ties were closed, a full course on the nature of the state was administered. Thus, in theory and practice the bourgeoisie was ready. It had a leadership and ever an alternative leadership), which was armed and conscious of its interests.
This was not the case for the working class. It had a leadership, of course. But this leadership did not lead. It did not take the initiative in the struggles; it was unable to give them any political objective other than electoral victories in a referendum or in legislative elections, according to the whim of the regime.
This leadership even boasted that it had never called the general strike. In fact, its primary object was simply control the movement. In order to lead struggles, would have had at least to be capable of expressing the aspirations of the masses which challenged the regime; that is, it would have had to have a revolutionary program.
For the situation was revolutionary. The "mass movement of unrivaled breadth" ritually evoked by the CP during its congresses was there. It had swept throughout the entire society with an unheard-of force. It put in question not only the central political authority but all authority. By the tens of thousands, bosses, plant managers, and other local despots felt their positions grow shaky. Millions of individuals who had heretofore passively endured capitalist exploitation and oppression gained a feeling of liberation. This acquisition of consciousness occurred at all social levels and on a scale which may be unique in history.
Already it is clear that there has been a deep-going process which will mark the character of the coming struggles, independently of their periods of ebb and
From an economic and financial standpoint, French capitalism's situation was not catastrophic. There was room thus for an alternative bourgeois solution making it possible to save the essentials: statist monopoly capitalism in exchange for a few structural reforns. This was the general meaning of the Mendès France operation, which was by no means a classical reformist variant. Mendès -- when in power -- would take a much more realistic view of parliament than a Mollet or a Deferre, to say nothing of a Waldeck Rochet.
Furthermore, because of the CP's ultracapitulationist position, the field was wide open to its left. The sweeping maneuver attempted by Mendès was an attempt to exploit, for the sake of this capitalist restructuring, the energy of part of the revolutionary movement standing to the left of the CP.* Later of course he would have dealt with the CP, but after it was boxed in both from the left and right.
The operation has temporarily failed. It has been blocked essentially because it seemed risky to a large segment of the bourgeoisie, which realizes that, unlike 1936, it has no bourgeois or at its disposal with reformist parties sufficient following to guarantee an effective counterweight to the CP. And it tamed.
is not convinced that the CP is
I'hus, basing itself on the tens of thousands of individuals who owe everything to it and know that they have nothing to hope for from another government, the Gaullist state apparatus needed only to put on a show of boldness and present the bourgeoisie along with the rest of the population with a fait accompli in order to regain its hold to some extent. De Gaulle, finally, called on de Gaulle.
The state apparatus, which was within an ace of falling apart, has reorganized itself. A part of the petty-bourgeoisie, the bosses, and even the police have regained their confidence. After fifteen days of hand wringing, all these nice people went into the streets -- just like the workers. The theme of the mobilization was simple: defense of the established order, of the society's heritage, in short, of privilege. For the time being, de Gaulle's operation succeeded, that is, to regroup on the basis of anti- Communism all those elements disposed to this by virtue of their position in society.
The strike movement is far from ended. The workers' combativity is intact, there is no doubt that it would explode again at the slightest provocation from the government or the bosses. But it must be recognized that most of the steam has been taken out of the movement. The taking of power is no longer posed through general strike. The unions, headed ps: You have economic demands, continue the CGI, are explaining to the workthe strike to win them."
The political parties, headed up
"We have political demands, foreto the electoral can- ›y the CP
ties between Gaullism and Mendèsism. Both are centered around providential figures -- Bonapartes. One of these deliberately bases himself on the most politically backward part of the population. The other seeks to base himself on a segment at least of the workers' movement. Mendès' maneuver is in fact symmetrical to de Gaulle's in 1958. In 1958, de Gaulle made use of an extreme-right movement. Ien years later Mendès is riding an extremeleft thrust.
paign!" But the element which was really explosive -- the mobilization of ten million workers and students in the streets and lactories, who for their part, understood the close relationship between their economic and their political demanâs, harboring no illusions about parliament -- this element has been weakened.
For more than thirty years all the workers' own demands have been countered by appeals to the interest of the state or to its power. And particularly in the last ten Jears in France a strong state has been concocted which the bourgeoisie took refuge behind every time its profits were threatened. Thus, experience has taught the workers the ineffectuality of piecemeal, loose-order attacks -- when the bosses are threatened they take cover behind the state, so let's attack the state.
But it was only late and timidly that the Communist party dared to introduce politics, calling for a "popular government" (but who could call for nonpopular government?). All anyone knows about such a government is that the Communists are to participate in it, as in 1945.
Nothing is known about how such a government is to be established, nothing about its program.
The general strike has shown the working class its real strength. And at the same time it bared the repressive function of the state, * which in normal times is hidden behind administrative appearances. The strike committees and action committees substituted themselves for the defaulting bourgeois authorities. I'hey were an embryo of workers power.
All revolutions have seen these instruments of independent workers power spring up in the face of a disintegrating bourgeois state. While in a
"normal" period only a minority is organized in parties and trade unions, in a revolutionary perithe enormous mass of workers feel themselves concerned and these committees serve as their ad-hoc organizations. These committees are not created in opposition to the parties and unions as the apprehensive bureaucrats think -- unless the parties and unions are really in the rearguard. In 1917, the Bolsheviks were in a minority in the soviets, but they not afraid to launch the slogan, "A1]
Power to the Soviets!"
The working-class vanguard cannot transform a revolutionary situation into a revolution by setting abstract propaganda for socialism against the immediate, quantitative demands of the masses. It not enough to declare that any conquest made by the working class at a given point in the development of the relationship of forces is insecure as long as the capitalist system lasts. It is also necessary for the masses to become conscious in the course of the struggle that the question of taking power is the decisive one.
A 1,000-franc minimum wage? A11 right, but who is going to guarantee prices? Certainly not the capitalfixed ists. The workers, then, must demand price controls. More humane hours and work tempos? Well and good, but who is going to decide the organization of work? ertainly not the workers. Ine workers, nization of work and therefore over the must demand control over the orgaorganization of production. But such control cannot be effective in a society vnere the motive lorce ls the quest Ior naximum profits. society cannot operate following two different kinds of logic.
Mass spontaneity has its inherent limitations. It is the task of a vanguard party to advance transitional slogans. But it would be dogmatic to assume from this that the indispensable prerequisite IOI the advancement of a revolutionary movement is the existence of an already constituted vanguard party. In that case, we might wait a long time for its formation....Ioday, the students in their way have played this role. This is obviously not accidental.
This phenomenon is found in almost all countries where the revolution is on the rise. Ihe students will have an important role to play in the revolutionary regroupment which is needed and is now possible - not only because of the place they occupy in the present movement but also because they are the most immediate- 1y sensitive to the international context.
It must not be forgotten that the Vietnam war, together with Che's appeal and example, has been at the origin oi their politicalization. Ihe violence of their struggle must be seen as a reflection of the systematic violence which the international bourgeois order must employ today to maintain itself.
May 1968 marks the end of the twenty years of capitalist stabilization in West Europe. A new period has opened up of revolutionary struggles and battles for socialism.
Notes
* A lot could be said about the similari-
* This was shown in particularly striking fashion in the administration of "justice." Judges were called out on a Sunday to sentence students on an emergency basis. And a week later they were again hauled out of bed to amnesty them. So much for the independence of the judiciary. It may be noted also that this episode helped by no small bit to demoralize the police.