Issuing body: National conference of cadres of the majority tendency of the PCI (Parti Communiste Internationaliste), adopted unanimously
Resolution adopted by the conference of the PCI majority
Meeting on 3 June 1952, the national conference of cadres of the majority tendency examined the situation of the party and its relations with the International Secretariat.
Having heard the report of Comrade Albert (E. Mandel), characterized by the rapporteur himself as an ultimatum, and which entails the prohibition of any political expression by the majority of the party in the discussion for the Eighth Congress and at the congress itself, the conference must draw the conclusion from this violation of the agreements reached at the Tenth Plenum.
These agreements were based on the following two points:
1. The majority accepted the constitution of a political bureau controlled by the minority, thanks to the casting vote of the IS member designated by the IEC, for a period covering the preparation of the congress and the three months following it.
2. The IEC decided to hold a democratic congress in which the democratic expression of tendencies would be guaranteed, the documents submitted to the congress vote being required to deal with problems defined by a framework text, complete freedom of expression on all questions being otherwise recognized for all members of the party, including members of the political bureau.
The majority accepted, in order to remain in the international, a minority leadership on the sole condition that the Eighth Congress be prepared democratically. To claim that the exercise of this right, recognized by the IEC, is indiscipline, on the pretext that the minority expresses "the line of the IEC" and that the majority has disagreements with it, and to threaten the majority with sanctions for not having simply rallied to the resolutions of the minority, is to violate the agreements directly and to unmask a crude trick played on the IEC and on the French section.
This explains the reasons why obstacles were placed, by trickery for several months and then by veto, in the way of the publication of the majority's declaration on the meaning of its acceptance of the Tenth Plenum agreement.
In the letter of 23 May, and still more clearly in his intervention today, Comrade Albert eliminates any possibility of the tendency expressing itself in the congress discussion; according to him, the presentation of any political document whatsoever by the majority is banned. The only way out that he offers the majority is to write, jointly with the minority, a technical document on application, and to withdraw, on pain of sanctions, all its political documents and its declaration on the Tenth Plenum agreements.
The duplicity of such a proposal appears clearly in the refusal of Comrade Albert and the minority to accept the finalization and joint vote on the document on the practical problems of entrism, a document that was acceptable insofar as it was situated entirely on the ground of clandestine entrism. On such a basis, the numerical proportion between the entrist sector and the independent sector appears as a secondary problem on which agreement was possible. The rejection of this possibility by Comrade Albert and the minority clearly demonstrates that their aim is not the carrying out by the whole party of any strategy whatsoever, but the political hara-kiri of the majority and its destruction.
This organizational attitude confirms the worst apprehensions that might be justified by the minority's political resolution which, in the form of a hypocritical exegesis of the documents of the Tenth Plenum, which stated: "The independent sector maintains all its current essential activities, in the factories, the unions, among the youth, and continues to recruit, including among the best elements picked out within the Stalinist movement by our militants doing entrist work," takes the opposite position to this affirmation and tears apart, piece by piece, all the activities necessary for the existence of an independent organization. It confirms the anxiety provoked among all party members by the publication in Quatrième Internationale of the report of the Tenth Plenum (Pablo's report on "The Building of the Revolutionary Party," published in the February-April 1952 issue), an act the significance of which was rightly defined by the resolution presented by the majority members of the political bureau. It sheds light on the meaning of the opposition of the minority leaders to any criticism of the policy of the CP, shown among other things at the time of the publication of an article in La Vérité on the Billoux report, an article which was reproached for not having confined itself to underlining only the positive aspects of the turn, whereas the report of the Tenth Plenum stated: "Our organs have the duty to develop our whole policy amply, all its themes, to make clear, unequivocal, concrete criticism of Stalinist policy, etc., with no other limitation than that of language and form, which must be studied so as to find a growing echo among Stalinist workers and militants."
It is evident today that the political oppositions have only deepened, resulting in incompatibility and the reciprocal paralysis of the tendencies. Such a situation cannot in any way continue without grave prejudice to the existence of the party and to any accomplishment on its part, whether in the entrist sector or in the independent sector. In recent months, the struggle of tendencies has only intensified, bringing about a growing paralysis of the party. It could not have been otherwise, given that the minority, from the very day after the Tenth Plenum, and although it had obtained control of the political bureau, organized itself as a faction, with a weekly meeting of all its members at a fixed permanent location. This unjustifiable factional activity produced only negative results, such as the organized abstention from participation in the campaign for the distribution and defence of La Vérité. In every field, the minority factionally adopted an attitude of undermining the independent sector.
The worst possible situation has become established in the party. On the organizational plane, on the plane of activity as on the political plane, on the very question of the party's existence, such an incompatibility has appeared between the tendencies that it neutralizes and cancels out the capacity for action of the French section. For this reason, wanting to maintain the status quo would be to court disaster. It is necessary to get out of it, to create the conditions for genuine cooperation preserving the achievements of Trotskyism in France. This can in no case be achieved by way of ultimatum, threats, sanctions, suspensions, or expulsions. The only path open, consistent with the necessity of combining the two forms of work, entrist and independent, is the adoption of a statute comparable to that existing in Austria: the recognition by the IEC of two organizations of the Fourth International in France. Only in this way can the organizational and human achievements of Trotskyism be safeguarded in France. Only in this way can the correctness of one or another orientation be verified in experience. If it has confidence in its orientation, the IS should become the defender of such a solution, for experience, by confirming its views, can remove apprehensions. The recognition of the independent organization provides the guarantees of discipline in the public political expression and action of the independent organization, which, no one can deny, is situated entirely on the programmatic bases of Trotskyism.
The national conference of the majority, unanimously, rejects Comrade Albert's ultimatum and appeals to the IEC to adopt a position that will make it possible to resolve positively a deadlock that can no longer continue. It trusts the IEC to reject any ultimatist and destructive position. It warns unequivocally that any measure of suspension, of sanction, even veiled or deferred, against the representatives of the tendency in the leadership, that any veto on a democratic discussion for the congress, will be regarded as a measure of split, of expulsion and of destruction of the PCI. Such a measure would automatically be a measure of rupture for which the international leadership would bear full responsibility. The proletarian majority of the party is certain that the IEC will act with discernment, with the will to preserve the unity of the international and all its achievements, and will adopt the recognition of two organizations in France.
3 June 1952
Adopted unanimously.