PAOLO
BISCARETTI DI RUFFIA
Il
ruolo costituzionale dei “partiti non comunisti” negli “Stati
socialisti” europei
n.
1/ 1984
Summary — In contrast with a widespread opinion, in
four of the eight «socialist States» of
mid-eastern Europe (particularly
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland) subsist, besides the
communist party, other political parties
of generically
progressive tendencies. They
have survived — with different motivations
in each
of the Countries just
mentioned — since the time or the antifascist struggle of liberation
against the
German occupants and have
served, especially during the first years
of the
elaboration of
new socialist structures of the State,
to grant a formal acknowledgment in the political life
to groups
and social
classes (farm-workers,
intellectuals, catholics, etc.)
willing to collaborate, even though with only supporting functions, to the work
of transformation of the society. It
is interesting
to note that
their role has
been gradually
acknowledged also in the
most recent
constitutional texts of
those Countries:
though not omitting that the
«guiding
function» in all those
systems still
remains assigned only to
the communist party. Nevertheless, a certain co-operation can be ascertained,
rather often
juridically pre-arranged,
between the
above «guiding-party»
and the
other minor parties; operating with the former in a sole «National Front»
(which, for example, must present all the candidates at all election; present in
many organized bodies of the State, both
central and
local; and
in perennial organizing contact among themselves).
It is
obvious, however,
that their functions
remain always necessarily limited to a purely advisory sphere and that, on
one side, the
tendency of the communist
parties to include in their ranks all citizens (and not only, as before, the
sc-called proletarians) and, on another side, the actual progressive
disappearance of class differentiations seem to lead rather to a reduction
than to a strengthening of their role in political life in the near
future. Still, it is hard to deny that some useful contribution, both of
criticism and proposal, has been sometimes brought about by their presence.