Safety in continuity
AT the 28th congress of the French Communist Party, George Marchais, General Secretary for twenty years, stood down. Would this be the event which at last opened the Party up? No. Continuity was the defining feature of the congress. The opposition around Charles Fiterman remained on the sidelines. Only the still powerful Pas-de-Calais Party federation staked itself out against proposed changes. FRANCIS SITEL* Paris, 16 March 1994 T HE French Communist
Party (PCF) is haunted by the obsessive question of its own transformation. For many years successive oppositions have taken up the banner of change only to become progressively discouraged. Once again, it is the leadership which has put itself forward as the force most capable of ensuring this necessary change. The need to renew the Party leadership - which coincided with the need to bring the Party's political orientation up to date after the shakeup of the international and national situation - appeared as a precursor of real change. This in turn provoked a counter-reaction from a powerful conservative wing in the Party, which fought the changes proposed by the leadership.
The documents themselves provoked only limited debate in the Party, and in the absence of groupings established around specific political platforms they did not genuinely reflect the challenges faced by the leadership.
The documents aside, the stated desire to transform the Party could be subjected to three tests.
Firstly, how would the question of Marchais' replacement be dealt with? Secondly, what real changes would be made in Party functioning? This question could be answered in a concrete way, through the debate on the place of the Refoundation current at the congress and in the new leadership. And finally, what innovative ideas would this congress produce to face up to the major crisis of the working class movement?
The congress - "closed" rather than "open" as promised - failed all three tests. For the moment change seems to be impossible.
Preparatory to the 28th congress, the leadership based its "renewal" of the Party around two documents: a Manifesto providing an up to date analysis of the situation, and a proposal for new statutes (the most striking feature of which was the abandonment of democratic centralism).
### Replacement
But it was Marchais' replacement at the head of the Party which dominated the congress. Would the new national secretary (a title which, in the new statutes, replaces that of general secretary) be a partisan of openness, or rather a loyalist entrusted with the job of guaranteeing continuity?
It is entirely symptomatic of this Party's difficulties in providing real measures of change that all the real debates should have to be focussed around such a question. As a result, the debate around the Party's orientation was necessarily deformed.
Since Marchais himself had promised dramatic changes, the Party's "document-writers" had to respect his wishes - but at the same time they could not be so audacious as to abandon the previous line and the outgoing general secretary with it. A cumbersome exercise indeed!
The balancing act did not end there. The suspense around Marchais' successor was maintained almost until the end of the congress. While the names of Francis Wurtz and Alain Bocquet were invoked; it was Robert Hue who was chosen in the end. But not satisfied with merely increase the number of his close supporters on the national bureau (new name for the political bureau), Marchais decided to remain a member of this body himself. The PCF missed its chance to take its leave of the Marchais era.
George Marchais, named joint general secretary in 1970 following the serious illness of Waldeck-Rochet, has been general secretary of the Party since 1972 — a twenty-year reign from which the PCF has emerged considerably weakened and transformed.
The PCF of the 1970s was a big party - representing twenty percent of the electorate, an unequalled activist force, giving it an incontestable hegemony within the working class.
Today, it has lost more than half of its electoral support, only retaining influence in certain regions and is going through profound and unceasing internal crises. Its political image has been severely damaged by the double discredit it endured following both the failure of the governmental experience of the left in France and the collapse of Stalinist regimes to which it remained attached for such a long time.
New reality
The Party has to adapt to a new reality in which it is no longer, and never again will be, a "front-runner" in French party politics, whose recognised and legitimate goal was to run the country, and to transform society.
The new situation has not only led to a decrease in the Party's size, but to a change in its identity. In a certain sense, the problem is not so much one of abandoning old ambitions — time itself is eroding resistance to accepting a fait accompli - as it is managing to meet current responsibilities within a new relationship of forces and new political realities.
For while the PCF can no longer claim to be vying for governmental power, it continues to be a significant force with considerable strengths in a worker's movement which is both in crisis and in the process of major self-redefinition.
It has an apparatus of several thousand full-timers. In spite of its electoral collapse, it has an important number of elected officials and municipal governments, which give it social roots, material means, and the wherewithal for political intervention. It has organic links
*The author is a member of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), French section of the Fourth International.
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with the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which remains the main trade union confederation - the most active and present when it comes to struggles on the ground.
For those of us who continue to see politics in terms of class struggle and social transformation, these are decisive acquisitions for confronting the crisis that the French working class movement is currently going through.
In the face of an aggressive and arrogant right-wing, many activists - in spite of the weight of defeats and disillusionment - are not insensitive to the need for renewal and new political proposals.
While the Socialist Party (PS) might be the best placed to respond to these needs on an electoral and institutional level, it has less weight in the arena of social mobilisation and struggle.
As for the revolutionary left, forces of the critical left that have emerged from the PS and the PF, and certain sections of the green movement aware of the importance of social struggles, there are enormous obstacles on both the path to regroupment and a real capacity for political intervention.
In such conditions, the PCF has considerable margin for manoeuvre as far as putting itself forward as an indispensable force for those who refuse to rally to a renewed social democratic force.
### Breaks
The question is whether this state of affairs — with its limits and potential -can be confronted without any fundamental breaks in the Party, continuing along in much the same way as before. Or if, on the other hand, this game of fake renewal will prove to be destructive.
In several fields, there is a growing divergence between the role of PCF members as trade unionists - elected representatives and rank and file activists — and the political and programmatic meaning of PF membership.
This is the origin of certain developments that are more or less under control -and sometimes even tolerated by the leadership for short-term reasons. For example, there are PCF candidates who take their distance from the Party at election time. There are deputies who play down the communist reference in their election campaign — personalising their campaign to an extreme, putting forward their abilities as managers, and even underlining their opposition to the
The PCF opposition THE opposition forees that have emerged within the PCF in the last few vears have called for t from disha Party leadership. Most of the PCF's 1988 there were the Renovators who mayors identify with the Refoundation supported Pierre Juquin, a former current. member of the political bureau, for
There are trade unionists who are in president in the elections. They were a de facto break from the Party, or who the last to be officially expelled. Refucall for real trade union independence sing to follow them out of the party, from the Party. On the eve of the 28th the Reconstructors, around Claude congress, Alain Obadia, a central leader Poperen — a former member of the of the CGT, announced in no uncertain political bureau, long responsible for work in the factories and highly resterms that he would no longer be a member of the PCF leadership. This opposition. This opposition had many pected in the party formed a new flies in the face of long-held traditions in activists and a lot of electoral support the Party. in a number of important regions
They became more and more autonoFragmentation mous and eventually quit the party. Along with the remnants of the Reno-
All these developments point to a vators they formed Alternative Demodynamic, not of splits on a clear politi- cracy Socialism (ADS). The third cal grounds but of fragmentation and wave of opposition was the Refounthe establishment of feudal-type ders, behind former ministers Charles groupings. These are groupings of a Fiterman, Jacques Ralite and Anicet type that will cling to their interests Le Pors. They enjoy considerable and maintain rather lax links to the influence in certain sectors of the Party apparatus — and will doubt- PCF, in particular among mayors of less be called upon to theorise their big towns and many trade unionists. situation with specific political The Refounders became a de facto public faction, active within a pluralist positions.
This is connected to the gro- organisation called Refoundations with its own newspaper, meetings wing distance that exists betand political initiatives. Charles Fiterween the decisive political role man, who was the number two man played by the PCF through its in the party, announced at the 28th activists, and the Party as an congress that he was quitting all his institution, lacking both a responsibilities in the party. coherent political project and These successive waves of opposia living ideological reference tion rise higher and higher in the point. ranks of the party, and have influen-
Such a separation can be ced broader and deeper elements managed, if the only goal is within the party. The leadership has that of surviving pure and been more and more conciliatory, and linism. simple, by adapting an no longer takes disciplinary mea- This has orientation determined by sures. Nor does it take political initia- been undershort-term considerations tives to try to re-absorb the various taken for and embracing the most political differences. A kind of passive some time, base forms of empiri- modus vivendi has set in. although cism. However, to mend This appears to have created diffe- with uneven this division would rences within the Refounders them- results. What require a redefinition selves. Some have followed Fiterman has been lac— a cultural revolu- and have decided to break from a king is recognition - which would process that offers no perspectives. tion of an unretackle the major Others, especially elected officials, lenting political contradictions that have opted to hang onto the PCF reality: the contiriddle the Party. There are three tions. The Refounders did not wage a label in view of the next round of elec- guous joint exis- nued and conticentral areas in battle at the 28th congress, and have tence of the Party which such a rede- been marginalised in the new leader- and Stalinism. finition would ship.o George Marhave to be made. chais' belief in 1978 on the "globally
• First, there is positive balance the necessary and dif- sheet" of the ficult break with Stali- countries of the Easnism. tern Bloc had a sufficient
This does not mean enough impact on political writing yet more essays lis- opinion and consciousness that it ting the damage done by Sta- needs to be politically addressed
International Viewpoint #255 April 1994 23
The influence of the PCF
The number of PCF full-timers has been calculated
• 1900 mayors, of which 123 are in towns with
• 1900 mayors, of which 123 are in towns with
DOSSIER more than 10,000 inhabitants (half of these are in at 5,000. This includes:
• 23 deputies (out of 527 deputies in the National the Paris region).
• 260 city councillors.
Assembly. There were 73 out of 486 in 1973).
• 122 regional councillors.
of the
• 7 European deputies. 0
• 14 senators.
line adopted during
The the period of new natiothe Union of the nal secretary,
Left, that led to the during his first
Mitterrand victory in
• Third, there is the question of pluralism and democracy.
In its unitary approach, the PCF leadership always reduces the left to the PS and the PCF alone, with reference made on occasion to the Greens. This is because it wants to approach matters within a classical framework which requires no self-doubt about the PF's identity and project. But the crisis of the working class movement is such that this type of conservative approach is inadequate. The PCF will not be able to escape the process of recomposition that is now underway.
On the one hand, the PS has undertaken a rebuilding process which, if successful, will exert a power of attraction which the whole PCF or sections of it will not be able to resist. On the other hand, the alternative to this project cannot be represented by the PF as it is today. Such an alternative requires the formation of a new political force that includes all or part of the far-left, a part of the ecologist current, and currents which choose to break from the PS and the PCF.
The PCF can neither remain outside this process of recomposition, nor try to co-opt it to its own ends. It finds itself swept up in the redefinitions that are taking place and that are sure to continue in to the future.
This is all the more true in that this process of recomposition is linked to the recomposition of the trade union movement. The CT cannot remain the major union confederation that it is unless it breaks free of the grip of the PCF and appears as a genuinely independent from it.
### Distance
For its part, the United Trade Union Federation (FSU) — which originated in the break-up of the PS-led National Teachers Federation (FEN) and now holds a majority in the educational world - is led by a trade union current which was close to the PCF and the CGT, and that long ago took its distance from them. This has allowed it to resist the destructive manoeuvres of the FEN leadership and build the FSU along with other currents. This is a lesson well worth studying!
We are clearly no longer in the period when the trade union movement, through the head to head confrontation between the PS and the PCF, was polarised by the Cold War. The PCF is now going through a major crisis, which poses the question as to whether it will major political public appearance on television on 6 February 1994, went so far as to say that "what appeared to be globally positive was not". ". This after saying that, "the Communist Party, with George Marchais, has had the courage to break with the Soviet model. This is one of the most important developments in the current period, that has meant the Party can launch the new round of renewal begun at the 28th congress."
It is clear that it is not with such reasoning and trickery that past accounts will be settled, to put an end to the intimate links that unite the PCF and Stalinism, including in regards the the Party's subordination to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. No one can ignore or hold in contempt the revelations of the secrets of this long relationship - for example, information suggesting that Marchais rose to the leadership of the PCF according to the wishes of the Soviet leadership.
If this question is not treated seriously it can only further weaken the political fabric of the Party. The accumulated delay — even in comparison to other Western European communist parties, and now even to those in the Eastern Bloc itself - can only aggravate the problem and make it even more difficult to find a solution.
• Second, the Party has to determine what course it will follow after the collapse of the Union of the Left.
The PCF of today is a direct product
1981 and a decade-long experience of the left in government. But during those years the PCF leadership was unable to escape the twin dangers of either sectarian denunciation combined with ultra-left verbiage against the PS, or an opportunist alliance.
Both approaches share much in common, especially since it made it impossible for activists and workers to intervene, and provided no solution to the question of the unity of opposing political forces within the worker's movement.
### Concessions
The problem is all the more important in that every election obliges the PCF to solicit PS votes and make concessions to its leadership. The search for a political perspective necessarily poses the question of an alliance with the PS — unless one chooses to incessantly declare that past strategic error cannot be repeated.
Nevertheless, within a classically reformist and electoralist framework that has never been questioned, only an alliance of this type with the PS can raise the prospects of electoral victory and a presence in the government. Robert Hue has recognised that "political agreements" cannot be excluded: "There are millions of men and women who are waiting for some kind of political perspective." It is clear that this means agreements with the PS.
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be able to resist - in spite of its reformist underpinnings — the pressures of a rebuilt PS, or whether it will get involved in the process of recomposition and self-definition that has been undertaken
This situation sharply poses questions relating to pluralism and democra-
DOSSIER cy — internal democracy and democracy in relation to mass organisations — and makes them vital requirements not to be treated lightly. In reply to these questions, it is not sufficient — as was seen at the 28th congress — to no longer exclude internal opposition and abandon the notion of democratic centralism
(without ever having made a distinction between it and the rather monolithic bureaucratic centralism which the PCF
Heritage
Experience shows that parties claiming the communist heritage — especially those who confused communism and Stalinism - have to radically change if they hope to survive. The PCF is no exception. A specific trait of the PCF leadership is that it was at least partially aware of this need, while proving to be reluctant to seriously undertake this change - either through lack of will or inability.
This is the
George cause of the de
Marchais:
facto paralysis congres still smiling of the PCF which, in spite after all of the Party's these public declarayears tions, was confirmed once again at the 28th congress. *
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