[The following article appeared in the February 24 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
There are two opposing camps in the legislative battle: the conservative camp, which includes the majority [Gaullist] coalition plus the "reformers," and the reformist bloc, composed of the Union of the Left.
The class character of these two blocs is clear. Behind the Gaullist-Center bloc stands the ruling class and its supporters among the middle and petty bourgeoisie. That is, the Centre National du Patronat Français [National Bureau of French Employers], the Association Française des Grandes Entreprises [French Association of Large Concerns], the Confédération Générale des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises [General Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Concerns], and the Confédération Générale des Cadres [General Confederation of Managerial Personnel].
According to the polls conducted by the Institut Français de l'Opinion Publique [French Public Opinion Institute], 94 percent of all shareholders, 88 percent of factory heads, 61 percent of merchants, 73 percent of officers, and the majority of farmers, retirees, and inactive workers will vote for the majority.
Behind the Union of the Left stands the working class and its allies among the petty bourgeoisie, the big trade unions, and the parties that claim as their goal the organization and representation of the workers.
Whatever the outcome of the elections may be, one thing is sure: The clash between these two blocs, despite the reformist leaders, will not be limited to electoral jousts. After March 12, it will move on to the real terrain of the class struggle: the factories and the streets.
The Bourgeoisie Is Ready
Georges Pompidou's statements at his February 8 press conference, elaborated later by Alain Peyrefitte and Pierre Messmer, leave no room for doubt. If the Union of the Left wins, the team in power will not step down. The President of the Republic will not ask the head of the Left Union to form a government. He will try to impose a minority government. (And didn't Mitterrand say that this would be an "unwise" but lawful step?)
If all the stalling maneuvers don't work, he will call for new legislative or presidential elections in a deliberately dramatized atmosphere. The ruling class does not want a Socialist-Communist government applying the common program. It wants to rapidly get on with the work of technocratically modernizing French capitalism, with the aim of approaching in the best possible circumstances the new period of intensified competition caused by the recurrence of the monetary crisis.
Carrying out this rationalization operation through the medium of a Union of the Left government would be very difficult. And for the French big bourgeoisie, the stakes are high.
It is not by chance that the bourgeoisie's professional representatives, in defiance of all decorum and tradition, have personally plunged into the battle. The big bourgeoisie will spare no effort in trying to stop the Union of the Left. It will not hesitate to call new elections, to provoke an economic crisis, or to resort to the protofascist far-right.
If the Left Union Wins
This intention to snatch electoral victory from the workers will give rise to deep indignation among the masses and, at the same time, will contribute to dispelling their legalist illusions. When the bourgeoisie refuses to accept the verdict of the ballot box, the workers will seek to impose their will through direct action.
A more or less spontaneous movement will arise to throw Pompidou out and to install a Union of the Left government through struggle. Urged on by the revolutionary far-left, the workers will struggle to immediately put into effect in their factories some of the demands of the common program, especially the ones about wages, working conditions, and "democracy in the plants."
But, since they will be advanced in struggle and not sought hat in hand from an "understanding" government, these demands will express the workers' aspirations and will generally go beyond the restrictive and equivocal formulations of the common program.
The revolutionists especially will replace the timid and ambiguous goal of "democratization" of the factory with the slogan of workers' control with veto power over hiring and firing, allocation of assignments, transfers, classification of workers, determination of the work pace and the forms of wages, and the general working conditions.
They will advocate the formation of Popular Committees in the factories and neighborhoods, uniting workers of all tendencies who are determined to defeat the regime's maneuvers, to throw Pompidou out, and to force immediate application of their demands.
Seguy's Counterblackmail
In case of a narrow victory for the conservative bloc, as is probable, Séguy himself says that "the workers, fired up by the left's unity, would want to attain by struggle what they had been unable, undoubtedly just barely, to attain through the ballot box."
And Séguy adds: "So it would be best for everyone for the left to win and then to open up an era of discussion and participation in an economic and social equilibrium."
Certainly there is a bit of counterblackmail in this statement, aimed at counteracting Pompidou's blackmail. The Union of the Left government will cost you dearly, Séguy says in essence. But pay the price. Because if the reactionary government is reconstituted, we can no longer be responsible for anything. Don't be taken in by the relative calm of these past weeks. For awhile we have been able to channel the workers' militancy in an electoral direction. But if their hopes along this road are disappointed, whatever our efforts, they will not lie back until 1976. And then, god knows how much you will pay.
The SP After Its 'Victory'
What will be the SP's and CP's attitudes after the elections?
If the Union of the Left wins, a revitalization of the SP is not out of the question. The future Socialist parliamentary group will be dominated by the SP right wing. To be convinced of this, one need only look at the SP candidates who have a chance of getting elected.
This right wing has shown for some time now that it could not be more reluctant about the common program. It finally approved it not out of conviction but for tactical reasons: namely, to avoid again getting the miserable vote (5 percent) that Deferre-Mendes got in the June 1969 elections.
Subjected to Pompidou's threats and cajolery, and confronted with a situation of "national crisis," this right wing might very well once more turn back to some kind of "grand center coalition," as has been proposed to it by Giscard d'Estaing, Edgar Faure, Chaban-Delmas, and Jean Lecanuet, one after the other.
If the Communist party leaders spent so much time harping on the "old-time third force," it is because they know that the SP right-wingers will dominate the future parliamentary Socialist group and, through it, the entire Socialist party.
The CP: A Knife Without a Blade
But what would be the CP's reaction? The February 16 L'Huma gave Georges Marchais's answer. A reporter asked, "If the President of the Republic does not name a prime minister from among those elected from the left, that is, if he violates the constitution, as you would put it, what reaction can you envisage?"
And he answered, "We would wish that it [the constitution] be respected." And how? "By appealing to democrats to support this position and to force respect for the constitution."
Apparently this answer seemed a bit on the vague side to the reporters present. One of them brought it up again: "You speak of forcing respect for national sovereignty, for the constitution if it is violated. By what means? By strikes, demonstrations?"
"It's not a matter of interpreting the constitution," Marchais answered. "It says that the French people exercise their sovereignty through their elected representatives. We say that the President of the Republic must respect this. If he does not, he is violating the constitution. In such a case, respecting democracy and legality, we would call upon all workers and democrats to support our position. Do not make us say something we have not said about what the workers can do."
Thus, Georges Marchais refrains from calling for strikes and demonstrations if the President of the Republic decides to bypass the electoral results.
So by what means could he "force respect for the constitution"? By a new election? That's what Marchais suggests. Pompidou must be telling himself that his opponents really aren't too formidable. When he puts the heat on them, Mitterrand declares himself ready to step down and Marchais calls for a new electoral farce!
Marchais does not even dare to form Chilean-style "Popular Unity Committees" organizing the rank-and-file supporters of the common program. The existence of such a mass movement would allow him to force Pompidou to yield and to put pressure on the SP's orientation. But in the present political conjuncture, the CP leadership is more afraid of the possibility of being outflanked by such a mass movement than it is of Pompidou's maneuvers and the vacillations of its Socialist "allies."
In the name of respect for bourgeois legality, the CP leaders agree to renounce mass mobilization, even if the bourgeoisie violates its own legality!
But only the mobilization of the masses can block Pompidou's show of force. This show of force is also a calculated risk. Its success depends on the passivity of the workers' movement. From this point of view, Marchais's and Mitterrand's reactions are a powerful encouragement to the President of the Republic!
If the Union of the Left wins, the workers struggling to impose their will on Pompidou and his flunkeys will also clash with the reformist leaders of the Union of the Left.
We'll Do Better Next Time!
If the expanded Gaullist-Center coalition wins, the leaders of the Union of the Left will talk something like this: "This time we didn't quite make it. The President of the Republic was able to scare off part of the electorate with his blackmail about chaos. But we'll do better next time. Because in the 1976 presidential elections, no blackmail will be possible. So the relative success of 1973 must be consolidated so as to assure victory in 1976. The workers must prove that they are responsible, in order to definitively win the trust of the other antimonopoly layers."
All this is not to say that the CP and CGT leaders will oppose any upsurge of struggle head on. That kind of opposition would be suicidal, and the reformist bureaucrats have no intention of cutting down on their own longevity. But they will spare no effort to spread the mobilizations out over time, to fragment them in order to avoid any dynamic toward a test of strength and to channel them toward electoral goals.
In this case also, the workers wanting to attain by struggle what they could not obtain through the ballot box (to use Séguy's own words) will clash with the policies of the reformist leadership.
Serious Things Start on March 12
Whatever the result of the elections, the upsurge of mass anticapitalist struggles and the victory of socialism require outflanking the Union of the Left.
It is to prepare this outflanking that the Ligue Communiste is running candidates and campaigning. For weeks our members have been explaining that the socialist revolution is the only realistic solution to the system's crisis. They have shown that the Union of the Left is incapable of resolving the crisis and of assuring the transition to socialism.
They have tried to group together all those ready to enter the electoral battle by working to outflank the apparatuses. There are many workers who share our criticisms but who are still planning to vote for the CP on the first round in order to beat the Socialists or because the result in the district depends on just a few hundred votes.
To these workers we say: On the first round, revolutionists must register their opposition to the regime and their defiance of the Union of the Left. Pompidou, Mitterrand, and Marchais must all be told that no matter what their various schemes may be, there are many workers determined to resolve the question of power through class struggle. The number of votes gotten by the far left will have an effect in determining the political atmosphere in the spring of 1973. The bourgeoisie, the reformist apparatuses, and the workers' vanguard will all have to take it into account.
While on the second round it is necessary to vote for the Union of the Left in order to defeat the conservative bloc, on the first round it is essential to vote for revolutionary candidates -- for the candidates of the Ligue Communiste and Lutte Ouvrière wherever they are running, and for the other far-left candidates (PSU, OCI, Maoists) everywhere else.
Fight the UDR and kick out Pompidou! But no confidence in the Union of the Left as the way to achieve socialism.
For a workers' government!
Support revolutionary candidates!
And on March 4,
Vote Ligue Communiste!
Vote Lutte Ouvrière!