By TIM BUCK

ae & hational congress by ta Communist Party of Beet, be Ce made a marked im- Yefore public opinion. ‘Never Pet ane Capitalist newspa- Retty pee congress of the 2 hays Such attention, still htt cone they acknowledged

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The De Gaulle regime has been one of social retrogression. Enormous expenditures on arma- ments have been the cause of continual increases in taxation and the prices of necessities and ‘the background of increasingly bitter resistance to wage increas- es, with the result that the stan- dard of living of the French working class has declined in relation to other countries.

Sixty percent of the total revenue secured by the personal income tax is taken out of wages. The prices of necessities compared with the price level in other European countries are high; some prices are compar- able with those in Canada. For example, creamery butter costs 10 francs a kilo, equal to more than 90 cents a pound.

The building of houses has failed to keep pace with the growth of population and even more with the increasing con- centration of population in in- dustrial centres. Only in munici- palities where Communist may- ors are elected consistently is housing construction maintained. One result is that in the larger centres, such as Paris, the hous- ing conditions of a large propor- tion of the working people are unbelievably bad. In some sec- tions two out of five families have no bath or inside plumbing.

The average wage level is in- dicated by the fact that highly skilled automobile mechanics, with high seniority in a union

shop, employed by the publicly- owned transit system of Paris, earn the equivalent of 93 cents an hour. It takes the edge off the desire for shorter hours and it‘says much for the understand- ing of the municipal transport workers as well as for their militancy that they have main- tained their 4714-hour week. At the lower end of the wage scale there are hundreds of thousands of workers who earn only the equivalent of $80 to $90 a month.

Thus, the workers of France have seen the overall economic

activity of the country expand °

to virtually full employment and tremendous increases in the pro- fits of the monopolies, while their own conditions of life be- come harder. Their children are robbed of opportunity for edu- cation because the Gaullist re- gime starves education so as to spend 30 percent of its revenues cn armaments.

Ommunists seek unity aa ate for a democratic alternative to De Gaulle

The Arch de Triomphe in Paris, the world’s largest triumphal arch, towers over the tomb of France’s unknown soldier.

Social services become more and more inadequate as the pri- ces of all the necessities of life continue to rise. On top of the worsening conditions of life the workers in industry are being subjected to ever-increasing speedup.

All these material sacrifices are demanded of the people by De Gaulle, in the name of his drive to achieve what he des- cribes as “the grandeur of France,” or even of French

growth. ‘But, instead of strengthening

TIM BUCK reports on his recent

visit to France where he attended the 17th national congress of the

French Communist Party.

France, De Gaulle is undermin- ing her sovereignty. Even while trying to surpass Western Ger- many in military strength. and posing as the alternative to Uni- ted States imperialism, he is facilitating the penetration of French economy by U.S. and West Germany monopoly-capital and he is actually “speeding-up” the resurgence of German mili- tarism.

The reaction of the workers to this systematic sacrifice of France was shown in the 1962 elections when the Gaullist vote dropped by almost five million. The election system is rigged in such a way that, although De Gaulle’s candidates obtained only 35 percent of the popular vote, they received a clear ma- jority of the seats in the Na- tional Assembly. Yet in spite of all the rigging the Communist Party increased its seats from 10 to 40.

This was so largely because the Communist Party alone had identified itself with the demo- cratic aspirations of the masses of the people. Combining the struggles for livelihood and to maintain the authority of elec- ted municipal councils with the overall national necessity for a democratic alternative to the po- licy of De Gaulle, the party has gradually won the admiration of all democratic French: people.

This is why since the party’s 16th Congress, 30,000 new mem- bers flocked into its ranks, why

it has 800 more plant branches ° organized in factories and mines, ”

why the overall number of its branches has increased from 16,- 000 to 18,000, why the majority of the delegates at the 17th Con- gress were in their 20’s or early 30’s. ee

The 17th Congress was, above all, the national consolidation of the marked gains made and of the method of* political work which have been such big fac- tors in making of the gains. The party’s slogan, “For a True De- mocracy and a French Policy of Peace and Progress,’’ encompas- ses the concept of a far-reaching

‘democratization of France, in-

cluding popular curbs on the power of the monopolies. One of the aims proclaimed by the Con- gress is to make this the slogan of a united front of all democra- tic forces.

As Waldeck Rochet declared in his report:

“This signifies that, during the still lengthy period which sepa- rates us from the presidential election we will not neglect any possibility of arriving at an agreement between democratic parties upon a common program, because this is the objective that we must attain. Meanwhile, if our proposals are rejected, the Communist Party will be com- pelled“to present its own can- didates when the time comes.”

It should be noted that ihe

June 12, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7

party is not asking for an organi- zation or even a committee to lead the united action, solely agreement by democratic par- ties upon a common immediate program and a joint candidate. ‘Maurice Thorez emphasized this strongly in his appeal to the de- mocratic people of France. om

The: 17th Congress placed

great emphasis on the impor-

tance of gearing the party’s acti- vities to this aim, on the organi- zation and style of its work.

In a comprehensive report Georges Marchais analyzed the structure and style of work of

_the party from the shop and

street branches up to the central committee with emphasis on the need for more and more “out- wardness” in every field.

It will be of interest to -Fri- bune readers to know that one need he emphasized strongly is for more work among the 2.6 million immigrants who have settled in France since the end of the Second World War.

It would-be wrong to leave the impression that organizational

. details .were allowed to over-

shadow the main theme of the Congress. Nevertheless, the em- phasis upon “What we do and how we do it” was quite mark-

‘ed.

For example, Roger Garaudy, in his brilliant report on the radical changes taking place in ideas which, until recently, were considered axiomatic, gave the delegates a really beautiful short explanation why we must care- fully choose the words we use to explain our ideas. Our under- standing of reality and changes in it can be communicated to non-Communists only to the ex- tent that we explain it in words which are at once correct and easily understood.

* * *

I could not help but be deeply impressed at the close of the Congress. I had watched dele- gates arrive Thursday morning,

“coming straight from bus or

train to the Mutualite where the sessions were held. Sessions were from 8.30 a.m. until 8 p.m. (once until 9 pm.) with only the midday meal adjournment. The delegates had to travel out to Ivry for their evening meal and then travel to the homes of the party members with whom they were billeted.

“It requires no imagination to recognize that by Monday eve- ning they were tired. Yet, they streamed out of the Mutualite, carrying. their bags on their way to buses and trains to start work Tuesday morning with shining eyes; proud to be members of the Party of a Happy Future for France. :