WALDECK ROCHET OPENS FIGHT AGAINST COMMUNIST INTELLECTUALS
By Pierre Frank
PARIS, Feb. 17 -- During the Algerian war, the Union des Etudiants Communistes [Union of Communist Students], a formally independent organization, began to take a critical attitude and to develop differences with the French Communist party [PCF] in view of its notorious stand favoring the imperialist side, The majority opposed the PCF leadership but divided into right and left tendencies. . Last year at its March congress, the UEC compelled the PCF leadership to back down and accept a compromise.
The conflict between the leaderships of the PCF and the UEG has now flared up again as preparations were being made for the com ing UEC congress. Ina “letter from the National Bureau of the Central Committee" which was published in Clarté, the Communist student organ, the UEC denounced all the maneuvers and bureaucratic measures of which it had been made victim. The letter also contained a ser~ ies of considerations that are close to constituting a political platform opposed to that of the PCF. The general drift of this platform corresponds to the. line of Togliatti's "testament." [See World Outlook September 18, 1964. ] -
Within the UEC the discussion is in full swing. Different documents have been submitted voicing the positions of the different currents existing in the Communist movement, whether official or not.
- The PCF leadership displayed its hand through open attacks against the "antiparty" forces, the "factionalists," etc. The en- . tire PCF press echoed this campaign while carefully refraining from publishing a word representing the opposing positions in the UEC. The PCF leadership hoped to win in the UEC by mobilizing its apparatus, organizing a faction in the UEC and providing it with considerable material means, working away among new members unaware of what happened. a few years ago. ,
But the conflict between the leadership of the PCF and the UEC could not fail to affect a section of the members of thé party, a section that is numerically weak but politically significant -members of the teaching profession Luniversitaires].
A hundred odd Communists in this category (heads of departments, assistants, researchers, etc.) sent a letter to the general ‘secretary of the PCF concerning the conflict. (See page 29 for full text.) Among the signers appeared the names of figures like Vigier, Dresch, Schatzman, Vernant, Zazzo. . . well known as Communists and as men highly qualified in their specialties. :
This letter alarmed the PCF leadership. It was in the. hands of General Secretary Waldeck Rochet for several days before its
existence became publicly known and cited in the whole French press on February 16. On the following day, 1'Humanité, the central organ of the French Communist party, devoted more than half a page to the subject, one column for the text of the letter and -four columns for a reply in the form of a “letter from the Political Bureau to the organizations of the party."= The publication of the letter was something new. However, the leadership deserves no credit for this. It was constrained to publish it because the rank and file of the party now refuse to take a position on a document they are asked to condemn unless they can read it,
What are the contents of the Political Bureau's letter? - First of all, it is to be noted that l'Humanité does not publish the name of a single one of the signers. The Political Bureau says: "A certain number of teachers [universitaires] belonging to different cells, ‘sections and federations, sent a letter to Comrade Waldeck Rochet, general secretary of the party. Some of the signers are members of your organization. That is why we present you with a copy of this letter, accompanying it with the first remarks from us. which it calls for."
A_certain number! To say: a hundred would mean saying that it was a lot more than that, that this hundred expresses what the over-— whelming majority of the intellectuals in the PCF think.
' Half of. the Political Bureau's reply consists of saying: but everything is going along fine; the Seventeenth Congress of the party _{1964] provided answers to the cultural problems, the question of | the place of the intellectuals, etc. The policy of the party, defined in its congress, provided "valuable answers to the big problems of the day concerning the character of our epoch, peace and war, the struggle for democracy, the road to socialism, the unity of the work~ ing class and the union of the democratic: forces, the unity and the cohesion of the international Communist movement."
If everything is going along fine, what is the meaning of this move taken by the university personnel? The Political Bureau ‘offers the following explanation:
"Their move is objectively equivalent to putting in question the policy democratically decided on by the Congress. .. . In ‘stating that they make no claim 'at weighing responsibilities or offering a judgment as to what is at the bottom of the issues in dispute! [in the UEC] and in selecting this moment to address a collective letter to the leadership of the party, the signers, whether they wished to or not, lent support to. a group in open struggle against the party."
In other words, here are party members who are not in agreement with the party's policies, who do not believe that the congresses have offered "valuable answers." But they have committed, in the view of the leadership, a still greater crime; not only are they in disagreement, they have mutinied. Because this is the most important
part of the Political Bureau's letter, it is worth quoting at length:
"Outside of the bodies to which they belong and while being members of the party in different sections and federations, their collective letter presupposes activities of a factional nature which could be accepted by the party only at the cost of undermining its unity and compromising its effectiveness in action. ...
"Unable to put across their erroneous positions in the bodies of which they are officially members, they met together without the knowledge of their units. They carried out factional work that would lead to the organization of tendencies and factions contrary ‘to the principles of the party. They are trying to drag other com= rades into this activity. These concepts were rejected in 1920, when the majority of the Socialist party, drawing the lessons of the bankruptcy of the Second International in 1914, decided to adhere to the organizational principles based on democratic centralism. ....
"The move of the signers of the letter is inadmissible. We have deemed it necessary to inform you and to couple these appreciations of the party leadership with the copy of the letter so that you can examine the questions raised and -adopt decisions in conformity with the policies and interests of the party. In any case, we believe that it is up to each cell to meet with those involved in order to ask them for the necessary explanations, to reject’ this enterprise of a factional nature and to obtain from them an engagement to renounce all activity against the rules of the party."
The idea that the Communist party was created because of the bankruptcy of the Social Democracy in the organizational field can be appreciated for what it is worth. It leaves out such issues as the patriotism of the Social Democracy and. its participation in the "sacred union," its giving up the revolutionary struggle for power.
The leadership of the PCF has sensed the danger -- if the intellectuals are permitted to start a discussion, there will be tendencies and even factions, and what will remain then of the authority of the leadership and its apparatus? Thus we come to what the Communist intellectuals, through their occupation, have been frequently led to rediscover. In the view of the PCF leadership, they have the right to discuss all kinds of questions among themselves except those relating to the policies of the party to which they belong. The reply of the Political Bureau and its appendages to the sections and federations is that. you are free, you are free. . . but you are going to serve notice, each of you in your place, on the signers belonging to your jurisdiction to. renounce their ideas.
Thus the leadership of the PCF moves into battle, seeking to smash those who dared to write a letter to the great leader Waldeck Rochet. The leadership counts, perhaps, on getting renunciations from some and breaking others whom it considers to be incurable,
But it is probable that this battle will have repercussions among the writers and artists first and then among other sectors and other bodies of the PCF, The leadership wants to cut off a discussion that concerns the whole Communist movement. They risk precipitating a crisis in the French Communist party.
TSHOMBE BARS