On the United Front [1]¶
Core Argument¶
On the United Front¶
The central task of the Communist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution by winning the majority of the working class, a goal that demands a complete break with reformists and centrists. Yet the working class requires unity in action for its daily struggles. The united front is not a matter of relations between party leaderships; it arises from the imperative to secure a unified working-class front against capitalism. Where the Communist Party is a major but not decisive force, it must initiate joint action with workers still following reformist or centrist organisations. This does not imply rapprochement with reformist leaders; the party enters such agreements as an independent detachment, preserving full freedom to criticise and to lead the struggle alone if reformists obstruct it.
In France, the party dominates the political sphere, but the proletariat remains influenced by syndicalism. The trade-union movement is split between reformists, who have taken the path of splitting the CGT, and revolutionaries, including communists, who fight for trade-union unity. The revolutionary wing uses cells within unions to struggle for ideological influence and a united front without breaking organisational unity. The reformists split because they could not win the majority. The French Communist Party’s overwhelming numerical superiority over the Socialist Dissidents—130,000 to 30,000—does not guarantee hegemony, because the passive, disoriented mass of workers could swing against the Communists under certain conditions. The Dissidents are the agency of the bourgeois ‘Left Bloc’ inside the working class. To counteract this, the Party must persistently promote a bloc of all workers against the whole bourgeoisie, proposing specific joint actions to the Dissidents on strikes, lockouts, and unemployment, forcing them to choose publicly between a bloc with the bourgeoisie or with the proletariat. This exposes them before the masses.
Internally, the Party must mercilessly expel any member who advocates a ‘Left Bloc’ or unification with reformists, or who publishes rival political slogans. Pacifist prejudices must be condemned, and their persistence leads to expulsion. The Party cannot be prepared for struggle without directly engaging in it; this process will purge unreliable elements and attract genuine workers. In the trade unions, the Party must reject any organisational subordination of unions to the party; its influence depends solely on Communists working within the unions and correctly applying party principles to union needs. Communists must purge reformist prejudices that reduce the party to a parliamentary organisation; the party is the vanguard for ideological leadership in all spheres, especially trade unions. While unions are autonomous organisations not subordinate to the party, communists within them cannot claim autonomy for their union activity but must act as transmitters of party programme and tactics. Communists who oppose party influence in unions under a false principle of ‘autonomy’ are condemned, as they pave the way for control by unaccountable cliques. The party must systematically criticise revolutionary syndicalism’s shortcomings, explaining that the correct road is for revolutionary syndicalists to enter the Communist Party. A census of all French Communist Party members is indispensable, determining social status, relations with the trade-union movement, and attitude toward the party press, with chief aspects considered before the Fourth World Congress.