1976 Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe

[6] Following the 1969 colloquium, proposals were put forward for another international conference, with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union hoping to regain its lost prestige through such an event.

The Soviet government disliked this Eurocommunist trend, and hoped that through holding a conference, they could achieve a document constituting a de facto charter of the European communist movement which would maintain their dominant role.

Soviet discourse did at the time emphasize the importance of a united communist movement across the continent, denying differences between parties and labelling the distinction between Eastern and Western Europe as artificial.

[19] Albeit without direct polemical exchanges, the speeches made at the conference showed diversity between positions the communist parties present.

[13] In his address to the assembled delegates, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito stated that "[c]ommunists must accept different roads in the struggle for socialism, independence, equality and non-interference in internal affairs".

[22][23] Other participants that argued for the Eurocommunist cause at the conference were Lars Werner from Sweden, Gordon McLennan from Britain, Ermenegildo Gasperoni from San Marino and, to a lesser extent, the Finnish Communist Party chief Aarne Saarinen.

[22] Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia and the East German host, Erich Honecker, were also amongst the prominent spokespersons of the orthodox camp.

He urged the conference to reaffirmation its commitment to proletarian internationalism, but without references to dual responsibility and mutual assistance (which had been cornerstones of Soviet discourse on the subject).

[22] Edward Gierek of Poland and János Kádár of Hungary also placed themselves within the orthodox camp in their speeches to the conference, but kept a lower profile and expressed certain individual nuances.

[20] One of the most prominent features of the document was the recognition of the principle of "equality and independence of all communist parties and their right to decide their own policies without external interference".

[18] The verbatim of the speeches at the conference were presented in full in Neues Deutschland, the central organ of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, whilst the more critical aspects were censored out in the reports in the Soviet newspaper Pravda.

[8][28] Pravda sought to portray the conference as a victory for proletarian internationalism and communist unity, downplaying the divisions that had appeared at the meeting.

[4][21][29] A notable counter-attack by the orthodox camp was an article by Zhivkov in Problems of Peace and Socialism in December 1976, which decried Eurocommunism as an anti-Soviet 'subversion against proletarian internationalism'.

The principle of consensus was gone at the Paris conference, and the Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Yugoslav, Icelandic, British, Dutch and Sammarinese communist parties boycotted the event.