3 May 1952 Political Bureau of the PCI (French Section) Adopted by 4 votes for (Frank, Privas, Albert [Mandel], M. Mestre), 3 against (Bleibtreu, Garnier [Renard], Lambert)
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The Political Bureau, in rejecting the document submitted as a draft political resolution by comrades Bleibtreu, Lambert, Renard and Garrive, is obliged to declare before the whole party the following:
This document, in its form as in its substance, is a flagrant violation of the agreement concluded at the Tenth Plenum by the representatives of the party majority, and of the framework text adopted by them in the Political Bureau at the opening of the discussion preparing for the Eighth Congress of the party.
The line of the Tenth Plenum is that of entrism sui generis, the independent party adapting its development and its tasks to the primary needs of the entrist sector, which must progressively expand. The rejected draft political resolution defines as its line the rejection of entrism, and substitutes for it a narrow "faction work" reserved for those party comrades alone who are not rooted in the working class.
Far from striving to apply in France the line of the Tenth Plenum, which the comrades of the party majority have nonetheless on several occasions and solemnly pledged to apply, their document in substance fights against this line. Moreover it does so in a veiled and underhand manner, without daring clearly to counterpose to it a different orientation, feigning ignorance of the decisions taken at the Tenth Plenum and thereby sowing the worst confusion in the party. The maneuvering character of the majority's proposals appears most clearly in their offer to adopt — with amendments — the text on entrism presented by comrade Privas, while their draft political resolution implicitly and explicitly rejects the orientation put forward by comrade Privas. This is why the majority of the Political Bureau has decided to incorporate this document into its political resolution adopted by the Political Bureau on 20 March, and to present these two texts, which form only one whole, together before the party congress.
The party is faced with the necessity of an important and difficult turn in all fields of its activity. This turn, made necessary by changes in the objective situation, has in any case been decided by the responsible bodies of the International. The draft political resolution presented by the majority of the Seventh [sic] Congress of the party constitutes at once a refusal to carry out a turn, an attempt to do everything possible to prevent this turn from being carried out rapidly, freely and enthusiastically by the party, and an inability to counterpose an alternative path to the path of party-building decided by the international leadership. The new Political Bureau cannot characterize such a document otherwise than as an undertaking of division and disintegration of the party.
The document presented by comrades Bleibtreu, Lambert, Renard and Garrive was drawn up outside the Political Bureau, blocking all activity of the Political Bureau for four weeks, without any discussion with comrade Albert, who is responsible for the French section before the IEC and whose capacity to correctly interpret the line of the Tenth Plenum the aforementioned comrades have declared they do not doubt. This document is the fruit of their refusal of such prior discussion, a refusal repeated in the face of comrade Albert's incessant efforts to obtain it. Under these conditions, the very manner in which this text was drafted cannot be characterized by the Political Bureau otherwise than as a premeditated act of hostility towards the line of the International, incompatible with the commitments made at the Tenth Plenum. This document has no other purpose than to perpetuate the crisis and paralysis of the party.
It confirms at the same time the intention of the leaders of the majority tendency to continue an uninterrupted and violent tendency struggle throughout the whole period of application of the line decided by the International, a period during which, according to the statutes of the International, such a struggle should pass completely into the background. This represents, on the part of the leaders responsible for the majority tendency in the party, a veritable break with the elementary principles of Bolshevik organization. The Political Bureau will consequently be obliged to appeal to the next IEC and to ask it that, for a long period, the comrades responsible for such acts, prejudicial to the party, be considered, as a tendency, disqualified from holding any leadership post in the party.
The majority of the Political Bureau, designated by the Tenth Plenum, has carefully abstained from manifesting itself as such by any measure whatsoever, until open and repeated acts of hostility towards the International had been committed by the representatives of the Political Bureau of the party majority (campaign against the publication of the report of the Tenth Plenum in Quatrième Internationale; the draft political resolution currently presented; the maintenance of a declaration on the Tenth Plenum agreement which distorts the meaning of that agreement, etc.). Since these acts have accumulated, it is now firmly resolved to act collectively to carry out the mandate it received from the Tenth Plenum: to defend the International and its political orientation within the French section.
The draft political resolution rejected by the Political Bureau risks deflecting the discussion before the Eighth Congress, and at the congress itself, into the byways of an academic polemic, vain and of no practical interest whatsoever for the party. From the very morrow of the congress, it is the whole party that will have to apply, and apply immediately, the line of the Tenth Plenum, in order to remain disciplined to the International and to make use of the possibilities now more than ever offered in France. The Political Bureau calls on the whole party to ignore the sterile polemic begun by the representatives of the majority and to set itself a single goal in the discussion before the congress: how to arm the party to the maximum for the most effective and most fruitful possible application of the line already decided. Only this line permits the integration of Trotskyism into the revolutionary struggles now being prepared. Only this line permits the building of a genuine revolutionary leadership: for all the regions and all the cells of the party, there is, between now and the congress, only one watchword: to study and to work to apply the line of the Tenth Plenum!
The Political Bureau decides that the present declaration, together with the letter from comrade Albert to the majority tendency of 22 April last, shall be immediately brought to the knowledge of the whole party. It requests the IS to also bring them to the knowledge of all members of the IEC.
3 May 1952
Adopted by 4 votes for (Frank, Privas, Albert, M. Mestre), 3 against (Bleibtreu, Garnier [Renard], Lambert).