Resolution on the French Question [1]

Wellred

Core Argument

Resolution on the French Question

The Fourth Congress of the Communist International confronted the French party’s protracted and painful transition from parliamentary socialism to revolutionary communism, attributing this stagnation to the tenacious resistance of non-communist elements, above all the centrist faction that had dominated since the Tours Congress. This centre, through its indecisive and vacillating policies, had effectively shielded sabotage on trade-union organisation, the united front, and internal party discipline, squandering precious time for revolutionary development. While rejecting an outright split, the Congress insisted that the proletarian majority could be consolidated only through firm ideological clarification. It demanded a ruthless purge of intellectuals who joined as amateurs or careerists, requiring a definitive break with bourgeois morality and re-registration under a worker commission. The Executive Committee of the Communist International’s earlier attempt at parity leadership had been nullified by the centre’s conservative elements, while the left had held the correct position on the united front and trade unions. The Congress simultaneously condemned the extreme left’s use of imperative mandates as a violation of democratic centralism, and rejected syndicalist abstentionism on trade-union work. The mishandling of the Havre strike was sharply criticised: the party had wrongly separated economic and political struggle, and the CGTU had called a premature general strike without preparation. Systematic mass agitation was demanded instead. Membership in Freemasonry and the League of the Rights of Man was declared incompatible with communism, with automatic expulsion for non-compliance by 1 January 1923. Party candidates were to be nine-tenths workers or peasants at the bench, with liberal professionals restricted to one-tenth.

The Congress also turned its attention to the colonial question, condemning the communist section in Sidi-bel-Abbès, Algiers, for using pseudo-Marxist phraseology to conceal a slave-holder’s viewpoint that supported French imperialist rule over colonial slaves. Revolutionary work in the colonies must be based on the best native elements, especially proletarian youth, not on those infected with capitalist and nationalist prejudices. Only an irreconcilable struggle by the Communist Party at home against colonial slavery, combined with systematic revolutionary work in the colonies, could weaken ultra-nationalist influence among oppressed peoples, attract them to the French proletariat’s cause, and prevent French capitalism from using colonial natives as counter-revolutionary reserves. The Congress demanded that the French party and its Central Committee allocate far greater attention, forces, and resources to the colonial question, and establish a permanent bureau attached to the Central Committee to direct colonial work, drawing in representatives of native communist organisations.