80 years ago, the founding of the Gauche Communiste de France (Part 1)

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Keeping alive the spark of revolutionary organisation

In January 1945, the first issue of the journal Internationalisme was published, the theoretical organ of the French Fraction of the Communist Left (FFGC), which had been founded a few weeks earlier at its first conference in December 1944. [1] This group, composed of a handful of militants, later took the name Gauche Communiste de France - Communist Left of France - and carried out intense political activity until 1952. [2] By continuing the political line of the Left Fraction of the Communist Party of Italy, it made an invaluable political contribution, particularly on the question of organisation and the conception of militancy. In the depths of the counter-revolutionary night, when revolutionary minorities were considerably reduced and very isolated from the rest of the working class, the GCF was the spark that kept the flame of revolution alive. Since its foundation in 1975, the ICC has never ceased to claim the legacy bequeathed by the Italian Fraction and the GCF. Eighty years after the founding of this group, this article aims to briefly retrace the trajectory of this organisation and, above all, to highlight its main contributions, on the basis of which the ICC was founded 50 years ago.

Defending the role of the fraction

From 1937 onwards, the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left of Italy [3] experienced serious political difficulties, particularly in relation to its analysis of the historical process. The majority of the group, as well as its central organ, began to defend the analysis that the wars of this period were aimed at the massacre of the proletariat and were no longer the product of inter-imperialist antagonisms. This analysis was particularly defended and developed by Vercesi, one of the main leaders of the Italian Fraction, who theorised that capitalism could avoid generalised wars because of its ability to overcome its economic contradictions through the development of the war economy. According to him, the situation of “localised wars” that prevailed at the time, such as in Spain, Ethiopia, Manchuria, etc., should not be seen as a prelude to world war but as a war against the working class, intended to prevent it from taking the path of communist revolution. These serious errors of analysis plunged the Fraction into utter confusion when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. The majority of the Fraction, led by Vercesi, openly theorised the ‘social disappearance of the proletariat in wartime’ and, consequently, the abandonment of organised militant activity. Only a small minority strongly opposed this view. Fleeing the German occupation zone, this handful of militants took refuge in Marseille while attempting to maintain links with other militants in Paris. Thus, unable to establish a clear vision of their role in relation to a coherent analysis of the world situation, the International Communist Left and the Italian Fraction were unable to cope with the test of the outbreak of war.

By September 1939, the International Bureau of the Communist Left had dissolved, the Italian Fraction itself had broken up, and links between the sections had been virtually severed. It was only from June 1940 onwards that political activity was able to resume within the Marseille group, and in the following months the Fraction began to rebuild itself by re-establishing contact with militants scattered throughout France and Belgium. It was under these conditions that the small nucleus of militants living in Marseille succeeded in winning over to its positions a few elements from Trotskyism. A few months later, this small circle of about ten militants, under the leadership of Marc Chirik,[4] formed the French Nucleus of the Communist Left on the basis of a declaration of principles: “In 1942, in the midst of the imperialist war, a group of comrades, breaking organisationally and politically with the confusionism and opportunism of the Trotskyist organisations and with the imperialist war, has constituted itself into a nucleus of the Communist Left on the political basis of the International Communist Left.”[5]

From 1943 onwards, the Italian Fraction and the French Nucleus undertook joint work to openly denounce the imperialist war and defend proletarian internationalism: "Posters denouncing the imperialist war and all military camps were put up in several French cities. Leaflets written in German, English, Italian and French were thrown onto military trains leaving for the front. After the American landing on 6 June 1944, an appeal was made to all soldiers and workers asking them to show their class solidarity across borders; to cease fire and lay down their arms; to unite against global capitalism on ‘the international class front’ with a view to transforming the imperialist war into a civil war for the triumph of the world revolution”.[6]

This intense work, carried out mainly by the French nucleus, resulted in particular in the numerical growth of the group in Marseille and Paris. In December 1944, at its first conference, the nucleus transformed itself into the ‘French Fraction of the Communist Left’. The International Communist Left now had a new Fraction, in addition to the Italian and Belgian Fractions, thereby realising the project formulated in 1937 by the International Bureau of the Communist Left. "The programmatic bases were strictly the same as those of the Italian and Belgian Fractions: the 1938 resolution of the International Bureau of the Communist Left and the entire tradition of Bilan”.[7] The executive committee (EC) elected by the conference included a member of the EC of the Italian faction (MC) to mark the non-autonomous character of the new Fraction.[8]

But the links between the survivors of the Italian Fraction and the French Fraction were to become strained very quickly, due to a certain mistrust of the former towards the latter. In fact, as was recognised at the 3rd conference in May 1944, the Italian Fraction had not completely overcome the crisis that had affected it at the end of the 1930s. The founding of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista (PCInt) in Italy in 1943 had further exacerbated the disorientation and dispersion within the Faction.[9] At its conference in May 1945, the Fraction decided to dissolve itself and for its members to join the new ‘party’ founded in Italy on an individual basis. Only Marc Chirik strongly opposed this decision as long as the positions of the new party, which were poorly understood, could not be verified. Faced with the Fraction's suicidal undertaking,[10] he eventually resigned from its EC, left the conference in protest and decided to continue the revolutionary struggle within the French Fraction. At the end of 1945, the FFGC took the name Gauche Communiste de France. It was now the only revolutionary group determined to continue the revolutionary struggle, firmly based on the heritage and classical positions of the Italian Fraction and the International Communist Left. Taking up the critical approach developed by Bilan in its struggle against the opportunism of the Left Opposition led by Trotsky, the GCF would now continue this struggle within the revolutionary milieu, particularly against the totally opportunist approach on which the Partito Comunista Internazionalista had developed in Italy from 1943 onwards.

The struggle against opportunism within the Communist Left

The Gauche Communiste de France held its second conference in July 1945, during which it adopted a report on the international situation. While defending the classical positions of marxism on the question of imperialism and war, particularly in the face of the aberrations developed by Vercesi, this document constituted a real deepening of the understanding of the main problems facing the working class in the decadence of capitalism. In particular, the GCF understood that the attempts at proletarian reaction from 1943-1944 onwards, as in Italy, had not put an end to the counter-revolution. Learning from the revolutionary wave that arose at the end of the First World War, the world bourgeoisie had prevented any form of proletarian reaction and solidarity on an international scale, using the most cynical and ferocious means to do so.

Moreover, by adopting the position established by the Italian Fraction on the conditions for the emergence of the party,[11] the GCF was able to understand that this was absolutely not on the agenda, and that the task at hand was to continue the work undertaken by the Italian Fraction from the late 1920s onwards. It was under these conditions that the GCF engaged in a fraternal but uncompromising polemic against the catastrophic approach of the PCInt:

“The course is open towards the third imperialist war. It is time to stop playing the ostrich, seeking consolation in a refusal to see the danger. Under present conditions, we can see no force capable of stopping or modifying this course. The worst thing that the weak forces of today's revolutionary groups can do is to try to go up a down staircase. They will inevitably end up breaking their necks…

To throw oneself into the adventurism of artificial and premature party-building not only implies an incorrect analysis of the situation, but means turning away from the real work of revolutionaries today, neglecting the critical elaboration of the revolutionary program and giving up the positive work of forming its cadres.

But there is worse to come, and the first experiences of the party in Italy are there to confirm it. Wanting at all costs to play at being the party in a reactionary period, wanting at all costs to work among the masses means falling to the level of the masses, following in their footsteps; it means working in the trade unions, taking part in parliamentary elections -- in a word, opportunism.

At present, orienting activity towards building the party can only be an orientation towards opportunism”. [12]

And the GCF's criticism did not stop there. The opportunism of the Partito was evident not only in the premature nature of its formation but also in the fact that it had been formed without the slightest clarification or definition of proletarian positions and principles. This is why, from 1945-1946 onwards, the party agreed to integrate into its ranks, without any prior discussion, both the Vercesi tendency, which a few months earlier had been part of the Anti-Fascist Committee in Brussels, and the minority of the Italian Fraction that had joined the anti-fascist militias during the Spanish Civil War, members of the former Union Communiste group and even militants who had participated in the ‘liberation’ of Turin alongside the partisans in 1945. Such was the consistency of this unprincipled conglomerate, the PCInt, in the aftermath of the war. The quest for immediate success and the attraction of the greatest number led it to turn its back completely on the method inherited from the experience of the revolutionary movement in terms of building the organisation, from the formation of the Communist League in 1848 to that of the Bolshevik Party in 1903.

This was the message sent by the GCF in January 1946, drawing a parallel between the opportunistic construction of the Comintern from 1919-1920 and that of the Partito: “In short, the method that the CI would use for the ‘construction’ of the Communist Parties would be the opposite of the method that was used and proved its worth in the building of the Bolshevik Party. It was no longer the ideological struggle around the programme, the gradual elimination of opportunist positions, which, through the triumph of the consistent revolutionary fraction, would serve as the basis for the construction of the Party, but rather the addition of different tendencies, their amalgamation around a deliberately unfinished programme, which would serve as the basis. Selection would be abandoned in favour of addition, principles sacrificed for numerical mass".[13]

The second part of this article will address the last phase of the political life of the GCF and show the contribution of this group to the understanding of the decadence of capitalism and its implications for the positions of revolutionaries.

Vincent, 19 January 2026

 

[1] It is important to note that the activities of the militants of the Communist Left took place for a whole period in clandestinity, under the constant threat of repression not only from the German occupation authorities but also from the ‘liberators’ because of the internationalism of this current, its uncompromising opposition to the war and its refusal to support any imperialist camp.

[2] See our pamphlet in French, La Gauche Communiste de France,

[3] Its determined struggle against the degeneration of the parties of the Communist International led to the expulsion of the Left Fraction of the Communist Party of Italy, with Bordiga at its head, at the Lyon Congress in 1926.

[4] Marc Chirik was a member of the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left at that time. He was also one of the founding members of the International Communist Current. For more information on his political career, see the following series of articles:

[5] "Statut d’organisation de la Fraction Francaise de la Gauche Communiste Internationale”, quoted in our pamphlet The Italian Communist Left, Chapter 8, avalable online. This nucleus set itself the goal of forming the French Fraction of the International Communist Left, but, rejecting the policy of ‘recruitment campaigns’ and ‘infiltration’ practised by the Trotskyists, it refused, under the influence of Marc Chirik, to hastily proclaim the immediate formation of such a fraction.

[6] The Italian Communist Left

[7] This was the name given to the theoretical journal of the Italian Fraction between 1933 and 1938.

[8] The Italian Communist Left

[9] For a more detailed discussion of this subject, see The Italian Communist Left, Chapter 9, The ‘Partito Comunista Internazionalista’

[10] This dissolution was a coup de force and a piece of theatre. It was on the very day of the Conference that the members of the Fraction learned of it by reading the ‘political declaration’ drafted by only part of the Executive Committee. The latter indicated that if this text was not adopted, it would resign in order to defend it as a minority within the Fraction. The declaration was adopted, but in the absence of many militants who had been unable to attend.

[11] Drawing on the experience of the revolutionary movement since the Communist League, the Italian Fraction theorised that the class party could not arise in just any situation, but only in the course of the real development of the class struggle. This is why the Italian Fraction opposed the aberrant decision of Trotsky and the Opposition to form the Fourth International in the midst of counter-revolution, on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War.

[12] “The task of the hour: formation of the party or formation of cadres”, Internationalisme 12, August 1946, republished in International Review 32

[13] “À propos du 1er congrès du Parti communiste internationaliste d’Italie,” Internationalisme No. 6 (January 1946).

Rubric: 

History of the workers' movement