FRENCH CP: DEFENDER OF 'DEMOCRACY'

The French Communist Party's 20th Congress held last week, unlike its return to power in 1958. Soviet counterpart in 1956, brought no revelations'. It ran like a well-oiled machine in which delegates played their appointed parts and by acclamation the leadership secured support for allies. a policy which everyon knew in advance was going to be accepted.

This time there was not roots in the working class in even a Garaudy to raise a dissident voice, though the differ- strength, its electoral strength ence between the views of is more interesting from general secretary Georges Marchais and the revisionist former member of the Political more than an electoral machine Bureau would be difficult to discover. and corrupt deputies.

More like a political circus even than past congresses, this Socialist and Communist votes one was also a public relations job. the Gaullists and their allies.

Its aim, above all, was to establish the Communist Party system, which means that there as a respectable governmental is a second ballot if on the partner before the General first vote one candidate does Election due next March. It not secure a clear majority, it was based on the common pro- is necessary to try to gramme established for that other allies, still further to the election with the Socialist right.

Party of François Mitterand and the rump Radicals led by hopes to pull in votes for the Fabre. coalition by attracting all Marchais' opening report those discontented with the attacked what he called 'leftist present Gaullist majority led gesticulations and adventures' by Pierre Messmer. He thus and staked his claim to be a bends over backwards to reresponsible member of a bour- assure Catholics, small geois government. He said that property-owners and peasants the application of the common that nothing will be done to electoral programme did not harm their interests. mean socialism or communism —that would be for later... win votes from the centre The main emphasis was parties, but also from the placed on the Party's accept- Gaullists. 'We want to conance of 'democracy' which, in vince and win, Marchais prothe context of France in 1972, claimed, 'many French people was intended to mean the who until now have supported framework institutions one or another party of the which make up the Fifth majority, but who have had Republic, including the Bona- enough of the government's partist constitution established anti-social policy and who are by General de Gaulle after his angered by a policy which contradicts their idea of what Be reassured, Marchais said France should be like.' in effect to the bourgeoisie. Echoing de Gaulle's phrases, We shall play according to the he seeks to win votes normally rules and if we are placed in cast for the conservative right. power by a parliamentary vote He concluded with an appeal and then lose the majority, we made by Maurice Thorez, shall go meekly into opposition symbol of the turn to the again. But to win a majority Popular Front in the 1930s: the Communist Party had to We are not the party of the win, and give guarantees, to raised fist, we are the party of the outstretched hand to the In the first place the Com- people of France.' munist Party has its alliance At one stage, indeed, with the Mitterand socialists. Thorez proposed what he While the Socialist Party has called 'a French front', embracing all Frenchmen of goodits traditional areas of Will on a nationalist programme.

Remembering the votes Marchais' point of view. In which were lost in the July much of France it is nothing 1968 elections, Marchais wants to reassure the middle-class which exists to support ageing electorate that the Communist Party has nothing to do with Even the combination of revolution.

"The workers will make will not be sufficient to defeat sure,' he said, 'as the CGT has invited them, that nothing will As voting is by a proportional be allowed to perturb the election campaign. The working class of our country... wishes to see the election carried out in order and calm debate:* great democratic Never, says 'Le Monde', has More particularly Marchais the Communist Party given so many pledges of good behaviour and guaranteed to act according to the rules of the svstem.

The delegates modelled their speeches on Marchais' lead. Of course they spoke of low wages, bad conditions and exploitation in their own areas. Their picture of particuNot only does he want to lar aspects of the crisis of French society was • always painted to suggest that the reformist solutions of the common electoral programme would be sufficient.

That was the essential message of the Congress to the working class: trust the Party, elect the coalition to office and your troubles will soon be over as a result of the reforms which we shall sponsor.

In other words, the delegates, wittingly or not, played tusi leadership's sam of cone and working class, lulling it into a false sense that the Party will be able to get something done with the help of its allies.

Hence the attacks on 'leftism' and the appeals for calm and order. Marchais seems to be saying: 'Do not do what your forebears did in May 1936 when, after the election of a Popular Front government, 24 million workers occupied the factories.' It was Thorez who got them to go back to work in 1936 and defused a revolutionary situation, just as today's leaders repeated the betrayal in 1968.

Great prominence was given at the Congress to the Soviet delegation and to the speech of that hardened representative of the Soviet bureaucracy, Michel Suslov. The policy which the French Communist Party puts forward is completely reformist and represents in part the attachment of its leadership to the French bourgeoisie.

But the Soviet bureaucracy also needs a coalition government of the sort which Marchais hopes to see elected in March in order better to pursue its aim of making a global deal with imperialism. This is the real purpose of the Congress and on behalf of this aim the Soviet bureaucracy is prepared to overlook the French Party's condemnation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia in Augest 1968.

Said the Race Relations Board in written evidence to the inquiry: "These agreements had the effect of allowing some Asian bar-loaders to become nonfashioned or flat frame knitters. Although the agreements state of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers in fact does not have any laid-down procedure in the NJIC agreement for setting a dispute in motion.

There are several stages of conciliation and arbitration, ending with the sending of the dispute to the government-with