France

[p001] France VOLUME 7 Number Fe S) a a a. Spring 1962 : TWO SHILLINGS TOM KEMP, CLIFF SLAUGHTER 186A Clapham High Street, London S.W, 4 EDITORS:

[p002] REVIEW EL France 186A Clapham High Street, London S.W. 4 Spring 1962 * Guba * Lenin TWO SHILLINGS.

[p003] 1 Editorials ~ 1) France: the Permanent Crisis OVER the past 30 years France has reflected in extreme form all the problems of capitalist decay. In no country has the question of power been posed’ so openly and so often, with a ruling class, on many occasions, divided and discredited. Jn no country have the betrayals of Social Democracy and Stalinism been so blatant and caused so much weakening and division in the working class. Indeed, but for these betrayals, the Algerian people would not have had to suffer its seven-year agony and de Gaulle would not have come to power. Because the working class has not been permitted to seize its historic opportunities, the bourgeoisie has been able to cope with some of its more pressing problems. The decrepit and archaic structure of French capitalism, further crippled by the war, has been refurbished over the past decade and has experienced a phase of feverish growth. Expansion has not been even; it has been accompanied by severe strains, and deep fissures have appeared within the ranks of the propertied classes. Parliamentary government became increasingly unable to reconcile these conflicting interests and ward off the threat from the working class. The appeal to the strong man and the strong state inevitably followed. The downfall of the Fourth Republic, though precipitated by the crisis of colonial rule in Algeria, thus had wider and deeper causes. Indeed, the settlement of the Algerian question in a manner favourable to French capital was only one of de Gaulle’s tasks. He also had to provide capitalism in France with a strong and stable administrative framework and re-establish unity within the bureau- cracy and officer corps. He was well adapted by personality and background for this task. Indeed, for over a decade he had presented the bourgeoisie with an alternative to parliamentary democracy. He was only called in when every other formula was exhausted; the resort to bonapartism revealed in itself the depth of the crisis of confidence within the ruling class. Since his investiture in June 1958, de Gaulle has . balanced between the various distinct forces, and attempted, in his own way, to provide a firm political and social basis for the main sections of French monopoly capital. He has ruled with the help of faceless political executants, dependent on the police and army, and through the referendum, the press conference and the television speech. His strength has rested in his aloofness. While not needing to crush the working-class movement, or abandon the forms of legality, he has concentrated decision- making in his own hands no less than any other dictator. Nonetheless his success has been limited. The differences within the bourgeoisie were too sharp to be exorcised by his methods alone. He has had to face a series of threats from the extreme right based on the very forces in Algeria which brought him to power. The army, police and administration have been riddled with bitter opponents of his policy or mere time-servers. Indeed he could not have con- tinued to rule without the passivity of the working class, ensured by the treachery and impotence of its leaders, who have made themselves scarcely disguised supports of his regime. The settlement in Algeria represents the first real fruit of de Gaulle’s policy. Here again a com- promise has been necessary. He sought first to defeat the nationalist army militarily. Then he looked in vain for uncommitted Muslim leaders with

[p004] 2 whom he could establish a puppet Algerian state. Finally, after protracted negotiations, he has played on the military and social weaknesses of the FLN leaders, securing important concessions for French capital while conceding the forms of independence. The deal represents a sell-out by the FLN more abject than any similar arrangement made by a bourgeois nationalist movement. It ties the new state to French purse-strings and makes impossible De Gaulle: Bonapartist resort of the French ruling class. the carrying out of agrarian reform and expropriation of colonialist property, without which the material needs of the impoverished Algerian masses cannot be met. At the same time, concessions have had to be made which undermine the privileged status of the European petty bourgeoisie and working class in Algeria. Manipulated by de Gaulle, the army and the extreme right opponents of the regime, this million-strong poor white mass, shot through with racialist hatred, embittered and enraged, has gone over unequivocally to the OAS. Clearly de Gaulle cannot permit this challenge to go unanswered. He will have to go through with the settlement or re- open the struggle with the nationalist movement. To go through with the settlement means to defeat the OAS. Yet the OAS, led by the army dissidents, backed by some die-hard sections of French business and enjoying the sympathy, if not open support, of many right-wing politicians, differs from de Gaulle about methods, not about aims, Its members have shown their ability as strong-arm men: just the material for the praetorian guard of a future fascist movement — indeed, their co-operation may be sought by de Gaulle himself if the class struggle sharpens in France. For there can be no mistake. The main struggle in these years has not been to win peace in Algeria, nor has it been a struggle in which all ‘good Frenchmen’—bosses and workers together—lined up against the fascist menace now represented by the OAS. That is the cry of the Stalinists, repeated by the other ‘lefts’ who yearn for the small comforts of ‘Popular Frontism’ and fear an open struggle involving the intervention of the working class, with the issue of power squarely posed. The threat from the OAS is bound up with the existence of the LABOUR REVIEW—Spring, 1962 bonapartist regime; it cannot be met by shamefaced. support for de Gaulle. Through the years since May 1958 the French working class has been suffering from a past heavy with betrayal and with the burden of Stalinist mis- leadership, with its deliberate confusion of the main issue. Yet the working class has shown great resilience and immense reserves of solidarity and combativity. Its actions have shown that it would respond, at the right time, to correct policies and leadership. The spontaneous rallying to the funeral of the victims of police brutality in the demonstration of February 13, 1962, gave new signs of strength and purpose. In the subsequent _ weeks the Communist Party bent all its efforts to holding these forces in leash and preventing them from leading on to an open collision with Gaullism. It held the ring clear so that de Gaulle could make his deal with the FLN and begin to settle accounts, in his own way, with the OAS. While it was rendering bonapartism these inestimable services it took steps, in the true Stalinist tradition, to prevent any section of the industrial proletariat from rallying around an alternative leadership. In a number of Paris factories a slanderous attack was launched upon well-known Trotskyist militants and efforts were made, by organized physical attacks, to prevent the distribution of literature which explained to the workers the treacherous role which the Stalinist leaders were playing. These events, small as their scale may have been, show the sensitivity of the Communist Party to any attempt to build an alternative leadership in the. factories, because it is immense reserves of French workers have shown solidarity and combativity.

[p005] FRANCE: PERMANENT CRISIS clear that many militant workers are beginning to see through Stalinist methods and are seeking a new way forward. Great class battles lie ahead in France. Nothing fundamental has been solved by the Algerian settle- ment, which, in any case, may not endure very long. The situation in a number of the now ‘independent’ former colonies which are still preserves of French capital could blow up at any time. The benign dictatorship of de Gaulle hinges on the life of the ageing and tired denizen of the Elysée palace. No reliable successor is in sight. Nor has de Gaulle yet fulfilled all the tasks imposed by the crisis of French society. Violence and open civil war are inherent in the situation. Rapid growth has not solved the problems of French capitalism. Workers are increasingly feeling the pressure in speed-up, attacks on workshop practice and pressures on real wages. Between the bourgeoisie and the workers, no third way: A rude awakening for accomodationists. 3 The full force of the Common Market has still to be felt: French industry, in many fields, will have to face competition which it has never known before. Attempts to domesticate the trade unions are being stepped up. The resort to fascism can by no means be excluded. The Fifth Republic offers every scope for transformation into naked dictatorship which will crush out working-class and democratic liberties, now still tenuously maintained. Those on the left who are trying to live with its institutions are in for a rude awakening. Between the bourgeoisie and the working class there lies no third way. French history has taught that lesson time and again. The bourgeoisie has also learned; it has learned that next time, if there is to be an open showdown, it must defeat the working-class movement thoroughly. It is in that perspective that the new leadership in France must be constructed.

[p006] LABOUR REVIEW Spring, 1962 2) A Caricature of Marxism THE most important question posed by the Socialist Labour League’s Resolution on _ International Prospects (printed in our last issue) was that of the construction of independent revolutionary parties based on the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. The resolution opens a discussion on those trends in the world labour movement which claim to represent Marxism. Stalinism is in an insoluble crisis; out of the discussion provoked by this crisis will come many of the forces for building a new leadership. But the greatest and most direct respon- sibility rests upon those who have already broken with Stalinism and formed parties or groups based on the Fourth International, founded by Trotsky and his followers. Unless the Fourth International can develop Marxist theory and show itself capable of real leadership of the revolutionary forces, reaction can be consolidated for a long period, despite the strength of the mass movement in many parts of the world, particularly in the countries dominated by American and European imperialism. ' The English edition of the journal Fourth Inter- national (Winter 1961-62 issue) should be carefully studied as an example of how to abdicate these responsibilities instead of grasping them. (This journal is circulated by a group called the Inter- national Secretariat of the Fourth International, under the leadership of Michael Pablo. Lasour REVIEW has previously explained its long-standing opposition to the revisionism of this grouping.) In the current issue Michael Pablo addresses two open letters from prison in Amsterdam (he was jailed for collaborating with the FLN [Liberation Front] in Algeria)—one to Fidel Castro, the other to the FLN. Now a move to the left in the class struggle, a great participation by the masses in revolutionary struggles, such as we have seen in “Africa, Asia and now Latin America since the VV Second World War, can produce opposite results ‘ among Marxists. Above all it is necessary to give this initiative of the masses its independent leader- ship; to give it theory and consciousness of the role of the masses. This means the creation of revolutionary parties based on the working class as the only consistently revolutionary force, able to weld together with it the peasants and lower middle class into a massive army to overthrow imperialism, Marxist parties, steeled in long years of independent struggle and developing Marxist theory, as Lenin did, in their own conditions but as part of an international Marxist leadership, are the only force capable of carrying through the necessary struggle. The alternative to this revolutionary perspective is opportunism. So long as the theoretical questions are not clarified and there is no struggle against the existing petty bourgeois ideologists and leaders of - national movements then these leaders are helped in retaining the confidence of the masses and are allowed to consolidate their strength for the day when they turn against the workers and peasants. Support for the struggle of colonial peoples against imperialism has always been made the excuse for sacrificing the independence of the working class, and of the revolutionary party, to ‘unity’ and support for leaders who are ‘national’ figures but in fact represent alien classes, classes which want to halt the revolution at a stage when they have their own interests satisfied. This has been a consistent pattern in the ‘newly independent nations’. Marxists have always insisted upon support for national-revolutionary struggles against imperialism, as earlier against feudalism and its remnants. Insofar

[p007] A CARICATURE OF MARXISM as other classes, including the national bourgeoisie, conduct a struggle against the enemy, then they receive unconditional support. Particularly in the metropolitan countries such as Britain and France it is the first task of revolutionaries to mobilize working-class action in support of the national revolution in colonial countries. But it has always been a principle of Marxist strategy and tactics that the non-proletarian classes must inevitably stop half way. Once their own class aims are satisfied, and no more can be achieved without releasing a storm of worker and peasant struggle which threatens to go forward to attacks on bourgeois property, they turn against the lower classes. Marx’s ‘Address of the Central Council to the Communist League’ drew from this the conclusion that above all the working class must organize ifs own organs of power and armed forces. So far as the middle classes were concerned, the workers must ‘ March separately, strike together’. Lenin is said to have known this ‘Address’ by heart, and it informed his whole leadership in 1917. Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Lenin: Knew Marx’ ‘Address’ to the Communist League by heart. Revolution expands this idea first for Tsarist Russia, then for China and the backward countries of modern imperialism. The viability of independent bourgeois states in countries dominated by imperial- ism grows smaller and smaller. On the one hand the power and concentration of modern finance- capital, and on the other the intensity of the mass struggle against imperialism, throw these middle strata all the more quickly into the arms of imperial- ism. Imperialist politicians and international capital have recognized the need to work through such leaders, whose special qualification is their ability to represent themselves as national revolutionaries. Pablo’s letters to Castro and the FLN fall into the category of sacrifice of the revolutionary party, of revolutionary theory, and thereby of the political independence of the working class, to the petty bourgeois leaderships of the national movement. These letters are at best appeals to Castro and the FLWN leaders to ‘make a choice’ between socialism and falling back into the grip of imperialism. Historical materialism has been forgotten: no trace is here of the need for definite classes to forge their 5 own political theory and organization. A change of mind by those in power can change the course of history. Pablo even gives this some ‘theoretical’ backing. Discussing the ‘pan-African’ consequences of Algerian independence, he says: ‘In Black Africa, in particular, we are dealing with a primitive peasant society [?], still profoundly marked by tribal economy and customs, yet revolutionised [?] by the penetration of imperialist merchant capital [?!]. The native peasant and bourgeois merchant strata are generally limited and much less important than the analogous strata of the Middle East, Tunisia and Morocco. In these countries which have secured their indepen- dence, the state apparatus is in many cases still embryonic, and their social destiny [?] remains undetermined. Everything still depends on the use to which these politically limited élites will put the state power. (My emphasis.—Ed.) Their social basis, plus the revolutionary impulses from the present international context impel these élites towards a nationalised, planned, socialist economy. On the other hand, the native bourgeois or poten- tially bourgeois elements plus imperialism impel them towards a comprador capitalist regime in the image of the evolution of the Latin American nations since their independence.’ Insofar as any meaning can be extracted from this passage, it lays historical responsibility upon the élite which has state power. So with Pablo’s remarks to to the FLN leadership and Castro. He does not call for the Algerian workers and peasants to build their own workers’ parties and organs of power. These classes ‘have realised their consciousness in a pro- foundly agitated and revolutionary national and international context’. So it is the FLN who is asked ‘What are you intending to make of the victory of the Revolution?’ The FLN is recom- mended to turn itself into a party: ‘It is high time that the FLN transformed itself effectively into a party political structure with a better articulated and more clearly defined political and social pro- gramme.’ (My emphasis.—Ed.) This will be a simple business, requiring only a proclamation d la Castro. After all, the FLN is already ‘a formidable politico-military organization of the masses, with international connections’. Pablo ‘warns’ against the compromising type of national leadership that has won out in Tunisia, and asks the FLN leaders ‘ Will you be tempted to fall into such a trap?’ It is only a question of making up their minds not to, you see! Despite these warnings, however, the actual ‘advice’ given to the FLN for a settlement with France is the most extreme example of Pablo’s descent into opportunism. Briefly, he asks them to

[p008] 6 accept the idea of collaboration with French mono- poly capitalism. Any other course would lead to ‘social tensions’. This ‘aid’ from French capitalism would of course ‘exclude political ties, misdirected investment and scandalous profits’ and in addition it would ‘guarantee full employment to the workers of the ex-metropolitan countries’! How far Pablo has gone! ‘The Algerian state should promote the exploitation of the Sahara with the nearby African states and also with French capital under a specific form which would preserve Algerian sovereignty in the Algerian Sahara and the preponderant control of the Algerian state.’ French capital will offer long term loans to help Algerian development. ‘This ts a possible formula of association, reciprocally advantageous between ex-metropolitan and libe- rated countries. (My emphasis——Ed.) We need only add: this is precisely the ‘formula of association’ with bourgeois national leaders which the imperialists desire! Elsewhere in this issue of Labour REVIEW there appears an analysis of the revolution in Cuba. The situation there is changing so rapidly that theories and attitudes are quickly put to the test of practice. For Algeria, Pablo abandoned completely the per- spective of Permanent Revolution. For Cuba, he talks about it already being confirmed, saying that he and his organization ‘welcome each successive stage of the Cuban permanent socialist revolution’. For an analysis of the needs of the working class to win power itself under the leadership of a Marxist Party, Pablo substitutes adulation of Castro, to whom he writes, ‘I am convinced we are in the presence of a revolutionary socialist leadership of a high intellectual and practical quality... you belong in fact to the line of great revolutionaries who have known how to discover, assimilate, interpret and develop Marxism in a creative and profoundly revolutionary manner, such as Rosa Luxembourg, Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and in certain fields, the revolutionary Yugoslavs and Chinese.’ All sense of proportion, let alone Marxist analysis, is thrown aside. The same basic revisions occur here as in the letter to the FLN. As for the future in Cuba, ‘now it is a question of codifying in some sense (?) the structure of the new apparatus of the revolutionary State’. For this a party will be necessary. ‘It seems that you are already engaged in the creation of a Single Party whose framework is naturally founded upon the historic movement of the 26th July and the Revolutionary Army which has achieved victory.’ The reader is referred to the ‘ Postscript’ of the article on Cuba in this issue for information on the true character of this ‘ Single Party of the Revolution’. Since this postscript was written internal differences LABOUR REVIEW—Spring, 1962 have revealed themselves. Castro has attacked Escalante, old Communist Party leader in charge of organizing the new party, for flooding the whole State apparatus with Communist Party nominees regardless of their ability and without consulting the members of the various bodies and organizations. Bureaucratic methods have led to rigidity and abuses, according to Castro. Castro has also spoken out Escalante: with Castro Moscow. In trouble and against the falsification of Cuban history by some officials in the new regime. Perhaps Pablo will see this as confirmation of his faith in Castro, and since Pravda has now supported Castro’s attack (The Guardian, April 12, 1962) we can no doubt expect a new ‘open letter’, this time to Khrushchev. What the outcome of the internal differences will be nobody knows, but what is certain is this: if the problems of bureaucracy faced in an isolated and backward country are not solved by the working class itself, led by a Marxist party, and in con- junction with the spread of the revolution to other countries, the revolution is in grave danger. Pablo says of course that this Party will only consolidate the revolution if it conforms to some norm of a democratic Marxist party. All sorts of dangers will flow from any bureaucratization. But these warnings make no sense: they are addressed entirely to Castro, to the existing leadership in the State (the ‘élite’). If Castro takes Pablo’s advice then ‘the Party will not involve itself with a bureaucratic- ally deformed state’. As for the economic future, Pablo’s forecasts look a little sick in view of recent events. He commends Castro’s policy of steadily advancing living standards ‘in place of sacrificing the present active generation to a future generation’ and dilates upon the prospect of ‘harmonious relations between heavy industry, light industry, and agriculture’, and tells Castro: ‘The fact that you seem to have understood completely (full marks again!) the importance of such an economic develop- ment for Cuba, can prove... of vital importance The introduction of stringent rationing, and the serious consequences of a poor sugar crop, since Pablo wrote his letter, have exposed the flimsiness of his analysis. Rodriguez, Stalinist boss of the

[p009] A CARICATURE OF MARXISM Agricultural Reform Institute, has warned the Cuban people that for a time they must face hardships similar to the more backward countries of Latin America, and that those who expected Russia and the ‘socialist’ countries to keep Cuba going were living in a dream world. It is clear that the classic problems of ‘Socialism in One Country’ are faced by the working class of Cuba, and the independent political organization of the working class, together with a revolutionary turn to the masses in Latin America and the workers of the advanced countries, is the only correct general line. We cannot dwell on the comic passages in Pablo’s letter. Some of them are almost unbelievable. For example, he predicts great social reforms, including ‘improving even the quality of the human material by an intelligent eugenics* more and more volun- tarily accepted’. (And before the voluntary type? !) Pablo does not forget to tell us that he kept up revolutionary traditions by using his stay in prison to read books. ‘I have been personally struck by the Constitution of Athens by Aristotle which I read in prison and which bears many profoundly demo- cratic traits . . . Certainly this democracy was based on slavery and was limited to a number of free citizens. But what is important is that it functioned for this number . . . Particularly distinctive in this arrangement was the institution of the People’s Assembly, the very large number of citizens par- ticipating in the City Council and the Tribunals, and the allocation of most of the administrative functions among the citizens by the drawing of lots [!]’ Is comment necessary? As an example of the Marxist method and its polar opposition to this type of analogy, the early chapters of Lenin’s book State and Revolution are sufficient. *Eugenics: Science of the production of fine offspring. (Concise Oxford Dictionary) 7 Instead of concrete analysis, abstract comparison. Instead of strategy, crass optimism (‘The achieve- ments so far of the Cuban Revolution, the quality and critical spirit of its leadership permit a more than reasonable optimism on the plane of the struggle against bureaucracy and bureaucratisation.’) Instead of a perspective of work by revolutionaries among the working class, the abdication of respon- sibility to those leaders who receive the spontaneous support of the masses at the first stage of the national revolt, e.g., to Castro: ‘It is in this also that your supreme responsibility lies before history. ‘Upon the leadership of this revolution rests the immense historical task of making the wisest use of these opportunities, for the benefit of the Cuban and the world masses.’ For all the talk about struggle against bureaucracy, we have here the bureaucratic mentality par excel- lence. Instead of the day-to-day struggle of the working class to build its own leadership, enabling the masses to determine consciously the course of history, we have calls on Castro and others to ‘make the wisest use’ of opportunities ‘for the benefit’ of the masses. Pablo’s letters are not the letters of a Trotskyist as we understand it in any sense. They are nothing but a comically unsuccessful attempt to cover up a theoretical and practical capitulation to the existing leadership of the national movements. This surrender has its counterpart in the Pabloites’ attitude to the Social Democratic and Stalinist bureaucrats in the other parts of the world. We hope that Marxists everywhere will participate in discussion on these vital questions. The columns of LaBourR REVIEW are open for this purpose, as part of the discussion on ‘The World Prospect for Socialism’; published in our last issue.

[p010] 8 Revolution in Latin America