FRENCH COMMUNIST YOUTH REGROUP TO THE LEFT
oe By H. Ancelot
[The following article has been translated by World Outlook from the December issue of La Quatriéme Internationale, the monthly organ of the Parti Communiste Internationaliste (French Section of the Fourth International). ] ,
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The Union des Etudiants Communistes [UEC -- Communist Students Union] has just been shaken by another crisis which has all the earmarks of being the final one before its complete disintegration as an organization and its reconstitution by the Parti Communiste Frangais [PCF -- French Communist party] in other forms.
With the expulsion of the left opposition last April, the UEC lost the bulk of its militant wing, which reformed in the Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire [JCR ~- Revolutionary Communist Youth]. Only a leadership devoted body and sotl to the Political Bureau of the PCF remained in the UEC along with a few rank and filers who were attracted by. the Chinese position. A considerable number, confused by the crisis and paralysis of the organization, did not renew their cards in October. Since the opening of the new school term, the UEC has been inactive in most of the university towns, relinquishing the political lead to the JCR.
However, in. the past couple of months one tendency became stronger and better organized and rapidly gained control of the remnants of the organization in Paris and in many provincial cities. This current, headed by the sector in the Ecoles Normales Supérieures [ENS -- Teachers College Graduate Schools], came ‘out several months ago for the positions of Louis Althusser. At the time the left was expelled, this faction, still relatively undeveloped, took a stand against all disciplinary measures. It was of the opinion, however, that nothing should be done to risk a break with the PCF. From then on, despite their closeness to the Chinese positions, these militants refused to take a stand on the big political questions, notably on Mitterrand [the bourgeois candidate supported by the PCF], and confined themselves to theoretical studies aimed at shaping the: future rejuvenators of the PCF. ms
The Communist party leadership was thus able to use this current as a buffer on the left against the revolutionary opposition. When this opposition was expelled, the ENS current found itself in an untenable: position, without any choice except to line up or get into the next cart headed for the guillotine.
It was a split within this current that touched off the crisis. A dozen Paris leaders decided last month to break with this "confused, vacillating, etc.," current, and, together with Gilbert Mury, secretary of the Communist party's Center of Marxist Study and Research, joined the Mouvement Communiste Frangais (the pro-Chinese CP).
The UEC leadership then put a pistol to the head of the Ulm Street current. It laid down the condition that they could renew their UEC cards only if they signed a four-point declaration condemning the Chinese Communist party and the cultural revolution. Most of the Paris circles refused and then "discovered," within a few short weeks, the "betrayal" committed by the PCF, which, it seems ceased being a revolutionary party after the Argenteuil meeting of the Central Committee, which, will be recalled, condemned Althusser's works. :
On November 243, a general membership meeting in Paris was banned by the national leadership which locked up the headquarters. More than eighty students showed up at the iron-shuttered door only to find two carloads of police there...On November 27, the National Committee of the UEC, in the middle of a statement congratulating itself on its "successes," indicated that the Paris sectors were being "reorganized"; that is, liquidated. ; |
With the help of certain intellectuals in the PCF, the expelled members (about 200 throughout France) have issued a newspaper, Garde Rouge [Red Guard], and have launched a "Jeunesse Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste" [Marxist-Leninist Communist Youth]. In a coming issue we will discuss this current, but it can already be said that it will probably be able to pull out the remaining members of the UEC. In the main, these students are former conformists to the CPF leadership who developed very rapidly on the basis of the Vietnamese revolution; but due to their Stalinist training they still > remain hostile to the JCR, shifting from the camp of Khrushchevism to the Chinese with a lack of independence that has occasionally bordered on the ridiculous. It will not be long before this current will face an alternative that may tear it apart.
In fact, while completely pro-Chinese, the JCML refuses to join the official pro-' Chinese CP, which it considers to be too sectarian and too primitive in its theoretical » level. But the day must come when the JCML, aside from those benefiting from the support of the Chinese CP, will have to establish its own independent basis or decide to merge: with the others. Discussions are already underway which may well wind up in new splits.
One thing, however, is already certain -- the crisis of Stalinism has liquidated the student organizations of the CP. From now on only the JCR and the pro-—Chinese are in position to organize student struggles. Under these conditions, it is all to the good that these two organizations have reached agreement on working together in the rank-and-file committees opposing the American aggression in Vietnam.
FRENCH