The following tribute cannot be limited to what the IGCL as such knew of comrade Olivier. Most of his militant life was spent within the organizational framework of the International Communist Current. It therefore has a dual character, personal (through the experience and common commitment he shared with comrade Juan within the ICC and who wrote this tribute), and political, which our group makes its own.

Olivier, Michel Roux, sometimes Michel Olivier, Michel Roger in his civil status, died on Wednesday July 3, 2024. He was born on March 5, 1948. Despite a two-year battle that he knew would become increasingly difficult, and whose outcome he did not hide, Michel left us a little sooner than we could have thought or hoped. His energy, intact, and his apparent physical state, his dynamism, and a kind of serenity when he was speaking explicitely of his end – we tend to believe that it was more than just a display - seemed to contradict the doctors when they decided to stop his treatment. His courage and dynamism in the face of cancer never cease to amaze us. Like when he hosted and chaired the public meeting of the Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT) in Paris [1], in September 2023. He had just undergone the last session of a round of chemo a few days earlier, and was not sure he would be able to attend the meeting, as he had a hospital visit that very afternoon. When that was over, he rushed to the meeting. The next day, he attended an international meeting of the ICT and GRI in Paris. It was not until late afternoon that he gave in to his partner’s and comrades’ demands and went home to rest. Illness did not change him: Michel was one of those people who forged ahead, following their own path, whatever the circumstances and hazards of life. If he had any doubts or hesitations in his life and communist commitment, which we do not know about, he kept them well hidden. No doubt only those closest to him, his partner Françoise, could answer our questions.

He was always friendly and, dare we say it, “nice”. He rarely lost his temper, and even more rarely was he in a bad mood, as we noticed throughout the five decades we worked together on a daily basis in Paris. The last two years have been no different. Every time we visited him, he was ready to answer our questions about his health. He answered them directly and frankly, in his own image. Because direct and frank he was, sometimes at the risk of offending. But anyone could quickly see that there was no malice or aggression in what he said. His words were just clear, direct and sharp. No doubt he was answering questions about his health as if he were accepting this “obligatory task”, just to be nice to us. But very quickly, he would change the subject and share with us his thoughts on the situation, on the future and the stakes of the proletarian camp as a whole, and above all on the many projects he had, particularly on the historical works on the Communist Left that were his passion. His works under the pseudonym Michel Olivier, or Michel Roger, on the Communist Left of France, on the Left of Italy, on the Left of Russia, G. Miasnikov’s Workers’ Group or The Bolshevik Left and Workers’ Power, and more recently on the Left in Turkey, From Ottoman Socialism to Left Communism, are numerous, as is his prominent participation in several ICC brochures on the Communist Left. But more than his “historian” dimension, even if he rightly considered his work to be fundamentally militant, we prefer to emphasize the Michel “militant of communist organization”.

The massive strike of May 1968 determined the path that he intended to take. As a student in Toulouse, participating in the Comité d’Action (Action Committee) of the law and economics faculty (CAs had been formed in most universities), he met the original nucleus of Révolution internationale (RI), a group formed at the end of June 1968 around Raoul Victor (RV). [2] From the meetings of the Action Committee until its dissolution in the spring of 1969, he took part in the meetings of the RI group, which was still no more than a more or less formalized militant circle, and was later to become the main pole of regroupment of the International Communist Current (ICC). He joined what was still only a militant circle, albeit a very active and dynamic one, operating more or less informally. After completing his studies, he “went up” to Paris in 1972 where, around Marc Chirik and Mousso, former members of the Gauche Communiste de France (GCF), an initial nucleus of militants rapidly established and developed RI’s presence as a genuine communist group. He participated actively and enthusiastically. This is how, in our presence, last winter, he described his life journey to a young ICT militant from America: “If I left Toulouse, even though I could very well have worked there and stayed close to my family and that of my partner, and if I went up to Paris, it was for political reasons and the central importance of the Paris region. RI had just formed a group in Paris, and it was a question of getting involved and building a real organization.” [3]

He was an RI and ICC militant until March 2002, when all members of the ICC’s Internal Fraction (IFICC) were expelled. During these three decades, he was a member of the Executive Secretariat (ES) of the French section of the ICC, then its delegate to the International Secretariat (IS) until the organizational crisis of 2001. In addition to his research and historical work, sometimes to their detriment [4] as he told us after we were expelled from the ICC, he was one of the main driving forces, alongside Jonas-Jacky Mamane, [5] in the construction and development of RI as a member of the secretariat (ES) of the central organ of the section in France during all those years. After the organizational crisis of 1995 and the numerical and political weakening of the ICC International Secretariat, both Michel and Jacky, Olivier and Jonas by their pseudonyms, were appointed and integrated into the IS. Despite their active participation and organizational rigor, and the political reinforcement their presence alone represented, they were unable to help the IS as a whole overcome its internal dysfunctions and circle habits. The latter was unable to thwart the behind-the-scenes maneuvers and psychological manipulations carried out within the IS and in Paris by those who, in the shadows, wanted to eliminate the “old guard” of the ICC and introduce definitively the destructive theories of Decomposition, parasitism and clanism – the latter presented as the fundamental explanation for the organizational crises of the workers’ movement. Both Olivier and Jonas, however, still had a bitter taste of the 1995 crisis, in which they had played an important role, with the feeling, they had confided to us separately and on different occasions in the 1990s, before the 2001 crisis, of “having gone too far”, of having been biased, and of having allowed themselves to be led and manipulated in the “name of the defense of the organization”. Yet it was precisely during this crisis in 1995 that the clan theory was introduced into the ICC. Unable to challenge it, they remained, like the whole of the ICC’s international central organ, its secretariat and its International Bureau, like the whole of the ICC, like all of us, prisoners of the opportunistic theory of clanism, reducing political disagreements to questions of personal friendship or enmity and to individual psychology.

We will not go back over the crisis of 2001, which saw the expulsion – in the name of his supposedly “hateful” clan – of all members of the IFICC (Internal Fraction of the ICC), of which he was a member. Interested readers can refer to the Historique du SI [ICC’s IS History], which traces the genesis of the crisis and its final course. It is available on the IFICC’ website, which is still open. [6] We were all struck and affected by our exclusions and, above all, by the scandalous conditions under which they were carried out, as well as by our public denunciations by the ICC. [7] Michel probably more than any other. His frank, direct, deeply honest personality could not understand and could not bear that such infamies be thrown in his face, even less publicly. Still less that dozens of comrades could insult and reject him from one day to the next, disregarding decades of common struggle and militant fraternity.

Very quickly, in 2003, he no longer recognized himself, or only with difficulty, in the organizational approach that the IFICC had adopted. It saw itself as a “fraction of the ICC” and intended to wage both an “organizational” battle – even if excluded – and the defense of the principles and lessons of the “historic” ICC. For him, it mattered to directly question a large part of the ICC’s experience, and no longer feeling constrained by an approach and method of organization that obliges militants to refer to the organization’s program and positions – in this case, the ICC’s platform and positions. He left the Fraction. It is worth pointing out that we maintained cordial and fraternal relations. His first historical works, to which he was then able to devote himself without “militant” or organizational restrictions, saw him draw closer to the milieu surrounding the Éditions Smolny publishing house. Composed mainly of former members of Communist Left groups, principally the ICC, we can consider this milieu to be situated mainly on the political and militant terrain of councilism and individualism. The preface to Smolny’s book on the Bukharin fraction’s 1918 review Kommunist, which he wrote with Marcel Roelands (Controverses) in 2011, yielded to the traditional criticisms of Councilism on the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Party, in particular by adopting Kommunist’s position against the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace in 1918. [8]

With our different political approaches and incipient political differences, we thought that our political paths would part forever. Not so. Mean individual ambitions, which were totally foreign to him, and the petty maneuvers that go with it, soon turned him away from this milieu. Michel, who had always kept in touch with the Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT) and ourselves, moved closer to it. While it will be up to the ICT to retrace  [9] within the organization more fully, we can say that for many years he was the sole editor of the journal Bilan et Perspectives in France. Then, as a member of the ICT, he initiated the formation of the nucleus of it in France, which led to the formation of the Groupe Révolutionnaire Internationaliste. [10]

This tribute to Michel would not be complete without mentioning other aspects of his personality. This is difficult, as he was discreet about his personal life. He loved opera and was a history buff. When returning from meetings in Paris, he drove comrades from other countries home in his car, and he loved to recount the history of the Parisian monuments we came across; especially that of La Tour de l’horloge in the Palais de la Cité. We know that many comrades called on him and his partner Françoise, both of whom had studied law, to help them out of administrative or legal difficulties. They were always on hand to offer advice and guidance. When he retired, he volunteered, of course for free, “with the defender of rights”, an official public social department, in the Paris suburbs of Seine Saint-Denis, to help people in difficulty, immigrants and the underprivileged, to assert their “rights”. His clear, strong voice – a stentorian one might say – and the hint of a Southwestern accent that he was fortunate enough to retain, will live long in our memory. We miss him already.

Regular readers will know that we defend the anonymous nature of the communist militant, who can only “realize” his or her commitment within an organized collective framework. When a communist militant passes away, it is customary to declare that “we shall continue his fight”. Yet Michel is a special case: the historical work he carried out was his own, so to speak. In this sense, he brought to the workers movement something specific to which his name will remain attached. We know that he was justifiably proud and happy about this.

We express our solidarity to the comrades of the Groupe Révolutionnaire Internationaliste and the Internationalist Communist Tendency, to which he has contributed so much in recent years. For the author of these lines, five decades of fighting together, sometimes rough and painful fights, especially since 2001, sometimes happy and enthusiastic, have come to an end. He was discreet and modest [“pudique” in French], yet I think I can say that we had also become friends.

Sadly, we address our friendship and support to his long life partner Françoise and his whole family.