The mutated PCF removes the hammer and sickle as well

Comment of the newspaper “Rizospastis”, the organ of the CC of the KKE

An inevitable result…The PCF at its 36^th Congress, which concluded on Sunday in Paris, even renounced the hammer and sickle.

The abandonment of the hammer and sickle by the PCF did not take place at a random moment, but at a time when the authorities in many EU countries are banning the communist symbols, when the EU is attempting in an anti-historical way to equate communism with fascism. This is the moment which the “president” party of the European Left Party (ELP) chooses to willingly renounce the hammer and sickle, On 12/2, the following comment was made on this issue in the newspaper “Rizospastis”, organ of the CC of the KKE, which noted that:

The PCF long ago abandoned Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary principles of the Communist Parties, while from its position as head of the ELP it plays the leading role in the propagation of opportunism, with aim of mutating the Communist Parties in Europe.

The GS of the PCF and President of the ELP, P. Laurent, personally made sure that he demonstrated in every way the goal of the Congress, with his statements on the LCI TV station, when he was asked about the new party identity cards, on which the hammer and sickle was replaced by the “star” of the ELP: “It's an established and revered symbol that continues to be used in all of our demonstrations, but it doesn't illustrate the reality of who we are today. It isn't so relevant to a new generation of communists.”…

Indeed after the protests of a section of the delegates which were caused by his statements, as well as by the replacement of the hammer and sickle, Laurent presented a party identity card from 1944 of the then illegal PCF, saying ironically that this one also did not have the hammer and sickle on it!

Beyond the vulgarity and degeneration of the leadership of the opportunist PCF, which is a provocation for the revolutionary communists all over the world, the essence is that the replacement on the part of the French party of the historic symbol of the communist parties is the outcome of the path it has been treading for several decades now. Methodically and stably, it has distanced itself from the theory of Marxism-Leninism, the principles of the formation and functioning of a revolutionary communist party and, what is most important, it made the management of capitalism, the unprincipled policy of alliances, the participation in bourgeois governments, its strategy, betraying the goal for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity and denigrating the struggle for socialism. It should be noted that for many years tendencies and platforms have operated within the PCF in the name of pluralism and democracy… i.e. it has no relation with a communist party but continues the tradition of euro-communism.

The PCF has irrevocably betrayed the working class and popular strata in France. It has governed together with the social-democrats on two occasions, contributing to the attacks on the French people, while systematically, since then, providing assistance to social-democracy, calling on the workers to support those forces which are digging the pit to throw the workers in. In the face of the crisis, the PCF seeks “development”, concealing that this will take place in conditions where the labour rights will literally be flattened and a real hell will be created for the working class.

But the working class in every country can determine its own future and enjoy the wealth it produces and not live in conditions which belong to bygone eras. But the CP must, as the vanguard of the working class, have a strategy for the overthrow of capitalism, for socialism. It must have a plan to concentrate and prepare forces, even today, for this goal. In the final analysis it must prepare the working class itself and its allies to realize this goal. This has nothing to do with whatever the opportunist PCF says about “communism of the new generation”, with “democracy”, “socialism” which denies the scientific laws of socialist construction, and the impossible prospect of a humanized capitalism which it propagates.

Communists all over Europe must draw conclusions from this development in the PCF, the party which is at the head of European opportunism, and fight to smash opportunism politically, ideologically and organizationally in their countries.