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French Communists in the
fight for unity

By JOSEPH STAROBIN

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PARIS
N A drastic self-criticism cover-
ing its activities over the past
half-year, the French Commun-
ist party has publicly announced
that “its most tenacious defect.
the one which does greatest
harm to the party and which the
central committee has the duty
to correct vigorously, is sectar-
ianism.’’ This declaration, cor-
recting many aspects of recent
articles by the party’s political
bureau members, Francois Bil-
loux and Jeannette Vermeersch.
and criticizing the faults of re-
cent strike actions for the liber-
ation of Jacques Duclos, was
made by the political bureau
member, Etienne Fajon, to a re-
eent meeting of the central com-
mittee.

The declaration fills two
pages in L’Humanite, the Com-
munist daily. and has caused a
sensation for its rigorous frank-
ness.

In the discussion. both Bil-
loux and Jeannette Vermeersch
joined in accepting the criticism.

Indications of qa sharp effort
to. correct mis-interpretations
and mis-applications of the
party’s policy had appeared the
previous week from all leading
party figures.

In lunching a much broader
campaign for Duclos’ freedom—
as the Pinay government moves
to maintain his arrest indefinite-
ly and extend its search for a
non-existent plot — Fajon de-

- Clares that, the central commit-

tee itself has not been exempt
from illusions about the govern-
ment’s plans. :

. “We have been surprised by
the arrest of Jacques Duclos,
which explains why we did so
little, much too little, to protect
him from the designs of Pinay’s
police.”

Fajon’s report. criticizes the
political bureau itself for having
failed to note in time the sectar-
ian tendency that has threaten-
ed to take the party off the
“right road” indicated by the re-
port of Maurice Thorez to the
party’s 12th Congress two ‘years
ago. He notes that the defects
of the February 12 political
‘strike were not adequately ex-
amined and corrected. At one
‘point. Fajon declares that ‘the

‘sectarian orientation of the party

‘would lead us quickly into the
ruts abandoned twenty years
‘ago.””

.

With respect to the June 4
strike, following the arrest of
Duclos. as well as the demon-
strations of the peace movement
against U.S. General Ridgway,
Fajon emphasizes that the party
considers both actions as having
been absolutely necessary, and
‘on the whole successful.

Fajon recalled that part of
Francois Billoux’ article in the
May issue of Cahiers du Com-
maunisme which had spoken of
various forms of struggle, tak-
ing into account always the state
of mind of the workers, the real
and not the imaginary possibili-
ties. .

Fajon sharply criticizes the
fact that the railway workers
were called out on strike, in sup-

General Matthew B.

port of the 24-hour sitdown of
the Paris metal workers. with-
out any real study of whether a
rail strike was possible on a na-
tional scale.

Worse than that, both the
railway federation’s appeal and
the Industrial Union Council of
the Paris region did not limit
the action to 24 hours, but call-
ed for a “strike beginning June
43?

This of course was not follow-
ed since it seemed utterly unreal
to the workers concerned. In
turn this hurt rather than help-
ed the metal. building and other
workers who did respond to the
24-hour sitdown. |

Fojan then turned back to the
Billoux article, which he con-
sidered Was a necessayy correc-
tion of certain opportunist weak-
nesses, but was taken to mean
by most of the party that a “‘turn
of policy’? was at hand “in a
more narrow direction.”

“The responsibility for this,

lies with us in the political bur-
eau. for it is certain that the
article written in our name by
Billoux could not but have been
badly interpreted for it was in-
sufficiently clear and was in-

complete.”’
In the discussion, Billoux
made the same points. As for

the Jeannette Vermeersch article
in France Nouvelle. Fajon did
not cite it. But she herself took
part in the discussion, She ad-
mitted that ‘‘certain formula-
tions tended to make it appear
that the bourgeoisie is a bloc,
without rifts in it, whereas in
fact it is riven with contradic-
tions which can be reflected in
parliament provided that unity
of action by the masses is de-
veloped.”’

Thus, the concept that the
French bourgeoisie is ho longer
split, or that nothing further can
be expected from parliament, is
specifically rejected.

es

In addition to “‘gesticulations”
instead of ‘concrete analysis” in
the ¢rade union field, Fajon
cites two other examples of sec-
tarian trends. One appeared in
a magazine, Liberte, which head-
lined the idea that the struggle
for living conditions of the work-
ers would now be replaced by
purely political actions. The
other was a recent article by
foreign editor Pierre Sourtade in
L’Humanite commenting on an
editorial by the editor of the
bourgeois paper Le Monde, who
had expressed great reserves to-
ward the entire Atlantic bloc
line. :

Instead of recognizing that
this article, by its criticisms of
French relations with the United
States, actually assisted the fight
for peace, even if these criticisms

F3

UTE TT

Ridgway visits President Vincent Auriol of France . . .

came from a bourgeois stand-
point, Courtade’s wholesale blast
had the effect of classing the
editor of Le Monde with the war-
mongers, Fajon observed.

In selecting such examples
from the activity of recent
weeks, Fajon stressed that these
were not personal faults of the
writers or unionists involved.
They exhibited a dangerous ten-
dency flowing from the Billoux-
Vermeersch articles for which
the party’s central committee
was responsible;

Ss

In the bulk of his report —
with a brutal honesty and di-
rectness that has cleared the air
for the largest party in France
—Fajon dealt with the funda-
mentals of French Communist
line.

He stressed that while the is-
sue of war or peace was far
from decided, war was absolute-
ly not inevitable, thanks to the
new world situation.

The decisive geographic posi-
tion of France made it essential
to place the fight for peace in
the very centre of the party’s
work,

But in so doing, the Commun-
ists must not make either an
understanding of the origins of
war danger nor agreement on
the ultimate objective of social-
ism any obstacle to the very
broadest unity of all sections of
the people.

Mass actions for peace and the
central role of the working class,
Fajon said, were urgent and es-
sential. But the struggle for
peace could not be won unless
it actively embraced the entire
population: the’ middle classes,
the peasants. the intellectuals,
army officers of all grades, and
all other sections of the popula-
tion, on every possible level and
no matter how limited a basis.

“Politics, religious belief, so-
cial status’? must be no barrier
to this union, he stressed. The
working class by itself could not
decide such a ‘great battle, while
it was obvious that winning the
peace and gaining French na-
tional, independence could not
be decided without the working
class,

Fajon corrected the idea
which had begun to spread that
the French capitalist class is now
a homogeneous bloc; on the
contrary, the fissures within this
bourgeoisie are growing for ‘“‘the
interests of American imperial-
ism do not coincide with the in-
terests of France, even a capital-
ist France.” :

The discord within the capital-
ist parties, the reserves in the
capitalist press, the! efforts of
many businessmen to escape the
U.S. grip make themselves felt in
circles far removed from the

_—

workers and “objectively aid the
struggles of the workers and the~
entire people against war policy
and its consequences on living
standards.’’

The report also restated the
classic position on the absolute-
ly ‘urgency of fighting for the
everyday, even the smallest econ-
omic interests of the workers,
linking them with the fight for
peace, and for the liberation of
Duclos and other political pris-
oners.

Any conclusion that the fight
for concrete and partial demands
had somehow been replaced, or
aly weakening of the united
front policy with Socialist and
Catholic workers would be ruin-
ous, Fajon emphasized.

Likewise, he ‘criticized tend-
encies of Communists who were
peasants or merchants to stay
out of their professional organi-
zations on the grounds that these
bodies were under reactionary
leadership,

Summing up the Communist
party’s immediate tasks, Fajon
urged the party, while tighten-
ing its vigilance, not to abandon
any fight for legal positions or
to ‘‘fold back in a shell.’’

He spoke of the vital role of
the Communist press, the in-
dividual responsibility of each
Communist, the necessity of a
Jacques Duclos recruiting drive,
and the study of Thorez’ works.

Among these points was also
a criticism of the tone of the
party’s propaganda.

“The indispensable vigor ) 7
our propaganda and party? —
action must not be at the &
pense of our sangfroid. Wé
must avoid a frenzied tone #
what we say, write, and do. B¥
tremes can only weaken the te
between our party and the very
largest ranks of the people,
whereas it is necessary to mul
tiply and enlarge these ties.
must fight with ardent hearts:
but with cool heads and call
nerves.”’

The next day, L’Humanilte
published a detailed resolutio?
on the primary issue of liberat
ing Duclos and smashing thé
government’s intentions, ius

expressed again by Interior Mil

ister Charles Brune to proce
with further arrests in pursuit 0

_the alleged conspiracy, \

The whole theme of this ™®
solution is the widest and most
imaginative unity with literally
everybody who is ready to 4&
fend democratic processes.

It is also noteworthy that th?
Union off Progressives, the sm
but influential party headed bY
Pierre Cot, whose deputies vol?
with the Communists, publish
a manifesto after a weekend CO?”
ference urging a return to Oe
front populaire, and associating
itself with French ‘‘neutralis

opinion,

While headlining all this, th?
French press has noted the mi:
passages in the strong speech °
the Italian Communist leade™
Palmiro Togliatti, the day of thé
widespread strikes and ral ies
against Ridgway’s arrival at
Rome,

“You thought you had found
the chance of provoking the
most advanced party of & i
Italian people,” said Togliatt
to Premier de Gasperi, “‘of &™
gaging it in premature battle ts
that you could tear up our !

erty, reduce our rights amd
step on the ability which the
constitution gave us to strugs!@
among the people for peac®
liberty and bread, Such W ;
your secret intention. .. - To
day, you have before, you :
working class and a people pa
has accumulated a long exPe&
ence and has a long memory:
headed by men and parties 00”
scious of their responsibilitie®
They will take care not to col”
mit—and will not commit—t
error of falling for your in
vocations, You dream of if
surrections, or revolutions. Be
day our mission consists of ais
cussing, convincing, persia
ing, rendering more profount
more urgent, more determine™
the will of the Italian peopl®

. . . While Paris police beat up anti-U.S. demonstrators

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 4, 1952 — PAGE 1°