“Reconstruct the Party of Class! Our Priority is Unified Class Struggle.” – Programme for the 37th Congress of the FCP – PCF
37th Congress of the French Communist Party (PCF)
Proposed Programme for the Party
“Reconstruct the Party of Class! Our Priority is Unified Class Struggle.”
A short presentation of the text
The present text is an instrument for action and combat. On the occasion of the 37th Congress of the PCF, we wish to permit the vast number of Communists to express, towards both Party members and engaged workers, their choice of rupture with the reformist liquidation of both the organisation (PCF) as well as its Communist stance and positions.
As a prerequisite, our text rejects the participation, unilaterally announced by the party’s national leadership, in the farcical “Primary of the Left” (for the Presidential elections). Our text equally rejects the lobbying for the candidature of “Melenchon 2017” which follows the same logic as the Primary of the Left. We refuse the fixation on the presidential elections. We refuse renewed electoral illusions and the insertion of the PCF in the political reorganisation, on the “Left”, of a reformist political bloc. The eradication of the PCF and of our political positions in class struggle has already cost us enough in recent years.
Hollande/Ayrault/Valls have effectuated, notably through the “Pacte de Responsibilité,” the largest transfer of socialised salary to capitalist profits. Their policies, including the destruction of individual and collective freedoms, prepare the way for far worse in the next presidential term and the foreseeable new phase in the crisis of capitalism. Mired in its electoral compromises with the PS (Parti Socialiste) and in the sham politics of the Front de Gauche, the PCF has lost more and more credibility and influence since 2012.
Endorsement of the “Sacred Union” and the State of Emergency following the terrorist attacks, alignment with Tsipras in Greece with his policy of ultra-austerity and his resignation couched in sophistry, as well as the obsession with defending European integration; the politcal line of the national leadership of the PCF ignores popular anger and the aspirations of the vanguard who struggle, notably in unions with revolutionary traditions.
We stand against this hastily prepared congress precipitating the Party further into an abyss of contradictory positions notably through the presidential primaries for the “Left.” We put forward for discussion a wholly different political line: political positions of rupture, notably rupture with the EU. The forthcoming important battles require strong political positions. The intransigent defence of the financing of National Health, retirement and social services, adapted to actual needs, through “la Cotisation Sociale” (equivalent of the National Insurance Contributions in the UK). The fight for Public Services notably through supporting the Train Workers battle against the Rail Reforms. Rejection of EU Directives. The defence of existing and the reconquest of historic Public Monopolies which were won after World War Two. The struggle for production, for small farmers and for industry. The combat against the capitalist market. The demand for democratic nationalisations.
The intensifying crisis of global capitalism is leading to a real increase in global risks: entire regions engulfed in war and human dramas such as that of the ‘migrants.’ Rather than the approval of certain military ‘strikes’ in the names of the fight against ‘terrorism,’ the Party must resume its anti-imperialist combat, and renew its work for international solidarity. The Party must, now more that ever, demand that France leave both NATO and the European Defence Agency, work for peace and work for disarmament.
Confronted by the political crisis of ‘alternance’ (the alternating share of power between the right and the left) and by the general crisis of Bourgeois Democracy, the present system dangerously promotes without hesitation extreme right-wing parties. Our refusal to accept the normalisation of the extreme-right wing Front National Party in France must be paired with a Class-based denunciation of the Front National’s social demagoguery. Furthermore, we must denounce the emergence of so-called new and ‘modern’ political formations (with the support of today’s dominant ideology). These new formations, radical in appearance only while maintaining profoundly reformist political positions, must not distract us from our principal task: the task of reinforcing a class-based Party with a rigorous anti-capitalist political line.
Through this text, we wish to show that, throughout France, local organisations of the French Communist Party are working to make the Party thrive on the basis of class struggle, seeking union along this path, and responding to the aspirations and anger of the working-class. Furthermore, these local organisations of the PCF have begun to reclaim the Party by and for those who most need a historically revolutionary working-class Party in France, and that they are working to reconstruct it.
Finally, at the occasion of the Party’s 100th anniversary, we call for a vast commemoration. This commemoration should serve to a critical discussion, within and beyond the Party: a critical discussion fully informed by the History entwined with that of the French Communist Party. That is to say the heritage, the present importance, and the fecundity of the Revolution of October.
Some predict that the French Communist Party will not celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2020. Together, we will show them that they are wrong.
