Issuing body: The International Secretariat
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Resolution of the IS
1. Between the Tenth and Eleventh Plenums of the IEC, the IS, in its relations with the French section, strictly applied the letter and spirit of the agreement of the Tenth Plenum: to associate the two tendencies of the PCI in the application of the line of the International before, during and after the Eighth Congress of the party. The representatives of the IS within the French leadership made particular efforts to bring the leaders of the Bleibtreu-Lambert tendency to the joint drafting of political documents preparatory to the Eighth Congress of the party. To these efforts at association, pursued over several months, the leaders of the Bleibtreu-Lambert tendency responded by refusing to discuss matters beforehand with the representatives of the IS and the IEC, and by drafting, in factional meetings, political documents opposed to the line of the Tenth Plenum. In so doing they broke the agreement of the Tenth Plenum, which envisaged not a fully sovereign congress of the PCI — which would have been contrary to the statutes after the congress of the International — but a congress sovereign only within the framework of the application of the line of the Tenth Plenum. The breach of the Tenth Plenum agreement by the leaders of the Bleibtreu-Lambert tendency was carried out despite all the warnings of the members of the IS, who explained to the representatives of this tendency that such a violation of the commitment made before the whole International would entail their disqualification from leading the French section as a tendency.
2. The Eleventh Plenum of the IEC, drawing the conclusions from the violation of the agreements of the Tenth Plenum by the leaders of the Bleibtreu-Lambert tendency, decided that the application of the line of the International in France could no longer be guaranteed unless the leadership of the French section was composed, in its majority, of comrades who had shown in practice their will and their capacity to apply this line. At the same time it warned all members of the PCI that only those who recognised the decisions of the International as binding on the whole party — that is, only those who recognise international discipline — could remain members of the Fourth International and of its French section. It decided finally that this change of leadership would take effect only at the Eighth Congress of the party, and that until the Eighth Congress the leadership of the party would remain unchanged as it had been since the Tenth Plenum of the IEC.
3. The resolution of the Eleventh Plenum of the IEC, as well as the letter sent by the IEC to all members of the PCI, specified at the same time that the sole condition for belonging to the International and to its French section was, as the statutes of the International require, the recognition and application of international discipline in action. The IEC gave its solemn guarantee that, as in the past, no member of our international organisation would be sanctioned for his ideas, for the defence of his ideas within the organisation, or for the constitution of a tendency.
4. Already during the session of the Eleventh Plenum, the representative of the Bleibtreu-Lambert tendency on the IEC announced to the members of the IEC that his tendency had decided not to recognise and not to carry out the organisational decisions that would be taken by the IEC concerning the leadership of the French section. His words left no further doubt as to the decision of the leaders of this tendency to split from the International. The acts of these leaders were, for once, to remain faithful to their words. In the aftermath of the Eleventh Plenum, they took part in only a few meetings of the PB [Political Bureau], and even then only to violate its decisions openly. Then they ceased all participation in the work of the PB, illegally convened the CC [Central Committee] outside the PB or the secretariat, by the sole decision of a faction, and expelled from the organisation those party members who had remained faithful to the International. They thus clearly manifested their resolve to prevent, by every means, the holding of the Eighth Congress of the party, a congress at which they could no longer obtain a majority for the split with the International. This resolve had already previously been made clear by their sabotage of the publication of the political documents of the congress, by their sabotage of the political discussion in the party, and by their decision to fix the congress of the youth organisation on the same days as the congress of the party.
5. The IS fully approves the decision of the tendency of the PCI that has remained faithful to the International to refuse to recognise and apply all the decisions taken by the Bleibtreu-Lambert faction in violation of international discipline. It approves in particular, and salutes, the effort successfully undertaken by this tendency to prevent the splitters from carrying off, in their split, the technical apparatus of the party, which is the property of the International. It declares illegal the following decisions taken by the Bleibtreu-Lambert faction, and calls on all party members to ignore them completely:
a) The convening of the CC of 29 June, which was not proposed beforehand nor decided by the PB and the secretariat of the party, regularly constituted at the Tenth Plenum and recognised by the whole party.
b) The "suspension" of the members of the CC faithful to the International, in violation of the decision of the Eleventh Plenum, which forbids any modification in the composition of the leading bodies of the party before the Eighth Congress.
c) The designation of a new "PB", which violated the same decision of the Eleventh Plenum.
d) The measures of expulsion taken against comrades who stand on the ground of international discipline, taken in violation of the statutes of the International.
e) The decision of the Bleibtreu-Lambert faction to sabotage the Eighth Congress of the party, democratically and regularly convened by its regular leadership.
6. The IS reminds all members of the PCI that only those who recognise and carry out the decisions of the Eleventh Plenum and of the Eighth Congress of the party — convened by its regular leadership functioning since the Tenth Plenum — will be considered members of the International and of its French section. All those who, by whatever acts, refuse to recognise and apply these decisions will automatically be excluded from the International at the close of the Eighth Congress.
The IS calls on all members of the party to demonstrate their loyalty to the International and to Trotskyism by causing every splitting adventure to fail. The Fourth International remains open to all Trotskyist militants who recognise its programme and its international discipline. Those who break with it under base pretexts will be treated as the renegades and enemies of the organisation that they are.
The French section of the Fourth International will continue to build itself with all the revolutionary militants who put proletarian internationalism into practice and thereby show themselves worthy of the historic tasks which their International is called upon to resolve.
The IS calls on all sections of the International to demonstrate, on the occasion of the Eighth Congress of the French section of the Fourth International, their full and complete solidarity with all the French comrades faithful to the world party of the socialist revolution.
The International Secretariat 1 July 1952