First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 31, December 6, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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As part of The Call’s continuing series on the development of the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations in Europe, we present the first half of an extensive interview with Jacques Jurquet, political director of the French Marxist-Leninist daily, L ’Humanite Rouge.
Since the degeneration of the old Communist Party of France (PCF), a movement to build a new Marxist-Leninist party in France has existed. The Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist), or the PCMLF, was founded in 1967 out of the struggle against the revisionist PCF. However, shortly after it was founded, the PCMLF was declared illegal by the French government, and since that time, the party has worked in an underground manner. The daily newspaper, L ’Humanite Rouge, carries the position of the Marxist-Leninist communists of France to the masses.
In the first installment of this interview, Comrade Jurquet gives the views of the French Marxist-Leninists on important questions facing the international communist movement. The second installment (next week) will discuss the French workers’ movement and the struggle for a single, unified communist party in France.
What is the principal contradiction in France? Who is the main enemy of the French proletariat?
Today, the principal contradiction in France is between the two basic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The capitalist bourgeoisie controls the state and uses it to the benefit of its own class interests. The proletariat is subject to the exploitation, repression and oppression of the ruling class.
More simply put, we say that the principal contradiction in French society is the same as the basic contradiction in our society, the irreconcilable contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The French bourgeoisie, while being bullied by both superpowers, still retains its imperialist interests in the third world. How do these two features affect the strategy and tactics of the French communists?
The French bourgeoisie is a ruling bourgeoisie of a second world country. On the one hand it tries to defend its class interests by resisting superpower control. On the other hand it maintains an imperialist stance towards the countries, nations and peoples of the third world.
For us, the Marxist -Leninists of France, what is basic in this situation is that the French bourgeoisie is an imperialist bourgeoisie. The struggles it wages against the superpowers are inter-imperialist struggles. One example of this inter-imperialist rivalry is the sale of French arms and fighter planes to various countries ... in competition with the U.S. imperialists.
What is your view of the role of U.S. imperialism in the developing world situation?
For a long time U.S. imperialism has committed innumerable crimes throughout the world. The fact that it presently is on the defensive in relation to Soviet social-imperialism in no way leads U.S. imperialism to change its nature. It continues to pursue its criminal policy against the third world. What is more, in the U.S. itself, the imperialists impose capitalist exploitation and racist oppression upon the American working people and on the various oppressed nationalities.
The worldwide front uniting the countries struggling for independence, the nations fighting for liberation and the peoples for revolution, must reject categorically any alliance with U.S. imperialism, which is one of their two biggest enemies. Under the circumstances, it is important to grasp firmly Lenin’s teachings on imperialism. We must take advantage of the rivalry of the imperialists and the unavoidable war which is coming, in order to lead the proletariat and the revolutionary peoples of the whole world to overthrow and destroy these two giant criminals.
With the intensification of superpower rivalry in Europe, what stand are the French imperialists taking towards the war danger?
Today in France the various trends within the monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie mirror their basic imperialist nature. Certain sections are tied to U.S. imperialism. Other sections hope to perpetuate their privileges by means of political and economic cooperation with Soviet social-imperialism. Still others seek to preserve their interests by intense competition with both, superpowers. The bourgeoisie is more and more divided on What tactics to use to serve their class interests.
Since the farcical Helsinki conference on “detente,” which was organized mainly on the initiative of the Soviet social-imperialists, a distinct tendency has surfaced in France, which the Marxist-Leninists oppose as a new “Munich spirit,” a spirit of capitulation to Soviet social-imperialism and its expansionist and hegemonist enterprises (as in Angola). . .
In any case, the French capitalists are not in the least concerned with the defense of the interests of the working class and broad masses in France. This is something the Marxist-Leninists insist upon most of all.
What is your analysis of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the question of European unity?
The EEC is an institution designed to defend above all the class interests of the European imperialist bourgeoisie. But it is also quite evident that the formation of a Western European bloc is bound to oppose the schemes of the two superpowers: The proletariat and revolutionary peoples of each country in Europe, speaking at least of France, must wage a struggle against their European exploiters. They must fight the capitalists with the united action of the workers and revolutionary peoples of Western Europe. They also have to struggle against super-power hegemonism in the same way, with a revolutionary united front led by the Marxist-Leninist parties of the countries in question.
How do you analyze the role of NATO and the Warsaw Pact?
NATO was created to serve the alliance of capitalist countries against the socialist camp, at the time when the latter had not yet been split by modern revisionism. But with the restoration of capitalism in many Eastern European countries and the rise of Russian social-imperialism, NATO has little by little been put on the defensive.
Although the French monopoly bourgeoisie led by De Gaulle quit NATO, France remains an integral part or the Atlantic Pact. The Marxist-Leninists of France struggle against the war preparations of the two superpowers in Europe, a war in which the French monopoly capitalists will inevitably participate. We are for the simultaneous dissolution of How do you view the tasks of fighting against a new world war and fighting for revolution? The French Marxist-Leninists struggle simultaneously against their own monopoly capitalists and the superpowers. They have made progress in waging the struggle of “class against class.” In a number of factories the communist have led strikes and have won significant victories. They have also initiated mass campaigns against the hegemonic activities of the two superpowers and in support of the revolutionary struggles of the third world people against both superpowers. What lessons have you drawn from the PCF’s practice during the anti-fascist resistance in World War II? This topic has been the object of a very deep course of study. The documents utilized in this study reveal that the PCF followed a clearly opportunist line, placing the working class, the people and all the patriotic fighters at the mercy of the monopoly capitalists represented by General De Gaulle. The formation of the “National Front” fell victim to this opportunist line. The class collaboration and submission to the will of the bourgeoisie by the old Communist Party at the very moment of liberation, were the direct practical consequences of the party’s gravely erroneous line. This analysis is still being deepened, and naturally, it does not question the ideological example of tens of thousands of communists who made supreme sacrifices in the combat against the Nazi occupiers. Recently some of the revisionist parties in Western Europe have made public criticisms of the Soviet social-imperialists. What is the significance of this? Modern revisionism, which took over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and destroyed the old communist parties of Europe; inevitably led to the destruction of the former unity which existed
among all these parties in the days when they still held to the principles of Marxism-Leninism: Since then, the relations between the revisionist parties have been based on bourgeois ideology and practice. Therefore the protests by the revisionist parties of Western Europe against the social-fascist methods of the Soviet revisionists arise from the bourgeois outlook of these parties. It is important to exercise the most extreme vigilance towards their displays of opposition, which often mask actual complicity. This is how the French revisionist party denounces certain acts of repression by the social-fascist revisionists in power in the USSR, while at the same time, they make immense efforts to build support for the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. There are many examples, such as their propaganda in support of the Helsinki Conference, their articles on “detente” in Europe, their constant and concrete support for the USSR at various international conferences where the third world countries are also present etc. We emphasize in this regard that while the revisionist PCF defends certain bourgeois elements who are persecuted in the USSR and from time to time deported from their country, the revisionists are never in solidarity with the workers or the Marxist-Leninist militants struggling within the revisionist and social-fascist countries. To be continued.