Hardly a day goes by now without some members of the French Communist Party openly taking positions, either in the press or on radio or television, that run counter to the positions of their leadership. The critics are forced to express themselves outside the official organs of the party, since the Political Bureau has so far re fused to open up "discussion columns." Nevertheless, the
"critical movement"
seems to be more widespread than it was during previous internal crises, such as occurred in 1956, for example.
It is true that the most outspoken criticism still comes from intellectuals. However, the discussion is percolating through every cell of the party. It has reached the level of the section committees and has roduced a number of motions critical of ne official ine. Besides-and this 1s: very important fact—a segment of the apparatus itself has begun to stir.
The editorial staffs of the central CP weekly France Nouvelle and the monthly theoretical and cultural journal La Nouvelle Critique side with the "dissidents" and have published some issues that sidestep the official line. The business manager of the party's publishing house, Editions Sociales, has publicly spoken out against certain aspects of the election campaign.
It is also clear that the debate has reached to the highest level of the leadership. Various rumors are heard these days about split votes in the CP Political Bureau. Whatever the validity of these rumors, one thing is certain—the "turn" taken six months ago in breaking with the Socialists was based on a certain balance of forces within the leadership, and this relationship of forces began to shift after the setback of the legislative elections.
Faced with the SP's steady growth in electoral strength and the increasing influence of the [SP-dominated union federation] CFDT, the leadership of the French CP was afraid that if they came to power on the basis of the Union of the Left as it had existed over the last year, they would face a serious challenge to their dominant role in the working class. The sharp turn made during the negotiations over updating the Common Program-a sectarian
"left" and "workerist"
turn based on rhetoric-was designed to differentiate the CP sharply from the SP and to enable the CP to co-opt some issues that the far left had raised very effectively in the 1977 municipal elections. The object was to make it possible for the CP to slow down its electoral decline, prevent the SP from becoming too dominant in the left, and create a more favorable relationship of forces when the government's term expired.
This sudden, sharp change in line met with a certain amount of satisfaction on the part of the membership, particularly in the factory cells, where anti-SP sentiment runs high. But it was not really understood by the ranks, two-thirds of whom had joined the party since 1968, on the basis of the Union of the Left. This caused the first stirrings of discontent.
The First Wave of Criticism
On November 4, 1977, Gérard Molina, who was general secretary of the Union of Communist Students from 1969 to 1972, published an "open forum" article in the daily Le Monde. At the time l'Humanité did not even comment on the statement. Molina accused the leadership of going from an opportunist approach to the Union of the Left ("unity without struggle") to a sectarian approach ("struggle without unity"). Then the weekly Politique Hebdo began to run several statements of CP members who defined themselves as "oppositionists." Many statements had been published in this way by the time of the CP national conference in early January.
Some of the statements are clearly intended as "criticisms from the left." They oppose the CP's abandonment of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat at its Twenty-second Congress in February 1976, and they oppose the party's support to building up a French nuclear strike force. They challenge the overall rightwing politics of the leadership in which the sectarianism of the election campaign is simply the other side of the coin. An example is the following passage from one of the "open forum" articles: "The only way that the Union of the Left can be built today and transformed into a genuine union of the people is on the basis of building committees of people's unity."
Other more confused statements seem to boil down to criticism from the right. They object to the abandonment of the strategy of building a unity of all French people, which was laid out at the Twenty-second Congress.
Still, this first wave of criticism was not expressed at the national conference, where, in good Stalinist tradition, no voice was raised against the leadership. This made it possible for Georges Marchais to make sarcastic comments about the "socalled opposition." But during this time France Nouvelle published a debate between reporters for the weekly and the historian Jean Burles, which concluded on the theme of a need for "democratizing democratic centralism."
Up until the legislative elections, the most lively discussion centered around the publication of a book, Dialogue à l'inté- rieur du Parti communiste [Dialogue Inside the Communist Party], by Gérard Molina and another member of the CP, Yves Vargas. In it, the authors denounce the policy of the CP leadership as both opportunist and sectarian. The zig-zags of policy, according to Molina and Vargas, result from the fact that the party and the individuals who lead it are motivated by contradictory "reformist and revolutionary" sentiments. Even though the authors definitely fall into the category of "left" critics, they still deny the right of tendencies to carry out the debate, and they preach the idea that contradictions of the "Leninist" type don't really exist any more.
Besides this book, which l'Humanité also declined to comment on, philosopher Georges Labica, a member of the Upper Seine Regional Committee, published in Politique Hebdo an open call for the CP to stand down on the second round.* By a few weeks before the election, feelings of discontent had actually spread through the majority of the membership. Even though some of them were convinced that the SP was to blame for the "disunion of the left," and even though all of them had supported the struggle against the "Social
" more and more of the
Democratic danger, membership could not understand why the Political Bureau refused to call for CP candidates to step down in favor of Socialists on the second round. This refusal was bound to confuse the voters and jeopardize a victory that had previously seemed certain.
Membership discontent was not ended by the accord reached on March 13, just after the first round, which provided for automatic withdrawal in favor of the strongest Union of the Left candidate. For one thing, CP members were supposed to believe that it was a "good accord," when-except for the 2,400 frane minimum wage-it was exactly the same as the minimum program on which the CP and SP had reached agreement before the split six months earlier. Also, people had the impression that the agreement to withdraw was just a way of avoiding-no matter what the eventual cost-the decline of the Communist group in parliament, after a first round that indicated the left was almost sure to be defeated. The second round of course confirmed these fears.
A Balance Sheet on the Leadership's Policies
What were the end results of the policies carried out over this six-month period? It is true that the SP ascent was checked, and its electoral strength vis-a-vis the CP grew only a tiny amount. But at what a price! The vote for Communist candidates in the first round was less than it had been in 1973 (20.5 percent compared to 21.5 percent). And the increase in the number of deputies, because of the relatively good turnout by Socialist voters, cannot hide the fact that the election was an unmitigated defeat for the left.
The Political Bureau immediately published a self-serving statement saying that "it was all the Socialists' fault," that "the party had no responsibility for what happened," and that it was necessary to go ahead along the lines laid out at the Twenty-second Congress. A week later, at a meeting of regional secretaries, Charles Fiterman took up more or less the same theme, with two nuances: he took a more sophisticated approach to the March 13 accord in order to disarm its critics, and he came down heavily in favor of continuing the strategy laid out at the Twenty-second Congress. But rumors in the press indicated that a new turn was under way within the Political Bureau, and that the electoral defeat had strengthened the hands of those who wanted to speed up the process of Social Democratization of the party.
The Second Wave of Criticism
This was particularly true because the basic thrust of the criticism, as it emerged in the same after the elections, pointed direction. The shock of March 19 soon had its impact. The first to speak out was Jean Rony, a reporter for France Nouvelle, who wrote in the daily Le Monde: "The problem is that we were not understood by the masses. And we can't get off the hook by claiming we had no responsibility for this lack of understanding." This began a whole series of statements by intellectuals in the various publications. They all demanded a "democratization" of the discussion and maintained that the leadership was responsible for not having put into practice the strategy outlined at the
Twenty-second Congress. The "workerism" of the election campaign was particularly harshly criticized.
This culminated with Le Monde's publication of a statement that l'Humanité had refused to print, signed by six well-known intellectuals, among them Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar. In addition to calling for the Central Committee meeting of April 26-27 to immediately open up a discussion in the party's press, they demanded "democratic" preparations for an extraordinary" congress. (Under normal conditions, the Twenty-third Congress would not be held until January 1979.)
Among the ranks, in the cells and in section meetings, the discussion became more lively. The "official" report elicited sharp criticism that was sometimes confused but always got a big hearing from the membership. In some regions, as in Paris, the local press and the weekly regional press publicized the questions and the arguments raised by the opposition. L'Humanité continued its blackout of op position views and did nothing but pub. lish, day after day, articles by members of the Political Bureau and interviews with regional secretaries justifying the leadership's line.
The leadership initially responded by ignoring the vast debate that had begun. Georges Marchais insisted that the "oppositionists" were the same people who had refused to give up the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat at the time of the Twenty-second Congress. This was blatantly false since in fact most of the intel. lectuals were criticizing the leadership for having insufficiently carried out the line of the Twenty-second Congress. The CP general secretary did have to say, however, that no member would be expelled for having expressed reservations about the party's line in the non-Communist press.
Later, as the changing relationship of forces within the Political Bureau reached a new stage, the leadership began making statements claiming that they themselves were the ones who initiated the "broad democratic discussion" in the cells. They postponed the question of an open discussion but did not rule it out in principle. This opened the door for the Central Committee at its next session to remove one of the main bones of contention with the "critical movement."
Finally, the most recent episode. Jean Elleinstein, a historian known for playing the role of "stalking horse" for a section of the leadership, jumped into the middle of the debate. In three articles published in Le Monde, he presented a case in fine style as to why the French CP should speed up the process of "Eurocommunism." He took to pieces the Political Bureau's line on the results of the elections. He called the
Soviet Union an "anti-model." He raised questions about the validity of continuing to use the term "communist." He challenged certain basic tenets of Leninism. He demanded a greater democratization of the party and called for giving up every trace of "workerism" in favor of a policy of broad alliances. The indications are that his point of view reflects that of other members of the ruling group and will in a few months become the dominant line of the party.
The Leadership's Maneuver
The leadership, or at least the majority that is beginning to be delineated within the leadership, intends to use two tacties to try to turn the situation around. First of all, at the upcoming Central Committee meeting, it plans to defend the basic political line carried out by the CP over the last year, while accepting a few partial selfcriticisms concerning certain aspects of the election campaign; it also has the option of officially opening the preparatory discussion for the Twenty-third Congress, so as to disarm the critics of the "democratic" type.
Secondly, the leadership is trying to isolate the "left" current that has appeared within the party by moving forward along the path of "Social-Democratization" that Jean Elleinstein is openly calling for with all his heart.
Naturally the leadership has to take some distance from Elleinstein in a public debate where the partisans of the dictatorship of the proletariat are in a head-on confrontation with the partisans of a pure and simple abandonment of Leninism. This tends to reinforce the Bonapartist image of the leadership in the eyes of the membership and makes possible another cautious step in the direction of the "Italianization" of the party, a step that will be formalized at the Twenty-third Congress.
Given the current state of affairs, there are actually two debates that intersect with each other. One debate, sought by the left wing of the party, concerns what happened in the past. The leadership does not want this discussion to take place, and they do everything possible to isolate the members grouped around Louis Althusser or sympathetic to the line of Gérard Molina's and Yves Vargas's book. The current that raises "left" criticisms is, however, still a tiny minority within the party. It does not seem to have the potential of bringing real pressure to bear on the apparatus in coming months unless there are some big developments in the class struggle, which would hasten the weedingout process within the CP.
The other debate, sought by a significant part of the apparatus-in fact, probably the majority-has to do with what will happen in the future. The members of the
Political Bureau, convinced that the only strategy to follow is that laid out at the Twenty-second Congress, are trying to quiet the grumblings of the intellectuals by insisting that the only problem was with the way the line of the Twenty-second Congress was applied, and that what is necessary is to deepen and press forward with the strategy of the unity of the French people. Georges Marchais is already parroting Jean Elleinstein's line: "The party is not suffering from too much Twenty-second Congress but rather too little." Besides, it seems clear that a very big majority of the current membership, whose experience in the party has consisted of the unity strategy and an elec. toral orientation, would go along with such a course.
The only thing the leadership has to do to put this process in motion is to make certain concessions in terms of democratic discussion and the method of electing delegates to the congress. In other words, it has to accept the idea of the Twentythird Congress not being unanimous. This would be an important crack in the Stalinist monolith, and would make broad discussion easier in the future. In this sense, revolutionists have everything to gain by supporting the democratic demands of the "oppositionists."
But at the same time it is necessary to participate in this discussion by posing for critical CP members some key questions about the nature of their party. Among the subjects that must be examined are: the results of the struggle against the austerity plan; the results of the split engineered on the eve of the elections; the ways of achieving unity; and the possibility of a "gradual, peaceful, and democratic" road to socialism.
The job of revolutionists is to counterpose to the reformist policies of the leadership a clear line of uniting the workers in action. We call for the greatest unity of action against the austerity program, and for the broadest discussion on how socialism can be won. These are the axes along which revolutionists can intervene in their own way into the crisis that is already shaking up the CP and before too long will also shake up the SP.
Notes
* French elections are held in two rounds. Only candidates who poll at least 12.5 percent of the vote in the first round are eligible to take part in the second round. Traditionally, the workers parties have agreed in advance to withdraw after the first round all but the single workers candidate with the best chance of winning the runoff.—IP/I