[The following interview with Alain Krivine, a member of the Political Bureau of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League, French section of the Fourth International) appeared in the February 9 issue of the Belgian Trotskyist weekly La Gauche. The interview was conducted by Alain Tondeur. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Question. Can you explain the organizational changes decided on by the congress?
Answer. The basic problem is that the political period following our first congress was very difficult. Combined with this, the fact that the former leadership was a bit out of touch with the new social composition of the organization gave rise to a long period of questioning among the membership as to what a revolutionary organization is, what the nature of internal democracy is, and so on. No one, apart from a tiny minority, raised doubts about Leninism and democratic centralism; but everyone, especially the leadership, understood that there is no real organizational model.
The Ligue is at a crossroads, not only politically but also organizationally. We are no longer a small far-left organization primarily student and pettywith a bourgeois composition. Without exaggerating, we can say that we are becoming a real workers party, although a small one, especially now that we have a daily paper. For the last year or two we have seen the beginning of a qualitative leap.
But our structure is out of date. As you know, in the history of the Trotskyist movement we have had the experience of leading organizations of several hundred members, usually with the right to form tendencies and a great degree of internal democracy. But now we are in a very different situation. We have thousands of members, including many workers, comrades who do not have time to read the internal bulletins, who do not speak the same language. ... These new members have not joined because of our theoretical positions, but because of the Ligue's concrete day-to-day activity in the unions, and so forth. Their concerns are different from those of our cadres in the past.
In a period when political life has been relatively sluggish in France, such a development of different layers in the Ligue has created enormous problems for the organization. Everything has come under scrutiny. The Ligue has gone through a kind of "cultural revolution," but in a very positive sense. The leadership has been harshly criticized for all of the dislocations that have occurred, with the membership feeling a strong need to reassert their control over the organization. The comrades feel that they are not really leading the organization, that they do not understand what they are doing in it, and that a kind of "bureaucracy" has grown up.
It is a real problem. We have not really come up with any solution. We understand pretty well what is going on, but again, there is no precedent. These problems are completely new; striking a balance between centralized activity and democracy, assuring the flow of information, is very difficult.
This congress expressed very harsh criticism of the leadership. Not on political issues, because, as it turned out, there has been no major change in the relationship of forces between the different political tendencies as compared to the previous congress; but there are divisions on organizational questions, which are central.
Q. Can you go into the major decisions that the congress made in this area!
A. A national conference on organizational questions will be held before the end of the year. The problems were raised at this congress, but we will be discussing them further throughout the year. Likewise, we have taken steps to more and more decentralize the leadership of our day-to-day work, while centralizing it politically. In other words, we are going to delegate more responsibilities to more people, and more authority, responsibilities and work to the commissions.
We have set up a great many specialized commissions, with greater powers, which will be led by members of the Central Committee, but whose collective leadership will not be on the CC. This is because we have realized it is impossible to centralize the leadership of the day-to-day activity of an organization which works in a multitude of areas, such as industry, the armed forces, the women's movement, and so on. There must be a sharing of responsibilities, and along with this a lot of attention has to be devoted to political education, because in a certain sense the organization's political level has dropped.
Likewise, a great deal of attention has to be paid to the question of feminism, which has taken on great importance and in practice became the focal point of the discussions at the congress. The oppression of women certainly exists in the Ligue. And the women are using the same methods to fight male chauvinism in the Ligue that they use to fight the male chauvinism of the bourgeoisie. They are trying to establish a relationship of forces enabling them to extend their struggle throughout the Ligue. For example, they demanded the right to hold separate meetings. They did this, of course, not to carry out a split, but to have a chance to discuss among themselves.
The question of the role and status of women in the organization is one of the basic problems. Steps have been taken on all these points, but I think that solving the problem will take some time, becauseonce again-the general understanding of the problem has not advanced very far. We need to try out new methods of organization, of education, of relaying information, as well as new structures for the membership.
Take, for instance, a worker militant. He has a weekly cell meeting, a union fraction meeting, and still another meeting if he has a leadership position in the union. It gets to be impossible. This is why so many workers prefer to work in the Cercles Taupe [sympathizers' groups] rather than in the Ligue.
There is a certain tendency to superactivism, bound up with our student past. This pace was imposed de facto on the workers, but it is impossible, absolutely impossible, for them. Therefore, we must make radical changes in the organization, because if these steps are not taken...
I am very optimistic, because of the present strength of the organization, and because I think that the political situation will change in the coming months. We are nearing the end of two difficult years.
Q. So the crisis is related to the political situation, not just to changes in the organization?
A. Of course. It has been a time when our activity has been limited to propaganda and to rooting ourselves in the unions, but when we have not been able to take political initiatives, because we haven't had the forces... Of course, we have been active around Spain, for example, just as before, but it is more difficult. There were no political openings for large-scale initiatives and campaigns.
We are somewhat isolated, even on the far left. For the first time, we have been able to put together a united front of three organizations in the elections,* which is very good. But aside from those three organizations, the far left in France has been on the decline since 1968. Many people joined the CP or other organizations. When the reformists are on the threshold of power, in the midst of a crisis like this, you feel the tremendous magnetic power of these parties. So then you react by becoming dogmatic, like certain organizations in France, or else you join the CP. Or, on the other hand, you devote yourself to educating your members politically, and you strengthen your press.
*See "Pact of Alliance' in French Elections," elsewhere in this issue.—IP
Sadlowski Charges Vote Fraud
Struggle to Continue in Steelworkers Union
According to unofficial and incomplete figures released by Lloyd McBride's headquarters, McBride won the February 8 election for president of the United Steelworkers of America.
McBride is claiming 324,531 votes to 238,152 for Ed Sadlowski, candidate of the insurgent Steelworkers Fight Back movement.
Sadlowski has filed a challenge to the validity of the election. Fight Back activists have compiled evidence of fraud and widespread illegal campaign practices by the union-paid staff that formed the backbone of McBride's campaign effort.
McBride's "victory" rests on heavy margins in Canada and the Southern United States-both areas where Fight Back had few poll watchers and where the vote totals are highly suspect. For example, seventy Québec locals reported not one single vote for Sadlowski.
McBride was the candidate of the "official family" of the Steelworkers union. He received the support of virtually the entire trade-union bureaucracy in the United States, from AFL-CIO President George Meany on down. Two of the most authoritative voices of the ruling class, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, gave open editorial backing to MeRride McBride.
Sadlowski's campaign was based on the themes of union democracy and opposition to the class collaborationism of the bureaucracy on the trade-union level. He raised many broader social issues, including racism, the war budget, the rights of imigrant workers, and others, calling on the labor movement to once again become the powerful social movement it had been in the 1930s.
The Wall Street Journal warned that Steelworkers Fight Back "want a labor movement more committed to pollution control, a labor movement which would no longer support an enterprise like Vietnam." It likened the Sadlowski campaign for union democracy to the "absurdities"" of the student radicalization in the 1960s.
After the election, the Journal expressed relief at the reported outcome. The Sadlowski campaign had gained much more momentum than the capitalists and their labor lieutenants had thought possible.
One of Sadlowski's targets was the nostrike pledge the steel bureaucrats had given the bosses, called the Experimental Negotiating Agreement. Right after the election, the union tops began what they expect will be amicable talks behind closed doors with the steel barons. The Journal reported that both sides are looking to establish a "lifetime security plan" in the next contract, due to be signed this summer.
This plan, explained the Journal, is "an extension of the attitude of labormanagement interdependence that led four years ago to the industry's Experimental Negotiating Agreement."
What is involved in this new scheme is some guarantee of a certain minimum number of hours of work for some older workers. The industry "will almost certainly insist that the plan be limited to a company's more senior workers," the Journal said.
The costs of the program will come not from profits but from a "reduction in supplemental unemployment benefit levels for younger union members..."
In return, the companies want "greater control over work assignments and scheduling," the Journal said.
One of the official demands adopted by last year's Steelworkers' convention was a shorter workweek with no cut in pay to fight unemployment. This and other demands, the Journal said, "are almost certain to be dropped from serious bargaining discussion."
The Journal sees one dark spot in this otherwise bright picture. The proposed plan "may be a hard item to sell to young steelworkers, especially those aroused by the insurgent campaign of Mr. McBride's opponent, Edward Sadlowski."
The capitalist pundits have a point there. Steelworkers Fight Back is an expression of a developing radicalization among steelworkers and other workers, especially among the young, Black, Chicano, Puerto Rican and women workers.
Vote returns reported in the February 25 issue of the American socialist newsweekly the Militant indicate that in those areas where steelworkers knew what Sadlowski stood for as a result of well-organized campaigning by Fight Back activists, he won.
"Steelworkers Fight Back has inspired and mobilized thousands of union members across the United States and Canada," Militant correspondent Andy Rose said. "Through this election campaign they began a fight to wrest control of the union away from the parasitic bureaucracy, headed by I.W. Abel and now by McBride, and return decision-making power to the union ranks.
"That fight, far from ending February 8, has just begun. Many Fight Back activists are determined that an ongoing movement for union democracy should be built, and confident that it can be. They see the accomplishments of the election campaign-the ideas raised, the response, the organization begun—as the basis for this movement."