"HISTORIC COMPROMISE"
pean capitalists as well. Likewise, while it is prepared to accept a "European Europe," as de Gaulle put it, the French CP is against an "Atlantic Europe, " which is also the position of broad layers of European capitalists in face of the claims of American capitalism. While there appear to be no major obstacles in terms of strictly political problems to possible governmental participation by some Communist parties, nevertheless a truly thorny political problem is raised by the timing of such possibilities. Such governmental participation by the CP is envisaged in a grave social and political situation. But the question that comes up is, At what moment must the step be taken? Even for those among the bourgeoisie who accept such participation, it is still regarded as a last resort. So when? To do it too early would be to use the authority of the Communist parties prematurely and thus to risk weakening that authority considerably at the time when the CP's intervention will be decisive. But on the other hand, the bourgeoisie must not play this last trump card too late, either; that is, at a moment when the dynamic of the class struggle would outstrip the ability of the CP leaders to bottle it up. In any case, if the possibility of Communist party governmental participation raises difficult discussions among bourgeois political circles, the realization of such possibilities would really be posed only in the most dangerous situations for the capitalist system. The present revolutionary upsurge in Europe has not yet attained such a dangerous level for the bourgeoisie. But it is no less important for revolutionary Marxists to understand the meaning of these new tendencies among the bourgeoisie and to envisage what the consequences would be for the Communist parties and for the layers of workers controlled by the CP. It is possible, even probable, that differences or tensions will appear in the future inside the Communist parties because of the contradictions between the pressures coming from the rise of the masses and the inertia of the apparatuses of these parties and the trade unions under their control. These differences or tensions should be used by revolutionary Marxists to weaken the authority of the traditional leaderships over the masses. But it appears to us doubtful that these differences or tensions will develop rapidly enough to challenge the Communist parties' policies of entering the government. For decades these parties have been imbued with a reformist mentality; they recruit and educate their members on a basically reformist basis. ITALY THE CD & THE workers struggles have led some of the principal capitalist er Enrico Berlinguer's response to the Chilean coup -- has bates in Italy. It is essential for revolutionary Marxists to mise proposed by the CP leadership. Future articles in
The case of the French CP is a good example. At the moment, this party is suffering unprecedented difficulties; it cannot grow on its left or its right. But its membership more than ever holds to the perspective of electoral victories of the Union de la Gauche. It is thus probable that the moment of truth will begin to sound for the Communist parties in the course of their participation in governments. The situation today is very much different from the situation just after the second world war. Then, the CP leaders were basking in the aura of the victories of the Soviet army; they were confronted with a working class exhausted by years of unemployment, fascism, and war, a working class that quickly returned to the fold of the traditional leaders. Today, however, the CP leaders face a profoundly rejuvenated working class of growing combativity in whose midst there is a relatively significant vanguard that no longer has confidence in the traditional leaderships and is seeking a revolutionary orientation. The resolution of the Tenth World Congress of the Fourth International on the building of revolutionary parties in capitalist Europe broadly defined the tasks of revolutionary Marxists in these countries. The tendencies that have recently found expression among wings of the bourgeoisie favorable to Communist party participation in bourgeois governments can only lend a growing urgency to these tasks. It is necessary to contribute toward pushing these parties to take power in their own name, but without any illusions. Thus, nothing is so ridiculous and dangerous as the formulas that are found in the press of the friendly enemies Healy and Lambert asking that the Socialists and Communists take power "on a socialist program, " which suggests that these parties could apply such a program. On the contrary, the masses must be warned in advance of the powerlessness of such governments. Thus, the essential task at present is the propagation and, wherever it becomes possible, even in elementary forms, the creation in the course of struggle of bodies of self-leadership for these struggles by the class itself. At a time when nervous layers of the bourgeoisie are placing their hopes for the survival of their system in their making use of the leaderships of the Communist parties, it becomes more than ever necessary to teach the working class by propaganda and practice to show greater distrust of the leading apparatuses of the traditional formations and to increase the will of the workers to take their fate into their own hands. E by LIVIO MAITAN The insoluble political crisis that has racked the Italian bourgeoisie for the past several years and the pressure of intense leaders of the country to consider calling the Communist party into the government. The "Historic Compromise" -- CP leadplaced this question of the participation of workers organizations in bourgeois governments in the center of political defully grasp the stakes involved in this debate. The following article presents an analysis of the policy of the Italian Communist party and explains the prospects of the Historic ComproINPRECOR will deal with the policies of other Communist parties in capitalist Europe on this question. INPRECOR
THE CD & THE
COMDROMISE"
ITALY "HISTORIC Born on the eve of the victory of fascism and at a time when the workers movement was already in a stage of retreat, the Italian Communist party (PCI -- Partito Comunista Italiano) was characterized for a short time by a sectarian Bordigist deformation. (1) The "Bolshevization" of the party was to a large extent carried out as a "Stalinization, " in spite of the very specific character of the Gramsci leadership. (2) By the time
GRAMSCI the party emerged as a relatively consolidated organization in terms of its apparatus, it was already suffering from Stalinization and from the absence of solid ties with the masses. It was only during the latter part of the second world war -- especially after 1943-- and in the years immediately following the war that the PCI was transformed into a party with a very broad mass base haying hegemony within the working class.
From the historical angle, the policy of the Italian CP was determined in the final analysis by the combined influence of three factors: the requirements and impetuses of the mass movement; the requirements of the Soviet bureaucracy; and the needs of the "indigenous" bureaucracy, that is, the leadership and
6 apparatus as a whole (including the apparatuses of the trade unions and cooperatives). During the 1930s, when the apparatus was under the tight grip of the Stalinized Comintern, the second factor was by far the dominant one. For the most part, this situation continued to last until the death of Stalin. Nevertheless, beginning already in the second half of the 1940s the CP had to start to take account much more than in the past of the necessities of its rank and file, which had since become a very broad mass base. Furthermore, the apparatus was developing widely and a broader and broader "indigenous" bureaucracy was arising (members of the apparatus at all levels, members of the trade-union apparatus, representatives of the CP in the political and administrative institutions, the network of cooperatives giving rise to the traditional reformist network, etc.). After the death of Stalin, and especially after the Twentieth Congress of the Communist party of the Soviet Union in 1956, the transformation became accentuated and caused a more radical change. Insofar as distinctions are legitimate, it was the third factor that then became the dominant one. Fundamentally, the policy of the PCI is determined by the internal requirements of the bureaucracy, by the needs of its policy, strategy, and tactics in the national context. This manifests itself, among other ways, in the abandonment of the classic practice of the 1930s and 1940s of automatically lining up behind any and all positions expressed by the leadership of the Soviet Communist party and in the adoption of a relative autonomy of judgment. Concretely, on various occasions this has meant taking public political positions that differ from those of the leadership of the CPSU. During the most recent period in the history of the Italian Communist party (that is, from 1968 to the present), the preponderance of the third factor has become even clearer (especially in relation to the second factor, the requirements of the Soviet bureaucracy). Beginning from this reality, the question is posed whether the PCI has been transformed into a typically Social Democratic organization. Incontestably, steps have been taken in this direction, and the Italian CP's political and organizational practice has closer and closer analogies to that of the classical reformist parties. Moreover, the PCI is seeking alliances with the most powerful European Social Democracies (the German SPD in particular) in the framework of a strategy aiming at the formation of a "democratic" Europe independent of both Moscow and Washington. Nevertheless, the qualitative change that would justify changing the traditional Trotskyist characterization of the Italian CP has not occurred. The fabric that links the bureaucratic apparatus of the PCI to the bureaucracy of the USSR and other bureaucratized workers states has not been broken. Although powerful stimulants and tactical considerations are exerting
centrifugal forces, concrete interests are pushing in the opposite direction. Above all, for the bureaucracy of the PCI, which has a specific origin and a whole history of its own behind it, a bureaucracy for which certain ties have had and still have material as well as political implications, the existence of a country like the Soviet Union (as well as the other bureaucratized workers states) has not ceased to represent an element that in the final analysis is loaded with power and prestige. This is why even at the moments of greatest tension with Moscow, the PCI has always wound up by seeking a compromise solution. And, in spite of its internal transformation, the PCI has maintained an international stance that differs qualitatively from that of the Social Democracy. During the period from the death of Stalin to 1968 -- a period that broadly corresponds to the period of the prolonged boom of the world capitalist economy -- objective conditions were accelerating the gradual transformation of the PCI. In a context characterized by the absence of great mass mobilizations and a relative stabilization of the system, the 1956-57 polemics, which eventually were to leave very deep traces in the whole Italian workers movement, initially involved mainly the petty-bourgeois and intellectual ranks of the party and the apparatus on various levels. The criticisms against the Soviet bureaucracy and Stalinism were generally differentiations from the right. Leftist criticism was expressed only in very reduced proportions (on both internal and international questions). At the same time, the absence of great struggles and the defeats suffered in certain decisive bastions, like Fiat(3), provoked or facilitated changes in the relations between the party and the masses. Even in the most difficult periods, the PCI did maintain its electoral and trade-union influence. But its direct ties to the working class were more and more strained. This was manifested in the decrease in the number of workers among the party membership, in the disappearance, or only ephemeral presence, of the PCI as an organized political force in the factories, and in the retreat, if not destruction, of the rank-and-file union structures in the factories. The price that the PCI and the trade unions were later to pay for all this was to be generally outflanked during the first stages of the new rise of the struggle (1968-69). Considerable room opened up for activity by forces escaping their control. sIt should go without saying that this hiatus was determined in the final analysis by the contradiction between the nature of the period that was opening up and the nature of the party. But the phenomenon of outflanking and the formation of new vanguards were facilitated by the earlier dissolution of the ties between the PCI (and the trade unions) and the working class. Capture the movement The major social and political crisis than opened in 1968 and is still far from having run its course gave rise to powerful pres sure from the mass movement on the PCI. It was a primordial necessity for the PCI to defend both its role and strategy and the system of interests into which it is integrated -- so as ngt to be cut off from or completely bypassed by the mass movement. The tradition of Togliattism and the practice adopted by the PCI at the time of the explosion of the crisis of the international Communist movement had given the PCI leadership a very great flexibility and an incontestable tactical expertise. After some initial manifestations of disarray and some sectarian reactions, the leading group demonstrated its ability to adapt to the new context. Fundamentally, it tried to integrate the new movements into its general political strategy. More precisely, the PCI sought to make use of the forces that surged forward during the crisis -- the rise of the workers and the dynamism of the new proletarian generation, the striking force of the student movement and the radicalization of the petty-bourgeoisie -- in order to increase its own weight in the national context and to be in position to propose its project of "democratic" renewal and reformist reconstruction with growing chances of success. It is no accident that the re-launching of the policy of reforms - carried out through the vehicle of the trade unions -- was undertaken toward the end of 1969. Italy was in a prerevolutionary situation at the time; the rise of the workers had reached its height and the trade unions had ably conducted their operation of coopting and canalizing the movement. The reformists were able to advance their project both as a response to the exigencies of a mass movement that was demanding general political solutions (which the far left was not in position to give expression to) and as an alternative to the bourgeoisie itself, which wanted to avoid the danger of an even greater, and, in the final analysis, uncontrollable crisis. In the initial stages of a social and political crisis in the absence of a revolutionary party, a reformist party with roots in the working class can usually gain in strength as new layers of the working class politicize and radicalize. (Concurrently, there will be an increase in the strength of the trade unions.) The PCI did not restrict itself to efforts to boost its numerical membership or to extend its electoral base. It also tried to insert the forces and impetuses that began to develop in 1968 into the parallelogram of its policy. Thus, the PCI supported trade-union initiatives, at the same time assuring a canalization and an increase in the weight of the delegates councils. In its general theorizing, the PCI included the councils among the forms of "direct" democracy complementing the parliamentary institutions, which for some time had been a leit motiv especially in the speeches and articles of the centrist current led by Pietro Ingrao. The operation proved more difficult in regard to the student movement, for this movement had developed completely outside the influence of the PCI and was therefore more difficult to canalize. But the axis of the orientation of the leaders of the PCI was substantially the same. This new component of the mass movement was supposed to be mobilized in function of the strategy of reforms. The first attempts to implement this strategy ran along the lines of seeking an alliance or convergence with certain sectors of the student movement that were susceptible to being used for this aim -- the Capanna movement in Milan, for example. (4) Later, especially in 1973-74, the PCI again found conditions (partially, at least) in which it could take direct initiatives through its youth organization. At the same time, the spectacular growth of the teachers union affiliated to the CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana dei Lavoratori -- Italian General Confederation of Workers, the trade-union federation dominated by the PCI) assured the PCI of another important instrument in this work. Finally -- and this is an essential point - the PCI was able to exploit the aspiration of the student movement for a convergence with the working class and its inclination to accept the hegemony of the working class. The intervention of the trade unions in the whole range of problems of the student movement and its struggles was the concrete means by which this operation was carried out. In the final analysis it was an operation that went in the direction desired by the general reformist outlook of the PCI. One of the consequences was that the far-left groups, in the framework of their centrist retreat, reduced their own platforms for the student movement and, in practice, adopted a tail-endist attitude toward the trade-union bureaucracy. In conclusion: the powerful and prolonged rise of the working class, the development of the student movement, the radical-
ITALY ization of very broad layers of the petty-bourgeoisie, the unprecedented crisis of leadership of the ruling class, and the evolution of the world situation all combined to allow the PCI to extend its influence further and to appear as a force more closely inserted into the real political contest. That is why it has generally retained its hegemony over. ie working class and why the bourgeoisie is each day more and more forced to define its attitude toward the PCI. Nevertheless, this elementary observation must not lead us to forget two other essential elements. The first is that although the PCI maintains its substantial hegemony over the working class through the organizations that it leads or has predominant influence over, the ties between the party apparatus and the organized or unorganized base do not absolutely reflect complete adherence to the PCI's conceptions and orientations. The ties persist in spite of rather generalized critical attitudes. On a number of important occasions mass movements have begun and developed outside the grip of the PCI; a broad proletarian vanguard exists that is not under the hegemony of the PCI. The second element is that in spite of its increased strength, the PCI is to a very great extent paralyzed. This general paralysis flows from a critical contradiction: The PCI is struggling to push through reformist solutions in a period in which the objective room for reformism is non-existent, or nearly so, and the dynamic of the situation demands solutions involving a break with the framework of the system, that is, revolutionary solutions. The crisis of Italian society is also expressed in this specific crisis of the majority workers party, historically marked by Stalinism and more and more inserted into a reformist logic. The Historic Compromise The crushing of the Allende government, which had been held up as a practical verification of the possibility of preparing a transition to socialism by a "democratic" road, provoked critical reflections within the PCI and was the occasion for a redefinition of general strategy. Earlier and more explicitly than the Chilean CP itself, the leading group around Berlinguer asserted that the cause of the Chilean defeat -- apart from tactical errors or mistakes in application of the line -lay in the failure of the workers parties to realize and consolidate a sufficiently broad front of alliances. More concretely, it would have been necessary to avoid the confrontation by obtaining, right from the beginning, a systematic agreement with the Christian Democracy (or at least with a substantial section of it).
This evaluation was the point of departure for the "theorization" of what is called the Historic Compromise, which was raised by Berlinguer precisely in a series of articles dealing with the balance-sheet of the Chilean defeat.
It should not be assumed that the Historic Compromise represents an absolute innovation for the PCI. Berlinguer can legitimately affirm that it is a logical outgrowth of the whole policy of the party. The formula itself was utilized in 1948 by Togliatti. But what is significant is that such a lesson should be drawn from an experience that ought to lead to the exact opposite conclusion and that it should be brought up with the aim of justifying a policy that proposes to solve the most serious crisis of the past thirty years by forming a political leadership based on the collaboration of Communists, Socialists, and
Christian Democrats; that is, a new edition of the collabora-
8 tion that was already engaged in at the end of the second world war. In other words, according to the leaders of the PCI, the crisis of capitalism should not be confronted with the perspective that the proletariat should struggle for power or even that there should be a government of workers parties on the basis of their winning a majority in parliament. No, the perspective must be that of establishing "advanced" democracy, a reformist restructuring of the regime that was first created in 1945 on the basis of systematic collaboration with the most dynamic and "modern" sectors of the bourgeoisie, those that rejected (or at least considered impractical) solutions like fascism, Bonapartism, or military dictatorship. The implied argument (sometimes articulated rather explicitly) is that a major confrontation must be avoided at all costs because it would only lead the working class to a defeat and to the loss of all the gains it has made since the end of the second world war and especially since 1968. Militants of the workers movement and bourgeois observers alike are asking themselves, Will the Historic Compromise actually be realized? There is no doubt that all the political conditions for such a solution are more favorable today than they were several years ago. From the international point of view the present context does not involve any absolute obstacle, and the most significant experiences since 1968 (from the French CP's attitude during the revolutionary crisis of May 1968 to the Portuguese CP's entry into the national coalition government) have encouraged important sectors of the bourgeoisie to accept the idea of collaboration with the CP, even at the government level. If the crisis should deepen even further, if the centerleft government should be definitively swept away, if no other solution seemed possible, the bourgeoisie would very probably accept the "Historic Compromise" as its last resort, as an extreme solution. It must be added that the PCI has already given important "guarantees. " It has not made the qualitative leap, but it has integrated itself into the game on the parliamentary and administrative levels. On several occasions it has allowed a government to survive, going so far as to proclaim that it had adopted the policy of "opposition of a different type. " In July, the question of the government fiscal decrees came up in parliament. These decrees represented a severe blow to the buying power of the working class and of broad layers of the pettybourgeoisie. The PCI exerted some parliamentary pressure to attain minor changes in the decrees, but it did not adopt the tactic of obstruction, which would have led to the defeat of the decrees and the fall of the government. During the month of June, the PCI had put forward a platform of economic demands that had no major differences with the solutions envisaged by the government. Nevertheless, the die is not yet cast. In the short term it is probable that the Rubicon will not be crossed. The bourgeoisie and its parties are torn by violent polemics and there are constant fluctuations. During the last meeting of its national council the Christian Democracy rejected the PCI's advances very clearly, and, what is much more significant, a "no" answer was also given by Agnelli, who is director of Fiat and head of the employers' organization. Agnelli had been considered as one of the bourgeois leaders most favorable to the
Historic Compromise (among other reasons, because of his excellent relations with the Soviet bureaucracy). The traditional arguments against the Historic Compromise are now being put forward by various politicians. But the real remaining opposition is fundamentally a result of two factors: 1. The bourgeois circles that are favorable to going ahead with it are holding
back out of fear of the reaction of those sectors that would have to bear the costs of the compromise; 2. The Christian Democracy, which is once again in crisis, is afraid to enter a collaboration that the PCI, which is much more solid and homogeneous, could exploit in its favor. In particular, the CD fears -- and not without cause -- that the PCI could win the support of petty-bourgeois layers, and even of small- and middle-sized industrialists. (Such support is already a reality in the so-called Red Regions in the middle of the peninsula.) Such a development could lead to a profound restructuring of political relations, and the bourgeoisie is not yet ready to accept such a perspective, with all the risks it implies. As for the PCI itself, it is also hesitating and will hesitate some more before taking the decisive step. (Last spring, for example, it adopted a policy of "intransigent opposition" for a few months.) It is concerned first of all with its ties with the masses. This is not an unimportant consideration in a coun try that has experienced great mobilizations during the past five years, mobilizations during which important outflanking of the PCI has occurred, a country in which the broadest mass vanguard of any country in capitalist Europe exists. In the second place, the PCI does not want to take on responsibilities that, given the present situation, will inevitably be heavy ones without getting some guarantees that it is going to be an operation of some scope. Berlinguer and Company are not prepared to take big risks for some sort of small-time operation. And they have said so explicitly on several occasions. There remains the question of whether a possible realization of the Historic Compromise with the entry of the PCI into the government could lead to a stabilization. In the short term, the bourgeoisie would probably have a wider margin for mabut the general lines of the answer must be negative. The crisis that Italian society is now experiencing is at the same time structural and conjunctural. The crisis is so extensive and profound that a stabilization in the short or medium term would not be realizable even in the extreme hypothesis that the Historic Compromise were put into effect on the basis of all the economic and social proposals being advanced by the PCI. In the event that a few real reforms were made, the consequences would be a multiplication of social tensions, a prolongation of the conflicts that have been going on since 1968, and even an aggravation of them. The Chilean experience is eloquent on this question too. Tasks of revolutionaries Even if it is not realized in the short term, the Historic Compromise poses political and tactical tasks for revolutionaries. In fact, the question is in the center of current debates, and the workers in the factories are discussing it quite a lot. This reflects the persistence of certain illusions, but it also reflects the degree of politicization. The workers are taking account of the fact that the solution must be sought on the general political field and not on the purely economic or defensive level. Revolutionaries have an indispensable task of propaganda. They must clarify the essential content of the Historic Compromise -- a new form of class collaboration. They must do this on a large scale, systematically, recalling the lessons of the past (especially those of the 1944-47 period). Further, through their agitation axised around transitional slogans linked to the problems of the economic and political crisis (see INPRECOR No.8), they must try to show in practice through the experiences of struggle that compromise with the bourgeoisie is impossible without renouncing defense not only of the historical interests of the working class and the other exploited layers, but even of their immediate vital interests.
This action is all the more necessary in that the groups of the far left are sliding into a centrist morass, fostering the most lamentable confusion and functioning within a clearer and clearer logic of adaptation. If the Historic Compromise were realized, a new stage would be opened and it would be necessary for revolutionaries to re-examine their orientation. Very probably, a wide section of the masses would consider the addition of the PCI to the government as a victory and would attain a greater consciousness of their strength and the effectiveness of their struggle. This would mean that revolutionaries would have delicate tactical problems to resolve. But it is not the aim of this article to deal with those problems now. 1. The congress of the unified communist faction of the Italian Socialist party was convened in Imola on November 20, 1920. In attendance were: the central nucleus of former abstentionists (including Luigi Bordiga, who had exerted strong pressure during the second world congress of the Communist International in favor of this unification), the ex-left-maximalists (Bombacci, Gennari, etc.), the former Ordine Nuovo (New Order) group (Gramsci, Togliatti) and the majority of the youth organization of the Italian SP, which was directed by Polano. During the Livorno congress (January 1921), the unified communist faction (known as "the pure communists") received 58, 788 votes for their platform out of a total of 172, 487 votes cast. The faction then withdrew from the congress and, in the St. Mark Theater, formed the Italian Communist party (PCI). Only one member of the Ordine Nuovo group, Terracini, was placed on the Executive Committee. The other members of the EC were: Bordiga, Fortichiari, Grieco, and Repossi. Gramsci was a member of the Central Committee. Togliatti was not even a member of the CC; he became one only after the second congress of the PCI (March 1922). The vast movement of workers occupations of factories (especially in Turin, Milan, and Genoa) had by the close of September 1920 ended with a defeat for the working class. 2. In May 1922 Gramsci was designated as a delegate to the International and left for Moscow. From the end of 1922 he worked in the Executive Committee of the Communist International. In 1923 he went to Vienna in order to follow Italian events more closely (the rise of fascism and the arrest of the main cadres of the PCI). Elected as deputy from Venice in 1924, he returned to Italy, enjoying parliamentary immunity. He drafted the theses of the third congress of the PCI, a congress that was held in Lyon, France, in January 1926. Bordiga was in a minority. Gramsci was arrested in November 1926. He later died in the fascist prison. 3. The workers of Fiat -- who have been in the vanguard of the Italian working class since 1943 and demonstrated their exceptional combativity in April 1948, after the attempt to assassinate Togliatti -- were locked in the vise of the PCI's policy of class collaboration. By 1953 the management of Fiat (Valleta had taken over management in 1946) launched a ferocious attack against the organized workers movement and succeeded, thanks to many firings and a policy of systematic repression, in almost completely isolating the FIOM, the metalworkers union attached to the CGIL. It was only in 1962 that the workers movement began to reactivate itself, and it was not until 1968-69 that Fiat again became the most advanced center of Italian workers struggles. 4. Capanna, leader of the Movimento Studentesco (Student
Movement), an "organization" that had hegemony in the state university of Milan at the beginning of the 1970s. Of Mao-
Stalinist orientation, this "organization" lines up behind and sanctions the policy of the PCI.
GREECE Prime Minister Caramanlis has held discretionary powers ever since he was called back to power by the bankrupt junta. His regime is not based on any constituent assembly or elected legislative body. The existing judicial framework is none other than the one bequeathed by the past twenty years, during which time anticommunist and repressive laws have been promulgated endlessly. During the past ten years, Greece has been profoundly transformed by an economic evolution whose social consequences are now beginning to come to the fore. The military dictatorship was undermined by political and social contradictions that it had itself contributed to aggravating. Thus, during the past few years, Greece had begun to extricate itself from the weight of its economic backwardness. The church, unconditional supporter of the military, was the incarnation of the country's political backwardness. What has occurred has been an industrial, commercial, and cultural development whose main result has been the concentration of social classes through the accelerated urbanization of the country and its unprecedented opening to the world market, particularly by the expansion of tourism. A modern working class was born; a commercial petty-bourgeoisie appeared. Inevitably, a modification in the forms of capitalist political rule in Greek society had to be produced as a counterpart to these profound social and economic changes. A conservative-reformist approach Caramanlis stands at the intersection of two roads in the political history of postwar Greece. Simultaneously the organizer of the political system that arose after the civil war (and pushed forward by the powerful anticommunist wave of the time) he is also the figure who embodies a return to a form of bourgeois democracy that had never been rooted in the political tradition of the country. It appears contradictory to see Caramanlis play the herald.of the reconstruction -- or rather, the construction -- of democracy and simultaneously govern virtually autocratically. Thus, the current problem is the political lining up of the country. All the political operations now going on are aimed at constructing political units, parties, or movements in order to plunge into the