Political parallels

It is fair to say that most, if not all of us are following the current SYRIZA saga with some interest. Some of us are more interested than others either because we support or oppose the party, others are interested in the personalities involved; in any case the interest is high. The general consensus seems to be that what is happening to SYRIZA is unique and never happened to a Greek political party before. It appears that the above estimation is right but I, as a historian of Russia, see a parallel between current events inside SYRIZA and the internal struggle of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s.

Before I continue I need to make something clear; I am comparing the circumstances not the individuals or the parties, or the countries. There is no Greek Stalin, SYRIZA is not the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Greece is not the USSR. In...