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From Labor Action, Vol. 10 No. 40, 7 October 1946, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Parti Communiste Internationaliste (French Fourth Internationalists) is energetically preparing to participate in the elections scheduled for October. Having polled close to 50,000 votes in the last elections in June, despite Stalinist calumny and innumerable obstacles, the comrades of the PCI are out to better that vote by presenting candidates in the greatest possible number of districts.
The French election law is specifically designed to make it almost impossible for minority parties, without great financial resources, to appear on the ballot. However, the PCI does not propose to be daunted by the legal difficulties any more than it was in June. Inasmuch as the law requires that each party put forward a minimum of twenty lists, with an average of five candidates to a list, and further requires that 20,000 francs be posted for each candidate, the PCI is conducting a campaign to raise 2,000,000 francs. It has appealed to workers everywhere to assist the PCI in putting its revolutionary candidates in the field. These will be the only candidates running on a revolutionary socialist program.
A substantial vote for the PCI will be a victory for revolutionary militants in every country. We join our comrades in the hope that they will raise the money needed, and look with confidence toward a vigorous campaign that will advance the cause of international socialism. We are in receipt of a communication from the PCI on this matter, and shall publish further details next week.
The PCI, which met two weeks ago, recorded, first, a growth in party membership from 50 to 75 per cent in all sections of the country, and, second, the formation of many new groups. The former “minority” group, led by Comrade Albert Demazière, won a majority for its political resolutions. The main political resolution that was carried noted that the masses of the French working class had not yet abandoned their bourgeois-democratic illusions, and consequently stressed the importance of putting forward democratic demands, especially in the circumstance of the capitalist drive for a strong state The resolution, reiterating the party’s stand for an SP-CP-CGT (Socialist Party-Communist Party-Trade Union Federation) government, demanded that the three-party coalition be broken. It further established the necessity of linking each demand made with the transitional program of the Fourth International and advancing the slogan of workers’ control. Albert Demazière was designated political secretary of the party and Yvon Craipianas, general secretary.
The Russian question (the nature of the Russian state) was raised at the convention, and various points of view presented. While most of the comrades still hold to the traditional policy of the Fourth International that Russia is a degenerated workers’ state, two small groups took issue with this view. One of these groups has developed a point of view similar to that of the Workers Party, namely, that Russia is a bureaucratic-collectivist state; the other holds that Russia is not a workers’ state, but leaves its exact character as yet undecided. Vote on this question was postponed on the ground that further discussion is necessary, and a six-month discussion period opened.
As we receive the texts of the resolutions and of the various positions advanced at this convention on all questions, they will be reported in Labor Action.
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