Resolution on the French Constitutional Referendum
Adopted: November 12-18, 1946
First Published:January 1947
Source: Fourth International, New York, Volume 8, No.1, January 1947, page 3.
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Daniel Gaido and David Walters, February, 2006
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.
The Parti Communist Internationaliste of France originally took the position that the PCI advocated boycotting the referendum on the proposed Constitution which “sanctioned capitalist exploitation.”
On April 23 the Central Committee of the PCI reversed by a small majority the previous position of the party and called upon the workers to vote “Yes” in the referendum on the Constitution.
In our opinion this position is incorrect. It is impermissible, as a matter of principle, for a revolutionary socialist party to support, or to ask the working class to support, any Constitution which bases itself upon private property in the means of production. Capitalist private property, together with the national state resting on its foundations, is the main source of all the evils suffered by the masses of France: war, the loss of liberties, unemployment, the high cost of living, etc. The abolition of capitalism is the indispensable prerequisite for uprooting these evils and clearing the way for social, economic and political progress in France.
At the very time that the Anglo-American imperialists and their French satellite are preparing for World War III, the proposed Constitution upholds capitalist militarism and sanctifies in advance a new catastrophic blood-bath by the ruling class.
At the very time that the inhabitants of Indo-China are heroically fighting to throw off the yoke of French domination and the best fighters for freedom in Algeria are murdered and jailed by colonial officials, this Constitution provides for the maintenance of French imperialist rule over all its oppressed colonies.
The text of this Constitution, drafted and adopted by the Socialist Party and Communist (Stalinist) Party majority in the Constituent Assembly, continues the treacherous policies of class collaboration by which these parties have led the French working class into its present blind alley.
For these reasons, it is our opinion that the Trotskyists of France should unequivocally oppose this capitalist constitution and any new version of the same thing.
Correction
Source: Fourth International, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 1947, p. 21.
In the introductory note to a document from the history of the French section Fourth International, printed in our September, 1946 issue, reference was made to Pierre Naville as having “remained on the periphery of the revolutionary communist movement prior to the inception of the Trotskyist organization” in France.
We have received a letter from Paris, from George Suter, who states that this reference is factually incorrect. Naville, according to the information of our correspondent, was a member both of the Communist Youth and the French Communist Party since 1926. As a youngster he took active part in the life and action of the party. He belonged to a factory cell of the industrial Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billanconrt, spoke before the factories, distributed leaflets, organized lectures, etc. At the same time he was secretary of the Communist Students and editor of their small paper, L’Avant-Garde. He was also co-editor of the monthly magazine Clarté, which was under the control of the party.
Naville came out for the support of the Left Opposition after a visit to Moscow in November 1927 and this brought about his expulsion from the Communist Party. Following that he published the magazine under the new title of “Lutte de Classes” (Class Struggle) and was in fact among the founders of the weekly La VéritŽé.
Our correspondent, finally, states that Naville did not sever his connections with the French Section of the Fourth International “after the outbreak of World War II,” as stated in our introductory note, but before that time, because of a difference over the tactical policy of entry into the PSOP in 1939.
