The French Socialist-Communist Party. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received from Paul Louis, General Secretary of the French Socialist-Communist Party, a letter concerning the article on International Organisation in our November issue. Below is a translation of the chief passages :—

   Comrade,—I reply briefly to the remarks in your journal relating to our party: (1) Our object is identical with your own; (2) we are advocates of an International Conference to be attended by all the Socialist and Communist parties of the world. The Conference would discuss a programme of action based on Marxian principles. It is on this basis that unity ought to be achieved; (3) for us electoral action is only a means of propaganda. The proletariat will obtain power by revolution or by the breaking up of the capitalist class.

It will be seen that the proposed international conference is to be founded on the illusion that a gathering of socialists and communists could find common ground “based on Marxian principles.” We claim that the anti-working class actions and policies of the communists are in direct contradiction to the essential policies worked out by Marx and verified by experience.

The third point of the letter indicates a dangerous defect in the policy of the French Socialist-Communist Party. The rejection of the vote as a means of obtaining control of the political machinery leaves only one apparent alternative, i.e., the communist policy of attempting to overthrow the armed forces of the State by a working-class uprising. That way lies nothing but disaster.

Edgar Hardcastle