By Pierre Frank by rierre rrank
Six months have now gone by since the defeat of the Union of the Left in the March 1978 legislative elections. After the masses had been looking forward for years to a victory and after the Union of the Left did win a majority of the vote in the March 1977 municipal elections, discord erupted between the Communist and Socialist parties. It grew sharper day by day in the months preceding the legislative elections.
This conflict assumed such proportions that by the time of the elections, the Union of the Left and its "Common Program" seemed to the voters to be no more than an empty shell.
Since that time, the CP and the SP have not maintained any direct relations. The CP has been conducting a constant campaign against the SP. The SP has responded, although it has picked up the guantlet less frequently than the CP has laid it down, in such a way as to present itself as the offended party.
These recent allies have been hurling half truths, along with small and big lies, at each other. The CGT and the CFDT* have had less venomous interchanges and have met together, but they no longer conduct joint actions, except where they are forced to do so locally or in certain industries by struggles in which their members are involved. Even when circumstances bring pressure to bear for operation, the national federations do not always accede to this.
In September, the meeting of the general secretaries of the two federations concluded with a cynical registering of disagreement and a refusal to organize a joint counterattack against phase III of the Barre government's austerity plan.
1. The parasitic character of the Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche [Movement of Left Radicals, the bourgeois component of the Union of the Left was clearly shown immediately after the elections. The chairman of this party, Robert Fabre, broke with the left alliance on the very night of election day and wasted no time in accepting a "commission" from the president of the republic. The Left Radicals who have maintained their ties with the SP do so only because they could not be elected without its support. They remain faithful to the cardinal principle of all Radicals-sell out for what you can get.
2. Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor, the CP-controlled federation). Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labor, an independent federation of Catholic origins but now associated with the SP).
As a result of the electoral defeat, the prospect of a Union of the Left government has disappeared, and along with it, for the moment, any convincing perspective for the workers. One of the results of this is that demonstrations have become few in number and small. But this does not mean that nothing is happening.
In August and September, by-elections were held to fill the seats of five deputies whose election in March had been ruled invalid by the Constitutional Council. A CP member was elected in a Paris suburb. Two SP members were elected in the provinces (one in Pas de Calais and the other in Gers, that is, in the North and South). Two members of the ruling coalition were elected. In a district in the East, the chairman of the Radical Party [the party of President Giscard d'Estaing] was elected. A Gaullist, Chirae's right-handman, was elected in Paris.
So, these elections were representative of the various regions in the country and answered a number of questions about the mood of the population today and the attitude of the masses to the CP and the SP.
One fact stands out. In every case, the candidates of the ruling coalition parties lost a relatively large number of votes. The two majority deputies who had to stand again were severely defeated. Where they had had small absolute majorities a few months before, they got only 41 to 46 percent of the vote.
So, these elections have shown that Giscard and Barre's policy is condemned by the population and that mass discontent is growing. Such discontent is being fanned by mounting unemployment, persistent inflation, rising costs of public services, and the absence of restraints on the prices of industrial products and the prospect of this for the prices of all services. Some bourgeois politicians are beginning to show uneasiness about the government's policy. They are trying insofar as possible to clear themselves of responsibility for it but not to change it.
The small number of strikes nowadays, which are often hard fought but seldom very long lasting, reflects the demoralization of the masses following the election defeat. Besides being a consequence of the lack of political perspective, this is a result of the failure of the workers organizations to unite around broad common demands relating to the hours of work (such as the demand for a thirty-five-hour workweek), the minimum wage, and equal raises for all. Such demands could focus the battles being fought by the masses toward a generalized struggle in the relatively near future.
Neither the CP nor the SP nor the union federations (CGT, CFDT, FO', FEN) has an orientation like that, despite the fact that a strong aspiration for unity is being expressed in the struggles that are going on now and was also confirmed by the results of the recent elections.
The by-elections were rich in lessons about the evolution of the relations between the two big workers parties and the working masses. In the Paris suburbs, the SP decided not to run a candidate against the CP deputy whose election had been invalidated. In return, in the South, the CP did not run a candidate against an SP deputy whose election had been quashed. In both cases, these deputies were returned with an increased vote.
In the other districts, both the CP and SP ran candidates, including in Pas de Calais, where the election of an SP deputy had been invalidated. In their campaigns, the CP candidates came out with the same sort of attacks against their SP rivals as l'Humanité [the CP organ] has been hurling at this party every day in several of its columns.
In working-class districts in particular, the CP sought to stem the advance of the SP and if possible restore the old situation in which it could boast of being "the leading left party."
One initial conclusion can be drawn from the election results. In every case where there was a runoff, the single candidate got all the votes that had been cast for the SP and CP separately in the first round. In other words, goaded by the government's policy, the workers' desire and hope to see these parties unite in action remains unabated. At present the workers can see no solution to the situation with which they have been confronted by the government except in the framework of such unity.
However, another conclusion can be drawn from these elections. In every case in which there was a contest between the CP and the SP, it was the SP that gained and the CP that lost. The extent of the gains and losses varied according to district, but the trend was constant, and there was nothing accidental about it. This was not the first time since the Union of the Left was established in 1972, moreover, that this tendency has shown up.
5. Fédération de l'Education Nationale (National Education Federation, a union representative of all teachers and not split along party lines:
On the occasion of the 1973 legislative elections, the CP had already noted that the SP was gaining the most from the accord between the two parties. This fact was confirmed by the 1974 by-elections, and the CP had for some time been making fruitless attacks on the SP. The 1977 municipal elections not only reconfirmed the trend but showed that the CP was losing both on its right, to the SP, and on its left, to the far-left candidates.
It was after the 1977 elections that the CP began to make a "left" turn in its language, but not its politics, and to conduct a furious campaign against the SP, which led to the well-known results in March 1978.
Why is the CP losing votes in the present circumstances when there is growing mass discontent, and why is its offensive against the SP not bringing any results? Without going into any long explanations, the following can be said:
1. Made in the exaggerated form that they are, the CP's accusations against the SP are not convincing, even when they are true or at least partly true.
2. Large sections of the masses, even those who still vote Communist, see the CP as particularly responsible for the present division.
3. The CP concentrates exclusively on criticizing the SP but it has not offered any policy really different from that of the SP.
In these circumstances, except for those who blindly follow the CP-and their numbers are diminishing-the SP seems to be in the best position to rally the largest number of voters behind it and win the most seats in parliament. So, people vote for the SP as the best means of making their votes "count," not because it has a better policy.
Despite its electoral successes, the SP could not fail to feel the impact of the for the CP
defeat of the alliance, because it was left facing the fundamental problem of how is it going to get into the government if the CP keeps on playing its old tricks or if the threat of the CP reverting to this remains hanging over its head.
Up till now, no one in the SP has proposed seeking a political deal with any formation in the government coalition, or even giving up the idea of a "Union of the Left." On this point, only the form and political content of such an alliance are open to discussion. Any other course of action would mean returning to a "thirdforce" policy in the style of Guy Mollet, which would lead immediately to a halt in the SP's electoral advances or even to the loss of everything the SP has gained during its alliance with the CP.
The SP's internal problems today have tended to focus around personalities. Despite the role he played in the SP's spectacular resurgence after 1971, Mitterrand finds himself being challenged, although this is still being done in a cautious way. The top echelons of the party are all in a tizzy over who is going to "succeed" Mitterrand. He could hardly run for president of the republic a third time after losing twice. This struggle is going to have to take a more or less clear form in the coming year around the upcoming SP congress.
In the case of the CP, everyone remembers the wave of questioning that arose following the elections and continued to the summer vacations.? In the course of these debates, the leadership adjusted its line in order to regain a firm grip on the party. Just before the end of the summer vacations, it brought out a book by some of its in-house intellectuals entitled L'URSS et nous ["The USSR and Us"].
Publication of this book was intended to show the membership that the leadership was not retreating on the question of the Soviet Union but rather was taking a few steps forward in differentiating itself from the USSR, while not breaking with it.® At the same time, Marchais was saying publicly that there were no "questioners" in the party but only a few "comrades" who were discussing some points and had a right to hold opinions contrary to his. This adjustment, which changed nothing about the party's general line, especially as regards the SP, was obviously designed to reassure those party members who feared that the attacks on the SP were the result of an abandonment of the "line of the Twenty-Second Congress."° Such a readjustment could have no effect on the masses who vote for the CP.
In view of the results of the recent byelections, the CP leadership wanted to take advantage of the September 27-28 Central Committee plenum to answer in advance the questions that might be raised. The reporter for the Political Bureau, Fiterman, found that the results "give real cause for worry." He recognized that there was an "erosion" of the Communist vote, that "some Communist voters abstained," and some even "voted for the right."
Fiterman's explanation for the developments he took note of can be summed up as follows: The SP is pursuing a "kind of strategy of double dealing" designed to "gather together the most diverse kinds of malcontents with the most contradictory interests." The "ruling right" is assisting this operation, notably by means of the mass media. The Communist voters were found wanting because they misjudged the "conditions for change"-that is, first of all, the need for a strong Communist Party-and because they failed to understand "the grave responsibility" borne by the SP in the defeat of the Union of the Left.
There's a real Stalinist explanation for you! The bourgeois are acting like bourgeois, the Social Democrats like Social Democrats, and the Communist voters do not understand this, and so they are not voting for the CP anymore. Thus, what happened is the fault of someone else, even of the workers. The CP's line remains above criticism.
Nonetheless, the CP leadership must have realized that its explanations were rather weak. Fiterman made them in a short section, less than a tenth, of his report, which overall was distinquished by its tone of French nationalist boosterism. It was very much wrapped in the "colors of France. "1
In his speech concluding the plenum, Marchais did not say a single word about the election results. So, it is not impossible that after a while we will see other "explanations" and new adjustments of the line. For the moment the CP is continuing its incantations.
The Communist Party has postponed its congress until May 1979. So, we will see if between now and then it makes any alterations in its line. And we will see whether, insofar as the CP's internal regime permits this, although it is now somewhat less rigid, criticisms of the line are expressed.
In the immediate situation, despite the efforts of the SP and CP leaderships to send their memberships off on false trails, both big workers parties have largely turned in on themselves as a result of their common electoral defeat. But, as everyone in France recognizes, the situation in the country is deteriorating.
The president, the premier, and the bosses in the CNPF [Conseil National du Patronat Français-National Council of French Employers] are exploiting their victory over the Union of the Left to the hilt. They are not hesitating to tighten the screws, and they do not seem worried that the vise may break. They are even turning a deaf ear to the warnings from Bergeron, secretary general of Force Ouvrière, who could hardly be suspected of wanting to make trouble.
Conditions right now certainly do not encourage the masses to undertake large scale and prolonged actions. But the growing unemployment and the attacks on the workers' standard of living cannot fail in the long run to provoke a counterattack by the working class, whose combativity remains fundamentally intact.
The conflict between the leaderships of the two big parties now tends to inhibit the militancy of the workers. But in the long run it seems likely that it will help to weaken the hold that these parties have on the masses and reinforce the tendencies of the masses to undertake actions that will be less easily containable by the SP and CP leaderships. As a result, revolutionary activists will have greater possibilities to gain a hearing.
The fact that the Union of the Left did not achieve an electoral victory in March does not mean that the masses have gone through their experience with this formation. Their experience with the Union of se son some he hat en the Left is still incomplete. It would cerable to go through the experience of a Union of the Left government, which would have enabled them to see clearly the impotence and bankruptcy of reformism.
However, the break in the Union of the Left that blocked an electoral victory was carried out and has been continued in conditions that are, nonetheless, very educational for the activists and for the masses.
Let us recall the big political questions that were posed during the election campaign, that is, the need for socialism today, how to get there, what form a socialist system should take from the outset, and other such questions. These questions may seem to have been pushed into the background by the accusations the CP and the SP have been hurling at each other. But they have not disappeared. They have not lost their force. And the capitalists' policy will bring these questions back into the forefront with still greater impact.
The doubts about the leaderships that underlay the debates on these questions can only grow. Circumstances may force the SP and the CP, under the pressure of the masses, to come to a new understanding. But when that happens, the leaders are not going to be able to just say "let's kiss and make up, and all is forgotten."
The masses no longer have the sort of illusions they had at the time of the Popular Front government. They have already raised embarrassing questions for the leaderships. And they will look on any future deal between the SP and the CP with greater distrust and tend more strongly to go beyond the line of these parties.
Notes
3. Mayor of Paris and leader of the right-wing Gaullists.
4. Force Ouvrière (Labor Force, a right-wing Social Democratic. and syndicalist-led splitoff from the CGT).
6. The most symptomatic setback came in Paris. Since the Tours split in 1920 [the break of the supporters of the Russian revolution from the Social Democrats, leading to the formation of the Communist Party], the CP has held a dominant position in the Paris region. And the CP held the district in question before it was taken by a Gaullist candidate twenty years ago. In March, the SP candidate had only a 500-vote lead on the CP candidate. This time, although several Political Bureau members campaigned for the CP candidate, the SPer got a lead of approximately 2,600 votes in the first round.
7. See "The Crisis in the French Communist Party," Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor, July 3, 1978, p. 795.
8. While the CP leadership has been obliged to modify its political positions with regard to the Soviet Union, it has done so without departing from typically Stalinist methods. It ordered the publication of a book to present its new positions. But in doing this, not only did it say nothing about the books that opposed its old positions. It didn't even say anything about those books in which the old positions were presented. Sayers, Kahn, Figures and the like have become unauthors, "unpersons." Hence forth, for CP members, there is only one book on the Soviet Union, L'URSS et nous. It is the sole repository of the truth, and they should not look anywhere else.
9. The congress that formally made the "Eurocommunist turn.—IP/1
10. The French CP says that it is in favor of a socialism in the "colors of France."-IP/I