Revolutionary Marxists are more than suspicious of opinion polls. This investigatory method, invented by so-called modern sociology (primarily under the influence of American pragmatism) for ascertaining public opinion, denies Marxist social categories and divides the population according to criteria that are vague, if not completely dubious. Furthermore, the questions are so formulated that they determine the responses to a considerable extent. And this even leaves aside the fact that many polls are conducted, not to learn the state of this famous "public opinion," but rather to publish statistics designed to influence it.
In general these polls are reactionary devices tending to produce questionable results, most often leaning toward conservative or reactionary sectors of opinion.
1. As a whole, do you feel more sympathy or more hos tility for the youth who are challenging present-day society?
More sympathy..
More hostility .............. Indifferent (neither sympathy nor hostility) No opinion.
2. Do you think the May 1968 events had a generally good effect or bad effect on:
Good effect .. 42%
French life in general ...
Life of the youth.............. 43 Relations between youth and adults. 35
3. Do you think things will develop without upheavals, or on the contrary that we are heading toward deep crises (economic, social, moral)?
Things will develop without upheavals
We are heading toward deep crises. No opinion ......
With these considerations in mind, recent poll conducted by a rightthinking outfit at the request of the conservative newspaper Le Figarothe results of which were published in the March 10 issue of that paperhas an import deserving our attention.
French capitalists are worried about the youth-high-school, college, and worker youth.
Le Figaro had the polling company question "a national sampling of 1,000 youth, representative of the whole French population between the ages of fifteen and twenty." (See table.) The poll was conducted from February 8 to 15, about two weeks before the murder of the worker Pierre Overney by a Renault cop and the demonstrations that followed.
The answers to the first question show that, according to the poll it-
Poll Published
. 53%
• 19 •
22 •
Bad
No effect opinion 33%
25%
19 38
21 44
. 21%
. 69
. 10
in 'Le Figaro'
transformed No opinion.
today?
France U.S.A. England Sweden. U.S. S. R. Israel India China. Cuba None of these Don't know.
answers.)
according to social milieu, but was consistently very high. [The smallest figure was recorded in the agricultural sector: 42 percent. Politicallv. onlv sector: 44 percent.| Politically, only the youth affiliated to the UDR, the Gaullist party, evinced hostility -although narrowly, 36% to 32%- toward the dissidents."
The second question shows that youth who are between fifteen and twenty - and who were thus between eleven and sixteen at the time of the events themselves -hold a favorable opinion of May 1968, even though they think that on the whole relations between youth and adults consequently deteriorated.
Questions three and four are by far the most interesting. Nearly 60 percent of the youth think reforms cannot improve French society, and nearly 70 percent believe France is heading toward deep crises. This is not an "objective" judgment reflecting the sympathy toward dissidents evidenced in the first question; it is a statement of political position in favor of rev-
4. With which of these two opinions do you tend to agree?
To improve the condition of the French people, certain reforms are needed, but the present organization of society need not be challenged
. 32%
The condition of the French people cannot be really improved by simple reforms. The present organization of society must be profoundly
... 58
......
.•.. • ••••.
5. In which of the countries listed below do you think it would be most interesting for a youth of your age to live
61% 48 .39 . 31
(The total exceeds 100% because some persons gave multiple olutionary solutions.
The figures on the answers to the last question are more difficult to interpret. Le Figaro's commentary says that 23 percent of Communist party sympathizers were attracted to the Soviet Union, and 35 percent to the United States.
So even such an adulterated method of measurement as an opinion poll has to record that the great majority of French youth -whose specific weight in the population is on the rise - is hostile to capitalist society and believes the future lies in revolutionary solutions.
The most recent political demonstrations in France-especially the February 28 action in which 40,000 people, most of them youth, protested the murder of the worker Overney, and the funeral procession for the victim, in which about 200,000 marched despite the unbridled "antileftist" campaign launched by the CP and CGT [Confédération Générale du Travail- General Confederation of Labor]- showed that such a poll reflects reality.
After these demonstrations, the principal bourgeois commentators declared that May 1968 had not been the expression of an accidental phenomenon, a short-lived, fortuitous event; that in spite of enormous efforts, the CP has not reconquered the youth; that henceforth the political and social forces to the left of the CP constitute a new factor in the French political scene.
It took these farsighted bourgeois commentators nearly four years to notice these facts, upon which the Trotskyists of the Ligue Communiste had based their policies ever since the May events.
All this presents the CP leaders with an unprecedented situation of enormous difficulty. Unable to find a way out, they respond with increased rigidity. Before May 1968, they had nothing to their left except some small propaganda groups that gave only a few CPers pause for thought.
Today the situation is completely different. To the left of the CP there are now organizations- still small compared to the CP, and with only a weak base in the working classbut whose militant capacity, because of their influence on the youth, is quite considerable.
This situation similarly complicates the relationship the CP wants to have April 3, 1972
with the Socialist party, and the CGT wants with the CFDT [Confédération Française et Démocratique du Travail - French Democratic Confederation of Labor]. The SP and CFDT leaders have more than misgivings about Marchais* and company. Given the strength of the workers' movement led by the latter, they cannot avoid coming to an understanding with the CP and CGT.
But the SP and CFDT leaders are on the lookout for anything that will enable them to hold their own against the demands and maneuvers of the French Stalinists.
In the Renault events they found the chance to attack the CP and CGT from the left- by sending delegations to Overney's funeral and by defending the right of the far left to exist in the workers' movement.
*Georges Marchais, assistant general secretary of the French Communist party.
This last point was particularly annoying to the CP and CGT leaders; at bottom it poses the question of workers' democracy. And this is posed because of the strength of the far left, especially the strength of the Ligue Communiste, the Trotskyist organization whose politics are, much more than the Maoists' or spontanéists', able to reach worker militants until now under the CP's influence.
The CP had nothing much to fear on the right. It saw itself advancing to electoral successes, ministerial posts, a nice parliamentary road to socialism. Suddenly it sees itself confronted on the left by a mass of youth who know the impotence of parliamentarism, who have no confidence in reformism, and who want to make the revolution. The Overney funeral demonstration was a resounding slap at the CP leadership. It was just the beginning.