France: PSU Divided on the SP

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In face of a coup that everyone had predicted would come soon, they paralyzed the initiatives of the working class, called on the workers to have "confidence in the professional army, " which would respect "the constitution and the law, " and refused on many occasions to give the workers the arms they were asking for, They abstinately sought instead to form class allionces with the Christian Democroc v But the Chilean workers and peasants saw how they octed; anc not only on September 11, also during the three years of the Unidad Popular gavernment. Among the "prisoners of war" the "Declaration of Rome" issued by the UP parties was very bodly received. (The declaration mode certain criticisms of the way the UP policy was carried out, but reaffirmed the general strategy of class collaboration and the "peaceful rood to socialism." See INPRECOR No.4, July 18, for an analysis of the declaration.) The common reaction was: "They are still repeating the same thing, but they don't say a word to explain that socialism is not dead in Chile. " psu divided on sp Common Program (of the CP-SP electoral bloc, the Union de la Gauche) but opposed odherence to the SP essentially by playing on "party patriotism" and the repulsion against the SP that still exists, especially among the very powerfel radicalized Christian sectors in the PSU. This switch in the majority of the PSU is on index of the growing distrust among an important layer of radicalized workers toward the operations the SP is trying to carry out after Mitterrand's electoral breakthrough. The same sort of reticence is appearing more and more among the rank and file of the CFDT, and it is clear that the position of the PSU will cool off the ardor of those who were prepared to rejoin the SP on the basis that the presence of the PSU would represent o guarantee in the operation. Nevertheless, the broadening of the SP will not be fundamentally set back by the position taken by the PSU. Mitterrand himself did not want to occept Rocard and the and the right wing of the PSU and he did not want to have "ultraleftists" entering his party. It con be expected that Rocard and the whole old leodership of the PSU will go into the SP, taking 2,000 to 3,000 militants with themBut it is now that the real problems will be posed for the PSU, on organization that will remain with about 5,000 members. It will no longer be "recognized" by the CP and the SP and will have a hard time playing its traditional role of courrier between the revolutionary for-left and the reformist parties. The process of political clarification and achieving unity in action with revolutionaries--notably the FCR (Frant Cdmmuniste Révolutionnaire--Revolutionary Communist Front), the French Trotskyist organization--will be the two key problems that the PSU will have to debate.