CONTENTS • The Lutte Ouvriere candidates for the parliamen tary elections: 171 revolutionary workers repre senting their class . • When «class vote» or «Workers' United Front» means opportunism . • Socialist and the Women's Liberation Movement. February 1973 No PRICE: FF 3 CLASS STRUGGLE Trotskyist Monthly edited by «LUTTE OUVRIERE» Managing Editor : Michel Rodinson Printed at: 25, rue du Moulinet - 75013 PARIS Mailing address : Lutte Ouvriere B.P. 152-06 75263 PARIS CEDEX 06 PRICE: FF 3 Yearly Subscription: ORDINARY CLOSED MAIL France FF 30 . FF 50 ·Europe - North Afr. FF 50 FF 70 Other Countries FF 60 FF 100 CLASS STRUGGLE CONTENTS Page 2 The Lutte Ouvriere Candidates for the Parliamentary Elections: 171 Revolutionary Workers Representing Their Class. Page 6 When «Class Vote» or «Workers' United Front» Means Opportunism. Page 15 Sociat'ists and the Women's Liberation Movement. NUMBER 7 THE LUTTE OUVRIERE CANDIDATES FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 171 REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS REPRESENTING THEIR CLASS With 171 candidates, Lutte Ouvriere is by far the most widely represented revolutionary tendency in the parliamentary elections. Finally, the Ligue Communiste (French section of the United Secretariat of the IVth lnterna!!o nal) will put forward only a hundred candidates, and the OCI (former sec tion of the International Committee of the IVth International) together with the AJS (its youth group) merely 20. The Lutte Ouvriere slates are composed of working class men and women exclusively. This social composition is quite original when compared, not only to the classic bourgeois parties, but also to the reformist organizations supposedly working class and socialist, and to the other revolutionary orga nizations. On our lists, the most widely represented social categor}i is that of indus trial workers (76 candidates, i.e., 44.4 percent), followed by the clerical wor kers (30 percent) and techniciens (19 percent). Women workers are not left out since 47 are running on the Lutte 0 uvriere ticket (the bourgeois and refor ist political organizations altogether number only about 50 women out of more than 3000 candidates). Let us mention ·also that 3 comrades of the West Indian Trotskyist group Combat Ouvrier (emigration section) will run on· our ticket; for the West Indian workers are the only section among the immi grant workers who benefit from French citizenship and the subsequent poli tical rights. The group Combat Ouvrier on its part will have its own candi dates in the West Indies, i.e., in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The composition of our slates is, above all, the image of what we really are, the image of our daily action in the factories. This is also a reply to the spokesmen of the bourgeoisie and of the reformist movement who try to present all the revolutionaries as militants who stick to the student milieu and almost never get out of it. CLASS STRUGGLE The workers from all branches and all categories, young workers for the major part, and older ones too, who a re grouped on our slates, testify that the fight for the socialist revolution has become a reality for a growing num ber of workers, not only in theory, but also i:'! practice: in factories, mines, offices, in localities. These workers a re now engaged in the same battle to overthrow that old society and to settle their own power. Because we have workers exclusively running on our slates, we also aim at a higher goal. To the whole working class which we will hit in our campaign, we want to prove something. A characteristic of a ruling class, here the bour geoisie, is that it can enforce its own ideology on the whole society-or at least the greater part of it. _ Capitalists unashamedly explain to the workers that anybody cannot be a representative. Though they are convinced of it, they do not openly say to the workers tilat they should vote for capitalists only, or for members of the upper social layers linked to the ruling class by their way of living or by their interests. They mask their class point of view under the cover of "efficiency" and "technicality". And many militant workers en- dorse the sarne idea. - The French example is a good illustration of the class nature of bourgeois parliamentarism . Though in France the working class constitutes 50 percent of the active population, there were only 144 workers and farm workers out of 2,265 candidates for the June 1968 elections. By adding 169 clerical workers, we obtain a maximum score of 313 workers, i.e., only 14 percent of the number of candidates- And we should mention that most of them were running on the Communist Party ticket (even though a good many of them have actually been full-timers in the CP for a long time). Statistics on the other pa-rties show that the percentage of workers is close to zero. · In opposition to the under-representation of workers, among the candida tes were 113 managers (i.e., one at least for every 3 workers) and a great number of intellectuals (443 teachers of various kinds) and professionals (523, i.e., 23 percent of the candidates). When considering the candidates who are elected, the difference is still more obvious. The official statistics for the last term give only 11 workers (10 for the CP, and one for the SP) and 8 clerical workers (7 for the CP and one Gaullist), which means that in the Chamber elected in 1968, 4 percent at most ·of the representatives could be classified as labor. That parliamentary situation illustrates, in a peculiar area, the domineering pressure exerted by the bourgeoisie in all the aspects of our society. Whole sections of the working class (youth, immigrant workers) deprived of the right CLASS STRUGGLE to vote, the high cost of an election campaign, the whole set of difficulties raised for_ a worker wanting to run as a candidate, a particularly unfair elec.;. tion law: those factors also contribute to restricting the number of labor can didates and still more the number of elected ones. Though important, these factors are minor, compared to the deep belief taught by bourgeois ideology-of many workers that they are unable to run their own affairs and that they had better leavF} it to "specialists" in politics. Because it is exploited and oppressed, the working class is not always ' conscious that it will have to take its affairs in its own hands to get eman cipated. The "International" says there is "no saviour, no judge, no em~e­ ror, no god", still it happened quite often that the working class believed it could improve its condition by trusting fast talkers who dare call themselves "socialist", "communist", "revolutionist" and are actually quite alien to the interests of the working class. Such has been, as Trotsky said, the tragedy of the French proletariat. Precisely, the role of revolutionaries, as the most conscious faction of the working class, is to make as clear as possible the proletariat's class inte rests, in particular they should popularize the idea that workers must take their affairs into their own hands if they want to build a society rid of op pression and exploitation. Main and above all, that is the demonstration we wanted to make-even with restricted possibilities-when having 171 revolutionary rank and file workers running for the elections, and definitely breaking off with any star dom as many revolutionary groups did in the past and are still doing today. ._.,..,. Of course, the point is not to make believe or let believe it would be enough to have a majority of workers in Parliament (supposing it is possible on the level of statistics} to transform it into a working class body. On the contrary, the point is to fight against electoral illusions and to point out the class character of the present government, and thus the necessity for the proletariat to destroy it. Revolutionaries fight for the power to the workers, a power exerted by the workers themselves at all levels of the social life, not by handful of un controlled or uncontrollable representatives (be they revolutionary). They CLASS STRUGGLE fight for a power where the central bodies of control and decisions will be the fruit of the whole working class organized in · factory or local councils. The first thing revolutionaries can do is to popularize the above stated ideas and prove they are not words only, but represent a deep conviction, is to ask the working class to vote for workers in the elections organized by the bour geoisie. Then revolutionaries do propose a real class vote. Eventually, they also have the opportunity to show that the working class they speak about in their theories is the same as the working class which is fighting evering day, with its hopes, its illusions, its prejudices, but also with its dedication and heroism. · 5 CLA5S SI RuGGLC. WHEN «CLASS VOTE» OR «WORKERS UNITED FRONT» MEANS OPPORTUNISM One of the major problems vvhich the revolutionary. movement has to cope with in this country, concerns the policy that should be adopted with regard to the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Both of them have long ago dropped any kind of revolutionary policy and do not uphold the workers' interest anymore. These parties have both given into the bourgeoisie for years. The SP has made its submission quite direct and open, since most of its leaders have been ministers, if not prime ministers, in some government of the IVth or Vth Republic. It has been less direct on the part of the CP since, more because of the reluctance of the bourgeo.isie than because of the CP's own will, it has not had ministers in government, except during sorre periods like the post World War 11 period. However, an overwhelming majority of workers are still influenced by these parties, vote for them and, except for occasional reluctance and defiance, credit them with most of their hopes. Moreover, most of the active political militants of the working class belong to these parties. Thus, the revolutionary movement has to 'find the CP, would only mean giving up participating the right policy, taking into account two some in the fights of the working class lllllere they what contradictory necessities: on one hand, the actually take place; it would rrean adopting a nature and the policy of these reformist or leftist attitude. On the other hand to take into Stalinist parties must be denounced: on the other account only the level of consciousness of the hand, the revolutionary fighters have to start from working masses, that is essentially their illusions, the level of consciousness of the working class in means giving up the fight against these illusions, or order to help the workers develop their own even helping to strengthen or to create them; it experience (which is the only way for them to means falling into opportunism and turning one'.s progress), a thing which neither revolutionary back on the revolutionary struggle in a different speeches nor denunciations can ever replace. way. Bet111een these two necessities, the way is, Thus, it is precisely during electoral periods as usual, narrow. To be satisfied with denouncing that the 1T11sses, who are usually 1TDre or less the movements and the betrayals of the SP and of indifferent to politics, become suddenly interested, 6 CLA5S STRUGGLE Because one has then to address these working leftism as well as opport.unism come to light even masses, electoral periods are among those which more clearly than they usually do. reveal the policy of each organization most clearly. On one hand, the leftist attitude of the Maoist groups which rrerely 1>raise abstention, and are This is exactly what is happening as far as the satisfied with denouncing the betrayals of the SP forthcoming March parliamentary elections are con and of the CP, is once more brought to light. On cerned. As each tendency has to put forward its the other hand, the Qpportunism of some Trotsky position-and abstention is in itself a position- ist organizations.shows up as well. THE OCI ANDTHE «WORKERS' UNITED FRONT» The OCI has put forward the slogan of «Work away from the left wing « Radicaux>i, who are their ers' United Front» for ages, in all circumstances, allies in the Union of the Left, and should fo-rm all places, and concerning all matters. Thus, no one a CP-SP government which would be, according to will be surprised that it is::Still the OCl's central the OCI, a working class government. slogan for these elections. In a running controversy with the Ligue Com The OCI and the AJS have defined their posi muniste, that has been published for several weeks tion in an appeal entitled «class against class» in Informations Ouvrieres, the OC I justifies its (cf. Informations Ouvrieres-No 592-January 4th policy by referring to Trotsky's analysis concerning to 10th 19_73) which runs as follows: the French situation from 1934 to 1936, about the necessity of a united CP-SP front, and about <eOn the first and second ballots of the elections the nature of the People's Front. not a vote for the candidates of the bourgeois parties (UDR, 'Republicains lndependants', 'Refor mateurs', right and left wing 'Radicaux'). Hence, the OCI is once again using its usual meth On the first ballot: vote only for the working od to justify its present political positions, which class organization or party that you choose: the consists in making mechanical use of slogans and SP, the CP or the OCl-AJS. of analysis that have been rightly those of the On the first ballot: vote for the candidates of . Communist and Trotskyist mov~ments, in a more the OCl-AJS everywhere that there are any. or less distant past. On the second ballot: all the votes go to 1 the working class party candidate who has been in a leading position on the first ballot.» What was the purpose of the slogan «Proletarian United Front», put forward by the Communist International in the .Years 1922-1923? It was Further on, they add: <C0ne must make one's meant to allow young and lively Communist parties choice: either a government linked to the interests which had to face Social-Democratic partie~ that of the capitalists, or an SP-CP government without influenced the majority of the proletariat, to pro any minister representing the parties or the inte- pose a perspective to the whole working class, to rests of the capitalists». respond to its desire for unity, and to lead the necessary fights. By proposing the United Front to the Social-Democratic parties, the Communist The OCI is thus leading a campaign so that the parties could either take them along the revolu CP and the SP-the two working class parties in tionary road through the struggle (though such an this country according to the OCl-should break issue was hardly probable except for trends in these CLA'·5S STRUGGLE parties, but it had to be proposed), or reveal the niste candidate. Since, for fear of being ridiculous, responsibility of each party in the division of the the OCI does not support an SP-CP-OCI govern working class to all workers. ment, the OCI confines itself to supporting an SP-CP government. It means that the OCl's support In the years of the rising of the Nazis in of the United Front is reduced merely to support Germany, the Left Opposition advocated the ing the unity between the reformists and the «Workers' United Front». But then, it was meant Stalinists to the exclusion of the revolutionary to snatch the German CP-'Miich was still consid movement. ered as a revolutionary party by the Left Opp~ sition-from the deadly and absurd so-called «third The support of only this perspective by people period» policy of the Stalinist leadership of the claiming to be Trotskyist, seems rather absurd. It Communist International. This slogan was meant seems all the more absurd today, that this United to urge the German CP to adopt the only policy Front between Stalinists and reformists was already which, by uniting the forces of the German working achieved months ago. class, could allow resistance to Facism and could lead the working class toward the revolutionary The CP and the SP have signed a joint program road. After 1933, the Trotskyist movement con for government. They have signed ·an agreement tinued advocating the «Workers' United Front» in providing for withdrawal in favor of each other on France, to oppose the very same sectarian, absurd the second ballot. The CP and the SP have and criminal policy of the Stalinist leaders, the declared that, if an electoral victory of the left results of which had just been observed in Germany. should happen, they would rule the country together. Because of the very nature of these Every tir:re the slogan of «Workers' United two parties, this is obviously the only agreement Front» was put forward, it was based on the that could be achieved between them. situation and on the relative forces of the revolu tionary party and of the reformist parties; it was The OCI, probably feeling bypassed on its based on the problems that the working class had left, has found something else: campaigning for to cope with, on the aspirations that were com~l'!9 the United Front is to support the exclusion of into the open arrong the workers, and on the the left wing « Radicaux» from the Union of the level of consciousness of the working class. Left. What could be the purpose of such a slogan in But the presence of ~he left wing « Radica~x» in France iri 1973? the Union of the Left does not fundamentally change the nature of the alliance between the CP No desire for the unification of the revolution and the SP. In fact, the Union of the Left ary and the reformist Stalinist forces has yet come program was signed first by both the SP and the into the open among the working masses. As it is, CP. The left wing «Radicaux» only signed it because of the weakness of the revolutionary sometime ·latter without worrying a bit about forces, the lack of unity among them and the the phrasing of the agreement. reformist and Stalinist forces does not appear to be dividing the working class. In fact, the revolu «SP-CP government, without any minister re tionary movement is still fighting for its place in presenting the parties of the interests of the1 the labor movement. This is the major feature of. capitalists» says the OCI. And, using one of our time. Trotsky's formulas, the OCI characterizes the Union of the Left as an alliance between working In fact, the OCI is not fighting for that kind class parties and the upper bourgeoisie represented of unity, since it dismisses the whole revolutionary by the « Radicaux». movement from the labor movement. Thus, for instance, when the OCI calls for a class vote on But today, the upper bourgeoisie and the inte the forthcoming elections, the QC I makes clear rests of the capitalists are direetty represented by that it means voting for the CP or the SP, besides the leaders of the SP, people like Mitterran-d, . for the OCI itself-but then the OCI has only Mollet or Defferre. All these leaders, who have been about 20 candidates. At no time does it call for a in the government several times in the past, have vote for the Lutte Ouvriere or the L igue Commu- given evide11ce that they are faithful servants of the 8