The Tours Congress and the Birth of the French Communist Party
It is now 100 years since the Tours Congress of 25 to 31 December 1920, when the majority of delegates of the French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) voted to join the Third International.
Whilst the Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I) was formed on the basis of a real, open split from the pacifist, opportunist and parliamentarian Social Democrats, the French Communist Party (PCF) adhered to the positions of the International but held onto the gangrenous parliamentarist and opportunist majority that led it.
It was an evolution in a completely opposite direction. The left fraction1 would have to wait several years before it came to lead the PCF (from 1923 to 1924) before being rapidly expelled from it by the bolshevisation, and then the stalinisation, of the party. The PCd’I, on the other hand, was led by its left wing from its creation, having broken quite cleanly with the opportunists of all shades, befor