France's little Kremlin
Sam White
Paris The proceedings at the 23rd Congress of the French Communist Party, which has just ended, took on such a baffling and contradictory character that they caught almost all the experts on France's own little Kremlin by surprise. So much so that the left-wing Nouvel Observateur, which prides itself on having inside knowledge of what is going on in the party, came out in the week the congress opened with a cover picture of the man who, far from being the certain winner as predicted, turned out to be the big loser in the power struggle inside the leadership. Under the headline, 'The new face of French Communism' it published a photo of Roland Leroy member of the party's secretariat, editor-in-chief of L'Humanite and reputed Stalinist hard-liner and tipped him to replace Georges Marchais as the dominant figure in the PCF; instead of which he lost his seat on the secretariat and it is now deemed to be only a matter of time before he is forced out of both the politbureau and the editorship of L'Humanite.
As though this were not bad enough for the expert-prophets, other key posts made vacant either by sacking or for reasons of age were filled by Marchais men. As his grip on the party hardened, so did the policy line that emerged from last year's break with the socialists and with the common programme. Both had fostered mistaken illusions about the true nature of the French Socialist Party and union with that party was shelved for the foreseeable future, to be replaced with that old slogan which had caused so much heartbreak in the late Twenties and early Thirties: Union de la Base. There is a refreshing relief about all this, for at least we shall now be spared for some time those learned essays showing how the French Communist Party had changed, was changing and will change in the future.
The message from the congress, however, carries much more serious implications than that. It means, if words mean anything, that the party intends to maintain its own candidate in the second round of the presidential elections in 1981. If it does that then it will clearly rob Mitterrand of the presidency just as it robbed, by its abrupt break with the socialists, the left of the prospect of winning a majority in the parliamentary elections last year. Will it dare do so? Will it dare risk being disobeyed by a million or possibly two million of its four million voters?
The present indications are that the Communist Party will present the battle between Giscard and Mitterrand as one between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. All that can seemingly divert it from this path is the unlikely event that by 1981 it will re-emerge as the strongest single party on the left. Even if that should happen, however, it still remains extremely doubtful, if the international situation remains unchanged, whether it would enter any coalition government whatever the terms. This is an issue on which both Moscow's advice and the party's own built-in bureaucratic caution would coincide.
As far as the party bureaucracy is concerned, its interests can be stated bluntly. Why place at risk the marvellous machine we have forged, our privileged status as a kind of state within the state, our idealised status as the defenders of the underprivileged, the jobs of an army of workers whom we have already in a sense emancipated by elevating them to the role of professional revolutionaries, our privileged relations with the Soviet Union why risk all this when we know deep in our Marxist minds that for communists to share power or to take power in the present circumstances could only result in a shambles? That this dilemma is becoming more widely understood is indicated by a rather plaintive editorial by Jean Daniel this week. 'Of what use are the communists', he asks, 'who clearly want neither revolution nor a share in government?'From this to conclude that the communists are 'objectively' the allies of French capitalism to which they have rendered among other services the major one of keeping the left out of p0we! for the past 40 years is only a step, and it iS one which Daniel now readily takes. He also concludes rather paradoxically but from his point of view I think correctly that the only way for the socialists to handle them is to stay as close as possible to them -a kind of Union de la Base in reverse.
To revert to the 23rd Congress, however to revert to some of its subtleties as well as. to some of its more obvious hypocrisies -It takes a former communist like Annie Krigef to spot some of the former. She points out, for example, that at the previous parr): congress in 1976 tbe emphasis was on a socialism in French colours'. This has now, become 'the socialism for France'. In it was a distinct French socialism ('a ism'): now it is 'the socialism' which h. Y implication is not to be distinguished arhitrarily from the East European kind. When there was a prospect of gaining power the one was stressed at the expense of the other. now that it is a matter of staying indefinitelY in opposition the reverse becomes the true dogma. Similarly, the declaration that the achievements of the Soviet Union 'have been on the whole positive' marks a change from the previous policy of stressing differ' ence from Moscow rather than identity Orli, it. The temptation of a kind of 'filial revolt against Moscow which showed itself three years ago is no longer to be considered. Itts as though to compensate itself for its rett° to isolation in France that the party feels the need to draw closer to Moscow. As for the hypocrisies, they were bottri,d up with the contradictions. The most norf able concerned the intellectuals, manY °f whom had been giving trouble and all °. whom had been promised a chance to air, their views at the congress. In the event rloi: one of the rebellious intellectuals was cai: led, but instead Marchais spoke in a frien°14t way about them and rebuked them for rt°, having made their views sufficiently hear' in the pre-congress discussions at the par level. As a gesture towards them some officials who were 'in charge' of them well removed only to be replaced by others eve more sternly devoted to the new partY 1111e.c. All this provides evidence of' democrat centralism' in action, as indeed did tile.1 dropping of the unfortunate Leroy. 'Wile° le came to the vote it was found that his nata had simply been removed from the list °le candidates for the secretariat. Meanwhol the party is letting it be discreetly kn°. t that, far from Leroy being pro-So, as was generally supposed and MarcheP critical of it, it was the other way round.
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