LIhe following letter by Alain Krivine, the leader of the Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist Youth), was published in the French daily Combat on September 2. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
During the months of May and June, Monsieur Marcellin* displayed his talents as an impresario of clubs and grenades. Today, he is revealing great aptitude in the field of literature. In the book he has just published and in his "knowledgeable" articles for the press, the "Minister of Repression" engages in witch-hunting of a kind seldom seen in our country. To voice its terror over May-June, the French bourgeoisie, it appears, has reverted to the communicative level of the Versaillais.**
What did we have? A vast plot spawned by a devilish brew of terrorists, anarchists, Trotskyists, PSU [Parti Socialiste Unifie -- United Socialist party - a centrist formation) members, pro- Chinese, and a lot of others besides. The argument is simple. The May demonstrators retaliated with paving stones against the clubs of the CRS [Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité -- Republican Security Companies - elite state security troops]. That proves there was a paramilitary organization. Similar demonstrations broke out in several countries. That proves there was an international plot.
The French put the blame on German agitators. Ihe Mexicans turn up French intriguers. And to put an end to this "common market of subversion," everybody decides to blockade the air lanes to Cuba. This would be laughable if it were not for the fact that under this pretext hundreds of workers have been victimized and dozens of foreigners have been forc-
By Alain Krivine ibly escorted to the border.*
Unfortunately for our Bobbies, the first accusations fell flat. Since no proof could be produced of the ex-
If enreventire arrests in tune endeare without a single indictment. Now they are switching to a witch-hunt in hope that will be more successful. The May days were only an hors d'oeuvre, are going to see a "Red October, „JOu are going to see a ceactionary press is ready to reveal the olans of the insurrection. The police are well informed, and after months of study they have uncovered the hairraising method that is to be used -- "entrism."
This is a sensational revelation. Revolutionaries will work in trade unions and other mass organizations like the Action Committees. It is obvious to everyone what a new tactic this is. It makes it more difficult to discover the subversive since he will no longer necessarily have a paving stone in his hand. Always up to the minute, the police have now countered this formidable enterprise by disguising their "Sherlocks" as beatniks, that is, as students. After smiling again at these antics, we must 1o0k to the meaning of this operation.
In promoting the notion of a "Red October," the bourgeoisie has two aims in mind. The first aim is to discredit the revolutionary vanguard by claiming in November that the attempt at a revolution in October, after being isolated, ended in failure. The second aim is to condition public opinion for stepped-up repressive measures against this vanguard.
Thus we are offered an occasion to reveal our secrets. For revolutionary a revolutionary strug-
Marxist militants, gle is not set off by a decision taken by a minority group. A revolutionary situation is created by the conjuncture of various objective factors.
Without going into the events of May-June in detail, it is an established fact that the student movement was able to set the working class in motion by its
exemplary struggle because a revolutionary potential existed within the working class to which none of the bureaucratized parties had given expression.
It is true that at that time the student movement, by its strength, its militancy, and its national base, was able to exercise the function of a vanguard for several weeks, a role no local sector of the working class was able to play because of the nature of its organization (for example, Caen, Le Mans, etc.). But it is no less true that by the time a certain stage of the process was reached, in which the question of power was posed, the student movement had exhausted its potential.
The vanguard was not sufficiently prepared to take power and hold it. There was no alternative leadership recognized by the workers. Consequently the pendulum swung back the other way with the balance of forces again momentarily turning in favor of the bourgeoisie. Io think the conditions when school opens will be the same as in May, forgetting the outcome in June, would be proof of a dangerously mechanistic analysis.
Certainly the economic and social situation will not be much improved. The wage increases have already been partly wiped out by price increases. The speedup is increasing at the same time as unemployment. But this will not necessarily lead to a general movement. After the May-June experience, the workers have become conscious of their strength and of the need to employ new forms of struggle. But the most conscious of them recognized the weaknesses of the movement and the feeling of betrayal will not disappear immediately.
Saying that the system has entered a phase of crisis and profound shake-ups does not mean that it will be possible to overthrow it in October as it was possible in May. The student movement must set objectives in accordance with this situation and with a responsibility all the greater because it now represents a rather considerable political force. The government has understood this situation and is now trying to regain the initiative by choosing its own ground to fight on.
It will not hesitate to use its police to "mix" with the student milieu; and street provocations are a danger. In its plan, the government is striving to reduce the May revolution to a mere student revolt. Therefore, we can expect major temporary concessions in the universities (political freedom, abandonment of the weeding-out process, educational reforms...) That is Edgar Faure's policy. Once the university ghetto is reformed this way, has been pacified and isolated,
Marcellin will take care of the rest, that is the streets and, if need be, the factories.
Divide and rule, isolate the students from the workers and the revolutionary students from the student mass in order to pursue an essentially antithat is the objecworking-class policy, tive of the parliamentary majority.
In meeting this, the students of May have sufficient maturity to avoid the traps and choose their own ground to fight on in accordance with the opportunities offered by the class struggle in this country. Marcellin, weapons ready, is waiting for October to crush the vanguard; but we are not going to give him that satisfaction.
The objective of the first battles will be to preserve the gains of May, both the political freedoms in the university and the ties between the workers and students in the Action Committees. Starting with the new academic year, the examination system must be reformed and struggles must be waged to dispose of the present form of examinations. While it is clear that the student movement can no longer play the same role as in May, its role is still decisive for the formation of a new revolutionary vanguard. And it will play this role by refusing to let itself get trapped on the campus.
The transformation of the UNEF [Union National des Etudiants Français -- National Union of French Students], planned at the Assembly of Grenoble, will permit a lot of clarification. The UNEF can become the meeting ground of all the anticapitalist currents on the campuses. Its new democratic structures should make it possible to put an end to the organizational confusion of May, when in the face of a variety of decision-making centers, a little group uncontrolled by the rank and file took all the key initiatives on its own in the last analysis.
In the period opening up, regroupment of the revolutionary Marxist vanguard is imperative. The question is whether this will occur legally. Marcellin has said that he "was not attacking political ideas." Good. Now the government is on the spot and must decide whether it wants to assume the responsibility of driving thousands of militants underground by banning any new formation to the left of the PCF [Parti Communiste Français -- French Communist party].
In conclusion, I will tell Marcellin another secret. We have discovered who was responsible for the revolts in Paris, Mexico, and Berlin. There is really an International at work, the capitalist International.
* Appointed minister of the interior on May 30, he is the commander-in-chief of the French police.
** During the Paris Commune of 1871, the bourgeois provisional government of Tiers moved to Versailles, a Paris suburb, accompanied by a horde of well-to-do refugees. Their hysteria over the government established by the workers in Paris is illustrated by such concoctions as the tale that instead of gold the Commune intended to base its currency on the constrained favors of women of the upper class. -- I.P.
Notes
* Notably the Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel. Returning through France from his vacation, he was stopped and escorted to the border. Now he is also "interdit de séjour." [This official phrase meaning "banned from the country" became famous when it was applied to Daniel Conn Bendit early in the May-June upsurge. -- I.P.]