Eurocommunism

American  

[yoor-uh-kom-yuh-niz-uhm, yur-] / ˌyʊər əˈkɒm yəˌnɪz əm, ˌyɜr- /

noun

1. a form of Communism that developed in some western European nations independently of the Soviet Union.

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Eurocommunism British  

/ ˌjʊərəʊˈkɒmjʊˌnɪzəm /

noun

1. the policies, doctrines, and practices of Communist Parties in Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, esp those rejecting democratic centralism and favouring nonalignment with the Soviet Union and China

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Other Word Forms

• Eurocommunist noun

Etymology

Origin of Eurocommunism

First recorded in 1970–75; Euro- + communism

Example Sentences

This type of wry evangelicalism was about as close to later English Puritanism as Italian eurocommunism would be to the clunking fist of Stalinism.

From Washington Post

In the CPGB, Eurocommunism began to amass momentum and influence, and just before the party congress of 1977, Jacques was approached by the party’s general secretary, Gordon McLennan – a representative of what Jacques characterises as the Communist party’s “centre ground”, whose politics were dutiful and dull, rather than sharply ideological.

From The Guardian

In the 1960s he engineered the expulsion and subsequent personal hounding of Fernando Claudín and Jorge Semprún, two Politbureau members whose “error” was to adopt what became Eurocommunism a decade before he chose it himself.

From Economist

Out went a lifetime’s slavish subjection to Moscow in favour of moderate, social-democratic “Eurocommunism”.

From Economist

With its origins in eurocommunism - the current in the 1970s which defied Moscow and engaged with parliamentary politics at a national level in Europe, Syriza contains also Trotskyists, anarchists, feminists and eco-warriors.

From BBC