France Communist mutation
In the good old days, all the real debate at a Congres of the French
Communist Party was held out of site, before the public ceremonies began.
Last month's 29th Congress was rather different.
Christian Picquet
The leadership of the French Communist
Party (PCF) has for some time been trying to overcome the immobilism which has struck the party since it withdrew from an unhappy coalition government with the Socialist Party in 1984. The incentive to do it at this congress was all the greater in that opinion polls suggest that the left as a whole could win a majority of votes in the next parliamentary elections. This was also the first Congress presided over by National Secretary Robert
Hue, enthroned at the 28th Congress by veteran Party leader Georges Marchais.
The buzz-word at last month's Congress was "mutation" [it sounds better in French]. This idea covers the redefinition of "Communist identity," a greater openness towards other radical movements and ideas, and a "rupture" with a particularly monolithic internal party life.
One notable change since the 28th Congress is that the PCF General Staff apparently no longer considers "Trotskyists" in general and Alain Krivine's Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) in particular as vermin or pests. Over the last year, the LCR has been invited, alongside a range of other left currents and parties, to the public forums organised by the PCF
The existence of internal differences is no longer denied. Minority views within the National Committee are nowadays published in the party daily, 'Humanité. The party is even trying, in certain difficult areas, to do a little self-criticism. Following the struggle of "paperless" immigrants, the PF has abandoned its 1989 declaration calling for a halt The limits of change
"Mutation" has its limits. At the theoretical level, the National Committee text circulated to party members summarises Stalinism and the lessons to be drawn in a few short sentences. The problem, it seems, was étatisme, too strong a role of the state. A rather simplistic analysis.
In this new discourse of "going beyond capitalism," the occasional references to the importance of self-management seem rather abstract, and often contradictory. The National Committee explains that "going beyond capitalism" is not to be confused with any "brusque abolition." But nor is the party willing to "adapt" to "the system." The text can be read any number of ways.
The confusion and uncertainty with which the more problematic points of theory are handled is probably linked to the lack of real change in the internal democracy of the party. It is true that the minority texts were included in the National Committee document, as a series of passages in italics. But the leadership refused to allow party members to vote on these texts, or indeed to discuss and choose between any clear alternative proposals to the majority position in the leadership. This puts the PCF in a curious situation. There are public fractions inside the party, which express themselves not only in the party press but in the mass media, but without the right to submit proposals to the party members for their approval or rejection. Squaring the circle
Not that the party leadership has an easy job. Adopting a clear strategic orientation ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections will not be easy for the PCF. The party has little to substitute for its tried-and-failed strategy of Left Union, discredited during the coalition governments of 1981-84. And the PCF no longer has the international references and connections which used to boost its position in the workers movement. New slogans Was is now Capitalist exploitation The rule of money The passage to going beyond SocIalism capitalism Party of the new Communist working class role
France * All imaginable strategic choices threaten to lead the party into deeper crisis. A new electoral union with a Socialist Party now fundamentally committed to neo-liberalism and Maastricht Europe would create the preconditions for the implosion of the Communist Party. But any return to the sectarian superionty of the late 1970s would only accelerate the decline in support for and identification with the party. And the various
"overtures" of the Hue leadership towards the broader left suggest that the leadership is convinced that the immobilism which the
Marchais leadership imposed during most of
Francois Mitterand's 14 years as president is no longer an option either.
Unstable equilibrium
The leadership is hesitating. Robert
Hue's core team would like an alliance with the Socialist Party, which would re-confirm the PCF's role as a government-shaping party, and, they hope, maintain the party's current parliamentary representation. The problem is that, in the current situation, such an alliance would make the party a very junior partner of Socialist leader Lionel Jospin. And Hue can't sell that kind of deal to the PCF rank and file.
Apart from the proposals the PCF shares with the Greens, the "alternative" left and the
LCR, the party is often rather vague about what policies it would advocate once inside a hypothetical left government, beyond some "extension of the public sector" While the measures Hue talks about are certainly an indispensable minimum for any real rupture with the dominant, neo-liberal logic, they fall far short of what would be needed to put the economy at the service of social needs.
One year ago, Alain Juppe's government tried to impose its plan for the dismantling of the social security system. For some reason. the PCF did not respond by calling for an expanded, quality public health service, and the nationalisation of the pharmaceutical trusts which have pushed the price of health care up. One suspects that this reticence is motivated by Hue's desire to avoid embarrassing the Socialist Party, which now says it will not reverse the Juppe plan if it wins the next elections.
Robert Hue is "firmly in favour of the construction of Europe, " with "a deep revision of France's European engagements. He supports "an instrument for monetary cooperation, a new Ecu [European Currency Unit, now called the Euro]," "a communitywide tax on capital movements" and "cooperation between the public sectors in each country." The power of non-elected European bodies should be reduced. Hue also wants to see "a referendum on whether or not we go forward to the single currency."
All this would be worth discussing, in a
January 1997 #284 19
* France positive spirit, if it wasn't for the fact that, in the same breath, Hue reassures the mass media that he will not make refusal of the Maastricht convergence process and the common currency preparations a pre-condition of any left union government. Two oppositions
There are two opposition currents in the PCF. The "refondateur" (re-establisher) current, which publishes the weekly magazine Futurs, is led by Guy Hermier, MP for Marseilles, and a member of the PCF National Bureau. On 25 October Hermier told l'Humanité that "what was wrong with the last common programme [with the socialists] was not that the left parties told people what they would do once in power, but that the parties elaborated this programme on their own. This time, we should give the politics back to the citizens.... This requires a deep debate, not just a tête-à-tête between the traditional left parties..."
Although the refondateurs have a stable group of deputies, and a number of mayors in the "red belt" of Paris suburbs, the current has never really been able to organise itself inside the PF. What they say might seem relevant. But now that party leader Robert Hue has re-positioned himself, and made his own proposals for opening the party towards the rest of the left, the refondateurs have much less to say. Their criticism has concentrated on the bureaucratic, sclerotic func-
The new social radicalism has been in the air since the public sector strikes of November-
December 1995. When it comes to voting, however, the lack of real left alternatives has channelled much of this new radicalism to the far-right Front national. But the possibilities of a polarisation to the left of social democracy were shown in the recent
Gardanne by-election, which was carried by a Communist Party candidate supported by most of the radical left.
The Gardanne (Bouches du Rhone) seat was vacant because the incumbent Radical
(left) Bernard Tapie has been declared bankrupt and stripped of his civil rights. Millionaire, personality and now film star, Tapie was a symbol of the corrupt, champagne socialism of the 14 year Mitterand admini-
The Radical Party and Socialist Party presented voters with another darling of the
Paris salons, Bernard Kouchner, former minister for humanitarian action, and a leading supporter of the Maastricht integration process.
The Communist Party mayor of Gardanne, Roger Mei, benefited from a large range of supporters, including the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) of Alain
Krivine. In the first round of voting Mei came first, and beat the National Front candidate in the second round (Kouchner came 4th in the first round).
The Mei campaign was particularly popular with this mining region's blue collar 20 International Viewpoint tioning of the party. In practice, it seems that they agree with most of the programmatic proposals of the Hue leadership. Though, given the dominance of members of parliament within the refondateur group, there is a possibility that the current could make an opportunist turn to the centre if the Socialist Party decides to offer the PCF the chance of participating in government. Regroupment means liquidation!
The second opposition current considers the refondateurs to be a "liquidationist" current. This neo-Stalinist wing of the PCF is led by National Bureau member Remi Auchede, MP and "boss" of the party's powerful local organisation in the Pas-deCalais region. Beside him is Henri Alleg, a historic figure in the communist movement ever since he was tortured by French parachutists during the Algerian war of independence. This current is, in reality, a public fraction of the party, though Auchede condemns the formation of tendencies as itself a sign of the social-democratisation of all-too-many Communist Parties.
The neo-Stalinists have a radical discourse, and, in particular, are hostile to any kind of agreement with the Socialist Party. They propose "unity at the base" and reinforcing the internationalist and revolutionary identity of the PCF. This includes "a broad national campaign, based on demonstrations, strikes and popular committees, open to all