Editorial

[p004] EDITORIAL THE GREAT STRIKE movement of May and June 1968 which brought the French working class within sight of power has enormous political signi- ficance and requires careful analysis and study. All the problems raised by the revolution in advanced capitalist countries were suddenly pre- sented in living form. By their action in downing tools together and occupying their places of work ten million workers demonstrated their strength and shook the bourgeois state to its foundations. For the space of two weeks France stood on the brink of a revolution which, given leadership, could have carried the working class to power with little bloodshed. The paralysis of the economy was complete; the state power was in eclipse and the bourgeoisie was stricken with panic and confusion. What many had believed to be impossible, a revo- lutionary situation in an advanced country, was now plainly in existence. At one point bourgeois rule depended upon nothing more than a few tens of thousands of riot police and an uncertain army largely composed of conscript soldiers who would be asked to fire on their fathers and brothers. And yet, almost as rapidly as the crisis broke and the question of workers’ power was posed, the ruling class resumed its poise; de Gaulle re- asserted his command, the strikes were brought to an end and elections confirmed the Gaullist victory by a substantial majority. The change in the situation was so rapid and so complete that the question of how near France actually was to revo- lution in May will undoubtedly become a perennial subject of historical controversy. In retrospect many of those who, at the height of the battle in May, foresaw a defeat for the bourgeoisie have already revised their opinion and now claim that the issue was never in doubt. True, for a final historical judgement, many of the necessary ele- ments are lacking. In particular it will be a long time before we know what was going on in the inner councils of the Gaullist government. Did it, before de Gaulle’s broadcast of May 30, at some point decide that the game was up, as stories that the Ministries were burning confidential papers Editorial seem to suggest? What was the relationship be- tween the government and the leadership of the CGT and the Communist Party and was a guarantee actually given (or even required) from the Soviet Ambassador that there was no intention of turning France into a ‘People’s Democracy’? In the event of a workers’ revolution would the army leaders have plunged the country into civil war? In fact we do not have to answer these questions in order to be able to raise, and in part answer, the more immediate and vital ones raised by these events. In the first place the lie has been given to the myth that the working class in the advanced coun- tries has become an inert and demoralized force. In France the workers flexed their muscles and displayed their power. It is true that the signal was given by the students, but the situation did not have revolutionary implications until the workers occupied the factories and began to make their own demands. It is true, also, that in form these demands were mainly of an economic nature; but, by their extent, their manner of presentation and the context in which they were made they also rep- resented a direct challenge to the ruling class and its state. More important still was the fact that the level of this challenge was directly related to the ability of the Communist and reformist parties and the trade union bureaucracies to control the strike movement and confine it to what were called ‘pro- fessional’ demands. After the massive demonstra- tions of May 13, in which the workers expressed their solidarity with the students in struggle against the Gaullist regime, the ‘left’ parties and unions, and especially the Stalinists, hoped that these energies could be channelled back into the usual humdrum forms and that the situation would be restored to normal. It was the action of the wor- kers at Sud-Aviation and the Renault plants in occupying their factories which set in train the mass strikes which the CGT and the other unions had neither prepared for, called nor desired. It was as though all the locks which the bureau- 41

[p005] cracies had placed on the combativity of the wor- kers for many years were suddenly blown off. Following the example of the students, the young workers in particular demanded action to protect wage packets which were shrinking under the pressure of rising prices and against intolerable working conditions and lack of a real future. Plants which had not had strikes for three decades came out solidly, sections of workers reputedly the most docile and least class-conscious in department stores, offices and banks demanded to join the strike. All over the country universities, schools and public buildings were occupied. Over many the red flag was substituted for the tricolour. The gates were locked, pickets and strike committees were set up. All the major plants, except in a few backward areas, from government arsenals to the big motor works, were in the hands of their workers. Electricity and other services only functioned by permission of the workers. Yet a general strike was never called by the CGT or any other trade union body. L’Humanité never issued such a call nor, in its front page head- lines, did it ever provide slogans or a lead for the strikers. The Communist Party, and its members in the leadership of the CGT, struggled might and main to limit the scope of the strike to the basic economic demands which, however heavy for the capitalists to meet, still accepted the framework of bourgeois property relations. There was no national direction of the strike and it was everywhere the policy of the CP to prevent a link-up between the strike committees in the separate enterprises. The CGT negotiated with the government, as did the other national confederations (CFTD, Force Ouvriére, CGC), and as soon as possible went back to the enterprises with the terms which had been provisionally agreed upon. Thus a key role was played by the refusal of the Renault workers to accept the model agreement brought back from his meeting with the government by Georges Séguy, the general secretary of the CGT on May 27. This ensured that the strike would continue and that more then ever, in the next few crucial days, the quest'on of power would be posed. At this point it is clear that the Communist Party set itself solidly against any movement to take power. This is borne out by the tone of the statement of the Central Committee dated May 27. In substance this declared opposition to those who claimed that the situation was ‘revolutionary’; called on followers of the CP not to join in the student demonstration called for that day; and stated its aim to be ‘a government of democratic 42 union’ with the Left Federation—at that time in almost complete eclipse—the dissolution of the National Assembly and the holding of new elec- tions. That was on May 27 when the disarray of the government and the demoralization of the bour- geoisie were still apparent. On May 30, in a radio broadcast, de Gaulle signalled the turn of the tide for the bourgeoisie, echoing the call of the Communist Party for dissolution of the National Assembly and new elections and promising stern measures. Immense relief of the bourgeoisie and a massive Gaullist procession in Paris. Reaction of the CP: relief and satisfaction (the Party had apparently wanted elections all along!). In the following days and weeks the Stalinist bureaucracy fought day and night to settle the strikes and hand back the factories to their lawful owners. At the same time it settled down to the electoral campaign, carefully distinguishing itself from the ‘revolutionaries’ of May. The Communist Party was, as Waldeck-Rochet put it, ‘a revolution- ary party in the best sense of the term’, that is to say, a party which ensured that a revolution did not take place. Then and since Stalinist propagandists, and those who cover up for them, have been working hard to prove that the situation in France in May was not revolutionary and to discredit all those who claim it was. For all the conditions to be present for a revolutionary situation there has of course to be a revolutionary party able to heighten the consciousness of the working class and lead it to power. As the principal political party of the working class, and as the leader of the largest trade union confederation, Stalinism did every- thing it could to confine the strikes to material objectives consistent with the preservation of capitalism and to prevent the working class from turning them into a struggle for power. It first slandered the students, even when they had become the principal victims of the police repression, and then did everything possible to isolate the students and the youth from the striking workers. Wherever possible it controlled the strike committees to prevent them from becoming instruments of power. The Stalinists had no intention of leading the working class in revolution and made sure that no one else should. After carrying out this policy, which opened the way for the resumption of con- trol of the situation by de Gaulle at the head of a shaken but newly self-confident bourgeoisie, it had the audacity to claim that there had been a revolu- tionary situation. Fourth International, August 1968

[p006] In this the Communist Party stood four square with the Soviet bureaucracy which feared nothing more than the opening of the European Revolu- tion, for which a successful revolution in France would have been the prelude. It was clear all along that the CP would therefore place a brake on the movement while taking care to retain its control over the working class. Thus the need to discredit the students, to denounce the ‘leftists’, to confine the aims of the strikes to questions of wages and hours and to bring them to an end as soon as pos- sible; thus the slogan of a ‘popular government’ and the acceptance of elections which it knew would be certain to have the form of a referendum for de Gaulle. The Communist Party has had great difficulty this time in concealing its betrayal from the wor- kers and from its own militants. The drop in the electoral vote of the Communist Party indicates this very clearly. Many workers opposed the return to work to the very end; even more went back reluctantly on the instructions of their leaders with the knowledge that they had not won the power . that was in their grasp. Opposition in the ranks of the party has never been so widespread; a renewed ferment has begun amongst the intellectuals but this time it is accompanied to a much greater extent than before by criticism by worker mem- bers. Some sections of the party have been further astonished by the failure of the CP and the CGT to protest against the banning of the left-wing organizations and the hounding of their militants. Although the elections were run by the Gaullists on a ‘red scare’ platform and with a lot of anti- Communist talk there can be little doubt that the government, and particularly de Gaulle himself, are well aware of the services which the CP rendered in May and June. This was understood during the events by many reporters and commentators of both the French bourgeois and the foreign press. For the first time, in many papers, the conclusion, new and astonishing to the writers themselves, that the Communist Party was a great institution making for the preservation of the bourgeois social order, in other words, was a counter-revolutionary force, as Trotsky pointed out over three decades ago, became a commonplace. As Victor Fay summed it up in Le Monde Diplomatique for July: _ ‘By putting a brake on the popular upsurge the leaders of the Communist Party and the CGT upset the vanguard of the working class and cut them- selves off from the revolutionary students. At no moment during the crisis did the CP and the CGT push the workers towards direct action; they