Some of the thousands of participants in February 7 at the Palais des Sports in Paris.
Paris
For several weeks, in preparation for the coming elections, the Ligue Communiste has been organizing meetings in many provincial cities. They have been well attended and have aroused much interest.
To mark the official opening of the campaign, the Ligue organized a big meeting on February 7 at the Palais des Sports in Paris. It was chaired by Jeannette Habel. The hall was packed with about 6,000 or 7,000 people, and the audience responded enthusiastically to the speakers.
The first speaker was Comrade Moran of Lutte Ouvrière, whose own meeting, scheduled for February 26 in the same hall, had just been banned under a phony pretext. He explained that the two organizations had agreed to wage a campaign against electoralist illusions aimed at arming the workers for the class battles that will follow the elections, whatever their results.
Comrades Alain Krivine, André Fichaut, and Daniel Bensaid spoke for the Ligue.
Here is what the February 9 Le 198
the Ligue Communiste election rally held
Monde had to say about Krivine's speech:
"Mr. Alain Krivine, member of the Political Bureau of the Ligue Communiste, began by making some sarcastie comments about the ORTF [Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française], which grants 'seven minutes to the revolutionists and fourteen years to the UDR [Union des Démocrates pour la République] Then he added, 'May 1968 in France let loose thousands of moles who have been progressively gnawing away at the foundations of bourgeois society.'
"Listing the government's setbacks (the Concorde, the rottenness of the police, the 'courageous' stand of the doctors on abortion), Mr. Krivine observed, 'For the last several months, Messmer and the UDR have looked pretty miserable.'
"The head of the Ligue Communiste then analyzed the political situation, noting with some amusement that Servan-Schreiber's Radical party wants to wait for the results of the first round before deciding what to do. On the common program of the Union of the Left, Mr. Krivine said:
"*The common program is another blind alley, just like the program of the Popular Front or that of the Liberation. The components of the Union of the Left think social institutions are neutral; they want to build socialism by using the present structures. It's like giving a drinking straw to a fireman and thinking that that makes it a fire extinguisher. The leaders of the Union of the Left are dizzy with the scent of power. If I may say so, they have pulled back on their advanced democracy even before taking power. It's already watered down.
"'Naturally, the SP leaders like the present constitution; after all, they wrote it. Even Allende in Chile is going further than the leaders of the Union of the Left. He has now declared that Congress must be dissolved and a referendum held to change the constitution. But Mitterrand explains that he wants to keep Pompidou on. Such is the bridle the Union of the Left is willing to wear. We are forewarned about what their program is. The left parties will respectfully ask the bourgeoisie for permission to build socialism a little at a time.
"For revolutionists, there is only one road to socialism. The bourgeois state must be destroyed and the dictatorship of the proletariat established. But the reformist, Social Democratic, and Stalinist leaders will not have a free hand the way they did in the past. Since 1968, a revolutionary force has come on the scene. It is natural for the bourgeoisie to be afraid of the Union of the Left. It's not Mitterrand they fear, but the dynamic that would be unleashed in the working class if the Union of the Left wins. They're afraid of a workingclass upsurge. And they can count on us to do everything we can to organize it. For the first time, thanks to 1968, the question of power is posed.' "Finally, Mr. Krivine refuted the argument that his group is 'anticommunist: 'We have nothing to learn from those who, party card in hand, don't hesitate to crush the people of Prague, to shoot workers in Poland, to lock up intellectuals in psychiatric hospitals. The title of communist is earned through day-to-day participation in the workers' struggles. The
Soviet version is an assault on socialism and communism. The real anticommunists are the ones who sold out the 1968 strike. Are we just a bunch of dreamers? Well, let's make sure our dream becomes a nightmare for the exploiters and capitulators.'"
Comrade André Fichaut talked about the crucial importance of democracy in the workers' struggles, using as an illustration the recent electrical workers' strike in Brest, of which he was a leader. He showed how the formation of a democratically elected strike committee, working under the permanent control of all the workers and supported by the local union, made sure the strike was run by the workers themselves, not only up to the end of the conflict, but even afterwards in forcing management to live up to its agreements. He stressed that this experience made for a big rise in the consciousness of the workers who had gone through the strike.
In his speech, Bensaid concentrated on demonstrating that the program of the Union of the Left could not lead to socialism. Le Monde's account:
"Mr. Daniel Bensaid, member of the Political Bureau of the Ligue Communiste, for his part, attacked 'Chevènement's infatuation with Japan,' denouncing the Socialist party secretary's proposal that France attain a growth rate as high as Japan's. He said he was especially surprised to hear Chevènement assert that capital hear Chevenement assert that capital will remain in France provided its profitability is guaranteed. "That means exploitation will remain, he said.
"*Those who are trying to administer capitalism will be led, whether they like it or not, to impose the rule of capital on the workers. We demand that Pompidou be kicked out and that all bourgeois institutions be swept away. If you start by bending over, you'll wind up crawling. We must stand up straight, fight with daring, and show that we are determined to win.'*
The last speaker was Comrade Ernest Mandel, who spoke for the Fourth International. He came despite the ban on his traveling to France, imposed in 1968, and his talk was covered by all the media — newspapers, radio, television. The audience gave him a tremendous ovation.
Mandel began, as Le Monde report- February 26, 1973
ed, by "denouncing the repressive atmosphere in Europe, and he was astounded by 'the blindness of the reformist and Stalinist leaders,' who, he said, 'are sitting on their hands while the revolutionary organizations are being attacked.' Recalling the rise of the Nazis, Mr. Mandel declared that already, in Italy, attacks on the new far left have been followed by attacks on the offices of the Communist party. He asked that all parties claiming allegiance to the working class and the trade-union movement bring about a resurgence of the spirit of solidarity."
Then he strongly stressed the huge upsurge, the growing politicization of the European working masses since May 1968, and the revolutionary crises this is preparing, by virtue of the fact that the workers, despite the reformist policy of the Social Democratic and Stalinist leaders, were tending to challenge capitalist property relations in the factories as well as the power of the capitalist state.
He pointed out that the perspectives of revolutionary struggle thus raised were made still more favorable by the fact that American imperialism, after its stinging setback in Vietnam, finds it impossible for a whole period to intervene militarily against revolutionary movements elsewhere in the world, especially in Europe.
The last part of his speech was devoted to explaining the kind of socialism we want, the socialism that is now attainable in Europe with its broadly developed productive forces, a socialism that will bear no resemblance whatever to the bureaucratic caricatures and monstrosities.
The meeting also had a good artistic side. The actress Collette Magny presented a tape-recorded story about a recent strike of immigrant workers, most of them North African, at a Penaroya factory in Lyons. And what can we say about the great worldrenowned Spanish singer Paco Ibanez. Finally, an Argentine ensemble, the Cedron Quartet, led by Paco Ibanez, evoked the repression in Argentina through remarkable songs, and paid tribute to the Trelew martyrs.