CONTINUED CRISIS IN FRANCE
The prolongation of the counter-revolutionary war in Algeria and the policy of the traditional workers' leaderships have brought about a deterioration of the situation in France, which is being exploited by reaction.
This war is costing the French budget some 2,000 million franes [about $ 4,760,000] a day : it uses half a million drafted men; it has provoked the rupture of diplomatic relations with Tunisia and created problematical relations with Morocco; it feeds a ferment in
the other French colonies in Africa. And what hopes can French capitalism have?
A victory by means of ferocious repression has proved impossible: in three years the Algerian Army of National Liberation has grown stronger and the Algerian people firmer than ever in its will to indepen-
The United States and the other Atlantic allies of France, moreover, cannot accept this solution, would definitively cut off any hopes influence among the Arab peoples.
There remains a federative solution —still unclear in its modalities— toward which a growing part of French capitalism is turning. But the transition to such a solution offers difficulties. First of all, the FLN [National Liberation Front] is not at present disposed to accept it; and even if it were, it is not sure that it could get the Algerians to accept it. Besides, the Lacoste policy has generated, among the Europeans (civilians or military men) living in Algeforces ready for anything to oppose any other solution than "French Algeria.'
Several bye-elections in France have shown that the Algerian war is in the forefront of people's worries, and that a polarization is taking place in the country. But while on the left that is translated only by an in votes for the Communist Party, on the right it is being shown by increased agitation, a greater arrogance on the part of reaction, and demonstrations by fascist gangs. For all these people, if the situation in Algeria is not solved, it is because of "traitors" in France.
They are aided by the government, which is using repression against those who show opposition to the war in Algeria or who are merely rendered indignant by the methods of torture employed therein. that, it was no surprise to see a fascisizing and antiparliamentary demonstration by part of the Paris police.
Parliament reflects current impotence; the government is completely immobilized. And so currents for setting up a «strong state" are being reënforced. More and more there are to be heard appeals to a providential man, de Gaulle —who remains more silent than the Sphynx, thus feeding the hopes in him felt by both the advocates of war to the bitter end and the advocates of a negotiated federative solution.
But this recourse to a strong-man runs up against considerable resistance in parliamentary circles, both on the right from the Independents and on the left from the Socialists —the Guy Mollet leadership fearing that such an eventuality would be, once more in French history, the whip-crack from the which would awaken the popular masses and bring about a revolutionary situation. For the moment, both sides are seeking solutions in parliamentary tricks.
The result is that the present situation is marked by a growing decomposition. How long this can go on, it it difficult to estimate.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The working class has been bewildered on the political plane by the attitude of the workers' leaderships after the 2 January 1956 elections. And on this plane, apathy continues to hold sway. But on the economic the situation is not quite the same. categories of workers are demanding wage raises, all the more so in that the rise in the cost of living has been much felt, especially since the summer of 1957. But these movements are still limited. That results from two facts. On the one hand, certain categories of the working class (including vanguard sectors like the metal-workers) have experienced a certain improvement during the years of prosperity and France is not yet feeling the effects of the recession in the United States. On the other hand, the trade-union organizations are putting forward only mediocre demands which cannot build up any drive.
This general situation is not unfavorable for the development of a spirit of criticism in the workers' organizations— indeed, quite the contrary.
In the Socialist Party, that is expressed in the form of a politically timorous opposition that Guy Mollet is terrorizing. It suffices to say that most of its leaders formerly belonged to Blum's staff. It is not excluded that, at a given moment, Guy Mollet himself may make a turn, for example by sacrificing a Lacoste.
Greater shirking of issues by the CP leadership has rarely been On the question of the war Algeria, it does not do anything, it does not want to do anything, it leaves things in the hands of the Peace Movement. which is careful not go beyond verbal and systematically eliminates the slogan of Independence for Algeria. The French CP leadership during these past months has always defended its March 1956 vote in favor of the special powers, powers which put in the saddle the present regime in Algeria. This leadership has made a lot more noise against the "German" General Speidel than against the French General Massu, commander of the parachutists. also gives more importance to the question of the launching ramps, withous however dreaming of doing anything more than getting petitions signed —a campaign that no longer finds an echo, as was the case with the Stockholm Appeal.
The general policy of the French CP leadership has been carried out with the keynote of bringing about a "compromise on the left." The very latest session of
Central Committee (March) even put forward again the slogan of the Popular Front. The French CP leadership is trying to use the growing worry about the demonstrations by reactionary groups to win over a wing of the bourgeoisie to this idea. is no wing of the bourgesoise that is now disposed to go along with this policy, the CC reporter addressed this bourgeois left in a cynical way. You are afraid because we are stronger than in 1936, he said to them, and you perhaps require guarantees that we should not profit by the situation in order to make a "Popu-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL lar Democracy"? As for guarantees, haven't you the best of them in our past? It is not we who, in 1936 and 1946, broke the contract. On the contrary, we were the ones who put an end to the strikes, who persuaded the workers to give up their militias... And we will act in the future as we have done in the past.
Despite such promises, the lett bourgeois are not at all disposed to answer favorably, and the SP leadership has erected the strictest barrier against any idea of CP-SP joint action. These gentlemen are well aware that the Thorez leadership has been very loyal on two occasions and that they need have no doubt concerning its intentions to remain loyal in the future; but they are not sure that a new mass movement, once set going, could in the future be controlled by the French CP leadership.
And the bourgeois are still hoping today —in view of the lack of action by the workers' movement - to find a solution by the use of small-scale measures, by minimizing social clashes as much as possible.
The worsening of the situation in France is going in the opposite direction to developments elsewhere in the world, including in the majority of neighboring European But it can very well continue for some time; the aggravation of the difficulties in
7 Algeria, the exhaustion of the Monnet loans, and the repercussions of the American recession may contribute to a change in the situation and stir the working-class masses to much more widespread actions than those of today, but that does not appear probable in the immediate future.
Nevertheless, despite this negative aspect, the present situation in France has not led to any decomposition of the workers' movement, the class has not suffered any decisive defeats, and we are witnessing a deepening of the crisis in the Stalinist leadership. Its authority, its relations with the ranks and with the working class in general, have undergone a deep and irreversible deterioration. A critical frame of mind is developing in the French CP and in the CGT. revolutionary programme has a broader audience than the French section of the Fourth International is in a period of considerable recruiting. Capitalist France has not yet ended its decline, but this situation is also a situation of preparation of a vanguard for the next stage, when the workers' movement will be forced to take action.
(As we go to press, the continuing crisis reaches its next higher pitch with the fall of the Gaillard government.)