peace with the CPSU.
Recognizing that his standing in Washington may have suffered
because of his performance in Moscow in early July, Brandt
apparently decided.in August that instead of signing the letter
requesting the desired appointments for Sorsa's group, Sorsa
himself would sign it.
The present understandable concern of the U.S. government
about the role of the Socialist International in Central America
should not blur the fact that disarmament has been and remains
the SI's "first preoccupation." As Brandt, Palme and other SI
leaders have repeatedly confirmed on a variety of occasions,
disarmament is the basis for solutions to the problems of the
Third World and is a sine qua non for the full realization of
human rights. As important as front organizations and their
subsidiaries are as part of the CPSU offensive to undermine the
western will to maintain military deterrence, the SI's member
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parties thrust on disarmament will be far more significant and,
in the long-term, far more effective. The announcement of Brandt's
first offensive in 1976 has since become the basis for the Soviet-
desired and Soviet-achieved "unity of action." His other two
offensives may be treated more briefly.
Offensive for New Relations between North and South
The impression that Brandt's Independent Commission on
International Development Issues, which completed its report in
January 1980, was an offshoot of the SI, is erroneous. Even
though Palme and Carlsson have pointed with pride to the work of
the commission, the commission was actually conceived by Robert
McNamara, and Brandt was initially reluctant to head the panel.
In expanding the Socialist International's own activity in
the Third World, Brandt, supported above all by Palme, has empha-
sized that there is linkage between disarmament and the solutions
of the problems of hunger and poverty in the lesser developed
countries. He believes that if less money is spent on arms by
the industrialized countries, more will be available for aid to
the Third World countries. This, however, is not the only thought
that has guided the actions of the SI and many of its West European
member parties. The pursuit of a so-called new international
economic order has been mentioned frequently in SI documents and
in speeches by SI leaders, but, because of the SI's historical
rejection of colonialism, support for national liberation movements
in their "anti-imperialist" struggles has in and of itself been
the underlying motivation, as both Palme and Carlsson have contin-
uously stressed.
First off the mark in implementing Brandt's second offensive
was the ubiquitous Palme, who, assisted by Kjeld Olesen of the
Danish party, led an SI mission to southern Africa in September
1977. One month later, the SI Bureau adopted the nine-point
program of action recommended by the mission. In addition to
calling for a halt to all arms exports to South Africa, the
prohibition of new investments in South Africa and Namibia,
"intensification of solidarity work for the liberation of southern
Africa," and increased support to the front line states, the
program urged "political support to the liberation movements (ANC
of South Africa, Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe and SWAPO of Namibia),
humanitarian aid and material support for peaceful purposes."
The Swedish Social Democratic Party, assisted by its allied
Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), has set the pace. among
Socialist Internationalist parties in supplying funds to the ANC
(African National Congress) and the SWAPO (South-West African
People's Organization), as it did earlier to the ZAPU and ZANU in
Zimbabwe.
It is the current policy of the SI to support ANC and SWAPO,
and its representatives are invited to SI Bureau and Congress
meetings as observers almost as a matter of routine. The SI
attitude was directly reflected in a statement by Secretary
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General Carlsson to the November 1.980 Madrid Congress: "The
victory of the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe...heralds a new era
for the liberation struggles" in Southern. Africa.
The lack of balance in the SI approach to Africa is indica-
ted by the fact that, despite its many statements and resolutions
with specific references to African countries, the organization
has never condemned the Soviet-Cuban-East German military inter-
ventions. During the Bureau meeting in Lisbon in October 1979,
Carl Gershman of the Social Democrats USA was unable to temper a
resolution in which the SI again proclaimed "solidarity" with the
ANC, SWAPO and the Patriotic Front and condemned "acts of aggres-
sion" against Zambia, Mozambique and Angola by Rhodesian and
South African troops. Also rejected were Gershman's efforts to
balance the resolution by mentioning the presence of Cuban and
Warsaw Pact troops in Africa, especially in Angola. The SI was
then and remains committed to the support of "liberation movements"
in Africa.
In accordance with Brandt's 1975 concept of a closer relation-
ship between the SI and Central American parties "which come very
close to what we call democratic socialism," the SI's second
offensive has been focused and predictably will remain so on that
area, although not to the exclusion of South America. The commit-
ment of the SI was established beyond doubt when, during the SI
party leaders conference in Amsterdam at the end of April 1981,
Brandt expressed his conviction that "the events in El Salvador
would have far-reaching consequences for large parts of the Third
World and could prove to be a criterion for the SI as far as the
effectiveness of its actions was concerned." In tone and content
the Socialist International's approach to,this area has been
conditioned in large part by the reports and analyses of the
SPD-allied Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which for many years has
maintained an office in Costa Rica and which has supplied the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Democratic Revolutionary Front
in El Salvador with funds and other assistance.
In March 1978, Mario Soares of Portugal led an SI mission to
Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Venezuela.
The report of the mission, adopted by the Bureau, recommended an
increased SI presence in Latin America and the Caribbean area,
the admission of additional parties from the area as full members
of the SI, special attention to Nicaragua as "a key country to
the democratization of Central America" and the establishment of
an SI Committee for Latin America---and the Caribbean. From then,
the only barriers to SI member support of the Sandinista Front
were the limitations on the means available to the parties.
Sandinista representatives were celebrated at SI meetings as
heroes after the Front took over the country. In October 1979,
the SI Bureau accepted the conclusion of a Soares-led mission to
Nicaragua that the Nicaraguan revolution was "truly authentic and
democratic." Eden Pastora of the Front, who had been invited to
the Bureau meeting, expressed appreciation for the help and
solidarity received from SI member parties. At the same meeting,
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Brandt made a point of urging member parties, especially those in
government, to assist Nicaragua as much as possible..
Even though it became increasingly evident in x.980-81 that
the Sandinistas have no intention of permitting political plural-
ism, there have been no protests from the SI. As late as November
1980, Secretary General Carlsson referred to the "progressive and
pluralistic character of the new government." By mid-July 1981,
when the SI presidium met in Bonn, the Sandinista policy of
repression of internal opposition had become so obvious that
Brandt, in commenting to the press after the meeting, suggested
that the Sandinistas should pay "a little more attention to
pluralism," possibly the mildest admonishment in the record of SI
statements. Even this seeming rebuke, however, was preceded by
Brandt's announcement that the Socialist International still
believes in the original concepts and premises of the Sandinistas.
El Salvador has been a preoccupation of'the Swedish .Social
Democratic Party for at least five years, and SI Secretary General
Carlsson has done more than any other official of the organization
to make that country a cause celebre and a test for SI effective-
ness in its "anti-imperialism" efforts.. The full SI commitment
to the support of the Democratic Revolutionary Front in El Salvador
was clearly expressed during. the first Regional Conference of the
SI for Latin America and the Caribbean held in March 1980 at
Santo Domingo, with Brandt presiding. The conference.was sharply
critical of U.S. policy, particularly with regard to El Salvador,
Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. Although the SI has recently appeared
to cooperate with the United States and, to some extent, with the
totally ineffective World Union of Christian Democrats in trying
to find a peaceful solution in El Salvador, the fact remains that
the SI is committed to the support the Democratic Revolutionary
Front. There has been no SI retreat from a statement published
on January 23, 1981, by Brandt and Carlsson: "The forces of the
Democratic Revolutionary Front... are undertaking measures aimed
at establishing effective democracy....The Socialist International
has repeatedly made clear its support for revolutionary change in
El Salvador.... The Socialist International calls on all foreign
governments and outside forces to halt any support direct or
indirect to the Duarte regime."
Socialist International officials assert that they are
attempting to prevent Castroism or Soviet influence in El Salvador.
In 1979, they made the same assertions with regard to Nicaragua.
It is noteworthy, however, that in the entire stream of SI denun-
ciations of Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, Uruguay, and
Honduras there has never been an SI condemnation of Castroism,
never a call for pluralism in Cuba. And in the general resolution
adopted in November 1980 by the SI Congress in Madrid, Cuba is
not mentioned. The effort by Fanny Simon of the Social Democrats
USA to include criticism of Cuban policy in the Latin American-
Caribbean region during the pre-Congress Bureau meeting was
rejected on the instigation of the British Labor Party and Jamaican
People's National Party representatives.
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. _t
Chile, on the other hand, not only has been repeatedly
condemned since the 1973 overthrow of the Allende regime, but has
also been the topic of special SI meetings, such as the 1977
Rotterdam special meeting on "Solidarity with Chile." There,
for the first time, a representative of a communist party, the
Chilean, was invited to attend an SI conference. In June 1980,
the SI reconstituted its Chile Committee, with Reiulf Steen of
Norway as chairman and Alex Kitson of Great Britain as vice
chairman. The appointment of Kitson, who during a visit to
Moscow had proclaimed that he felt more at home in the USSR than
he did in his own country, must have pleased the CPSU, which has
used the. Chilean Solidarity Movement in Western Europe as another
rallying cause for unity of action of the left.
The consistently expressed SI support for national liberation
movements has been as uncompromising as the CPSU support for
these movements, even though the motivations and purposes of the
two organizations may differ. The word "parallelism" may well
describe the SI's and the CPSU's support of these movements. In
regard to policies toward South Africa, Angola, Mozambique,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chile, "convergence" may even be the
better term.
.Offensive for Human Rights
Although the SI's two other Brandt offensives have been
executed with praiseworthy determination, the offensive for human
rights has proved to be less successful. In defining this offen-
sive iri'1976, Brandt indicated the possibility of cooperation by
the Socialist International with the world-wide organizations of
the christian democrats and the liberals. At the SI Bureau
meeting in Rome in June 1977, Brandt proposed that the SI hold a
global conference on human rights with the world-wide organizations
of the christian democrats and liberals and with the participation
of the Democratic and Republican parties of the United States.
Representatives of the British Labor Party, the Belgian Socialist
Party, the Dutch Labor Party and, to a lesser degree, the Swedish
and Norwegian parties objected vociferously because they thought
the SI's concern with human rights should be targeted on countries
such as Chile, Argentina, South Africa and Iran.
As SI vice president for human rights, Francois Mitterrand
carried the day by expressing his opposition to the Socialist
International's holding a human rights conference jointly with
the christian democrats and liberals and by stating his unqualified
rejection of the idea of holding any conference in which the
Republican Party of the United States was a participant. The
result of the rather heated debate was referral of the human
rights offensive to committee, and a Study Group on Human Rights
was appointed, headed by Daniel Mayer of the French Socialist
Party.
Approximately three-and-a-half years later, the SI Congress
in Madrid adopted the final report of the Study Group, a master-
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25
piece of semantic convolution. Avoiding any reference to specific
geographic areas, the report emphasized that "the struggle for
human rights is an integral part of the liberation process," that
"the struggle for human rights, the struggle against hunger and
poverty and the struggle for a new international order are all
interlinked" and that "pursuing a policy of maintenance and
consolidation of peace is an essential requirement for pursuing
any policy aimed at human rights." The offensive for human
rights, in short, has been subsumed into the offensives for
disarmament and support to liberation movements.
What little remains of the offensive for human rights is
extremely selective and indicates the adoption of the double
standard as a guiding principle in the Socialist International
pattern of behavior. Before the overthrow of the Shah, Iran was
totally condemned by the SI, but since the Shah's downfall, the
executions in Iran carried out by the fanatical, fundamentalist
Islamic regime appear to have escaped the attention of the SI.
Similarly, relatively minor American military assistance to the
regime in El Salvador is criticized, while Cuban troops in Angola
are not to be mentioned. And national liberation movements in
the Caribbean area deserve support, but the national aspirations
of the Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians are beneath the SI's
notice. The list is almost endless.
There has been no dialogue between the Socialist International
and the CPSU on human rights, nor indeed would the CPSU want one,
but'-to the extent that the socialist International focuses its
human rights concern on South Africa, Chile, Central America,
Paraguay, Uruguay and other countries, there has been, if not a
convergence, at least commonality of targets between the SI and
the CPSU. Although in its provisional program of activities for
1981 to 1983, the SI plans to hold meetings of its Committee for
the Defense of the Revolution in Nicaragua, a conference on
southern Africa in Salisbury, a conference on North-South, meetings
of the Sorsa Advisory Group on Arms Control and Disarmament and
meetings of the Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, no
provision has been made for further meetings of the Study Group
on Human Rights.
In 1969, at the beginning of the detente era, Mikhail Suslov,
CPSU Politburo ideologue, described the world revolutionary
process for replacing capitalism with socialism, defining the
three basic interacting currents in this process. They were, he
said, "real (i.e., Soviet) socialism, the workers' movement of
the capitalist countries and the national liberation struggle of
the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America." As the interna-
tional organization of parties rooted in the workers' movement,
the Socialist International under the presidency of Brandt has
forged, in effect, a partnership with the CPSU on the basis of
the disarmament theme. Meanwhile the individual and collective
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26
energies of the West European SI member parties, which still
represent the backbone of the organization, have been channeled
into an offensive which contributes significantly to the erosion
of the political will in western Europe for military deterrence.
This surely is partly the doing of the CPSU. Yet, it is at
least equally the work of those SI leaders who were -- and are --
willing to push principles and values, and, above all, the rejec-
tion of international collaboration with communism, not merely
onto the back burner but off the stove altogether. The SI is now
so committed to disarmament that it is hard to see how it can
ever hedge its position.
Although the Socialist International asserts that its purpose
.is to cultivate and influence the direction of liberation movements
in order to block Soviet or Cuban influence, the SI record of
support and the results of that support have furthered and continue
to further Soviet or Cuban influence. Nicaragua is only one
example. There is also a convergence of CPSU and SI support with
regard to the ANC, the Polisario Front, and SWAPO.
Brandt's principle of political action is "integration,"
which has been defined to mean avoiding disputes. In the pre
Brandt era, disputes in the SI centered on theoretical principles,
but as the SI has moved its focus increasingly to "concrete
problems" the Brandt approach has meant dispensing with basic
principles of the Socialist International. It would be optimistic
to expect that the social democratic bulwark against communism
will be restored. Gonzales, the chairman of the committee to
redefine the aims and principles of the SI, seems dedicated not
only to intensifying relations between his party and the CPSU,
but also, in accordance with his October 1979 agreement with
Berlinguer of the Italian Communist Party and Carillo of the
Spanish Communist Party, to international cooperation between
communist, socialist and social democratic parties and "other
progressive forces" against the "rise of conservatism" in Europe.
Lenin's term, "useful idiots," while apt, does not apply in
its totality to the current leadership of the SI. These men are
far from being idiots.
Written at the request of
The Heritage Foundation
by Arnold M. Silver
The author is a former official of the Department of Defense and
Department of State with thirty years experience in European
affairs.