FOR "THE REBUILDI CONTENTS • _Six Years After May 1968: The Balance-Sheet of the Extreme Left • Does the Example of the Portuguese Communist Ministers Open Up Perspectives for the Western Communist Parties? * Feminism and Communism I . - September 1974 .. :'i' . ~ ~~ - . .,.,,___~- - - ~ ' PRICE: FF 3 CONTENTS Page 2 Six Years After May 1968 : The Balance-Sheet of the Extreme Left Page11 Does the Example of the Portuguese Communist Ministers Open Up Perspectives for the Western Communist Parties? Page16 Fem~.1ism and Communism ------------ NUMB E R 21 CLASS STRUGGLE SIX YEARS AFTER MAY 1968: THE BALANCE-SHEET OF THE EXTREME LEFT Since May 1968, when the extreme left first made its mark on the French political scene, it has been good form in the bourgeois press to announce period ically its forthcoming disappearance. For the last few months, this phenomeno11 has reappeared with new vigor: the prophecy of the imminent end of the extreme left, or at least the questioning of its chances for survival, are regular features in the press. So it was that Le Monde of 5 September 1974 devoted an entire page to this problem. It published «Two Points of View on the Fu ture and the Role of the Extreme Left,» written by two leftists and whose titles illustrate unequivocally the preoccupations of the moment, «Death or Transfiguration?» and «At Bay?» What is new in this and what makes the problem deserve some attention is that the pessimistic declarations on the future of the extreme left today do not only cornr: from political adversaries taking their wishes for reality. For the first time, the extreme-left press itself is marked by a trend of reappraisals and admits it is seriously concerned about the iuturc-when it is not more openly pessimistic. This state of mind was perfectly obvious in the supplement published this summer by the would-be leftist weekly Politique-Hebdo, an issue devoted to an open debate of the different leftist tendencies. The way in which Politique-hebdo presented its initiative was already a sign of a certain pessimism in the present situation: It is significant that the main currents and organizations which make up the extreme left feel the pressing need to question publicly their analyses, their practices, their objectives ... The present conjoncture at least has the merit of forcing us to get ou·t of the rut of sect arianism and self-justification. But even more significant were the remarks attributed by the editors of Politique-Hebdo to the representatives of certain leftist groups, where the expression5 «bankruDtCy of the extreme left,» «failure,» and «present situation not very brilliant» cropped up. Certainly all those statements must be considered with the prudence which is appropriate where interviews are concerned. But similar statements are found in the press of o:r'.oin left ist groups. In this way, in an analysis entitled «The ·Extreme Left Six Years After,» 2 CLASS STRUGGLE International, the organ of AMR (the French Pabloist group) stated in its Summer of 1974 Special Issue: The organized extreme left is accumulating failure after failure when it involves playing a functional and permanent role, on a mass basis ... At the end of a few years, a passivity is created The accumulation of these failures becomes almost a political fact. If Rouge does not put forward such alarming statements, nonetheless one can find the echo of similar preoccupations in its columns. Certainly it is stated that the FCR («Revolutionary Communist Front») does not cease to strengthen itself. But it is certainly not the time of the «triumphal period» of yesteryear, when the problem was, according to the ex-Ligue Communiste, «to organize our red voters into revolutionary militants.» (Headline of the first page of Rouge, 4 June 1969.) On the contrary, the day after the presidential election of 1974, the leaders of the FCR questioned themselves on the future. And in a study on «The Extreme Left After The Elections» (published in Rouge, 28 June 1974) one could read under the title «A New Course Is Necessary»: Every organization wanting to go ahead should examine again in detail and studythor ougftly its orientations regarding working-class struggles, the characterization of the Union of the Left, and the perspectives of programs to put forward. On the other hand, it must re-examine its system of organization, often conceived in other times, for other tasks. How can this pess1m1sm of some and this self-questioning of others be accounted for? By the fact that the disillusions are obviously at the same level as the illusions of each group following May-June 1968: illusions as to the nature of the political situation first of all; then illusions as to the possibilities of using such or such shortcut to build the revolutionary party; and illusions of each group as to its own capacity of capitalizing on the organizational level on the spring 1968 events. In fact it is quite obvious for those who proclaimed six years ago that we had just lived through the «first phase of the French socialist revolution» (title of the July 1968 special issue of Fourth International) that the future seems not to have kept its promises. Now all the extreme left was practically unanimous in seeing a revolutionary situation in the events of May-June 1968. Lutte Ouvriere was the only tendency which explained ·that at no time in the factories did the union apparatus see t~e situation escape them, that at no time was the question of power posed in terms of a class alternative. By doing so, we appeared as a killjoy in the eyes of the rest of the extreme left. The spring 1968 events could have been the starting point of a process leading to the formation of a party on the left of the CP regrouping the majority of revolutionary militants, had it g.iven the proof of its responsibility and of its capacity to use the possibilities of the hour. But they did not constitute at any moment the first act of the proletarian revolution in France. And i·t is not surprising that those who got· involved in political activity in 1968 with the short-term perspective of a second and this time decisive act are today bitter and disappointed. From there to speak of the «collapse» of the extreme left is only a small step, as it is true that the glasses of petty-bourgeois oppor tunism are as deforming and as magnifying in the periods of ascent as in the periods of reflux. From there to question «orientations,» «perspectives of program,» and «organizational system», there is also a short step, well .in the tradition of petty-bourgeois groups, always on the look-out for new shortcuts in the building of a revolutionary organization and towards the socialist revolution. 3 CLASS STRUGGLE THE FAILURE OF SPONTANEISM One of the main lessons coming out of the six years which have passed since May 1968 is nevertheless the futility of the efforts of innovators of all kinds, searching for the key to success in the reappraisal of the communist program. For the balance-sheet of the extreme left is far from being the same for the different currents making up that extreme lett. Moreover, since May-June 1968, the face of the latter has changed considerably. Certain currents have almost completely disappeared, at least as far as oeing organized ones. In -this way, the anarchist movement whose ideology had profoundly marked many of those involved in the 1968 events, especially in the universities and lycees, showed itself incapable of profiting from this situation in order to develop in any considerable way. In this way also, the Maoist tendencies which six years ago enjoyed an influence at least equal to that of the Trotskyist tendencies, are today in the background. After the short-lived success of the an arch ist-spontaneist ex-Gauche Proletarienne («Proletarian Left»), it is the tendencies of the Maoist movement appealing the closest to the traditions of the Stalinist CP (such as Humanite Rouge) which organize the largest number of militants. Today, it is those groups who proclaim themselves Trotskyist ( Lutte Ouvriere, FCR, AJS-OCI) which constitute the core of the French extreme left, the second rank being held by groups which have broken with Trotskyism but are still marked by their origins (Revolution!, AMR), or by· Maoist groups which have kept a minimum of references to the communist program. Thus, the development of spontaneist currents which many at the time considered as one of the main traits of May 1968 was finally a short-lived phenomenon corresponding to the importance of the mobilization of the intellectual petty-bourgeoisie and disappearing as the barricades blended into the horizon. Spring 1968 had seen the preachers of spontaneism in all its shapes (anarchist, Maoist, ultra-left) condemn forever the groups proclaiming the Bolshevik idea of the party as senile organizations incapable, we were told, of answering to the aspirations of rebellious youth. But it was not long before these spontaneist tendencies reduced to ashes. And the principal result of May 1968 is the present-day reinforcement in the extreme left of only those groups aiming at the construction of a revolutionary party. It is these groups, and these only, which allowed a fraction of the young people who discovered socialist ideas in Spring 1968 to continue to fight for those ideals. The past six years have thus seen a veritable selection concerning the program in the ranks of the extreme left-the Trotskyist program showing, despite some errors and despite the opportunism of most of the groups claiming Trotskyism, its superiority over all the other tendencies claiming revolutionary ideas. (The proof being the leading place occupied by Trotskyist groups in the extreme left today.) SHORTCUTS AND DEAD-ENDS But within the Trotskyist movement, the problem of the balance-sheet and consequently of perspectives does not pose itself in the same way for the different groups which make it up. On the one hand, because the objective balance-sheet of each one is not the same. And on the other hand, because here also, the disillusions which some feel today are as 4 CLASS STRUGGLE deep as their illusions of yesterday on the ways and means· of building the revolution::ry party. As for those who believed that the building of this party depended essentially on the work of implantation in factories, on the recruiting and training of militant workers, and on the building up of revolutionary groups in the factories, the balance-sheet, limited as it is,·is undeniably a positive one. Today, there are working-class extreme-left militants intervening in most of the large factories in this country, who have passed the stage of simple propaganda, who play their part in the strugulr.s of the working class, and who sometimes play a deter mining role. No doubt, there is still a long road ahead in the building of a revolutionary workers' party, capable of leading the struggles of the working class on a national scale, and of leading the proletari:it to the seizure of power. But the successes won these last few years at least prove that this objective can be reached. Despite the weight of the Stalinist apparatus, it is possible to train within the working class itself devoted and competent militants, who will be the cadres of the revolutionary party tomorrow. And for all those who are faithful to the communist prowam, that is to say, who believe that the working class is the only social class capable of bringing about the socialist revolution, .this consti tutes a perspective which, though it is not a short-term one, is sufficient in itself. But the problem poses itself in quite different terms for those tendencies which, on the contrary, put everything on their implantation in the petty-bourgeois intellectual milieu, either in breaking openly with Marxism, or in substituting for the class struggle of the proletariat «rebellion» in general (and that of the intellectual petty-bourgeoisie in particular), or in elaborating theories destined to conciliate a posteriori their practices with the fact that they claim the communist program as theirs (such as the theory of the construction of the party «from the periphery towards the center» elaborated by the Ligue Communiste after May 1968). Not that the years which have passed since May-June 1968 have been empty of student and lyceen mob ii izations. As recently as spring 1973, we saw on the contrary huge demonstrations against the Debre law. Spring 1974 was marked by demonstrations, less impressive no doubt, but not negligible. B'ut it is exactly by their repetition even that lyceen and student mobilizations proved that they could not open up any perspectives. They demonstrated the absolute deficiency of all the strateqics built up by the leftist groups in 1968. Because the student movement had, in May 68, played the role of detonator, and because the barricades of rue Gay-Lussac had led to the general strike, some had concluded that the activity of revolutionaries in the student milieu could make up for their absence in the factories. But that was forgetting that even in May-June 1968 the narrow limi tations of this kind of influence on the part of the revolutionaries on the events were brought to light by the fact that at no time did the leadership of the movement in the factories escape the -traditional apparatus: Even taking into consideration these limitations, the relationship which was established in the events of May 1968 between the student rnov0- ment and the working class movement was the exception and not the rule. Following May-Junr~ 1968, leftist groups militated in the perspective of starting once again the mechanism which had led to the general strike. This was in any case a false perspective, as, because of the lack of implantation of revolutionaries in the factories, it could not but lead-once-again to a· movement which at one moment or another would be taken up by the bureaucratic apparatus: .. ff it had ever been lost by them. And the role of revolutionaries is not to send the working class into the battle without worrying about 5 CLASS STRUGGLE the final result, but to lead that class to victory. But more than being a false politic-"I perspective, it was a perspective which was awfully risky, as events have proved. As a matter of fact, since 1968 there have been many lyceen and student mobilizations. There have also been many struggles led by the working class, of which a certain number were led by revolutionary militants. Sometimes these coincided. But at no time have student struggles played a role, even on a more reduced scale, analogous to that they played in May 1968. Some had seen in the influence of revolutionary currents in sectors outside of the working class («peripheral sectors» to use the expression of the ex-Ligue Communiste) or marginal, a means of building the revolutionary party by taking a shortcut. by winning an influence over the working class without having to make the effort of day-to-day work of implanta- , tion in the factories. They were also to be disenchanted for it is just the opposite that ,happened. The Stalinist counter-offensive of «from the center towards the periphery» was visibly more efficient than the strategy of «from the periphery towards the center» dear to the ex-Ligue communiste. The French CP and its satellite organizations were seen to come out almost intact from the test of May-June 1968 which could have cost it a lot in the working class. Moreover, they regained influence in those milieus where they had appeared to have long ago disqualified themselves, particularly in those of the students and lyceens. CLASS ORIENTATION AND PERSPECTIVES The bankruptcy of the leftist spontaneist ideology which developed in the wake of May 1968 is evident. 8ut that of the policy of non-spontaneist leftist groups, if less obvious, is nonetheless just as profound, in the sense thJl it prevented these groups from having any real political perspective. And here is the origin of the present malaise felt by most of the leftist groups. As a matter of fact, it is not possible to have long-term revolutionary perspectives on the basis of activities essentiJlly directed towards petty-bourgeois milieus, despite momentary or local su·ccess, as these lead nowhere. And it is not possible to have any political perspective at all on the basis of leftist activities, which cannot in the best of times but be self-supporting and end up in the annual repetition of the same scenarios, al I the more devoid of perspectives as the traditional apparatus and the state have learned to take them into consideration. If the goal, the raison d'etre of every serious political organization is to part1c1pate one day in the exercice of power, there are only two possibilities left in our society: either to situate oneself entirely in the camp of the proletariat and work towards the building of an organization which could be the instrument enabling the proletariat to seize power; or to betray the working class by rallying the political forces on which lies the domination of the bourgeoisie, including of course the reformist parties. The groups 6 CLASS STRUGGLE and tendencies which stand on the ground of petty-bourgeois leftism are thus placed before a choice essentially limited to three possibilities: either to break with leftism and turn body and soul towards the proletariat; or leave leftist waters and try to join those of the traditional left. that is to say, the reformist parties; or finally, to remain on leftist ground but to renounce thf'n any other perspective but that of a sect living for itself alone. Present day events show moreover that those are not hypotheses: proof, the undeniable attraction exercised by Mitterrand's Socialist Party on those currents and those militants who wanted not so long ago to be an integral part of the extreme left. ROUGE AND OPERATION MITTERRAND That the political context weighs on the manner in which the FCR, .for example, poses its problems is evident in the reading of Rouge which writes (in the issue already cited): With the presidential election, a political period ends: that of post-May 1968. The col lapse of Gaul/ism, the electoral thrust of the Left, the restructuring under way in the working-class movement trace the first lines of the period which is beginning. The «restructuring» under way is obviously the operation «National Conference for Socialism» attempted by the SP. The perspective of the Socialist Party succeeding in regrouping to its bosom the core of the militants of the PSU and a number of CF DT militants profoundly worries the leaders of the FCR. The same issue of Rouge ;1clds: It is absolutely necessary that this centrist current, polarized around the PSU, does not return as one man to the social-democrat fold ... This would be a serious defeat for the revolutionaries, a defeat which would leave them out of the game by giving credit to the idea that the «current goes through,» that «things are happening» in the SP and ultimately in the Union of the Left. To avoid such a mass capitulation, it is up to us to open the debate. Rouge is also worried about the evolution of the CFDT. «Is there no other solution (but operation Maire Mitterrand) for those combative CFDT members wanting to give political expression to their struggles,» one could read in Rouge of 21 June. And Rouge is so worried that after asking this question it forgets that it claims it is a revolutionary communist paper! It is so worried that after stating that, regarding the position of the National Bureau of the CF DT in favor of entry into the SP, «the «left» and the «right» of the union met again on the problem of the type of entry», Rouge simply adds: «We cannot let matters rest there. We must look into this problem in depth,» and publishes without a word of commentary some extracts from the declaration of the Hacuitex Federation of the CFDT stating that «the federation cannot accept the confederal position which risks in the end leading our organization to being in the service of a political party and to thus playing the role of driving belt.» We believe that Rouge preferred the CF DT of 1969, apparently apolitical (but not hesitating occasionally to support the candipacy of the conservative politician Poher) to that of 1974, joining ranks behind the Socialist Party. The former CF OT had the advantage of leaving Rouge with all its illusions on the possibility of making a «class-struggle CFDT» (to use the title of a brochure of the ex-Ligue Communiste). 7 CLASS ST RUGG LE Rouge, moreover, is not more optimistic as regards the possibilities of seeing the militants of the CFDT or of the PSU resisting the lures of the Union of the Left and the SP. We read in the 16 August issue: One can have no illusions. If no credible alternative appears, critical elements will finish by rallying, even if that means joining the left wing of the SP. But how tu put forward a credible alternative? That is the question that Rouge poses a few years too I ate. The «restructuring» under way in the working-class movement, to use the expression of Rouge, has not in fact fallen from the sky. And it is true that it is to some ex tent-but to some extent only-a failure of the extreme left. But it is an old failure, even if Rouge did not realize it, at the time, any more than the other tendencies of the extreme left who are today all worried about operation Maire-Mitterrand-Rocard (for if we speak above al I of Rouge, it is not as a single case but on the contrary, as the most representative of a general tendency). AN OPPORTUNITY LOST Many militants who are in the PSU today and who will be no doubt tomorrow for the most part in the SP, and many of the militant workers of the CFDT who are also getting ready to enter the SP (most of the time however these are thP. same people) could have no doubt been won over by the revolutionary extreme left. But this is not the time to look for a «credible alternative» to entry into the SP (it is not simply a problem of thinking the problem over to find the gadget capable of holding them back from the road leading to the SP) Today, it is too late. A'nd it has been too late for years. It was in the aftermath of May 1969 that the problem arose, at a time when the entire extreme left could have, through uniting in a single organization, constituted a pole of attraction not only for many of those who militate at the moment in the PSU, or who are confined to would-be left wing activity within the CF OT, but for thousands of young workers who had discovered the revolutionaries and their ideas in May 1968 and who were waiting for the birth of a party regrouping all the «leftists» of the period. The building of such a party would certainly not have solved all the problems. Many debates would have been needed, many internal struggles, and many clarifications, in order to build a real revolutionary leadership. Success was not even guaranteed. It is never guaranteed. But there was the only answer to the situation created by May 1968. Besides Lutte Ouvriere which in June 1968 militated for the unity of the revolutionaries, al I the other tendencies of the extreme left-at least those that counted-refused such a perspective. Quite differently, each one considered itself as the axis around which the party would turn and around which the majority of young people brought into political life in May-June 1968 would regroup.· And the Ligue Communiste was no exception to the rule as it developed, especially after the presidential election of 1969, a policy which it qualified itself several months later, as «triumphalist.» But none of the revolutionary tendencies which emerged from May 68 was strong enough to gather around it what could have then been the basis of a revolutionary force. Each of 8 CLASS STRUGGLE the tendencies did recruit, but even the best results were without any comparison with the number of young workers, university and high school students that a unitary orga nization could have attracted. Tired of waiting, those who might have joined the extreme left gradually lost interest in politics or turned either to the traditional organizations which appeared more responsible than the «leftists» or simply to union activity. The organization which ultimately benefited most from the coming of thousands of young people into the political arena was the PSU. This was because the PSU existed on a national level, was considered to be a party and not a grouplet, and because Sauvageot and Geismar, two of the «Stars» of May 68 were, one a known militant of the PSU, and the other a former militant of the party. But the increase in the numbers of the PSU just after May 68 was, however, insufficient to enable this party to play the role that its leaders had in store for it. When the PSU came into being ten years earlier, its founders~at any rate those who had a precise political plan, in particular the fraction of the social-democratic apparatus which, with Depreux, Verdier (and the young Rocard!) had just broken with the SFIO had in mind nothing less than building a party which might one day replace the apparently moribund Socialist Party as a party of government. Though the plan ultimately failed, it was taken very seriously at the time. Take for example Mendes-France's interest in it fora certain time: he even became a member of the party. But the long stay in the opposition that Gaul I ism forced onto the Socialist Party enabled the latter to renew itself. The rise of the SP could not fail to attract to it the men who had left it because they believed it finished. During the formation of the Federation de la Gauche («Federation of the Left») after the 1965 presidential election, a number of PSU leaders rejoined the «old house.» And even more so, the success of «operation Mitterrand» could only encourage the majority of the PSU leaders to envisage returning to the fold. It is perhaps regrettable that they are taking with them some of the numbers that they won over after May 68. But it is quite logical. What is especially regrettable is the irresponsibi lity demonstrated by the leftists after May 68 which enabled the PSU to win over these num bers and prevented a line from being drawn between the militants of this party who more or less confusely stood for the socialist revolution and the true-blue reformists. And what is even more re~rattable is not so much the fact that a number of those who might have been attracted six years ago to the revolutionaries are now joining the Social Democrats via the PSU or the CFDT, but rather that Stalinism, which is a· factor of social stability in France and places an infinitely stronger curb on workers' struggles than social democracy, was able to come out of May 68 practically unscathed, once again because of the leftists' irresponsibility. BREAK WITH LEFTISM Thus it is of no use today to go seeking a «credible alternative» to the SP to counter the operation Maire-Mitterrand-Rocard. This has not been the problem for years. And the only credible alternative to reformism and Stalinism that one can strive to build is a revolutionary organization having a strong foothold in the firms and which can offer vic torious prospects to the workers' fights, even if Rouge believes that «you have to be blind and sectarian like Lutte Ouvriere» to affirm such ideas. 9