1,522 DELEGATES CHART COURSE

CPF adopts ‘program
to change society’

By MEL DOIG

PARIS — Attended by 1,522
delegates representing 500,000
members, the 22nd. Congress of
the French Communist Party set
that Party’s course for ‘‘A Demo-
cratic Road to Socialism — A

lalism for France’’. -

this was the single slogan,
Painted in rainbow colors, that
decorated the Sports Palace on
lle-Saint-Denis in Saint-Ouen

where, from the 4th to the 8th of
February, the Congress was host
to the largest number of foreign
fraternal delegations at any
French Communist Party Con-
gress: 68 Communist and Work-
ers’ parties, and 20 national
movements and liberation fronts.

The numerous French fraternal
delegations included those from
the Young Communist Move-
ment, the Socialist Party, the

f-
Excerpts from

Congress of the French

Party of Canada:

France.
working class 0,

of France.
“Like your Party, our Par

world scale.

plant and i

tary arena.
working people, our

the achievement of t

tings delivered to the 22nd

Doig, Central Executive member of the Communist

“We hold in deep respect the great role of the French
Communist Party in its consistent struggle to achieve unity of
the democratic and popular forces, to ?
oly rule in your country and open the door to a sociatist

_ “Noting the way the French Communist Party combines in
its struggle the patriotism and the internationalism of the
France, we express our solidarity with the
French working class and its Party, with the democratic forces

combines the struggle for social
progress with the struggle for peaceful coexistence, détente
and disarmament. We, like you, see the decisive role of the
socialist system, above all the Soviet Union, in the fight for
peace, and to make it durable not only in Europe

“Tt is in this context that we see the developing offensive
against the Canadian working people by sae i capital-
ism, and the combined efforts of government ana m
seeka way out of the crisis at the expense of the working people.
The government's wage restraint program serves to emphasize
that the struggle cannot be limited to the economu fight ona

Sehice basis. It requires also political pea
eons the state, the government and monopoly, wit
which democracy cannot advance. a

“Our Party, therefore, ts striving ie the building ae
powerful anti-monopoly coalition, led by the working class,
and leading towards a change in the balance of forces in favor
of the working class, and finding reflection in the parliamen-
hile fighting for. the immediate needs of the

ts task as showing the working

people that the only long term solution to the crisis of the
capitalist system is a pected reorganization of society,
e political power of the working class,

and a planned economy based on public ownership.

arty seest

aN

ommunist Party by Mel

ng an end to monop-

tona

monopoly to

out

7

Movement of Left Radicals, Fr-
ance’s two trade union centres —
the CGT and CFDT — the Young
Catholic Workers, the French
Peace Movement.

The Central Committee Report
to the Congress, delivered by the
FCP general secretary, Georges
Marchais, expanded on the resol-
ution’s call for building the union
of the people of France (‘‘l'union
du peuple de France’’), for a
democratic road to socialism.
The Report also undertook to
explain why the resolution made
no reference to the dictatorship of
the proletariat, one of the main
principles of scientific socialism.

The resolution states, “‘The
power that will lead to the
socialist transformation of society
will be the power of the working
class and of the other categories
of working people, manual and in-
tellectual, of city and coun-
tryside, that is, of the great major-
ity of the people. This power will
constitute itself on the basis of the
choices freely made by universal
suffrage; and will have the task of
realizing the most advanced
democratization of all life,

economic, social and political of

the country.’

Speaking for the Central Com-
mittee, Georges Marchais told the
Congress: “‘If the ‘dictatorship of
the proletariat’ does not figure in
the preparatory document to de-
scribe the political power in the

dunt

ae
,

oe

socialist France for which we are
fighting, it is because it no longer
covers the reality of our policy,
the reality of what we are propos-
ing to the country ... Whatever
may be the methods by which the
march to socialism will be ef-
fected in our country, which can-
not be foreseen in every detail,
there must be the conviction that,
at each stage, political majority
and arithmetic must coincide.”
The Report described and
analyzed the reasons why today it
is necessary to change society in
France where there are 1,400,000
unemployed of whom 700,000 are
under 25 years of age; where 16
million workers cannot make
ends meet with their net monthly
purchasing power having fallen
between 2.7 and'3.7% from 1974

16 years ago at Sharpeville

Sixteen years ago, March 21,
1960, the white racist police of
South Africa charged into a
peaceful march of Black people.
Sixty-nine were killed and 257
wounded in the Sharpeville mas-
sacre which provoked revulsion
around the globe.

The apartheid regime, try as it
might to fool the-gullible, has not
changed. Thousands are in con-
centration camps, the notorious
pass laws are in force and exploi-

tation is extreme. As the libera-
tion struggle in Southern Africa
proceeds, the shakey racist rulers
in South Africa and Rhodesia are
looking to the West for help.

No amount of support by
NATO will stop the process to-
ward complete liberation in Afri-
ca. The 16 years since Sharpeville
and the sacrifice of those who
died there, and countless more,
are not in vain.

to 1975. On the other hand,
monopoly power has grown to the
point where 25 financial and in-
dustrial groups, controlled by 250
men, now dominate French socie-
ty.

The crisis gripping France is
not only economic, but social,
political, ideological and moral.
What is at issue, Marchais em-
phasized, is not merely the func-
tioning of the system but
capitalism itself, which in France
today sees an all-powerful group
of billionaires exercising domina-
tion of the economy and the state.

To .change this society, the
French Communist Party 22nd
Congress decided it is necessary
now to open up in France a new
era of democracy and liberty, to
open the democratic path to a
socialist France.

The 22nd Congress of the FCP
unanimously adopted the Report
of the Central Committee and the -
Congress Resolution, as well as
another resolution embodying the
decision ‘*‘no longer to maintain
the dictatorship of the proletariat
among the objectives of the Par-
ty’, and charging the newly
elected Central Committee ‘‘to
submit to the 23rd Congress the
changes in the preamble of the -
statutes made necessary by this
decision.”

Proletarian intemationalis” 7 TTC TD

A reader writes: ‘‘In discussions with

fellow workers the question of

Working-class internationalism often
Comes to the fore. Would you be so

d as to explain the views of com-
Munists in this respect?”’

In replying to this question it is im-
Portant to emphasize that the principle
Of working-class (proletarian) inter-

| _ hationalism is of prime importance to

the working class of all countries.

Proletarian internationalism is the
Scientifically confirmed ideology of the
Community of interest of the working
Class of all countries and nations. It is
the feeling of solidarity of the working

People of all countries — of the

brotherhood of the working people. It is

definite form of fraternal relations be-

tWeen the national organized sectors of
the working-class movement on a
World scale.
* * Xx
These relations of class solidarity are
ased on unity and concerted action,
Mutual aid and support. A special
Characteristic of these relations is that
they are built on a voluntary basis and
Correspond to the fundamental in-

3 Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

terests of the workers of all countries.
Contrary to views propagated by the
capitalist and opportunist detractors of
the principle of working-class solidari-
ty, proletarian internationalism in no
way denies the independence of the dif-
ferent national formations of the work-
ing class. Neither does it impinge on
their sovereign right to make their own
decisions. On the contrary, the
sovereignty and independence of each
national section, as a class for itself, is
strengthened, as the spirit of interna-
tional class solidarity becomes ever

_ more firmly rooted among the working

people of all countries.
* * *

The working class is the first inter-
nationalist class. The internationalism
of the working class began to assume
definite form when a world economy
began to take shape under the aegis of
canitalisn:. It could only appear on the
historical scene when economic rela-
tions assumed a really world-wide
character. And when, in the wake of
economic relations, cultural and other

relations between countries and
peoples developed. Such development
took place on an unprecedented scale
as the capitalist world market broke
through, either by force of arms or tric-
kery, the national barriers of oné coun-
try after another across the face of the
globe.

It is its vital class interests which
makes the working class truly inter-
nationalist. The workers own no pri-
vate property that divides men into
exploiters and exploited, they have no
interests that breed hostility to the
working people of other countries and
nationalities.

On the contrary, the workers of all
countries have the same fundamental
interest, the abolition of capitalist
exploitation and oppression. This in-
terest unites them against the interna-
tional power of capital. This unifying
factor makes internationalism not only
a possibility but a necessity, an essential
condition for their successful struggle

for social emancipation — socialism.
* * *

The international character of the
working-class movement came into be-
ing as a result of the workers’ own ex-
periences in their struggles against
capitalist exploitation. At first the
workers of each country waged a strug-
gle against their ‘“‘own’’ capitalists.
Then they bégan to arrange for joint
actions, to help each other and set up
their international organizations.

Ever since Marxism developed with
its revolutionary world outlook and
spread throughout the world, and the
working class organized its political
parties, the working class has been im-
bued with a profound sense of inter-
nationalism.

All those who have accepted the
ideology of Marxism-Leninism and un-
derstand the historic mission of the
working class — to lead the nation to
socialism — are bound to be inter-
nationalists, and to strive consciously
for the unity and cooperation of the
working people of all nations.

All true Marxists subscribe fully to
the immortal words penned by the
founders of Marxism — Marx and En-
gels — “Workers of all countries,
unite!’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 2, 1976—Page 9