Of interest mainly to leftist trainspotters...
See below a report on the French NPA Crisis, written by Wilfried duBois
and translated from German by Deepl! The crisis in the NPA. "On the
Crisis of the NPA and the "Révolution Permanente" Fraction
The crisis of the (no longer quite) "New Anti-Capitalist Party" in
France, which has been going on for a long time, took on a new dimension
in the run-up to a congress last summer/autumn and has come to a head
again and acutely in the last few days. The 5th Congress of the NPA,
which had already been publicly convened in mid-September 2020 for the
end of January, had to be postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic
before the end of the year. Now there has been another episode in the
process of decline of this party, once started with high hopes, which
will probably lead to a split (or several).
Political life in France is already much determined or "overdetermined"
by the presidential elections, which will probably take place in May
2022 as usual with two rounds of elections. Even a political formation
like the NPA, which is oriented towards struggles, social movements and
shifts in the balance of power, especially in the extra-parliamentary
space, cannot escape this.
It does so under the conditions of deep factionalisation that has
persisted for years, a lack of majority (or negative majorities) and a
resulting paralysis and lack of leadership. A comparatively large,
somewhat heterogeneous 48 or 49 per cent minority at the time of the
last Congress is opposed by a bloc of opposition groupings or public
fractions or factions, some of which use the NPA and some of which are
in the Fourth International (but in the small minority or public
fraction called the Platform for a Revolutionary International), and
some of which are outside and are declared opponents of the "United
Secretariat". The opposition groups, each leading its own life and
having different publications, had together also come close to 50% of
the delegates at the last congress and consequently have close to 50% of
the mandates in the rather large and quite infrequently meeting
governing body "Conseil politique national" (CPN) and can generally make
it impossible for the largest minority, which fell just short of a
majority, to develop a policy for the organisation as a whole.
Against the background of this persistently muddled and hopeless
internal organisational situation and an atmosphere that is felt and
described everywhere as unbearable, there have been considerations of an
amicable split (and there have been reports in the daily Le Monde of a
possible imminent "implosion" of the NPA). This has been immediately and
firmly rejected and reproached by the addition of the opposition
factions - who do not agree on much beyond the axiom that the NPA must
be a rrrevolutionary party (i.e. something different from the original
project expressed in the term "anti-capitalist").
The fierce internal disputes took a new turn a few days ago with the
announcement of a very journalistically active faction. This grouping
used to call itself the "Courant Communiste Révolutionnaire" (CCR) and
now calls itself "Révolution Permanente" almost exclusively after its
well-made and frequently updated website.
It has been noted from various quarters for years that the CCR has an
extremely negative relationship with the NPA and practices something
like entrism in it. It is avowedly the French section of a "Fracción
Trotskista - Cuarta Internacional".
This international fraction has organisations in 14 countries and runs
frequent websites, mostly updated daily, in seven or eight languages. It
is represented in the USA, Europe and most strongly in Latin America,
where Argentina has been by far the strongest from the beginning. It was
built up in the course of the 1990s by the Argentinian "Partido de los
Trabajadores Socialistas" (PTS). Among other things, the PTS runs the
website "La Izquierda Diario", has built up a number of advance
organisations and is part of the "Frente de Izquierda y de los
Trabajadores-Unidad" (FIT, since 2019 FIT-U), an electoral alliance of
three, later four, Trotskyist organisations that has existed since 2011
and has two seats in the Chamber of Deputies and numerous mandates at
provincial and municipal level. The PTS can be considered a solid small
party, influential in the trade union movement and in the country's
politics, and at the same time a markedly rigid formation with sectarian
deformations.
The CCR, founded in 2010 or 2011 in the course of the preparation of the
NPA's I Congress, sees itself as part of the "left wing" of the NPA and
has entered into various alliances with other opposition tendencies or
public factions before the congresses, similarly calling for a
transformation of the NPA into a revolutionary party.
The CCR, founded in 2010 or 2011 in the course of the preparation of the
I Congress of the NPA, sees itself as part of the "left wing" of the NPA
and, prior to the congresses, has entered into various alliances with
other oppositional tendencies or public fractions. The CCR, founded as
part of the "left wing" of the NPA, has entered into different alliances
before the Congresses with other oppositional tendencies or public
fractions, which similarly advocate the transformation of the NPA into a
revolutionary party; reject any cooperation and selective candidacy with
the Front de Gauche in the past, La France Insoumise in the present, in
the name of dissociation from reformism and revolutionary
self-understanding; fundamentally reject the leading comrades of the
NPA, who embody the tradition and the "political capital" of the
"Ligue", and their political orientation, and fiercely fight against
them both internally and in public.
Profound differences of opinion in the NPA, which had played a minor
role in the phase of the founding process and at the founding congress
in February 2009, but which soon (again) erupted massively and
contributed enormously to the rapid loss of prestige and members, have
not remained internal from the beginning, but have been fought out
publicly. Thus, at the NPA Summer University at the end of August 2020,
a panel discussion entitled "What will the next NPA Congress be about?"
has been part of the programme.
On Easter Monday, 5 April, the public faction CCR-Révolution Permanente
announced on its website and through its "social media" that one of its
leading members was a "pre-candidate" in the "présidentielle", i.e. the
first round of the presidential elections next year. This was a day
after a meeting of the CPN, the highest body of the NPA between its
congresses (in effect, almost like something like a "small party
congress"). On the same day, a communiqué was issued on behalf of the
NPA denying that the comrade was "the candidate" or "the 'pre-candidateʻ
of the NPA" and sharply rebuking the current "CCR-Révolution Permanente".
The group responded on Tuesday 6 April by publishing a communiqué signed
"Le NPA-Révolution Permanente", calling the communication on the NPA
website "mendacious and illegitimate". On the same day, a communiqué
from the "pre-candidate" was published. This was followed on Wednesday 7
April by the announcement of his appearance on a television programme
("Pre-candidate for the NPA: Anasse Kazib this Thursday as a guest of
Aude Lancelin!"). On Friday 9 April, a long article appeared, signed
"Comité de Rédaction" (i.e., by the leadership of the organisation),
justifying the pre-candidacy as "a starting point for the construction
of a Revolutionary Workers Party".
The "pre-candidacy" operation has been prepared and accompanied by a new
slogan of the CCR: "parti révolutionnaire des travailleurs"
("Revolutionary Party of the Working [or Labouring] People"). For the
sake of form, it is said that they wanted to hold the debate in the NPA.
However, there are indications that they have decided to go their own
way entirely and no longer settle for the very high degree of autonomy
under the umbrella of a very loose NPA that they have been able to
exploit so far.
They can afford it, they know what they want and have accumulated a
certain weight. The other factions have no project outside the NPA, they
want to maintain a "party" as a front or loose framework for various
factions, in which they can continue to pursue their respective policies
and propaganda undisturbed, but also benefit from what remains of the
NPA's prestige among the public and the "peuple de gauche".
The question will be, firstly, how long such "functioning" can continue
and, secondly, how long the almost majority of the NPA wants to go along
with all this - and whether it can agree on another project. It has
formed a grouping called "regroupement du 3-4 octobre" after the date of
its meeting in the run-up to the 5th congress then planned for early
2021. Comrades of this current (or likewise public faction) try to keep
the shop together and largely determine the face of the "party" and the
content of its publications. However, because of the lack of majorities
in the committees, they cannot act as a real leadership, either
politically or organisationally.
We should prepare ourselves for the fact that it is quite likely that
the NPA will soon be history - at least the New Anti-Capitalist Party as
we have known it: In various components, with quite different ideas,
there is talk of a "dépassement" of the NPA, that is, a "going beyond
the NPA", and a new beginning with a part or parts of the organisation.
Much is difficult to understand and even more difficult to judge from a
distance, from another country with a quite different political culture
in general and very different contours of the organised labour movement
and the social movements, with a much smaller weight of revolutionary
Marxism in the politics and political culture of the country. But a few
broad outlines can be discerned even (and to some extent especially)
from abroad; not a few questions can be asked - and are heard from
different French comrades.
The comrades of the NPA - apart from the failure of their party project,
the sectarianism, as some say, within them and the provocations of an
entrist faction - are faced with another dilemma: they are forced to
take a stand on the only major issue in the politics of their country,
the presidential election and the nomination of candidates. Very many
think: in order to exist politically, the NPA must decide on the
nomination of a candidate. At the same time, its condition will make it
even more difficult for it to clear the enormously high hurdle of the
notorious signatures of hundreds of "élu.e.s" (MPs and mayors). Another
failure could be pre-programmed...
One of the most negative aspects of the current disputes in the NPA and
among the former members of the LCR is that the question of the
presidential election is at the centre of their debates - a peculiarity
of the quasi-monarchical system of the French Fifth Republic. Against
the background of a huge weakening of the camp of the exploited and
oppressed, whose new political representation the NPA once wanted to
become, and the likely scenario that the second round will be a choice
between a hard right (aggressively neoliberal and authoritarian) and the
extreme right, between Macron and Le Pen."
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