Turmoil in the French Communist
International Viewpoint #179 • February 26, 1990
FRANCE
NTERNAL opposition in the
French Communist Party (PCF)
has always crystallized around two issues: internal democracy and the "socialist countries"
In 1976, the 22nd Congress seemed to be opening a new period: the "Soviet"
### Party
NOTHING is going right any more for the French Communist Party (PCF). Its militants and cadres are reeling from continued electoral decline, the zigzags of the leadership and the crisis of the
"socialist" camp. After the expulsion of one opposition current, Juquin's "renovateurs"
shortened and the content purged. In the same party, enthusiasts for unity with the PS coexist with others whose sole joy is to criticize the Socialists. Because of this, drawing up the lists for the municipal elections in March 1989 was a painful process that has left lasting wounds model was renounced, the dictatorship the PCF finds itself confronted by a in many party organizations. of the proletariat abandoned, Eurocommunism was the vogue and the intellectuals were to be permitted a certain
Those who went in wholeheartedly for
"self-management" strategy made only one mistake: believing that it would be put into practice. After the break-up of the Common Programme with the Socialist Party (PS) in 1977, the PCF retreated into an unprecedented sectarianism, founded on the "globally positive balance-sheet" of the "socialist" countries (1979). The intellectuals were told to shut up.
In successive waves, the PCF lost numerous cadres and experienced militants, and managed to cut itself from the mass of intellectuals. Use of union prestige fails to halt electoral slide
At the electoral level, both nationally and locally, the figures are pitiless. Even the excessive and dangerous use of the prestige of the CGT (General Labour Confederation - the union central close to the PCF) to support PF candidates unstoppable after 1979, against a background of a zig-zag policy in which phases of radical-sounding sectarianism have alternated with total opportunism, including the uncritical participation of four PCF ministers in the first Mitterrand government (June 1981-July 1984). These twists and turns bewildered the electorate and destroyed the PC's image as a serious and stable party.
The party's daily, l' Humanité, does not let a week pass without producing figures and clever comparisons that prove the reassertion of the PCF's influence. Furthermore a leaflet has been distributed in several million copies to support this idea. But the truth is that the PCF is no longer a national force. There are whole regions, 20 such as Doubs (the department in which new internal opposition, the
"reconstructeurs".
### JEAN VERSAILLES the Peugeot factory at Sochaux is situated, with 23,000 workers), le Finistère, l'Hérault, Paris, Le Mans and several of the (traditionally communist) suburbs where the PCF is no more than a group and the refusal of the leadership to admit this only discredits the party further.
This collapse has considerable practical consequences. Finances, fulltimers, and carve-ups in the municipalities, all collapse as soon as control of a town is lost.
The leadership is refusing to face up to its political responsibilities. It accuses journalists, the PS, the right, bosses, and so on, and tries to blame its own militants for their "lack of enthusiasm". According to the leadership, society has moved to the right. In fact, since 1986, there have been numerous struggles, which, even if only involving certain categories, have been long, massively supported and creative in their self-organization.
Party's leading bodies lose authority
This accumulation of electoral and political failure has undermined the authority of the Political Bureau and Central Committee. It is probable that a majority of rank-and-file militants are in favour of a complete change in the leadership. This leads to political paralysis. The traditional success of L'Humanité's festival in September 1989 cannot hide the absence of political themes on the stands. Only the Young Communists, who keep going thanks to concentrating on a campaign against apartheid, came across as an organization that knew why it existed. longer assured by the theoretical education of the militants. In the course of the years, the length of party schools has been
The party is trapped by two insoluble contradictions: its attitude towards the
Union of the Left (with the SP) and the issue of the "socialist" countries. The electoral road to socialism requires agreements with the PS in every local, regional and national election, with mutual standing down.? For some, any attempt by the PF to mark itself off from the PS appears like an attack on unity, while, for others, the PF seems to be bending the knee before a social democratic government that is increasingly discredited by its austerity policies. Neither in the majority nor the opposition
In fact, the PCF, which wishes to be a "a party of struggle and of government", has not found any way of translating this into actuality, and ends up twisting and turning in response to each development. Thus the communist deputies find themselves "neither in the majority, nor in the opposition."
The balancing act proves fatal. Unlike the Italian CP which has managed to occupy the social democratic terrain, there is no space to the right of the PCF. Thus, from time to time, it comes out with terri fying declarations of revolutionary intent. But, since this is all words, the party ends up losing credibility on the right and on the left.
The second problem is glasnost. The more revelations this produces, the more the PCF has to try to justify its total support for Stalin and Brezhnev. PCF leader Georges Marchais has verbally supported 1. In the November 1946 legislative elections, the PCF gained 28.60% of the votes. In the first round of the presidential elections in 1969, the PC's score was 21.50%. In 1981 they got 15.48%: while in 1988 thei vote had fallen to 6.85%. 2. In France, presidential, legislative and municipal elections take place over two rounds. The tradition is, in the second round, to stand down in favour of the best placed candidate of the left. Many municipalities and departments are administered in common by the PCF and PS.
February 26, 1990 • #179 International Viewpoint perestroika, his "friend" Gorbachev and has even tried to claim paternity for the idea. ("At last" as the leaders say today, as if they had been calling for such changes for years). Even so, it is impossible to hide the fact that the PCF strenuously denied the existence of a profound crisis in the
To be of any benefit to the PCF, the Gorbachev effect would have to accompanied by a thorough self-criticism and change of leadership personnel. But the apparatchiks cannot bring themselves to do this. Thus, on the one hand, the PCF supports perestroika, while on the other hand denies it, reaffirming "the contribution of socialism to the historic movement in these countries". It restricts itself to admitting "divergences" (even "very serious") with "certain communist parties".
perspectives for action. The crisis has reawakened forces who have already broken with the party. Pierre Juquin 3 wants to link up with the Greens, who, however, do not want to link up with him. CGT officials are being sucked in by the PS Disorientated by their failure at the European elections, the renovateurs [Juquin's supporters] who retain local positions are divided. A third claim to be part of the "presidential majority". Others are trying to maintain a communist identity and are seeking to meet up with the reconstruc-
This latter current warrants special
Held together by long-term cadres from the time of the Resistance, the movement is marked by organizational and political seriousness. It is a public faction, with a journal, pamphlets, local
FRANCE Lenin and Marx.
• The Italian CP is taken as a model. Their political thinking is Eurocentric.
• The historical failure of a "certain type of communism" implies a free debate, and unity in action, including with
• The political perspective is a government of the Union of the Left, that really meets the workers' demands
The PCF leadership is unable to frontally attack this dissidence. It finds pretexts for striking out at individual militants or structures without directly meeting the
It does not seem likely that they will win the fight to change the PC. The Congress in December 1990 will be decisive for them. Meanwhile, their tactics will sooner or later come up against insuperable contradictions — the politi-
To cover its tracks, the CC voted unanimously for a text on the
ME TOO! CANCEL ALL MY MEETINGS! that dares to say did not know every- Bит... thing". This has not pre- NOT HA vented the PCF from ASKED TO reiterating its idea of the "globally positive balance-sheet" and talkabout socialism's "crisis of growth", even events whose violence shook the militants and position on the implosion of the "fraternal parties" in the East, a statement that turned into an "explanation" of the events there: careerists renounce socialism, and, after sabotaging it, adhere en masse to the
All this has led to political chaos, in which the militants go off in all manner of directions. In the mass organizations, like the CGT entire sections of the leadership are following their own line. Local elected representatives more and more openly take their distance in order to preserve their territory from the hazards and discredit associated with the national leadership.
Inside the CC itself, several voices have spoken up. Inside the Secretariat itself, Charles Fiterman, the eternal silent oppositionist, has timidly put his head over the parapet, after years of watching his friends get shot down. Although he is the most popular communist leader, his past as a minister makes him suspect in the eyes of the rank-and-file. Marchais is engaging in trench warfare, denouncing "those who are ready to sell off the revolutionary policies of the PCF" for an alliance with the PS.
Fiterman and his supporters are ultralegalists and are not ready to offer clear offices and a presence in some three quarters of the country. It has its own international contacts, with, for example, the pro-perestroika minority in the West Ger-
In the municipal elections, the reconstructers kept their positions, including where people who had been expelled were standing against official PCF candidates. In the Doubs, they crushed the official list in the Senatorial elections in September. Some militants continue to control important parts of the apparatus at a local, and even departmental level.
The original feature of this current is that it brings together, through the Association for Research and Initiative for Self-Management and Socialism (ARIAS), people expelled and members of the PC in a perspective of a struggle for a radical transformation of the party.
Their main political axes are:
• The main battle is in the PC, "the" party of the workers. They demand, without spelling it out, the right of tendency and want to build a "common home" for all the communists 4.
• Denunciation of Stalinism and support for perestroika go hand in hand with classical reformist theoretical amalgams that see Stalin as the logical inheritor of cal needs of those who no longer have a party card; tiredness among oppositionists; insidious repression....a new programmatic and organizational stage will open.
You!
Last year, for the first time, Editions la Brèche, the publishing house of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR),
French section of the
Fourth International had a stand at the annual fête of l'Humanité which
PLANTU took place September 8 to 10, 1989 in Paris. The presence of well-known
Trotskyists like Alain
Krivine at the fête led to numerous debates among the militants.
The existence of these questionings and multiple currents has created a new situation. Although up to now, no revolutionnumerous sectors in or near the PCF have broken with sectarianism and ostracism, especially where the LCR is concerned.
This allows new debates, new explanations and non-sectarian actions such as the
July 8, 1989 demonstration 5.
Along with the signs of management that have characterized the social struggles since 1986, the collapse of
Stalinism, whether in the East or in
France, is making direct contacts between the social vanguards and Trotskyism easi-
3. Pierre Juguin, ex-party spokesperson and member of the Political Bureau and leader of the renovateur cur rent left the PCF in Autumn 1987. He ran in the May
1988 presidential elections, with the support of the
LCR. After his campaign's poor result, he drifted away from the renovateurs, who went on to found their own organization (MRC)
4. On the initiative of the LCR, an important demonstration against the debt, apartheid, and for indepen
2dence for the remaining colonies was organized in
Paris on July 8, 1989. (See TV 166, 167).