By Henri Weber by henrı weber
[The following article appeared in the January 13 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste. It is the first installment of a series of articles that will deal with the views of various far-left organizations on the coming legislative elections. This article discusses the position of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (Internationalist Communist Organization) and the Alliance des Jeunes pour le Socialisme (Alliance of Youth for Socialism), both of Lambertist persuasion. Rouge describes these two groups as "the far right of the far left." The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The Lambertist position was neatly summed up in the "OCI Call" published in issue No. 592 of Informations Ouvrières.
In the first round, the AJS-OCI urges, "Vote only for the workers' party or organization of your choice: the Socialist party, the Communist party, the OCI-AJS."
Since the AJS-OCI is running candidates in only 19 of the 490 districts, everywhere else the group calls for a first-round vote for the SP or the CP. So it is clear that in nearly 300 districts the Lambertists will vote for Stalinist or Social Democratic candidates against the revolutionary candidates run by the Ligue or by Lutte Ouvrière. Thus, in Marseille they will vote on the first round for Gaston Deferre rather than for our comrade Yves Salesse! This position reveals more than mere idiotic sectarianism. It shows that a new threshold of opportunism has been crossed. For months we have spared no effort to get the AJS-OCI to participate in the far left's revolutionary campaign. A battle of denunciation of capitalism, this campaign is also aimed at fighting the reformist illusions spread by the SP and the CP in order eventually to prepare to outflank them.
By calling for a first-round vote for the CP-SP the AJS-OCI rejects this fight against reformism. Even though on the first round nearly 300 candidates claiming adherence to Trotskyism will be making a radical critique of the Union of the Left and its joint program, a critique based on the program and strategy of revolutionary Marxism, the AJS-OCI prefers to underwrite the reformist bureaucrats. In plain language, this is called capitulation.
What Government Can Satisfy the Demands of the Masses?
Slavish opportunism toward the SP and the CP oozes from every pore of the OCI call.
Thus, after having noted that "none of the elementary and basic demands of the proletariat and the youth, of the masses, are realizable under the decadent capitalist system ...," the Lambertists dare to write:
"To the question, What government can satisfy their demands? there is but one answer: Only a government of the big workers' parties, a government set up by the SP and the CP, a government with no representative of the bourgeois parties."
So, according to the AJS, an SP- CP government could satisfy the "elementary and basic" demands of the proletariat- demands, moreover, that are incompatible with the capitalist system!
This is no longer opportunism; it is servility.
We say, in contrast to this, that an SP-CP government would be a reformist government, that is, a government of class collaboration, even a loyal administrator of capitalism. As such, it would have neither the means nor the intention of satisfying the "elementary and basic" demands of the workers. It could not even carry out a large number of the measures called for in the joint program. It is to convince the workers' vanguard of this 146
Capar
FRANCOIS MITTERRAND
that we are running in the legislative elections.
Obviously, if the Lambertists think that an SP-CP government constitutes a genuine workers' government desiring to, and capable of, satisfying the "elementary and basic" demands of the masses, then it is quite understandable that they should vote for the SP and the CP on the first round. But then it is no longer comprehensible why they are running even nineteen candidates!
Oh, If There Were No Left Radicals!
On the second round, the AJS calls for a vote for the SP or the CP, but not for the left Radicals. The Lambertists' big complaint against the Union of the Left is that the left Radicals came out for the joint program. That's their point of difference and their angle of attack. For weeks Informations Ouvrières has been urging the CP and SP leaderships to break with these spoilers who, by their presence alone, ruin every undertaking.
Ah, the Union of the Left would be so nice if it just got rid of the Radicals, the
Lambertists say in
If the alliance were limited essence.
to just the CP and the SP, it would almost be the workers' united front so dear to Trotsky. Not only could an SP-CP government satisfy the "elementary and basic" demands, it could even "change the conditions of life."
"Is it possible to change the conditions of life by linking up with the left Radicals?" asks Informations Ouvrières. "The answer without the slightest doubt is: No. The leaders of the SP and the CP will not 'change the conditions of life' by maintaining their alliance with the so-called left Radicals, defenders of the bourgeois order. "To change the conditions of life' - that demands a break with all bourgeois parties and politicians, from the UDR to the Radicals, both the left and right wings."
The opportunism of this article is astounding. What the "OCI Call" says is that the SP and the CP should satisfy demands and "change the conditions of life" if only they would break with the left Radicals. This is a superopportunist idealization of the SP and the CP. With or without the left Radicals these reformist parties will not satisfy "basic" demands and will not "change the conditions of life." It is not in order to entice a few Radical deputies that the SP and the CP fail to challenge the institutions of the Fifth Republic or the Atlantic Alliance or the parliamentary road to socialism. It is because they themselves are reformist, legalist, electoralist parties, degenerated to the core. This is the reason they can come to agreement with a handful of Radical party survivors.
What Concessions to the Radicals?
The Lambertist critique suggests that the SP and the CP have betrayed their proletarian programs by surrendering to the bourgeois program of the left Radicals. But, apart from the well-known fact that the SP and CP worked out the joint program together, independently of the left Radicals, who signed it without changing a single comma, this critique simply leaves out any hint of what the capitulation consists of. There is no basic difference between the joint program, the CP's program, and the SP's program. All three are reformist programs of class collaboration. The huge concessions to the Radicals that the Lambertists denounce are purely imaginary. To the letter, they are present in the SP and CP programs.
It is absurd to determine one's attitude toward the Union of the Left on the basis of the presence or absence of anti-Schreiber Radicals. They are a marginal element that affects neither the class nature of the Union of the Left, nor the social dynamic that it expresses. It is the CP's hegemony in the alliance that determines the class nature of the Union of the Left, with or without the Radicals. All the factions of the big bourgeoisie see this clearly enough.
From its own standpoint, moreover, the OCI's virulent campaign against the left Radicals cuts two ways.
They are agents of the bourgeoisie, the Lambertists indignantly proclaim. Maurice Faure is a reactionary deputy, active in every bourgeois political combination; Fabre is a worthy successor to Daladier; Filippi is a banker; Lamirault is director general of the Alfa Romeo... But then why does the AJS-OCI call for a vote for the SP? Do the Lambertists think there are fewer bankers, corporation presidents, administrators, and high funetionaries in the SP than among the left Radicals? Is Deferre any less a "bourgeois politician" than Fabre and Faure? And Mitterrand? Has Stéphane Just forgotten the time when he wrote: "The SP is today led by Mitterrand, whose political origins and functions are those of a political agentof the bourgeoisie and who, eventually, will lead the Socialist party to its destruction as a workers' party"?* Has he forgotten that to bar Mitterrand's way -unsuccessfully —the OCI went so far as to send cadres into the SP, in alliance with Guy Mollet's hardened clique? "Because," Just said, "we have an interest in seeing the workers' organizations preserve their class character against the bourgeoisie..."!!
So what is the meaning of the OCI's main slogan: "An SP-CP government without ministers representing the interests of big capital"? Does this mean "an SP-CP government without Mitterrand, Deferre, and company"? Or maybe that Mitterrand, Deferre, and the rest no longer represent the interests of capital?
*Stephane Just: "Le governement ouvrier et paysan."
The Lambertist position may seem absurd. In fact, it is much less so than it first appears to be. Their obsessive fixation on the left Radicals has in fact a hidden, basic function. It is an excuse for profound opportunism toward the SP and CP. It hides a real capitulation to the bureaucratic apparatuses of the workers' movement, whom they urge to remain deaf to the songs of the Radical sirens and faithful to their proletarian character. In so doing, the Lambertists sow illusions among the working class. They participate in the reformist mystification operation. We bet the bureaucrats will show them no gratitude for it.