NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT ALGERIA
It was on the first of November 1954 that the the ultras have several times since picked up:
armed struggle of the Algerian people, the Alge-
At that time France rian revolution, began.
had a government led by Mendès-France, with
- as Minister of the Interior (responsible for
Algeria, French
Mitterand.
departments) -
These two champions then made statements that
"France is Algeria" and "The only negotiation is war." It was Mendès-France who named Soustelle governor-general of Algeria.
What a long road has been traveled in the six years of this struggle begun in the name of an " entire people by a phalanx of two to three thou-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL sand men, fed up with the rivalries within a powerless leadership!
French imperialism has since 1956 mobilized more than half a million men to hold a country of nine million inhabitants: history has never known a colonial expedition of this scope. About a million and a half Algerians have been "regrouped" in camps, under scandalous conditions, so that they may not aid the fellaghas. Military works like the Morice Line have been constructed at great cost to render Algeria a most cruel country sealed off from its neighbors. means, the most monstrous tortures fIll The and brutalities, have become everyday matters during this "pacification." In France itself, some 400,000 Algerians, indispensable to the economy as manpower, have been subjected to a regime of unconstitutionality and to violences raised to the level of a system.
Compared to the means at the disposal of French imperialism, the Algerian revolution has received only very slight aid from the Arab countries. Aid from the workers' states? From the US SR, nothing. From China, very little, whatever the world press may say. As for the French workers' movement, it is well known that its leaderships did everything to break up the natural outburst of the masses against the war: it was the Guy Mollet government, with the vote of special powers, in which the Communist deputies participated, that sent the draftees to Algeria and set up a regime of terror against the Algerians in Algeria and in France; it was those leaders who abandoned the demonstrations of the called-up soldiers in April-May 1956; it was also those leaders who supported Pflimlin in May 1958, when the latter, exploiting the threat of a coup de force in Algeria, ensured de Gaulle's arrival :1 in power.
How does it happen that it has been possible to begin negotiations? The Algerians have engaged in nothing resembling a capitulation. It is de Gaulle who, after various declarations in varying and often equivocal terms, ended up by uttering, on 14 June 1960, words that enabled the G PR A, the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, to undertake formal engagements on a level of equality. in France are not mistaken: they know that French imperialism has retreated and they would like to call a halt to a process at the end of which they foresee defeat for imperialism.
What decided de Gaulle to half-open the door pecily he tact the 1900 th proved to be Africa's year by the achievement of independence by many African countries, and
7 that the United States has given a discreet signal through the recognition of the GPRA by the government of Liberia; and, on the other hand — since the failure of the January 1960 fascist Putsch in Algiers and a declaration by de Gaulle that the war wold go on for years longer — a reänimation of the masses in France itself, a growing interest in the Algerian question, and, above all, increasing demonstrations among university youth against this war, going as far as refusal of military service and aid to the FLN. In order not to be outstripped by events, de Gaulle uttered a few words which the G P R A seized on to send a preliminary delegation to France.
*
The distance between the two sides in the negotiation is very great. There can be no doubt that — if the Algerian people have the possibility of expressing themselves freely, without pressure from the French administration or the French army, if the men of the F L N can freely advocate their positions in Algeria — the result would be an overwhelming majority in favor of an independent Algerian republic. De Gaulle, defender of the interests of French capitalism, while talking about an "Algerian Algeria," is not ready lo accept an Algerian republic, even if it were for a time to remain within the "Communauté." The real problem is not that of the Europeans in Algeria, a problem that has been blown up disproportionately and kept alive artificially, order to hinder the independence of Algeria. The problem is, on the one hand, the effect on the French army of having to evacuate Algeria after a succession of defeats over twenty years; that would undermine it without its being able to find its reason for existence in the "striking force" that de Gaulle has been dangling in front of it. The problem is, on the other hand, the absence of guarantees for the maintenance of capitalism in a country where six years of revolution and the lack of a real native bourgeoisie make national independence almost coïncide with the most daring social liberation. Algeria threatens to go far beyond Cuba and Guinea, and to give an irresistible stimulus to the socialist revolution throughout the whole Maghreb.
With the very first contacts, the considerable distance separating the power in France from the G PR A became visible. There is hardly need to stress the absolutely unheard-of attitude of de Gaulle (for only imbeciles can still try to see a real opposition between Debré and de Gaulle, where there is only a division of labor). The G PR A delegates would have to accept the conditions accorded the defeated and rely on the good will and generosity of his high-and-mightiness! It is obvious that such conditions will
8 not be accepted and that the French government will have to tone down its pretentions enormously. The word "break" will perhaps not be pronounced by either side, they will perhaps go on facing each other for weeks and even months without budging, but it will finally be necessary for the French government to form a more realistic estimate of the real correlation of forces.
But the Algerian revolution, at the moment when it is beginning to glimpse the first results of its struggle, has greater need than ever of the aid of all the anti-imperialist forces in the world. There is no doubt that the peoples who are com. ing out from under the colonial yake will do their duty. The break-up of the summit conference is also, to a certain extent, favorable to a more substantial aid from the workers' states. But what is most important, what can play the decisive role in the events that will follow, is the hostility of the toiling masses of France toward the war in Algeria. It is likely that de Gaulle is hoping to lull the masses once more by permitting the negotiations to open. His valet Guy Mollet immediately hastened to say that it was necessary to allow de Gaulle quietly to continue the negotiations. But, in the face of these manœuvres and these ruses, it is permissible to think that the reänimation that has been unanimously noted among the toiling masses France, and especially the determination expressed
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL by the university youth that an end be put to the war, far from disappearing, are going to be spurred by the pretentions of French imperialism, and will, after a certain time, give rise to great demonstrations aimed against the war and against the regime.
What give rise to the greatest hopes are various signs testifying to a very profound evolution within the masses. A desire for unity in action is appearing even in Guy Mollet's Socialist Party and in the reformist trade unions of Force Ouvrière, which certain leaders are grudgingly accepting, while Guy Mollet is launching a ma. nœuvre to distract attention by proposing a cartel of the left without the Communist Party and the Confédération Générale du Travail. Among the youth, a draft-resisting vanguard, going over to the side of the colonial revolution, is drawing its courage from the more and more clearly expressed sympathy of the broadest sectors.
The Algerian revolution is beginning to win the battle; but, after so many years when it was the reaction that held the initiative, it is ne. become independent and that the social aspect of the Algerian revolution may become as complete as possible.