Entangled Eurocommunism: Santiago Carrillo, the Spanish Communist Party and the Eastern Bloc during the Spanish Transition to Democracy, 1968–1982

The Spanish Communist Party (PCE), under the leadership of Santiago Carrillo (1960–1982), developed the path of Eurocommunism. This was in part a rethinking of communism's approach to Western parliamentary systems, as well as an indigenous strategy for adapting the party to the transition in Spain from dictatorship to democracy. However, the influence of Eastern European developments was clear not only in the development of the party's struggle against the dictatorship but also in its reaction to Eastern European dissidents and to Solidarność, when the PCE called for an aggiornamiento to align themselves to these new tendencies. This failed, and in the end more orthodox communists came to dominate the party. But the debates about the transformation in Eastern European communism played a major part in developing the new line of the Spanish communists, and in shaping their central role during the Spanish transition to democracy.