ABSTRACT
The international Communist movement spawned by the Bolshevik Revolution first appeared in Western Europe as a response to the collapse of social democracy. Beginning with the Swedish electoral victory in 1931, social democrats have come to power for varying lengths of time in at least a dozen European countries, but nowhere has there been even a modest effort to overturn capitalism. Eurocommunist leaders, of course, have strongly rejected the argument that their own brand of structural reformism has much in common with that of classical social democracy. The strategic points of convergence between conventional social democracy and modern Eurocommunism are becoming more and more visible. Still, social democracy has managed to accomplish through electoral victories what no insurrectionary or vanguardist party has ever been able to duplicate—a broad base of popular support, leading in several cases to a share of governmental power.
