French Communist Party 1932

Declaration of an Ex-Trotskyist


Source: Cahiers du Bolchevisme, 7th year, No. 20, October 15,1932;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2005.


We are publishing the declaration of Comrade Gourget, ex-Trotskyist who, having broken with the Trotskyists and recognized his faults, has addressed a request for reintegration to the leadership of the party.

Despite certain inexactitudes in its terminology, the Political Bureau considers the declaration of Gourget satisfactory. It has decided to propose the reintegration in the Party of Gourget to the next meeting of the Central Committee.

We call on all honest workers, fooled by the Trotskyists, to follow the example of Gourget and break with the Trotskyists groups, whose sole raison d'etre is the splintering of the Communist movement. The doors of the party are open to all those who, having recognized their errors, declare themselves ready to defend the policies of the Party and the Communist International and to respect all their decisions.

Declaration

On the subject of the disagreements on the Russian question between Trotsky and the Opposition on one hand, and the majority of the RCP and the CI on the other, the experiences of the last eight years (1924-1932) have demonstrated the correctness of the line of the RCP. The considerable progress realized on the road to the construction of socialism through the collectivization of land and industrialization, the complete liquidation of unemployment in the middle of the crisis of international capitalism, are the striking proofs of this.
The accusations of national Bolshevism and of breaking with Bolshevism cast by Trotsky and the Opposition against the majority of the RCP are without foundation. This accusation must inevitably lead its authors to open struggle against the CI, to the benefit of the adversaries of Communism of all kinds.

The policies carried out by the CI in Germany, contrary to the allegations of the Opposition, do not oppose the united front of proletarians of all tendencies against the threat of Hitlerite fascism. But it is without any restriction against both the united front “from above” and against any attenuation of the fight against the leaders of Social-Democracy, whose policy of inaction before Hitler’s band and the repression of Communist workers has opened the road to fascist dictatorship.
The victory carried off by the KPD at the last elections, the passing of hundreds of thousands of Social-Democratic workers to Communism, confirm the correctness of the CI’s tactics.

As concerns union unity, the so-called left policy of the Opposition consists in defending in a veiled fashion the dissolution of the CGTU and the unconditional return to the CGT. This policy coincides with the splitting enterprises of Boville and Rambaud, enterprises undertaken for the benefit of reformism. Union unity acquired through abdication before reformism – like the CIS – would be of no benefit to the working masses.
The reinforcement o the CGTU, whose creation was a necessity imposed by the reformists responsible for the split of 1924, is not in contradiction with the struggle for the realization of union unity.

The tactic of “class against class” takes its inspiration essentially from the wish to break all ties with Social-Democracy. It contributes to dissipating the confusion and the idea spread among the masses of a Social-Democracy that despite everything is susceptible of serving the working class, when it is nothing but the hypocritical servant of the bourgeoisie.

I disavow with no reservations my former oppositional activity; a long experience in the ranks of the Opposition has persuaded me that for a Communist worker its path is a dead end. Since 1924 the Opposition groups of the various tendencies, both on the national and the international scale, have failed. The Ligue Communiste, which gives itself the label of “Left” Opposition, is not an exception to this. And this is not a result of chance.

The pretense of the so-called “Left” Opposition to reinforce, to correct the Party and the CI while at the same time combating them from without is vain. Far from serving the Party, this action can only result in the creation of another party.

This is why, committing myself to defending the policies of the Party and the CI, committing myself to respecting its discipline, I am requesting my reintegration in the Communist Party.

Gourget
Unitary unionist, member of the PCF from 1920-26,
expelled for fractional work in 1926