Resolution of the ECCI on the French Communist Party¶
Core Argument¶
This resolution, issued by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) on 2 March 1922, intervenes directly in the internal life of the French Communist Party (PCF) in the period immediately following its foundation at the Tours Congress of December 1920. The core argument is that the PCF is undergoing a necessary but dangerous process of internal cleansing, and that the ECCI must enforce ideological and organisational discipline to prevent the party from being captured by the same reformist and parliamentary tendencies it was created to supersede.
The resolution acknowledges the PCF’s organisational achievements since Tours, particularly crediting the Marseilles Convention for initiating serious theoretical work and, for the first time in France, convening active workers for a deep-going review of revolutionary problems rather than staging oratorical duels among leaders. However, it insists that the split at Tours only drew a basic line of demarcation; it did not automatically purge the party of survivals from its reformist and parliamentary past. Six specific survivals are enumerated: a desire to reunite with reformists; a bloc with the radical wing of the bourgeoisie; petty-bourgeois humanitarian pacifism replacing revolutionary anti-militarism; a false interpretation of party-union relations; a struggle against genuine centralist leadership; and efforts to replace international discipline with a platonic federation of national parties.
The resolution’s polemical target is the opportunist right wing within the PCF, which it accuses of seeking to create its own publications and points of support under the pressure of bourgeois public opinion. The ECCI warns that a communist organisation cannot serve as an arena for free propaganda of the same views that caused the reformist split. It notes with satisfaction the French delegation’s declaration that Journal du Peuple, the organ serving as a rallying point for reformist tendencies, will be removed from the party.
A further polemic is directed against those party members who, under the guise of fighting for trade-union autonomy, are in reality fighting to retain their own autonomy from party control and leadership. The ECCI condemns the resignation of several Central Committee members elected at Marseilles, arguing that such renunciations can be construed as a declaration that correct collaboration is impossible within democratic centralism, thereby encouraging factionalism. The resolution concludes by recording the French delegation’s assurance that the Central Committee and the resigning comrades will take the necessary organisational measures to implement the Marseilles decisions and work harmoniously.