From the ECCI to the Paris Convention of the French Communist Party¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter reproduces a formal directive from the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), dated 6 October 1922, addressed to the upcoming Paris Convention of the French Communist Party. The core argument is that the French party is in a state of acute political crisis, marked by insufficient discipline and ideological clarity, and that the Comintern must intervene directly to enforce its conditions for membership. The ECCI makes three key demands. First, it insists that the Paris Convention hold a special roll-call vote on the twenty-one conditions adopted by the Second World Congress, demanding complete transparency on the party’s acceptance of these foundational terms. While the Convention retains the right to propose amendments to the Fourth World Congress, the ECCI signals that any deviation from the conditions must be openly declared. Second, the ECCI announces the expulsion of Raoul Verfeuil and all co-signatories of the ‘Appeal to the Party’, which it characterises as a document of anti-communist sabotage. The ECCI expresses astonishment that the French Central Committee failed to expel these figures despite their “glaring anti-communist actions,” and it unilaterally declares that they are no longer members of the Comintern. If the Paris Convention disagrees, the matter will be referred to the Fourth World Congress for final arbitration. Third, the ECCI demands that the Convention confront all disputed questions “point-blank,” drawing a direct historical parallel with the Italian Socialist Party, which after two years of “grave mistakes and vacillations” was forced to concede the correctness of Comintern demands. The polemic is thus directed against centrist and right-wing currents within the French party, particularly the faction around Verfeuil, whom the ECCI denounces as enemies who remained inside the party only to undermine it. The broader theoretical context is the Comintern’s struggle, in the wake of the Second Congress, to enforce Bolshevik organisational norms—democratic centralism, expulsion of reformists, and unconditional acceptance of the twenty-one conditions—against national parties resistant to centralised discipline. The chapter is a document of command, not debate, asserting the ECCI’s authority to purge and compel compliance.