Pole of Communist Revival in France

This article is a stub. You can help improve this article by editing it.

Pole of Communist Revival in France Pôle de renaissance communiste en France
Abbreviation	PRCF
President	Léon Landini (since 2004)
Secretary	Fadi Kassem (since 2021) Georges Gastaud (2004-2021)
Founded	January 18, 2004
Split from	French Communist Party
Newspaper	Initiative Communiste (monthly magazine) Etincelles (theoretical review)
Youth wing	Jeunes pour la renaissance communiste en France
Political orientation	Communism Marxism-Leninism Socialist patriotism
International affiliation	WAP
Colours	Red White Blue
Website
https://www.initiative-communiste.fr/
Twitter	@https://x.com/prcf_?lang=en
YouTube channel	https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnuhdhEWEKHv0OJ_J2v-Z7Q
Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/PRCF.Initiative.Communiste/events/?_rdr

The "Pole of Communist Revival in France" (Pôle de renaissance communiste en France in French, PRCF), is a French communist political movement. The PRCF was founded in 2004 by former militants of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français in French, PCF), disgruntled by the party's turn towards reformism and revisionism.

The PRCF declares its main objective as being the reconstitution of a "truly communist party" in France under Marxist-Leninist lines. Its youth wing is the "Youth for Communist Revival in France" (Jeunes pour la renaissance communiste en France in French, JRCF). It publishes a monthly magazine called "Communist Intiative" (Initative communiste in French, IC) and a tri-monthly review containing historical analyses and delineations of Marxist theory called "ÉtincelleS" (French for "spark").

The current President of the PRCF is Léon Landini, former resistance fighter with the Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI) during the Nazi occupation of France and one of the founders of the PRCF alongside philosopher Georges Gastaud and long time deputy of the French National Assembly Georges Hage. The current National Secretary of the PRCF is Fadi Kassem, who succeeded Georges Gastaud in 2021. Gastaud had fulfilled the role since the founding of the organization in 2004. Notable members of the PRCF include French-Algerian author and journalist Henri Alleg, known for his autobiographical work La Question, in which he describes the use of torture by French troops during the Algerian War of Independence, and author Aymeric Monville.

History

Gradual turn of the French Communist Party towards revisonism

The history of the PRCF is inextricably connected with the gradual transition of the PCF from Marxism-Leninism towards reformism and revisionism, a trend seen in other communist parties in Europe.

During the XXII Congress in 1976, the PCF under the leadership of Georges Marchais officially abandons the Marxist-Leninist notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Torn between upholding the actually existing socialism of the Soviet Union and a partial participation in bourgeois democracy, the PCF begins to align itself with the Eurocommunist positions of other European communist parties such as the Communist Party of Spain under Santiago Carrillo and the Italian Communist Party under Enrico Berlinguer.

In 1981, the PCF is invited by the social-democratic Socialist Party (Parti socialiste in French, PS) to participate in the second cabinet of Pierre Mauroy under the presidency of François Mitterand. The invitation is accepted by the PCF leadership who manages to include several exponents in various ministeries. Following the collapse of Mauroy's second cabinet, the PCF is again invited as a partner in Mauroy's third cabinet, maintaining the same posts as the preceding government.

In 1984, Marchais decides to withdraw the party from Mitterand's government, a move who produced a significant dissent among some members of the party leadership. The reasons for the party's withdrawal is Mitterand's abandonment of his original electoral program, the PCF's poor results at the European elections (garnering only 11.2%, down from 20.5 in 1979), and the party's overall decline in domestic support.

In 1991, following the undemocratic and illegal overthrow of the Soviet Union, Marchais refuses to change the PCF's name unlike several other European communist parties.

Despite upholding democratic centralism as the organizational model of the PCF, the transition from Marxism-Leninism to a revisionist form of socialism (de facto social democracy) becomes evident under the leadership of Marchais's successor. In 1994, Robert Hue succeeds Marchais as the party's leader. In a context of a rapid decrease in domestic support following the overthrow of actually existing socialism in Eastern Europe, the leadership of the PCF continues the party's shift to the right towards social democratic positions.

Marxist-Leninist dissent within the French Communist Party

During the XXIX Congress in 1996, seeing the PCF's gradual mutation into a revisionist party, several members including Georges Gastaud, Henri Alleg, Jean-Jacques Karman, and Rémy Auchedé announce the creation of a document protesting the party's ideological transformations. The document stated the group's opposition against the party's association in Jospin's government, its cooperation with the PS, as well as its refusal to condemn the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which strongly solidified the European Union as a bourgeois, imperialist, and undemocratic institution. The PCF's newspaper L'Humanité, however, refuses to publish it.

Seeing participation in bourgeois governments as the only real solution to the decline, Hue declared his support for a Plural Left government and in 1997, enters the coalition headed by social-democrat Lionel Jospin.

In 1998, Georges Gastaud announced the creation of "Communist Coordination" (Coordination communiste in French), a Marxist-Leninist organization composed of PCF members strongly critical of its revisionist leadership.

In 2002, the Marxist-Leninist dissent within the PCF culminated in the creation of the "National Federation of Associations for Communist Revival" (Fédération nationale des associations pour la renaissance communiste in French, FNANC) by Gastaud and Hage. The FNANC also calls for an extraordinary congress to stop the revisionist turn of the PCF.

Founding of the PRCF

In 2004, the main organizers within FNANC founded the PRCF, electing Landini as President and Gastaud as the National Secretary.

Ideology

Marxism-Leninism

The PRCF is a Marxist-Leninist organization, its main objective being the reconstruction of a communist party in France under Marxist-Leninist principles following the organizational structure of democratic centralism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the theory of scientific socialism elaborated by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. While following democratic centralist principles of party organization, it does not declare itself a party.

It campaigns for four main "exits", namely the exit from the European Union (which it calls a "progressive Frexit"), the euro, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and most importantly, capitalism as a whole.

Socialist patriotism

The PRCF puts a strong focus on French patriotism and national sovereignty. It upholds the use of the French flag at most events, defends the use of the French language against attempts of "Anglicizing" French culture, and calls for a "Red and Tricolour Alternative" (Alternative Rouge et Tricolore in French). As such, it also refers to several historical figures in the French communist movements including Maurice Thorez, Marcel Cachin, Jacques Duclos, and Benoît Frachon. The PRCF also defends the heritage of the communist movement in France and the world, including events such as the Paris Commune, the Russian revolution of 1917, the French resistance to Nazi occupation, and the participation of communist ministers in the French national unity government after World War II, while strongly rejecting the European Union's likening of the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany. In addition to communist figures, it retains a positive view of the French Revolution, the Jacobins, and Maximilien de Robespierre, deeming them progressive elements.

Anti-imperialism

On the international stage, the PRCF supports the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Vietnam, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Laos as living examples of actually existing socialism. In 2023, party cadre Aymeric Monville visited Xinjiang as part of a tour against misinformation on China's role in an alleged Uyghur genocide. In general, it critically supports countries that are not socialist but play an important role in the fight against US imperialism. For example, while condemning Vladimir Putin's anti-communist justifications for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and its reactionary capitalist leadership of Russia, it nevertheless sees the continous provocations of United States and its European proxies as the main cause of the conflict, thus rejecting the thesis that the current conflict is inter-imperialist in nature. Similarly, while condemning the Venezuelan government's attacks on the Communist Party of Venezuela (Partido Comunista de Venezuela in Spanish, PCV), it defends the Bolivarian Revolution and its fight against US imperialism.

Organization

The PRCF is organized in what it calls "Associations for Communist Revival" (Associations pour la Renaissance Communiste in French, ARC), organizations dependent on the party's national leadership who represent the militants of each French département.

Electoral program

In view of the 2024 French legislative elections, the PRCF submitted a 30-point program. These points include:

1. Proclaiming the Superiority of French Laws over European Directives; initiate the urgent process of exiting the EU and the euro, re-establish national and popular sovereignty in all areas: political, military, monetary, budgetary, etc.
2. Re-establish the One and Indivisible Republic; end euro-metropolises and euro-regions; strengthen the triptych of communes-departments-nation; promote inter-municipal cooperation on equal and cooperative bases; complete decolonization and socio-economic revitalization of overseas territories.
3. Democratize Public Life; implement proportional representation in all elections; introduce citizen-initiated referendums; initiate a democratic process leading to a new Constituent Assembly; nationalize major media outlets and re-establish a pluralistic and democratic media landscape.
4. Eradicate Corruption; establish citizen committees against corruption; enforce binding and recallable mandates for all elected officials; prohibit lobbying by interest groups.
5. Restore a Safe France; dismiss all fascist and racist elements within state institutions; combat all forms of crime (especially white-collar crime, various trafficking, and organized crime) and insecurity; repeal liberticidal and xenophobic laws; establish education and work centers (Cedtra) to replace ineffective prisons.
6. Stop all Maastrichtian counter-“reforms”; repeal all directives and policies promoting outsourcing, privatizations (SNCF, EDF-GDF, etc.), and transcontinental industrial mergers like PSA Stellantis.
7. Nationalize banks and major strategic sectors; insurance, armaments, transport infrastructure, large-scale retail, energy, IT communication, pharmaceuticals. Thus, finance SMEs and grant new rights to employees.
8. Rebuild and democratize public services; hospitals, schools and universities, research, equipment, postal service, justice, police, administrative services; defend public servants against incivility and hate calls from reactionary media.
9. Reconstitute artisanal and agricultural structures; end the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the dominance of large-scale distribution and agri-food multinationals; increase state subsidies for small and medium producers and fishermen; rehabilitate local commerce by reducing and regulating urban rents.
10. Engage in the environmental transition; tax transcontinental road freight in favor of rail freight and train lines; implement a national energy plan based on the nuclear sector and the increase of renewable energies.
11. Restore a national currency; exit the euro to return to the Banque de France the power of monetary issuance and financial management.
12. Cancel the so-called "sovereign debt" owed to financial markets; quickly rebuild the French State's capacity to borrow at low rates from the Banque de France to rebuild France for the workers.
13. Control capital at the borders; end the free movement of capital with the repatriation of money hidden in all tax havens; impose drastic taxes on financial gains; confiscate the great fortunes practicing tax evasion.
14. Implement a tax reform that severely taxes large capital and billionaires; gradually return 2/3 of the created value to wages instead of capital; 14 income tax brackets to target the richest; reduce CSG (General Social Contribution) and VAT on everyday products.
15. Rebalance local taxes nationally so that wealthy municipalities help poor municipalities to equip themselves and build social housing to accommodate a share of migrants.
16. Significantly increase incomes; minimum wage to 2000 euros, small and medium salaries (notably in female-dominated professions – healthcare, education, etc. – and subcontracting), small and medium pensions, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, and scholarships.
17. Restore full pension at age 60 with 37.5 years of contributions and gradually return to 100% reimbursement of medical expenses by Social Security.
18. Rehabilitate work in France; give permanent status to precarious workers in the public sector and strengthen permanent contracts (CDI) in the private sector; restore the national Labor Code, the hierarchy of norms, and unemployment benefits; gradually reduce the weekly working hours to 32 hours.
19. Extend workers' rights; increase the control of works councils in the management of medium and large enterprises, both public and private; strengthen workers' rights and union freedoms in all companies; align the average female salary with the average male salary within five years.
20. Guarantee housing for all; 100,000 additional social housing units per year; requisition vacant rental buildings; end evictions; progressively ban all real estate speculation; constitutionalize the right to housing.
21. Rebuild a national and democratic public education system; a national baccalaureate worthy of its name, with philosophical education for all in the final year; end Parcoursup and the "shock of knowledge"; repeal the Blanquer law creating EPLEIs; end the counter-“reforms” of public research (including CNRS) and universities.
22. Implement a progressive linguistic policy against the dominance of English; strictly apply and strengthen the Toubon Law of 1994; revitalize the Francophonie, open to the world and respectful of national and local languages; national public education of regional languages, Arabic, and Chinese.
23. Strictly enforce secularism; extend the 1905 law to Alsace, Moselle, and Mayotte; fight against all religious fundamentalism and against anti-secular and anti-republican exploitation of religions.
24. Defend strict republican equality; engage in a permanent fight against fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and separatism (communitarian, regionalist, and class-based), especially within the business sector, elected officials, and the state apparatus.
25. Place culture at the heart of human emancipation; strengthen the status of intermittent workers in the arts; state subsidies for national and local institutions (literature, theater, cinema, libraries, opera, music, youth and cultural centers...), particularly in working-class neighborhoods and rural municipalities.
26. Conduct a foreign policy of independence and international cooperation; exit from the Atlantic Alliance; recognition of the Palestinian State; end sanctions against countries targeted by the United States (notably Cuba); democratic reform of the UN increasing the rights of the General Assembly and ending the veto power in the Security Council.
27. Restore military sovereignty; exit from NATO; maintain a nuclear deterrent exclusively for the defense of national territory; establish a new military combining professional soldiers with citizen conscription based on a "nation in arms" principle.
28. Break away from capitalist globalization; exit from the IMF, WTO, and World Bank; end major "free trade agreements" (such as TTIP, CETA, etc.) in favor of relationships based on solidarity among sovereign and equal peoples, ecological planning, scientific cooperation, and regulated exchanges.
29. Adopt a humane and realistic migration policy; exit from the Schengen Area to control border checks; regularization of all undocumented immigrants; combatting smugglers and traffickers; cooperation and co-development with countries of origin to address the causes of emigration and promote the right to return for immigrants who wish to do so.
30. Redefine relations with "Southern countries"; end the Françafrique system by terminating "French" economic empires and neocolonial interventions in Africa; establish friendship and co-development treaties on equal and fraternal bases with countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Mediterranean.

Militancy

Since its founding, the PRCF has been a strongly militant force in the French communist scene.

In 2006, it participated in mass protests and strikes against the passing of the law regarding the "First Employment Contract" (contrat première embauche in French, CPE).

In 2012, it participated in mass protests against the European Union's austerity measures, continuing to maintain that European institutions are irreformable and reactionary.

Since 2018, it has supported the yellow vest movement, called for the mass participation of its members in the protests, as well as the agitation of Marxist-Leninist principles within organizations related to the movement.

Since 2022, it has been active in the protests against the pension reforms of President Emmanuel Macron and the government of Élisabeth Borne.

On February 4, 2023, the PRCF organized an event commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad in Paris. The event was briefly interrupted by a counter-protest organized by a group of Ukrainian nationalists.

Other initiatives

The PRCF has called for its members to organize in trade unions as much as possible, mainly among the revolutionary currents of the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération Générale du Travail in French, CGT).

The PRCF often participates in the Fête de l'Humanité, a yearly festival organized by the leftist newspaper L'Humanité. It also participates, alongside several other left-wing organizations and trade unions, to the yearly commemoration of the Paris Commune at the Mur des Fédérés in Paris.

The PRCF is the main organizer of the Café Marxiste, an event taking place several times every month aimed at informing and sensitizing participants on a variety of historical, theoretical, and current issues at the national, European, and international stage. The Café Marxiste is also active on social media, especially on YouTube, with the organizers publishing a livestream of every event on its channel.

Several members of the PRCF are contributors to the left-wing publishing house "Les éditions Delga".

In 1992, several future members and leaders of the PRCF, including Henri Alleg, founded the "Honecker Committee for Internationalist Solidarity" (Comité Honecker de solidarité internationaliste in French), an organization aiming to defend the former leader of the German Democratic Republic Erich Honecker following the annexation of his country by the West German bourgeois state. While largely inactive, the organization still exists today under the name of the "Internationalist Committee for Class Solidarity" (Comité internationaliste pour la solidarité de classe in French, CISC).

Participation in bourgeois elections

While calling to boycott participation in European elections the PRCF has sometimes called to support candidates in national and local elections and has also presented its own candidates.

In 2005, it called for rejecting the establishment of a European Constitution and strongly campaigned for a "no" vote at the referendum on the matter.

During the first round of the 2017 presidential elections, the PRCF calls to support left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. After Mélenchon's failure to reach the second round, a duel between neoliberal Emmanuel Macron and far-right Marine Le-Pen, the PRCF rejects voting for the "lesser evil" and calls for its supporters to abstain from voting.

In 2021, the PRCF chooses to present Fadi Kassem, the organization's National Secretary, as a candidate to the 2022 presidential elections. Following a campaign to include other left-wing parties and figures under a proposed "Red and Tricolour Alternative" list, the PRCF ultimately failed to receive the necessary signatures to officialize the nomination. The PRCF's campaign was mainly a way for the organization to receive national visibility while providing a communist alternative to the plural left candidates, neoliberalism, and the far-right.

In 2024, the PRCF called for a boycott of the European elections, which it sees as contributing to the process of legitimizing the European Union and its institutions, and therefore its neoliberal, imperialist, and anti-democratic policies.

Following Macron's decision to call a snap legislative election after receiving poor results during the European elections in 2024, the PRCF decides to present candidates in several constituencies.

Relations with other organizations

The PRCF maintains relations with several organizations, both nationally and internationally.

Seeing its main objective as the reconstruction of the communist movement in France, it is strongly involved in dialogue with several parties and organizations. The PRCF maintains friendly relations with fellow Marxist-Leninist groups including:

• National Association of Communists (Association national des communistes in French, ANC)
• Communist Rally (Rassemblement communiste in French, RC)
• Communist Action (Action communiste in French, AC).

In addition, it maintains links with other groups including:

• Movement for a Socialism of the 21st Century (Mouvement pour un socialisme du 21e siècle in French, MS21),
• Association for a Constituant (Association pour une constituante in French, AC)
• Party for Deglobalization (Parti de la démondialisation in French, PARDEM).

Despite the similar name, it has negative relations with the Communist Revolutionary Party of France (Parti communiste révolutionnaire de France in French, PCRF).

On the international level, it was a former member of the Initiative of Communist and Workers' Parties (INITIATIVE) until its dissolution in 2023.

It currently maintains favorable international relations with several organizations in othere countries, which it calls "brother parties". These include:

• German Communist Party (Deutsche Kommunistische Partei in German, DKP); Germany
• Party of Labour of Austria (Partei der Arbeit Österreichs in German, PdA); Austria
• Communist Party of Belarus (Коммунисти́ческая па́ртия Белару́си in Russian, Камуністы́чная па́ртыя Белару́сі in Belarusian, KPB); Belarus
• Workers' Party of Korea (조선로동당 in Korean, WPK); Democratic People's Republic of Korea
• People's Democracy Party (민중민주당 in Korea, PDP); Republic of Korea
• Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de Cuba in Spanish, PCC); Cuba
• Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (Partido Comunista de los Pueblos de España in Spanish, PCPE); Spain
• Communist Party (Partito Comunista in Italian, PC); Italy
• Popular Front (Fronte Popolare in Italian, FP); Italy
• Party of Kanak Liberation (Parti de libération kanak in French, Palika); New Caledonia
• African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence (Solidarité Africaine pour la Démocratie et l'Indépendance in French, SADI); Mali
• Polish Communist Party (Komunistyczna Partia Polski in Polish, KPP); Poland
• Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português in Portuguese, PCP); Portugal
• Communist Party (Partito Comunista in Italian, PC); Switzerland
• Communist Party of Ukraine (Комуністична партія України in Ukrainian, Коммунистическая партия Украины in Russian, KPU); Ukraine

On the other hand, relations are somewhat negative with the Communist Party of Greece (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας in Greek, KKE), with which it maintains diverging opinions on the nature of the conflict in Ukraine, a main cause for the dissolution of INITIATIVE. While the KKE believes the conflict is inter-imperialist in nature due to its beliefs in the "imperialist pyramid", the PRCF believes that the main cause of the conflict is NATO, US imperialism, and its European proxies.