Our conception of the organization is the one comrade M.C. has always defended

The two "small" documents we publish below are from the years 1930. At that time, the comrade MC - the very one who was at the origin of the foundation of the ICC in 1975 ! - was a militant of the Left Opposition. This opposition then was one of the currents where the militants who looked at remaining faithful to the Red October lessons, were struggling and were suffering attacks, slanders, denigrations and at last physical aggressions from the stalinized Communist International.

Without lasting too long on comrade MC's trajectory, let's notice quickly that his statement within the Opposition was going to lead him soon to join the other current, much more consequent, the Italian Left, which struggled against the roots of the workers movement degeneracy.

At the beginning of the years 1930, comrade MC was member of the Opposition and, in front of a crisis which was shaking up this current, it is noticeable that the spirit he had was in total coherence with the one the Communist Left - already ! - was putting forwards.

To understand the more succinctly possible the context in which MC (and Treint 1) expresses himself in the followings, let's recall that, in the League, the French group of the International Opposition, a tendency defended the position according to which it was necessary to adopt a more "flexible" attitude towards "centrism" (so was the definition of the stalinist tendency at that time). Thus it pushed to the liquidation of the positions of the Opposition. It was the Emile-Felix tendency that MC talks about.

In reaction to this, the League leadership (the EC = the Executive Committee) decided to expel the members of this tendency.

MC demands that the decision of expulsion would be called off and that the debate develops within the organization, that the disagreements and the divergences would be clarified by the whole organization gathered in congress in order to take a definitive decision.

It's clear that MC's concern isn't "to give a new chance" to the positions openly conciliatory and even less to defend a "democratic" vision. The concern, the worrying of the comrade, the one he always defended since that period all along his political life, the one he taught us since the very beginnings of the ICC, is that divergences, confusions, mistakes and even political betrayals aren't eliminated by "getting rid of" the militants who can defend them at a certain time. That one really struggles against these confusions and mistakes only through the arming of the organization, of its whole militants, through the opening of the widest posible debate within the organization ! He constantly repeated again and again that, if there were to be an "organizational split", it had to be done until the end in the greatest political clarity, after a debate and the confrontation of the ideas.

Is it necessary to underline this "recalling" adresses in great part to the present leaders of the ICC who still dare to claim MC's lessons ?

Even if we were the true monsters they try to depict us, we still would be angels in comparison with the Emile-Felix tendency. And MC's "lesson" is that the whole organization must listen to the militants' arguments who defend different orientations ; not to forbid them the access to the internal bulletins, not to prevent them to adress to their organization comrades through disciplinary means.

We are, we as fraction, quite conscious (and proud) to follow in MC's footsteps !

MC's letters to the Communist League comrades.

The crisis of the Paris region might be resolved with wrong methods which would create a mortal danger for the Left Opposition.

At the present time, only the urgent intervention of the whole League can save the organization.

The Emile-Felix liquidationist tendency raises against the very principles of the Left Opposition and qualifies as counter-revolutionary the counter-thesis appeared in La Vérité [The Truth was the publication of the Ligue, translator's note] that the League has opposed to the thesis of the centrist fraction at the Party Congress.

We must split with all those who definitively will state on the Emile-Felix's liquidationist position.

The normal method requires that the whole League seizes on the crisis of the Paris region and splits with the liquidationist tendency in full political clarity at the next enlarged E.C. through the judgement not only on the written informations but also in the lights of a political debate which isn't disturbed by secundary questions. This method of conscious elimination by the whole organization of an anti-oppositional tendency is the only one which guarantees the progress and the strengthening of the League.

The other method consists in seizing such or such partial mistake to hastily expel in the political night some liquidationists of the Paris region and to present the province with a fait accompli. Expelling with such a manner will substitute the necessary political clarification by the discussion of secundary and formal questions. It'll allow the excluded to take advantage of the continuing political darkness to carry on presenting themselves as oppositionals in the sympathizers' eyes. It'll let aside the opinion, the advices, the suggestions and the authority of the militants of the base [rank and file ? translator's doubt]. It'll demand them blind confidence and obedience (2). Such a method would lead the League to ruin.

Comrade Felix having threatened to intervene publicly against the E.C., the Paris region has been obliged to pronounce his exclusion. But then Felix withdrawn. The interest of the League is to call back this exclusion in order to push the discussion the deepest posible up until the enlarged E.C. which will have to conclude.

Contrary to the Paris region informations, a part of the E.C. wants to expel Felix at once despite his retractation, to relieve the regional committee regularly elected and to impose to the Paris region a triumvirat named by the E.C. (3). In the conditions of the Paris region, to substitute the direction elected by the base by a direction designated by the leadership, would be provoking a split in the night. Besides it would be developing in the League an internal regime worse than the stalinists'one in the party. Then how the Left Oppostion could raise against the wrong internal regime within the Party ?

It's possible that next Monday, despite our resistance, there will be within the E.C. a majority to vote for such arbitrary measures of quelling which would end up in the dismantling of the Paris region in full political darkness and which would be crushing blow for the province groups which have almost no knowledge of anything.

The groups of province, if they want to prevent the catastrophe, must urgently make get their protestation to the E.C. for next Monday.

The existence of the League itself is at stake. Everyone is in front of his responsabilities. We're sure that every group of province will do the necessary to avert the danger.

Address the response to TREINT, 3 rue Carducci- Paris (19ème) who will pass it on to the E.C.

Against abuse and arbitrary

The importance of the political discussion, the deep divergences and the currents which emerge, can't escape to anybody. As well, it's obvious that if the comrades of the Emile-Felix tendency persist in their orientation, which is the liquidation of the Opposition, a separation with them will be necessary and salutary for its existence and its development.

Thus, it would be necessary that this discussion would be beneficial, as it should be convenient, for all the comrades and for the future of the organization. It could be so thanks to the problems debated, thanks to the clarity of the given responses on points which have remained up until now in darkness and around which the League has got round constantly without never resolving them. Such are the definition of the nature of centrism and the role of the Opposition and its relations with the Party which ensue from all this. In order it can be so, it's necessary that the whole organization and firstly the E.C. strictly respect the rule of democracy in the discussion, the widest one, making all efforts to allow it without trouble, to avoid any deviation tending to transform the political discussion into a question of discipline even though there is characterized indiscipline and up to the latest limit (the struggle against the organization externally), without any sanction against anybody.

Furthermore, we must prevent that it takes a poisoned turn of persons quarrel or that it attempts to explain all by the psychological character of such or such comrade (4). All this, voluntarily or not, hushes up the discussion and drawes a veil over the real disagreements which are emerging.

I know this is a difficult task. I know that during that time, the external activity of the organization suffers terribly. I know that when a responsible leadership is confronted with comrades who, for the interest of their fractional policy, resort to passivity and even sabotage, it is oftenly led to act without always worrying of the organization rules. An impatient reaction can be sometimes explained, but to justify it and to admit it as a behaviour rule would be extremely dangerous and damaging.

I must say my straight thought. The majority of the E.C. comrades are unfortunately swept along in this way. In their impatience to resolve the crisis of the Paris region and to see a better activity, these comrades less and less worry of its political character and of regular methods of a communist organization.

This leads us to the core of the problem of the internal regime and methods within the organization. If it's childish and ridiculous willing to resolve the political disagreements, and even more to build up an organization, with an "hygienic brush" (Raymond), we get to the same result when one wants to lead a right policy in an wrong internal regime and by arbitrary methods.

Today, to illustrate my thought, I would just quote two examples which, in my opinion, can give some lights on this point :

1) All the comrades know now that the enlarged EC is definitively postponed until Pentecost. How is it that, after the CN [National Committee ?, translator's note] where it was question to convene an other one after three months, after we were thinking of holding it at Christmas, and after we had definitively voted for Easter, this one is postponed until Pentecost ? The reason is simple. During months, the EC from its underestimation of the political divergences, has neglected the preparation, has published no internal bulletin, and through this has made impossible an enlarged EC which would be able to give a response with full knowledge of the facts.

This omission which even unvoluntary is nevertheless arbitrary, produced us months and months of lack of progress in a time we had to act.

2) The last "La Vérité" publishes the EC document for the Party Congress. As we can see through the minutes of the EC, this document has produced great discussions within the EC and has provoked the resignation of the secretariat. How ever we judge this document, it would have been more beneficial and more normal for the organization if this one could have known its content and would have discussed it well before its publication. Whether we consider it right or not, everybody agrees to give it a great importance, whether positive or negative, for the ulterior action of the Opposition in France. Various points : as the electoral tactic and its general orientation were not yet resolved by the League and were even subject to discussion, in no way I can reproach its publication. It was indispensable that the Opposition brought its voice in front of the Party Congress. And the EC had the duty to speak in the name of the organization. But what I do reproach, is that having months behind us to make this document, in agreement with the whole organization, the EC didn't do it. Here we are fully confronted with these methods which, at last, are arbitrary whether we want it or not and whose result is a contempt to the whole organization.

It's time, while fighting for a right policy, that we struggle also to institute a sane internal regime and right methods. The one without the other is inconceivable, is a non sense. It's from this condition that our progress and future depend on.

2. This MC's statement against blind confidence is all the most interesting since it rejects, almost 70 years in advance, the new thesis of the liquidationist ICC about "Confidence" such as it has been developed in the "theoretical" text of the liquidationist faction, Confidence and Solidarity in the struggle of the proletariat, published in the International Review 111 and 112. This text was presented internally as an historical and theoretical advance of marxism (!) and was supposed to legitimize theoretically the Summer 2001 putsch of the liquidationist faction. In a first time, the great majority of the ICC militants were against the political content of this text. They finally "adopted" it not after an open discusion on its content but after having been... "convinced" (?) of the "mortal" threat of our supposed clanism for the ICC and by the need to defend its - formal - unity. Today, obviously, great parts of the ICC are still ashamed of this text since, for instance, it is not available in the french, english, nor spanish web pages of the ICC [Translator's note for the english and spanish versions of this bulletin 29].

3. Again, it's worth to notice that MC's comments reject 70 years in advance the July 2001 destitution of the Paris Organizational Committee regularly elected a few months before and its substitution by the two liquidationists Peter and Bruno... So many parallels... The reader who would be interested to this specific point, can refer to the Epilogue of our History of the IS published in our bulletin 25 [Translator's note].

4. Here again, 70 years ago, it is a clear MC's rejection of the psychological method used by the present ICC liquidationists and a rejection of the famous thesis of clanism as key and central method to explain the organizational crisis of the workers movement as do the present ICC (and to which the majority of our fraction members unfortunately participated to develop at the time) [translator's note].