[Marxism] Le Monde reports on LCR/NPA

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/zappi050209.html
France: LCR Dissolves Itself to Form NPA
by Sylvia Zappi

The Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) will soon be no more.  On 
Thursday, 5 February, its activists will vote for its self-dissolution 
to create the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA).  Some seven hundred 
delegates are expected at a four-day conference, 5-8 February, in la 
Plaine-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), to launch the new party of 
Olivier Besancenot.

The death certificate won't be issued without squeaks or critiques. 
Some veterans of the LCR won't be ready for it without four hours of 
discussions to settle their accounts.  And, for true Trotskyites, having 
to accept a truncated program and a line judged "too vague" -- no, that 
can't happen.  "We are making a big mistake setting up a 'party of 
struggle.'  This spontaneist decision (driven by the social movement) 
puts us at the mercy of events," writes Gilles Suze, a long-time member, 
in a letter to the LCR leaders.  "It feels more like attending a 
congress to liquidate the party than one to surpass it," moans Christian 
Picquet, of the party minority.

Enthusiasm is indeed palpable in the entourage of Mr. Besancenot.  The 
young spokesman's popularity rating has not declined (60% have positive 
opinions about him on the scorecard of Paris Match, 22 January).  Nor 
has his success in demonstrations: the last big march on 29 January saw 
him mobbed by the curious as well as his fans.  He remains the "best of 
the Left" in the eyes of his associates and does not intend to leave 
this space -- too big for the LCR -- vacant, when the economic crisis 
seems to prove him right.

It's time to think big and broad.  The NPA claims 9,000 founding 
members, three times more than the "League."  One won't hear "comrades" 
at its meetings -- the public has changed.  There are indeed a handful 
of veterans of Lutte ouvrière, friends of Jean-Marc Rouillan, founder of 
Direct Action, some members of the Bové committees, anti-growth 
environmentalists, and alter-globalization activists.  But most are 
novices in politics.  "Their membership base are those who are just fed 
up with Sarkozy and see Besancenot as the only real personality of the 
Left," says Alain Krivine, one of the LCR founders.

The NPA is a new radical party whose two identifiers are the "break with 
capitalism" and the "total independence from the Socialist Party."  Plus 
a touch of ecology, re-baptized "ecosocialism."  Gone is the reference 
to Trotskyism as communism: the party of Olivier Besancenot is no longer 
affiliated with the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky.  Only 
the LCR militants remain members.  "We made the decision to create the 
NPA from the bottom up, without another political partner, and we have 
succeeded.  This is not an LCR Lite," assures Pierre-François Grond, Mr. 
Besancenot's right-hand man.

The change is visible: the membership profile has changed, more 
rebellious and less "intellectual."  But the ideological positioning and 
the essentials of the organizational structure remain those of the LCR. 
  The line of self-assertion and demarcation vis-à-vis the Socialist 
Party -- "The true Left is us," Mr. Besancenot continues to proclaim -- 
in fact echoes the beginnings of the Revolutionary Communist League 
which, with its Red committees, thought it could alone capture "the 
spirit of May" 1968.

As for the new governing bodies, their nucleus include a half of the 
League leaders.  "We will be a minority," Mr. Grond says in explanation. 
  "It's Besancenot's friends who are in control of the core structure," 
Mr. Picquet disputes.

"The LCR is dead.  Long live the NPA!" the militants will chant on 
Sunday.  Their leaders have several months to demonstrate that they know 
how to make it live and prosper.

The original article "La LCR se dissout pour donner naissance au NPA" 
appears in the 5 February 2009 issue of Le Monde.  Translation by Yoshie 
Furuhashi.

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