Internationalist Communist Party (France)
국제주의공산당 (프랑스)
The French section of the Fourth International, founded in March 1944 by the merger of several Trotskyist groups. In 1952 the majority, which refused the International's tactic of entering the Stalinist parties, was expelled, and two rival groups kept the name: the official PCI of Pierre Frank and the PCI of Pierre Lambert. The official PCI merged into the Ligue communiste in 1969; Lambert's PCI renamed itself the Internationalist Communist Organisation (OCI) in 1967, took back the name Internationalist Communist Party in 1981 and in 1991 became a current inside the Workers Party.
In depth
Its founders, about 500 militants, came from the Internationalist Workers Party of Yvan Craipeau and others, the Internationalist Communist Committee of Rodolphe Prager and others, and Henri Molinier's October Group; Michel Raptis (Pablo) prepared the negotiations. The Barta group (Union communiste internationaliste) refused to join and later gave rise to Lutte Ouvrière. The name revived that of a small party founded by Raymond Molinier and Pierre Frank in 1936.
After the Liberation the party grew by working inside the Socialist Youth, but David Rousset left in 1945 to form the Revolutionary Democratic Rally with Jean-Paul Sartre, the Socialism or Barbarism tendency of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort left in 1947, regarding the Soviet Union as state capitalist, and Yvan Craipeau's tendency was expelled in 1948.
After the 1952 split the official PCI supported the International Secretariat, became the French section of the reunified Fourth International in 1963 and merged with the Revolutionary Communist Youth in 1969 to form the Ligue communiste, re-established in 1974 as the Revolutionary Communist League. Lambert's PCI helped found the International Committee of the Fourth International in 1953 and backed the FLN in the Algerian war. Renamed the Internationalist Communist Organisation (OCI) in 1967, it grew rapidly after May 1968 and left the International Committee in 1971. It became the Internationalist Communist Party again in 1981 and launched a Movement for a Workers Party in 1984. In 1986 Jean-Christophe Cambadélis left with several hundred members for the Socialist Party, and in 1989 the historian Pierre Broué was expelled with about a hundred supporters. When the movement proclaimed itself the Workers Party in 1991, the party became its Internationalist Communist Current.