France: where does the CCR go?
ByPablo Vasco
Of the 16 al 18 from December, one week after the national congress of the New Anticapitalist Party, one of the main parties of the French extreme left, The congress of the Revolutionary Communist Current will also be held, a splinter organization from the NPA a year and a half ago. We present our critical opinion on the CCR pre-congress documents, in the context of the political challenges that open up for the French revolutionary left and the need for a new regroupment.
At CCR, best known for her Permanent Revolution website, is the national section of the Trotskyist Fraction for the Fourth International (FT-CI) who leads the Argentine PTS. By the way, although it is calledfraction to onepart distinct but part of aall superior, It is striking that it calls itself a current circumscribed to itself.
The CCR broke with the NPA in June 2021 after launching his own presidential candidate[1], which gave the leadership of said party a pretext to separate them and thus weaken the left wing. One year later, at a national conference, 104 delegates elected by 300 militants called to build“a new revolutionary organization, at the height of the urgency of ending the capitalist system and laying the foundations of a communist society”[2]. Its founding congress will be 16 al 18 from December. In these last two weeks, in pre-congress assemblies, report that they participated 400 people between militants and observers[3].
Separate figures, the first political problem is that if the CCR, Instead of leaving the NPA prematurely, he would have stayed to battle alongside the other three currents of the left against the mistaken follow-onism of the Mandelist leadership towards La Francia Insumisa (LFI), as they are doing La Chispa, Anticapitalism and Revolution and Revolutionary Democracy, the relationship of forces within the NPA today would be clearly favorable to the revolutionary sectors.
This is not a minor political option as the NPA, junto a Workers' Struggle, still in decline both, are the two historical forces of the French extreme left, who was always a reference for all world Trotskyism. And an NPA is not the same as an institutional "left of the left" wing, o sea of the LFI-NUPES of Mélenchon, that an NPA independent of that parliamentary reformism, inserted in the class struggle and with a revolutionary leadership and strategy. Especially if you really want, as the CCR says, build an organization"at the height of ending the capitalist system and laying the foundations of a communist society" in an imperialist country like France. As well, We are of the opinion that if that perspective receded, it is largely due to the political responsibility of the CCR, that in a hasty way, sectarian and self-proclaimed, he prioritized building his group separately instead of building it as part of a unitary and qualitatively superior revolutionary alternative.
What is the reality of the NPA today, whose most probable perspective is a breakout pushed by the management? Contrary to what lightly predicted in 2021 the CCR-PTS when split, about what"The leftist groups of the NPA will end up in the most bitter impotence"[4], they grew and gained new militants, as did for example La Chispa, who in addition to his union presence today leads the youth of the NPA. At the NPA pre-congress assemblies, what is done now, of the 9 al 11 of November, about some 1.500 militants who voted, the platform of the Mandelist ruling party achieved a 48,3% of votes, the unitary platform on the left a 45,6% and the third centrist platform a 6%. We insist: if the CCR had stayed, the left as a whole clearly won this congress and therefore the political leadership of the NPA.
Political problems
For its congress, the CCR presents three texts -international, France and party-, on which we take a critical look here.
According to its international document[5], Russia“it is not an imperialist power”. It is a characterization that we consider wrong., from which they deduce an also mistaken policy towards the war in Ukraine. in other texts, the FT-CI does not define Russia even as a sub-imperialist country, but of“attenuated dependency”, a“fundamentally subaltern condition”[6], that is to say, they believe it rather similar to the vast majority of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America... although with a little more weapons.
In his workThe imperialism, upper stage of capitalism, Lenin made a factual description of these powers that emerged, but without fixing such characteristics as an inexorable condition. And of the three categories of countries that it indicates, imperialist, dependent eintermediate, Putin's current Russia, given its power and economic role, military and geopolitical as a whole[7], that is always more than the sum of the parts, Far from being a dependent or subordinate country, it is an imperialist power., oppressor of peoples in Eastern Europe.
Because, following Trotsky's example in the face of the China-Japan war in 1937 and other similar, Today a revolutionary posture must combine the repudiation of the Russian invasion, the denunciation of NATO and support for the Ukrainian armed resistance, with complete political independence from the Zelensky government. On the other hand, the CCR repeats the serious error of the entire FT-CI of completely denying the just war component of liberation or self-defense of Ukraine against the invasion and, just like all the camping, in a functional position Putin affirms that the victory of Ukraine“would strengthen imperialism” occidental. A completely anti-Marxist analysis, who ignores that in the first place a defeat of Putin would invigorate and encourage not only the Ukrainian working people to go out and fight for their rights., but to their Russian class brothers and to those of all the republics and nationalities of the region for which the concrete and direct oppressive empire is Russia.
Furthermore, the text of the CCR, that details in detail the superstructural and military variables of that conflict, and that exaggerates a distancing of Germany from the European Union to erect a new imperialist axis, speaks little about the class struggle in the world, nothing about the workers and youth vanguard, feminist and environmental struggles, the revolutionary left and barely dedicates a tiny bit 0,6% from its extensive space to the revolutionary process in Iran, which he minimizes as a simple “wave of revolts”.
There is also no Marxist characterization of whether the world situation is revolutionary., pre-revolutionary, non-revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.“A chaotic era”, they say vaguely, with“structural changes”, what“can lead to turning points in the class struggle”. And after recognizing that they enter the fight“increasingly important sectors of the working class”, in a few lines they list the importance of the salary fight, from“a bold policy to break the conservative weight of the union bureaucracy” and that“It is urgent to address the construction of revolutionary parties with a clear strategic and programmatic orientation”. A) Yes, generalities. It seems that the CCR, as they say in France, “discovered hot water”…
The national text indicates a worsening of the French economic and political crisis, two Bonapartist projects (Macron and Le Pen), a new neo-reformist mediation (NUPES), the following of the NPA and an advance in the struggles. Its program highlights the slogans ofsliding salary scale, indeterminate strike, fight planand aradical democratic program against the authoritarian regime, but it lacks any slogan of power to propagandize, such as a workers' government. Another notable omission is that there are no slogans for the dissolution of NATO either., neither against the European Union and its institutions nor the alternative strategy of a European federation of socialist republics, a Europe of workers and people or another similar one.
Although its text on the party includes a general phrase, “always be with the people oppressed by the imperialist powers and particularly when it comes to French imperialism”, They omit basic anti-imperialist demands such as the definitive independence of overseas territories., the breaking of the pacts that bind the former French colonies and the withdrawal of all French troops and military bases abroad (14 countries[8]).
Likewise, In said document, the CCR proposes“contribute to the construction of a revolutionary workers' party capable of transforming revolts into revolution”. But then they only value their own recipes and accuse the left-wing currents of the NPA of"fear" and that“They were betting on forms of conciliation with management”. As they say, “according to the result of the NPA congress and the conclusions drawn, this debate could be reconsidered”…
If CRC persists in navel-gazing with self-sufficiency, It will be a new Trotskyist sect of those that already abound in France and many other countries. If you really want“transform revolts into revolution” They should not condition a frontist approach towards other revolutionary currents, and propose either to advance towards a common revolutionary party with freedom of tendencies, a front in the style of the Argentine FIT Unidad or other variants. Not doing so is criminal. The dilemma is posed.
[1] In the end he couldn't show up, since the CCR only reached half of the required legal signatures.
[2] https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Appel-Pour-la-creation-d-une-nouvelle-organisation-revolutionnaire
[3] https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Nouvelle-organisation-revolutionnaire-400-personnes-dans-les-AGs-pre-Congres-dans-toute-la-France
[4] https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Francia-crisis-terminal-del-NPA-y-emergencia-de-una-nueva-corriente-revolucionaria
[5] https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/La-guerre-en-Ukraine-et-l-acceleration-des-tendances-aux-crises-guerres-et-revolutions
[6] https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Semiperiferias-Subimperialismos-Debates-sobre-el-imperialismo-hoy
[7] Largest country in the world, first energy power , first mineral power, second military power (with bases and troops in others 15 countries), second nuclear power, eleventh economy in the world and regional and global influence. It is one of only five countries with veto power in the UN Security Council..
[8] Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Ivory Coast, Remember, Gabon, Senegal, Chad, Niger, Antilles, Guyana, Polynesia, Reunion, New Caledonia and South Indian Ocean.
