Communist shell breaks
The French left has entered into a complex phase of debates and reclassifications. An exciting new challenge for the revolutionary left by Christian Picquet THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PARTY (PS) is in the middle of a "programmatic reflection," punctuated by debates with other parts of the left. And the Communist Party (PCF) recently organised a series of "forums to invent the new future," which culminated in a meeting of 10,000 participants, In Paris on 2 April. PCF leaders were joined by representatives of the PS, the Citizens Movement (MS), the Greens and the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR).
The reactivation of the left is certainly connected to the approaching parliamentary elections (1998). The left may be exhausted after 14 years of "Socialist" President François Mitterrand. But the electoral victories of the right, in the parliamentary elections of 1993 and the presidential elections of 1995, have nevertheless revealed the divisions and weaknesses of the right wing. So the prospect of a left-wing government is increasingly plausible. And, of course, there are the numerous effects of the social movement which rocked France in November and December 1995...
The strikes and demonstrations at the end of last year stopped the triumphant boasting of the neo-liberals. December was an open accusation of the social consequences of the Maastricht construction of Europe. And proof of society's resistance to austerity measures. But there was no direct political expression of the movement. To the great shame of the traditional left parties.
The democratic character of the December struggles transformed the climate in the world of work. By encouraging a huge number of unitary meetings of rank-and-file workers, within and between the various sectors in struggle. Unfortunately, this upsurge did not transform itself into a movement towards a general strike. But the aspirations of the workers involved are finding another form of expression: through the Spring professional (workplace representative) elections.
The big guns of the left have noticed. The Socialist Party of Lionel Jospin is distancing itself a little more from the dead-ends of the Maastricht process. Jospin has not challenged the single currency, or the timetable for economic and monetary union, but he has begun to demand that France's European partners present their "social credentials," including a Social Charter, a "guaranteed minimum European wage," and a tripartite "European economic government." This proved too little for the militants of December 1995, and a majority of delegates to the party's recent "Globalisation, Europe, France" convention approved a resolution, submitted by the small left-wing Socialist Left (GS) current, which challenged the Maastricht convergence criteria. The vote was not decisive enough to reverse party policy, but the warning to Jospin was clear. This is the first time such a strong challenge to Maastricht has been expressed in a party which has always seen itself as the avant-garde of the European movement.
The contradictions are even stronger inside the French Communist Party (PCF). Party leader Robert Hue's 1995 presidential campaign was only moderately successful in terms of mobilisation. And it was immediately followed by the loss of the Communist majority in a number of towns which have traditionally elected Communist-led councils. The December 1995 mobilisations have not reversed this clear tendency of decline in support for the PCF. Communist militants were very active in the movement, but their leaders refused to challenge the legitimacy of Prime Minister Alain Juppé's government. By failing to do so, the PCF demonstrated that it had no credible political alternative to offer, in the context of an important social radicalisation.
election as General Secretary marks the PF's deep strategic crisis. All the benefits of the Left Union (with the Socialists) of the 1970s and 1980s went to the Socialists. And the subsequent collapse of the Stalinist system deprived the PCF of the international reference points which had
France * enabled it to maintain its domination of the French workers' movement. The party was not just gradually losing voters and members, but it could not find a way to win support among the young, and in the new, non-unionised sectors of the working population.
There seemed to be no way out of the party's crisis. An Italian-style social-democratisation would strip the party of everything which differentiates it from the PS, which is after all the largest section of the left, in electoral terms. The PCF apparatus has always been hostile to any refoundation project which recognises and seeks to overcome the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism. In order to survive, the party has to keep the crisis an internal affair, and present itself as occupying a distinct space from the PS. But it also has to face the risk that any further decline in its electoral score will threaten the existence of its parliamentary group. The combination of these contradictory interests led the party leadership to abandon the inflexible strategy of veteran party leader Georges Marchais, and seek, under Hue, a new dialogue with the Socialist Party.
Hue's job is a difficult one. He has to convince the PF base, shaped by countless years of sectarianism, that the new overture is legitimate. And he has to wriggle out of the obviously junior position the PCF will occupy in any head-to-head or side-by-side comparison with the Socialist Party.
Hue's strategy has been to reassure the membership that he has no intention of resuscitating the Left Union of bygone days. And to invite "the people" to create the contours of the new left political structure. Hence his initiative for a series of discussions of the left, notably through the regional forums.
Exposing the membership of an organisation like the PCF to any kind of open debate threatened to provoke a severe shock in the apparatus of the party. The PCF apparatus had more or less resisted the shockwave which followed the disappearance of the USSR (unlike the Communist-led CGT trade unions, which were shaken). There is, it seems, a real risk of "balkanisation" of the PCF, and bitter public factional struggles to
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* France establish control of the party's regional federations and other bodies.
This is certainly what seemed to be looming during the forums of the last two months. While the official representatives of the party normally avoided any brutal comments about the socialists, the audience did not restrain themselves. At the tribune, one praised pluralism, and implied that the method of debate was more important than the content of discussion. But from the floor, one openly attacked the balance of François Mitterand's two seven year terms as president, and the PS's refusal to oppose itself to "the god of money."
Differences within the leadership were also visible. Some federations boycotted the forum project. And some leaders clearly marked out an anti-PS and anti-regroupment position. Communist Parliamentary group leader Alain Bocquet used the Lille forum to declare that he would not take part in any government which implemented policies favourable to the single European currency. A warning not just to the Socialists, but to some 'moderates' in his own party.
A neo-Stalinist opposition in the rank-and-file has recently formed, structured around a text signed by 300 leading PCF members. Written in the unique style of the 1930s, this proclamation bristles with anticapitalist and class struggle terminology. And warns that "defeats of [certain] Communist Parties should not lead us to throw the baby of the October revolution away with the dirty bath water of deformations, sclerosis and abandoning of principles. We need Communist self-criticism, not consensus self-flagellation, which plunges the masses into confusion." The names attached include Rémi Auchédé, National Committee member and Member of Parliament for Pas-de-Calais, and the journalist Henri Alleg, the first white to be tortured by French parachutists during the Algerian war of independence. The main effect of this text will be to oblige all the components of the party leadership to take position. Georges Marchais, for example, has not yet publicly opened the hostilities. Encouraging changes
The changing climate opens new, novel possibilities for dialogue and confrontation for the revolutionary left. Revolutionary Communist Party (LCR) leader Alain Krivine made a very favourable impression on the 10,000-strong crowd at the final forum, in Paris on 2 April, with his impassioned defence of radical change as the 28 International Viewpoint #277 objective to keep in view. One of the walls which separated LCR and PF militants has fallen, for good. Given the significant influence which the PCF still holds on significant radicalised sectors of the workers' movement, and the obstacle which the party has represented to an effective recomposition on the left, this evolution is an important modification of the political landscape.
Tomorrow, PCF and PS leaders may propose some resuscitation of the Left Union. Given the extreme weakness of the Socialist Party's policies nowadays, the content of any such union will be extremely disappointing. The LCR, French section of the Fourth International, proposes something different. We have been directly involved in the discussions which have criss-crossed the left. And we have proposals for the whole left, for trade union militants, and those active in associations and community groups. We don't suggest the regrouping of all these components of the left whatever the cost. But we do think the time has come for a debate without preconceptions about the content of the alternative we must build in the face of this right-wing government.
The LCR proposals take as their starting point the major demands of the movement of November-December 1995. We need to establish the axes of a programme which would represent a rupture with neo-liberal disorder. In response to the Communist leaders hollow incantations about "the people," we suggest the creation of a nationwide network of local unitary collectives, charged with elaborating such a platform, and drafting a common charter for all those who wish to associate themselves with the project. These local collectives would then ensure that those who adopted the charter respect and implement it during their electoral campaigns and in the institutions of the republic.
The LCR's proposal hopes demonstrate that it is possible to really change the balance of forces on the left. And to establish a credible alternative to the right, and defeat it in elections, without creating a "left" government which maintains conservative policies, as happened between 1981 and 1993. * Christian Piquet is a member of the Political Bureau of the LCR, French Section of the Fourth International.