The French Communist Party is going through an internal crisis that has now reached right into the party apparatus itself. The clearest example of this process is the case of Henri Fizbin, a CP full-timer since 1957. Fizbin is a former member of the Chamber of Deputies and a Paris municipal council member. In 1977 he was the CP's candidate for mayor of Paris.
On January 11, 1979, Henri Fizbin resigned his post as secretary of the CP's Paris Federation, ostensibly for "reasons of health." Although Fizbin was reelected to the CP Central Committee in early 1979, in November 1979 he resigned from that body as well, and he has just written a book, Les bouches s'ourent (The Mouths Are Opening), that explains why he took that step. Just after the book was published, the CP leadership felt compelled to publish a resolution on it signed by the "Paris Federation Committee," which took up two-thirds of a page in the party daily l'Humanité.
Fizbin's book is of interest because it relates in detail, with supporting documents, the debate and the crisis that have developed in the highest levels of the CP in the past two years. The debate and the crisis have taken forms that reveal a great deal about the internal situation in the CP and about the leadership's concepts of organization.
One could not say that Fizbin is really opposed to his party's policy. He defends the decisions of the CP's Twenty-second and Twenty-third congresses, which he feels are a step forward for the CP over its past. What Fizbin questions is the CP's internal functioning.
Fizbin feels that the CP Political Bureau is being too hesitant in carrying out the decisions of those congresses. His disagreement with the Political Bureau developed when that body suddenly "discovered" weaknesses in the Paris Federation led by Fizbin, and attributed those weaknesses to the Paris leadership's supposed hidden political opposition to the party's line.
For Fizbin, who is supported by what was then the Paris Federation Bureau, what is at the bottom of the crisis is his refusal to accept the Political Bureau's version of the situation and his refusal to serve as a scapegoat. Moreover, he views it in terms of the insufficient effort in recent years to eliminate the old Stalinist methods of functioning and to make the party's internal life more democratic. He resigned from the Central Committee, he explains, to help move the party forward.
This is a brief summary of the views put forward by Fizbin. Along with those views, he published documents, especially relating to the joint meeting of the Political Bureau and the Paris Federation Committee held January 11, 1979, where the crisis began and where he resigned as federation secretary. The Political Bureau has disseminated a false version of that meeting to the entire party.
Political Roots of CP's Crisis
Fizbin's explanations of his actions and the crisis is one thing; but the political roots of that crisis, whose outer manifestations he deals with, is quite another thing.
For years, beginning in 1972, the whole CP was passionately involved in the Union of the Left policy with the Socialist Party (SP). The CP was growing and its members hoped for an electoral victory that would have placed its leaders in government posts.
But the Political Committee began to feel that the Union of the Left was helping the SP more than the CP. They felt that the SP's gains were threatening the CP's hold over a majority of the working class, which it had maintained for three decades. At the same time, they worried that the far-left that has existed since the 1968 general strike could also become dangerous for the CP in this period of crisis.
These factors led the CP leaders to decide that their main goal should be to try to reestablish the CP's hegemony in the workers movement. This was to be done by centering all the CP's fire on the SP.
So the CP made a sudden shift in policy in 1977. Its explanation-that the SP had made a sharp right turn-was not very convincing to either its own ranks or to the workers in general. The CP's new policy remains reformist in content, but it is very sectarian in form and leads it continually into collisions with important layers of militants and of the working class.
As a result of the new policy, the Union of the Left broke up. What had seemed like a sure victory for the left in the March 1978 legislative elections turned into a defeat. And in the present political situation in France, the workers movement is seemingly without any political perspectives at a time when the capitalists are carrying out daily attacks against gains the workers have won in the past and against democratic rights.
While they do not deny the SP's responsibility for this situation, many members do not fully accept the point of view that the Political Bureau so tenaciously puts forward and do not accept its policy of aiming its fire primarily, if not exclusively, against the SP. This policy has reached the point where in a number of recent incidents the CP has tried to down-play government scandals, fearing that the SP would gain if the present bourgeois government became too discredited.
Fizbin's Real Crime
These opposition currents within the CP are especially numerous in Paris and the Paris region. The Political Bureau feels that Fizbin's real crime, and the real crime of the team that supported him in the Paris leadership, is to have taken the words about a more democratic internal party life as good coin, and especially that these forms could be applied in a quite difficult internal situation. Their crime was that they allowed these dissidents considerable room for expression instead of mercilessly stamping them out.
Having done this, they created the threat that these opposition currents would be allowed to make themselves heard at the CP's Twenty-third Congress. "There is every reason to fear the behavior of the [Paris] Federation in the preparation of the congress," remarked party leader Georges Marchais at the January 11, 1979, meeting mentioned previously. These remarks were reported by Fizbin and have never been denied by Marchais.
In the course of his book, Fizbin seems to evolve politically. He appears to become more sensitive to the criticisms made in the Political Bureau. But he particularly insists that he is trying to warn the Political Bureau that by not resolving differences in a political way, but rather through authoritarian intervention by higher bodies as in the past, there is a danger growing within the party. He does not yet understand that if the Political Bureau were to listen to him at all and were to sit down to have political discussions, it might no longer be able to control the situation.
There is no doubt that all this is still quite confusing for Fizbin. But we should not forget that this man was a CP fulltimer for nearly a quarter century, during which he developed, as he himself ac knowledges, patterns of thought that still weigh quite heavily upon him. This fact itself gives particular importance to his comments.
On January 11, 1979, for the first time, Fizbin refused to endorse the Political Bureau's criticisms of the Paris Federation, which were explicitly but only verbally formulated by several members of the Political Bureau, among them Marchais. Fizbin thought that a solution could more easily be arrived at if he resigned from the Paris secretariat for health reasons, grounds that were not completely baseless.
He hoped that this would permit the Political Bureau to find a solution that would not destroy the Paris leadership. But he soon learned that he was mistaken. The other members of the Paris Bureau were led in turn to resign in the weeks and months that followed, without being able to invoke reasons of health.
The Political Bureau felt that they had gone too far, that the whole business had become public knowledge, and that the opposition currents in the party were moving forward. Fizbin, who continued to hold the false impression that "democratic centralism" means that in lower bodies you must defend the positions you voted against in higher bodies, decided in November 1979 to resign from the Central Committee, this time openly on grounds of political disagreement.
The resolution on Fizbin's book, which was signed by the Paris regional committee and reaffirmed at the Twenty-third Congress, was adopted by a vote of 71 to 14, with one abstention. Although l'Humanité did not mention the vote, it was reported in Le Monde and no denial was forthcoming.
We can draw two conclusions from this. First, the Political Bureau officially ignores minority votes and feels party members need not be publicly informed of them. Second, within a leading body of the party there is still a minority that, through its vote, rejects the Political Bureau's version of the crisis.
There would be little worth saying about the resolution printed in l'Humanité, were it not for the fact that the resolution takes Fizbin's resignation from the Paris secretariat for "reasons of health" and uses it against him. It says, in effect, you hid the real reasons for your resignation; you hid your political disagreements from us; and today those disagreements have widened. It ends up with insinuations about Fizbin's conduct, in which an amalgam is made with the anti-CP campaigns aimed against the party: The enemy will use your book against the party. In his book Fizbin had anticipated that this "argument" would be used against him.
What is new in all this is not only that members, including former full-timers, remain in the party while stating their opposition to party policies, methods of functioning, or both. What is also new is that the Political Bureau does not expel them, and even seems afraid to do so, while using indirect means to incite them to quit the party.
The Political Bureau knows that expulsions could provoke explosions. But allowing former leaders to remain in the party to say and write what they think with impunity, at a time when other leaders privately think in the same or similar ways, is equally dangerous over the long run.
It is clear that, given the present state of the CP, the Political Bureau can no longer do whatever it wants with the party. One can understand why it exaggerates all the criticisms and all the attacks, wherever they come from; why it jumbles them all together and then denounces a plot against the party and appeals to the members' party patriotism to get them to close ranks around the leadership.
The Fizbin affair challenges the CP's method of internal functioning and, in addition, it challenges the political turn the CP carried out in 1977 in its relations with the SP.
Italian CP Courting Socialists
Recently another event directly and forcefully challenged the policy toward the SP. On March 24, François Mitterrand, the first secretary of the French SP, and Enrico Belinguer, general secretary of the Italian CP, held a meeting in Strasbourg. According to the joint declaration they issued, in two hours of discussion they took up "the most urgent problems of the international situation" (disarmament, dé- tente, cooperation in Europe and around the world, respect for the rights of man, independence of all countries) as well as the "specific role... of the workers movement, and of the various parties that represent it...
The meeting did not deal with the specific policies of either party, especially in terms of their relations with the other workers parties in their countries. But no one could doubt-especially the two participants in the meeting-that such a meeting, even with a very limited agenda, would have international significance and international consequences, particularly for the French CP.
Berlinguer and Mitterrand each had his own "national" reasons for meeting together. Berlinguer is trying to further his "historic compromise" policy, whose aim is to have the CP accepted for a role in a coalition government with the ruling Christian Democrats in Italy. For Berlinguer, getting recognized by Socialist parties that are or have been governing parties represents a big step forward toward this goal. Since the beginning of the year, Berlinguer has met with Willy Brandt of West Germany and Spanish, Portuguese, and Scandinavian Socialist party leaders in addition to his talk with Mitterrand.
Mitterrand's primary concern is to counteract the French CP's propaganda among workers about the SP's "right turn." The best argument he can use against that campaign is an agreement, however limited, with the Italian CP. Wouldn't that prove that the responsibility for the breakup of the Union of the Left and for the absence of any agreement between the two big French workers parties rests solely with the CP leadership?
The blow this meeting dealt the French CP is even more serious because almost every word in the Mitterrand-Berlinguer joint declaration challenges the CP's policies. The declaration includes the Socialist parties among the "workers parties," while the French CP rejects that definition. The declaration has a "Europeanist" character, while the French CP is hostile to the European Economic Community (EEC).
The joint declaration comes out for disarmament of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Its call for independence of all coun tries alludes to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan among other things. Berlinguer and Mitterrand were, in this way, making veiled criticisms of the French CP's policies.
Marchais Blasts Meeting
But the French CP leadership reacted sharply, and immediately responded in order to try to prevent vacillations within its ranks. Marchais, in press conferences and radio and television statements, made no attempt at subtlety. The time and place of the meeting, said Marchais, were "inopportune." The Italian CP and the French SP "favor austerity policies. ... Both of them are in favor of providing the EEC with supranational powers," Marchais argued.
Mitterrand, according to Marchais, "went to Enrico Berlinguer to seek an endorsement for his policy of alliances with the right. ... Now François Mitterrand can go around covering himself under the umbrella of the historic compromise."
At the same time that the Mitterrand-Berlinguer meeting was taking place, the French CP and the Polish CP were in the midst of preparations for a Paris meeting of European CPs to be held April 28-29. The meeting was ostensibly called to discuss disarmament, although the real purpose was to firm up support for the Kremlin's policies toward Europe. But the Italian CP, along with the Spanish CP and the League of Yugoslav Communists announced they would not participate in the gathering.
The Italian leadership gave the appearance of having been surprised by Marchais's comments, although the surprise seems a bit phony. It is probable that neither party will pursue this polemic in the immediate future, since it would embarrass both of them. But given the deep differences between the two parties, we can be certain that the international situation will provide many new occasions where they will have a falling out.
'Eurocommunism' Dead?
The bourgeois press in France seized upon these events to declare that "Eurocommunism" was dead and that the Berheralded linguer-Mitterrand declaration the beginning of a "Euroleft." In fact, however, the declaration did not mark the death of a nonexistent "Eurocommuniam," nor the birth of some sort of "Euroleft."
We have always maintained that there was no basic unity among the parties that were described as Eurocommunist. Rather there was a certain parallel evolution of parties that found themselves in some what similar situations. We further said that since these parties increasingly define themselves around national considerations, they would not hesitate to take opposing positions from each other if the need should arise, which has just been verified in practice.
What were the supposed common features of the "Eurocommunist" CPs? It is true that the so-called Eurocommunist parties renounced the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and are for the "parliamentary road to socialism." But they have, in fact, held these positions for a long time, and other CPs that are not included among the Eurocommunists also share these positions. At most one could say that certain positions taken coincided with more or less real perspectives of participating in the government.
Some people began to speak of Eurocommunism when a number of Communist parties expressed disagreements with the Soviet Union. But this too has been taking place for a long time in the cases of Yugoslavia and China, neither of which is "Eurocommunist." Furthermore, these disagreements with the Soviet Union were dictated by "national" needs and did not lead to a common assessment of either the Soviet Union's past or present.
There is no fundamental doctrine that characterizes this supposed "Eurocommunism." The parties in question have undergone similar evolutions only as a result of pure empiricism.
The French CP's position of unrelenting hostility to the SP is based on its attempt to maintain its hegemony in the French working class, which is threatened by the SP. The Italian CP, on the other hand, faces a very small SP in Italy and there fore has no fear that the SP could supplant it as the main working class party. This means that the Italian CP is free to pursue its policy of "historic compromise" with the Christian Democrats, which it hopes will lead to a Christian Democratic- Communist Party coalition government.
We should add that none of these "Eurocommunist" parties has the slightest intention of trying to create any kind of international body, not even one limited to Western Europe. This is also true of the Italian CP, which has been very careful to refurbish the idea that the Communist movement is "polycentric," an idea the now-deceased Palmiro Togliatti raised offhandedly.
Finally, we should note that the differing paths toward a supposed "Eurocommunism"-paths that were dictated by concrete circumstances-have not led to real victories for these different parties, and have instead now led to internal crises in these parties, whatever the present lines they follow.
Is There a "Euroleft"
In the same way, there is no "Euroleft." The Berlinguer-Mitterrand declaration is not a step toward either the creation of an International or toward the establishment of unity in action on a Western European scale. The declaration is simply a fleeting agreement among two thieves who have their own distinct objectives. It is not a manifestation of proletarian internationalism, but rather a manifestation of "socialism in one country," which both support.
The present dispute between the French and Italian CPs shows that after years of growth their reformist policies have not assured them entry into bourgeois governments, but have rather given rise to internal difficulties and crises. Neither the sectarianism of the French CP nor the maneuvers of the Italian CP can provide a solution to these crises.
April 16, 1980
Notes
1. Fizbin's title comes from an article by former CP leader Maurice Thorez, which was not the beginning of a liberalization or democratization of party life, but rather the beginning of Thorez's seizure of the party leadership, with the aid of the Comintern, from those who had applied the Comintern's ultraleft "third period" line and had to serve as scapegoats. Given his age, Fizbin only knows this history through the embellished version dispensed in the party schools. Nonetheless, Fizbin has begun to open his mouth, and what happened at another time with Thorez will certainly not be reproduced this time.
2. There are no longer any political perspectives for those whose outlook is restricted to electoral consultations, who have not drawn any lessons from May 1968, and who therefore reject any perspectives that would be opened up by a general strike.
3. Fizbin is no novice concerning the party's functioning, especially the functioning of the Central Committee. He indicates that at certain points-and this was the case since the 1977 turn-the Political Bureau has categorically refused to consider any amendments, however slight, to documents it submits for a vote in the Central Committee. In such a case it is clear that the documents presented are the product of laboriously worked out compromises within the Political Bureau, compromises that any vote on amendments would blow up.
4. Party cells have sent letters to dissidents like Jean Elleinstein telling them that they should quit the party since they don't seem to have anything in common with it. These "spontaneous" letters have been published in l'Humanité.
5. Fizbin leads us to think this and it is quite plausible.
6. Twenty-two delegations from Western and Eastern Europe attended the conference. The meeting was boycotted by the Romanian, Yugoslav, Italian, Spanish, British, and Swedish CPs, while the Belgian and Swiss CPs sent observers who did not endorse the conference's final document.-IP/I