Resolution of the French Commission [1]¶
Core Argument¶
The resolution adopted by the Fourth Congress of the Communist International on 2 December 1922 constitutes an emergency intervention to resolve the acute factional crisis within the French Communist Party, precipitated by the Paris Convention. The core of the resolution is a meticulously engineered organisational settlement, imposing proportional representation on the party’s central bodies as a temporary measure to restore functioning unity. The Central Committee is to be constituted on a strict numerical basis reflecting the voting at the Convention: ten members and three candidates for the Centre, nine members and two candidates for the Left, four members and one candidate for the Renoult Tendency, and one member for the Renaud Jean Minority, with two consultative Youth representatives. The Political Bureau is similarly divided, three from the Centre, three from the Left, and one from the Renoult Tendency. Crucially, to prevent personal disputes from worsening the crisis, the slate of nominees for these bodies is to be drawn up by the factions themselves in Moscow, with the French delegation undertaking to support it before the party.
The resolution extends this proportional logic to the party press, the general secretariat, and key committees. The direction of newspapers is placed under the Political Bureau, with a daily unsigned editorial to present the party line, and party journalists are prohibited from contributing to the bourgeois press. The editorship of l’Humanité is shared between Marcel Cachin (Centre) and Amédée Dunois (Left), with equal powers and disputes referred to the Political Bureau. The Bulletin communiste is assigned to a Left comrade. The General Secretariat is constituted on a parity basis, with Frossard as member and Louis Sellier and Treint as substitutes. Delegates to the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) are to be Souvarine (Left) and Frossard (Centre), for at least three months, to ensure normal and cordial relations between the ECCI and the French party. A special commission, including a delegate of the ECCI, is established to settle disputes over the application of these organisational decisions. The resolution also addresses the salaries of party functionaries, mandating a commission to eliminate excessive salaries while ensuring indispensable comrades can devote full energy to party work, and bars former Masons from posts where they independently represent the party’s ideas.
The resolution is a direct polemical response to the paralysis and fragmentation of the French party, which had rendered it incapable of coherent political action. It argues implicitly against the notion that factional struggle could be resolved through further debate or political clarification alone; instead, it imposes a mechanical, proportional settlement as the only possible solution to the existing crisis. The text is a stark illustration of the Comintern’s conception of democratic centralism in a moment of extreme crisis: the factions are recognised, their relative strengths quantified, and representation allocated accordingly, but the ultimate authority and arbitration rest with the international body. The resolution does not adjudicate the political differences between Centre, Left, and Renoult tendencies; it simply imposes a framework for cohabitation and functional operation, with the ECCI as the final arbiter. The detailed listing of names and posts, from Frossard and Cachin to obscure local secretaries and metalworkers, underscores the granular, hands-on nature of the Comintern’s intervention in the internal life of its national sections.