Issuing body: Central Committee of the PCI (Parti Communiste Internationaliste — French Section of the Fourth International)
Resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the PCI, 19-20 January 1952
The Central Committee of the PCI (French Section of the Fourth International), meeting on 19 January 1952 and seized of a letter from the IS [International Secretariat] dated 14 January 1952, decided to take up this letter, with priority over any document from the Political Bureau.
After a thorough examination of this letter, it notes the entirely new character that the IS develops in it, namely the necessity for our movement to adopt in France a tactic of "entrism sui generis" into the CP [Communist Party]. It stresses how unexpected these proposals were for the French party and its leadership, which had remained on the ground of:
a) the political resolution of the Third World Congress, which mapped out for our French section the perspective of independent work;
b) the resolution of the French Commission of the World Congress, which confirmed for France the task of "building the new revolutionary leadership." The IS moreover stresses in its letter that it conceived of this World Congress document only as "a first step" toward the turn for the French section. That was evidently not the assessment of the Central Committee, which had pledged to apply "with discipline and understanding" this resolution of the World Congress. Comrade Pierre Frank, a member of the IS and of the French minority, for his part acknowledged that the minority text on work in the para-Stalinist organizations, drafted by him and submitted to this session of the Central Committee, was largely overtaken by the viewpoint developed in the IS letter. This is confirmed by the absence of any concrete proposal to broaden fraction work in the CP on the part of the Political Bureau minority and of the comrade responsible for this work, Comrade Frank.
Under these conditions, the Central Committee considers that a new discussion has in fact been opened by the IS letter on the problems of tactics and party-building. This discussion must be carried through to its conclusion in the best climate of mutual understanding and without impatient measures from whatever quarter. The Central Committee fully recognizes the right of the IS, the most responsible leadership of our movement between sessions of the IEC [International Executive Committee], to interpret the resolutions of the World Congress and to submit any tactical proposals, however important, to any section and at any moment it deems opportune. The Central Committee considers it no less necessary and legitimate that there be a thorough discussion of the problems raised by entry — both by the whole body of militants directly concerned (that is, by the French section from the base to the top) and by the international as a whole, for whom the problem of "entrism sui generis" into a Stalinist party constitutes a collective problem of the highest importance.
In the view of the Central Committee, these considerations imply:
1) That the IS letter to the French Central Committee dated 14 January 1952 be made the basis of an international discussion by means of IS internal bulletins.
2) That discussion be opened within the French party with a view to an extraordinary congress, on the basis of this same letter and of any text emanating from the French party, the Central Committee reserving for the present its position on the new problems raised by the IS.
The lengthy discussions on the entrist turn which, according to Comrade Frank's statements to the Central Committee, were conducted by the minority comrades, must be conducted by the party as a whole. As for the IS's request to the Central Committee to appoint "a Political Bureau that ensures the international's line will be firmly applied," the Central Committee considers that the precondition for the success of the entry desired by the international would have to be a firm conviction of its necessity on the part of both the party and its leadership, together with a plan prepared in advance for carrying it out, a plan that is clear to all members of the party. These conditions do not exist at present, and can only be settled by an extraordinary congress of the party, a congress prepared by the current leadership with the help of the international and in the course of which the latter could demonstrate the correctness of its viewpoint and carry it to victory. Such a discussion, on the other hand, were it to begin with the overthrow of the party's elected leadership (which the IS itself acknowledges enjoys the confidence of the militants), would entail, whether one likes it or not, the gravest dangers of weakening the movement.
The Central Committee is convinced that the IS does not responsibly wish to forgo the possibility of winning the French party over to its point of view before the French party has even discussed it. It is convinced that the IS will not wish to destroy this indispensable instrument for applying whatever orientation in France: a living Trotskyist party which has to its debit neither any act of indiscipline nor any programmatic divergence. It is convinced that the IS, which has in the past given so many proofs of flexibility in leadership as regards the tactics of sections (going so far as to allow two official English groups to simultaneously pursue an entrist experience and an independent experience), will show as much pedagogical patience toward the French Trotskyist militants, and that it will not choose the path of organizational measures which, in any event, would risk bringing about the liquidation of Trotskyism in France as a political current for an entire period. A leadership forged in the struggle that the proletarian wing of the party waged jointly with the IS against the petty-bourgeois tendencies, strong in the proofs of fidelity to Trotskyism and attachment to our world movement given on many occasions, the Central Committee of the PCI, French Section of the Fourth International, places its trust in the international.
Adopted by 11 votes for (Baratier, Bleibtreu, Bloch, Dumont, Garrive [Berné], Lambert, Lefevre, Lequenne, Leroi [Chéramy], Renard, Righetti), 7 against (Bouvet, Corvin, Frank, Mestre, Privas, Targuis, Marin [Gibelin]).