ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the contradiction of liberal democracies which postulate freedom for the enemies of freedom. The power of the unions threatened to outweigh the authority of the legal government—a phenomenon typical of the liberal democracies of Western Europe, but more pronounced in Italy than anywhere else. Italy provides almost as good an example of the contradictions of liberal democracy in the 1970s as the Weimar Republic did in the 1930s. The Italian Communist party has been much louder than the French in declaring itself in favor of the European Community, to which Italy owes more than any other member of the Six. More important than the differences between the French and Italian Communist parties is the difference between their respective countries' political situations. A Communist party in power in its own right but with some respect for individual and intellectual liberty, could have a direct harmful effect on the Soviet ideocracy.
