Organization and Strategy in the Decline of French Communism

Abstract

The argument of this essay is that however adverse the conditions faced by French Communism, the PCF's decline has proceeded quite as much from the effects of the contradictory workings of its internal life. In consequence, the PCF has lacked the capacities necessary to make the farsighted strategic decisions which challenging times have demanded. What follows is not, however, the usual 'democratic centralism doesn't work' discussion. Things are much more complicated than this, as we will argue in the first part of the essay. The PCF's essential problems have followed from a paralytic stand-off of genuine strategic conflict inside the party, even if the weight of this stand-off has been greatly increased by the workings of democratic centralism. It has not been an absence of internal political debate which has caused the PCF's problems, but the distorted and inconclusive nature of the actual, and very real debate, which has occurred. Part II will then use the results of this exploration to sketch new analyses of PCF strategic decision-making at critical junctures in the party's recent history: in the 1960s; from 1974-79 during and after 'rupture' of Union de la Gauche; and in the contemporary period. More generally, the essay tries to raise deep questions about how a mass anti-capitalist Left might organize itself, and it is to these questions which we will turn in conclusion.