Paris
For several weeks the situation in France has been marked by considerable disarray in the leading circles in both the economic and political realms. The head of government has spoken of a "malaise"; an important figure like Edgar Faure,* of "disenchantment"; the ministers have been indulging in mutual backbiting; deep lines of cleavage have shown up in the Gaullist parliamentary group.
Neither the devaluation of the franc in August nor the strikes which have continued without letup since the end of the summer vacation are sufficient to explain this situation. We are seeing something which goes much deeper than anything previously experienced in contemporary French society.
In 1958 capitalism used the crisis provoked by the Algerian war to install a "strong regime," a Bonapartist regime centered around the person of de Gaulle. The objective was not solely to find a solution to the war in Algeria. In removing an impotent parliamentary regime, the capitalists sought to accelerate important transformations in the economy (industrial concentration, rapid urbanization, etc.).
Since this operation produced immediate and substantial results for big capital, these interests resigned themselves to paying the overhead costs represented by some of de Gaulle's caprices. But in May 1968, the French capitalists saw the other side of the coin. While de Gaulle succeeded in stopping the movement at the time, he lost the confidence of the bourgeoisie.
The capitalists feared that as
…a result of some of his whims or pigheaded attitudes - like his refusal to devalue the franc - de Gaulle would end by blowing up everything. So the bourgeoisie seized the first opportunity to hang de Gaulle by his own rope, forcing him to withdraw from the government.
Following de Gaulle's ouster, the Gaullist Pompidou was elected president of the republic. At the same time, a new cabinet was installed under the leadership of another follower of de Gaulle, Chaban-Delmas.
The new premier broadened out the government and the parliamentary majority to include other factions of the bourgeoisie.
All this was done with scrupulous respect for the constitution of 1958. De Gaulle's high-handed manner was dropped, to be replaced by more accommodating relationships in the political world.
Less than three months after eliminating de Gaulle with a finesse only veteran political wheelers and dealers are capable of, the gears of the political machine jammed; they no longer meshed with the political life of the country.
What happened? However complex the effects, the cause is very simple.
The 1958 constitution was tailormade for de Gaulle. The explicit provisions of this Bonapartist constitution as well as the objective needs of French capitalism require that the president of the republic play a Bonapartist role and not that of a figure head as in the two previous republics.
The history of France has known Bonapartes and Bonapartist constitutions, but no Bonaparte has ever directly succeeded a Bonaparte; every Bonapartist regime has ended in disaster (Waterloo and Sedan*).
Was it to be different in the case of the Fifth Republic? The French bourgeoisie was able to eliminate de Gaulle with exceptional adeptness. But all its adeptness has not been sufficient to replace de Gaulle with another "Bonaparte."
A Bonaparte cannot be manufacured. And no one can turn himself into a Bonaparte on the spur of the moment. Such a figure must have a personality corresponding to certain given historical and political conditions.
So it took just a few weeks for it to be realized that none of the postfigures - Pompidou, de
Gaulle Chaban-Delmas, and Giscard d'Estaing ... -had the makings of a Bonaparte and that the whole team together did not carry enough weight to equal such a personality.
De Gaulle suppressed his own supporters as well as the official opposition. His successors are proving to be mediocre politicians, men of no stature, who are not up to the offices they hold and the problems they have to solve.
This is the underlying origin of the disarray that has struck the French bourgeoisie, even if it itself does not clearly realize this.
There are some who are nostalgic for de Gaulle, who wonder every morning: "What would de Gaulle have done in this situation?" And we are witnessing the amusing spectacle of a public controversy among the Gaullists over whether or not they should ask themselves this question. However, a return of de Gaulle to power is very unlikely, unless this Bonaparte too wants his "hundred days."*
Although, as we will see further on, the present situation may persist for quite a long time, everyone in France is becoming increasingly aware that the question of power will be posed.
In a recent press conference, Pompidou himself, without anyone bringing up the question, evoked the May 1968 events to add that under no circumstances would he step down. He obviously could not say anything else. But this by no means predetermines what he would do if the going got a little rough.
The fact that the government in power today has no authority is not the only aspect of the situation creating disarray among the bourgeoisie, and it may not be the most serious aspect for them.
Big capital put de Gaulle in power to topple the archaic structures that
Lapin
POMPIDOU. Didn't have the makings.
impeded its expansion. Among these structures were those linked to the parliamentary system, primarily the political parties, even though France did not have a tradition of well-organized bourgeois parties like Great Britain.
But in this area as in others, de Gaulle destroyed what existed without putting anything in its place. As can now be seen with glaring clarity, the Gaullist party, the UDR [Union pour la Défense de la République - Union for the Defense of the Republic] does not have the slightest ideological cohesion; it was only an agglomeration of rapacious individuals, who began to close ranks immediately after de Gaulle's departure in an attempt to postpone the inevitable melee that will be fatal for them.
For all practical purposes not much is left of the old traditional parties of the bourgeoisie. The Indépendants
(the classical right) are breaking up; the bourgeois moderates are fragmented and will have great difficulty in forming a parliamentary bloc, even leaving the individual deputies the right to vote as they please; the Radicals who left the defunct FGDS [Fedération de la Gauche Démocrate et Socialiste - Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Leit - a coalition of right-wing Social Democrats and liberals] are wandering like lost souls.
• Worse still, the Gaullist regime - assisted by May 1968 — dealt a terrible blow to the Socialist party. It is not, moreover, easy to pinpoint the position of this party and the best course is to review the development of the events.
In the aftermath of the December presidential election in which Mitterrand, the candidate of the united "left," including the Communist party, forced de Gaulle into a runoff vote, the Fédération de la Gauche Démocrate et Socialiste was formed. It included the Radicals, the SFIO [Section Fran- çaise de l'Internationale Ouvrière - French Section of the Workers (Second) International, the main grouping of Social Democrats], some political clubs, and the Convention des Institutions Républicaines the Convention of Republican Institutions, a small formation led by Mitterrand].
This federation, as the participants saw it, was to be a stage in the formation of a new Socialist party, a modern Socialist party, uniting the entire "non-Communist left."
One of its objectives was to gain a greater electoral and parliamentary weight than the PCF [Parti Communiste Français - French Communist party]. The FGDS made middling gains, without, however, achieving this objective. Not without difficulty, a deadline was set for convening the founding congress of the new Socialist party.
But May 1968 arrived and the breakup began. The electoral de bacle the FGDS suffered in the June 1968 elections exacerbated the dis-
The Radicals were the first sension.
to leave the FGDS. The organization fell dormant. However, the found. ing congress of the new Socialist party was nonetheless set for the beginning of May 1969. By a most unlucky chance, this was just the moment de Gaulle chose to resign, thereby forcing a presidential election. Then came a blowup over choosing a candidate. The historians, we may be sure, will have their work cut out for them in explaining the incidents and maneuvers accompanying this event.
Finally, a new Socialist party was formed, but Mitterrand and his Convention refused to come in on the deal. Some groups were still wondering whether they should join it. And the new party itsell lacked unity.
Guy Mollet withdrew from the central leadership but he helped to put an outsider, Savary, in his place. Savary, who was not in the mainstream of the old SFIO, had therefore to start out by trying to achieve some degree of unity in this new Socialist party.*
As a result of this fragmentation, the "non-Communist left" suffered considerable losses, which were noticeable at the time of the presidential elections.
The Socialist candidate
Defferre received only 5 percent of the vote, although the Socialist following in the country, while declining, is still greater than that figure.
This situation of a Socialist party running out of steam and becoming impotent is entirely new for the French bourgeoisie. When capital found itself in difficulty in the past - in June 1936 and in the aftermath of the second world war - the Socialist party represented a first-class political force, whose roots in the working class were strong in 1936 and still considerable though diminished in 1945-47.
The result of this is that the French bourgeoisie, which is so fragmented, now finds the only organized mass force facing it to be the PCF together with the CGT Confédération Générale du Travail - General Confederation du Laava, the Creaminated eration of Labor, federation.
The French bourgeoisie in the person of their effective political leaders know very well that the PCF has no intention of overthrowing the capitalist system. They know very well that the PCF is now a reformist party.
party] must also be included among these forces. Its leaders dropped the "leftism" they affected in the wake of May 1960, seeking to involve themselves in the inescapable orbiting of these different fragments of "French socialism."
But they also know that this is not their reformism.
They know that this party cannot give them exactly the same guarantees given to British capitalism by the Labour party and to German capitalism by the SPD [Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands - Social Democratic party of Germany.
The bourgeoisie know how to use this party but do not have contidence in it, and they will have to be on the brink of an abyss before they will entrust the PCF with ministerial posts. De Gaulle did this in the postwar period, but that was de Gaulle before whom even a Thorez snapped to attention.
May 1968 provided proof positive that the leadership of the PCF and the CGT do not want to overthrow the capitalist system. But this great social crisis also caused difficulties for this leadership. The working masses revealed a considerable potential for
A revolutionary current to struggle.
the left of the PCF appeared and threatened to outflank it.
Thus, this leadership felt the need of presenting its line in a form that would enable it to keep a better rein
Recently Séguy, the on the masses.
general secretary of the CGT, made a speech which the bourgeoisie have tried to use to raise a hue and cry about subversion.
In substance Séguy said that the de velopment of the economic struggles of the working class would end by raising political problems, that Pompidou was certain not to finish out his sevenyear term, and that the question of a "democratic alternative"
would arise.
This democratic alternative is the PCF's old line, that is, "unity of the left" for "advanced democracy." What was new, however, was that while in May the PCF and the CGT denied the existence of a far-reaching movement posing the need for a political solution, now these people are taking preventive action to popularize their political solution.
The Communists are not the only ones saying things like this. The secretary of the CFDT [Confédération Française et Démocratique du Travail- French Democratic Confederation of Labor, the independent trade union federation], Deschamps, said recently that if the government proved incapable of meeting the workers'
demands, the CFDT would raise the question of a change of government and possibly of the system.
The PCF and CGT leaders can indulge all the more freely in talk about a "democratie alternative" in the present situation. In the state th "non-Communist left" is in, this alternative is still more illusory than in the past and this gives the CP a pretext for shifting the blame for the lack of a political solution onto the Socialists.
To sum up, the French bourgeoisie has no coherent political or combat forces capable of driving back the masses that are in motion at this time. It finds itself forced to live from day to day, taking advantage of the fact that the leadership of the mass movement is not pushing beyond the limits of economic struggles.
Such a situation may, then, persist even for quite a long time in its present form, unless new elements - a serious recession, an international crisis, etc. - intervene to ignite the powder keg.
This does not mean that no developments of any importance will occur but it does mean that we are not about to see a solution of any stability. There is a crisis of leadership in both of the fundamental classes of the society and neither one of these crises can be resolved quickly.
A new vanguard did, of course, appear in May 1968, but it, too, is still quite fragmented. Most importantly, while its influence is quite widespread among the youth, including the young workers, this vanguard still has a very narrow base in the main body of the working class. The present situation does not offer the vanguard the advantages it had following the May 1968 crisis.
At that time, indeed, there was above all the opportunity to garner the fruits of the tremendous experience that had just been undergone. At the present time the danger exists that because of their weakness the vanguard forces will become scattered in chasing after all the numerous economic struggles.
The vanguard must try to utilize its forces effectively by choosing care fully where and when to participate and by concentrating its energies there so as to increase its base in the working class. But at the same tim it must reach very broad masses with propaganda countering the illusory
"democratic alternative"
and fallacious with the socialist solution - that is, organizing workers committees in the great struggles come and esto tablishing regime based on such a councils.
October 17.
labor slate after the NDP, entering the Toronto aldermanic race for the first time, failed to nominate a full slate, and refused to run under its banner either a mayoralty candidate
Kenya
'Cannot Teach with Empty Stomachs'
Members of Kenya's National Assembly in Nairobi, under pressure from angry teachers, demanded October 2 that the government pay the salaries of 10,000 teachers who had not been paid for two months. Local councils claimed that they did not have the money to pay employees of local schools.
In September some 40,000 teachers threatened a nationwide strike if their wages for July were not paid immediately. The Finance Ministry came up with the funds and the strike was called off.
A dispatch from Nairobi in the October 3 Nationalist, published in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, reported that at the beginning of October "... five local councils — ranging from Nyeri just to the north of Nairobi to Homa Bay on the shores of Lake Victoria in the northwest - were again unable to raise enough money to meet the teachers salaries."
On October 1 the teachers union ordered its unpaid members to report daily at county pay offices instead of to their classes. One union statement said: "The teachers are not on strike, all we are doing is to pursue our salaries for September."
The Nationalist reported that members of the National Assembly said it was "appalling that Kenya was alone in its apparent inability to pay teachers, while it could find enough money for extra payments for ministers."
One legislator, George F. Oduya, declared October 2, "they cannot teach when their stomachs are empty. When a worker has worked you must pay him."
or Board of Education candidates."
At the nominating meeting, the candidates outlined the main issues of the campaign. A central plank will be opposition to the war in Vietnam and an appeal to end Canadian complicity in U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia. A number of local issues were also raised.
"Richard Fidler," the Workers Vanguard said, "a member of the executive of the Ontario Tenants Association, pointed out that rent took a larger chunk of the income of Toronto tenants than was the case for tenants anywhere else in North America, and emphasized the necessity of an extensive municipal low-cost public housing program.
"Joan Newbigging outlined the discrimination against women in this society and stated that the first measure introduced by a Toronto labor administration must be equal pay for women in City Hall itself.
"Harry Stone explained how only a labor administration could take effective action against the businessmen who are drowning the city of Toronto in all forms of pollution."
Representatives of Toronto's radical and labor movement also spoke.
On October 15 John Riddell ad-
Canada
Riddell to Run for Mayor of Toronto
The League for Socialist Action/ Ligue Socialiste Ouvrière [LSA/ LSO] nominated a slate of candidates October 10 for Toronto's municipal elections, topping its list with John Riddell for mayor. Riddell is the LSA/LSO organizer in Toronto.
The socialist slate is designed to fill in uncontested positions in the list adopted by the New Democratic party [NDP), Canada's labor party, so that voters will have the opportunity to cast their ballots for labor and social- ¿st candidates for all major municipal posts.
In addition to a nominee for mayor, November 3, 1969
the LSA/LSO named four aldermanic candidates. The Young Socialists nominated six candidates for the Board of Education.
The four running for alderman are Joan Newbigging, an activist in the women's liberation movement; Richard Fidler, managing editor of the Workers Vanguard; Harry Stone, a printer; and Marlie Ritchie, an antiwar activist.
"This is by far the biggest election effort ever launched by the LSA or YS in Canada," the Workers Vanguard re ported October 20. "They decided to make this all-out effort to fill out the dressed a rally of 200 demonstrators called by the Vietnam Mobilization Committee in solidarity with the Vietnam Moratorium in the United States. Riddell scored Mayor William Dennison for his attacks on the antiwar movement.
Why Not Accept Thieu's Offer?
President Nguyen Van Thieu of the Saigon puppet regime is not without a certain sardonic humor. When told that Nixon might want to withdraw more troops from South Vietnam, Thieu said he had no objections so long as the U.S. footed the bill. "Give me a number,"
he told the press September 27, "and I will give you a bill. If you help me adequate ly, all right."
The bill for leaving the troops there is running at perhaps $3 billion a month. If Thieu would consider it adequate to go on the Pentagon payroll at half that price in return for his permission to withdraw all the U.S. troops at once, wouldn't it be worth making the deal?
Bolivia
Ovando Nationalizes Gulf Oil
General Alfredo Ovando Candía announced the nationalization of the Bolivia Gulf Oil Company October 17, several hours after his troops had occupied the company's offices in La Paz and its plant in Santa Cruz. The $140-million enterprise is a subsidy of the Gulf Oil Company.
came exactly two
Ovando's move weeks before Nixon's October press conference when he is scheduled, at long last, to announce his Latin- American policy. The Bolivian junta, which seized power September 26, has said it is considering "the amount, conditions, and methods" of compensation to Gulf for the property.
Ovando, who has described his military dictatorship as "leftist nationalism" and "fundamentally the same" as the regime in Peru, has been under heavy pressure at home to put up
"anti-imperialist" front.
The Boan livian economy has stagnated for years. The rate of American private investment in all of Latin America has declined in recent years. Foreign "aid" from Washington, which was increased after 1961 in the Alliance for Progress as an "answer" to the Cuban Revolution, has also been cut back.
In addition, the scandal of CIA involvement in the Bolivian government, especially in hunting down and exe cuting Che Guevara in October 1967, had been damaging to the stability of the preceding regime. Ovando was head of the army under the late Barrientos and was reputed to have given the order to murder Che Guevara.
On the eve of his coup, Ovando was accused by a right-wing journalist of accepting a $600,000 bribe from Gulf to protect its interests if he were elected president in the scheduled May 1970 elections. Ovando suppressed the story and the elections by toppling President Luis Siles Salinas.
One of Ovando's first acts was to assure Washington that Gulf would not be nationalized, although he did suspend the 1962 legislation, under which the oil monopoly operated, in 968
орал
GENERAL OVANDO. Launches military regime with effort to gain leftist aura.
order to renegotiate the division of the profits.
Particularly embarrassing for the dictator's new "leftist" image was Washington's haste to recognize his regime. Diplomatic approval came through in record time on October 10. An October 11 Reuters dispatch said the State Department "stressed that its new policy of giving quick recognition to military governments in Latin America did not specifically imply approval of such regimes."
But in Bolivia it was noted that this "new" policy did not seem to apply to governments such as Cuba or North Vietnam or China. It was wide ly concluded that Ovando had made a secret deal with Nixon to protect U.S. interests in Bolivia.
During the first week of October, more that 1,000 students marched on Murillo Plaza, where the government palace is located in La Paz, to de mand that Gulf Oil be nationalized without compensation.
The students held a rally beforehand at the University of San Andrés where they commemorated the second anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, and the killing of Inti Peredo September 9.
Carlos Núñez, writing from La Paz in the October 16 issue of Prensa Latina, the Cuban government news agency, described the meeting. (Prensa Latina gives no date for the rally, but it apparently took place October 8 or 9.)
"The university building, a few blocks from the center of the city, had its facade decorated with large portraits of Che and Major Guido Inti Peredo, killed here one month ago in circumstances that have still not been completely cleared up.
"At noon in the auditorium, leaders of the Bolivian University Confederation (CUB) and the local University Federation (FUL) in fighting terms spoke of Major Guevara and the continent-wide struggle against imperialism.
"During the day loudspeakers placed in the building of San Andrés University broadcast revolutionary slogans and songs about Che, along with the demands of the university students to the new regime. ...
"Two hours later the 'march in defense of natural resources' began, followed by an improvised meeting in Murillo Plaza. During the demonstration the students stoned the U.S. Embassy and the U.S.-owned 'Bolivian Power Company' building. The police used tear gas to break up the demonstration."
Ovando put on his best left face for home consumption in announcing the take over. He described the seizure as an "engagement" by the army "to assure the sovereignty of the nation over the resources of the country and to recover the natural riches cedes to foreign companies to the detri ment of the national interest."
Ovando spoke at an October 17 press conference, surrounded by his newly appointed civilian ministers and the principal military chieftains. The October 19-20 Paris daily Le Monde carried part of his declaration:
/ "Faced with a foreign and antinational conspiracy, fomented to shackle the revolutionary process, the armed forces have charged the government with nationalizing the Bolivian Gulf Oil Company."
As a further gesture, Ovando established diplomatic relations with Rumania, and a Rumanian trade dele gation arrived in La Paz October 15.
(On September 29 Ovando offered to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba if the Cubans would leave his dictatorship alone and not encourage revolutionary struggles against his regime.)
Ovando has not indicated whether the nationalization of other American properties is contemplated. The United States Steel Corporation and other American companies have invested some $13 million in Bolivian mines.
Other major U.S. firms operating in Bolivia include the W.R. Grace Company, First National City Bank, Trans American Resources, Marine Midland Grace Trust Company, Chase Manhattan Bank, World Homes, and Philipp Brothers.
In fact, Ovando is reportedly carrying on negotiations for Gulf to continue transporting and marketing Bolivian oil from the "nationalized" fields.
The military regime also belies its leftist facade by continuing to hold dozens of political prisoners arrested last July or at the time of the killing of Inti Peredo. These include members of Peredo's ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional- National Liberation Army], and of the POR [Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Revolutionary Workers party - the Bolivian section of the Fourth International).
But Ovando may have unleashed forces that he cannot control. The October 23 New York Times reported that the government had been unable to persuade peasants northeast of La Paz to return an American gold dredge they had seized October 17.
Union members struggled with military parade marshals during a gov- November 3, 1969
ernment-sponsored march October 20 called to celebrate the nationalizations. One student told a correspondent of Le Monde: "It is not the regime which issued from the September 26 coup that we support, but the decision that it has taken. We are afraid, however, of being betrayed again."
The union federation, Central Obrera Boliviana [COB — Bolivian Confederation of Labor), has raised a series of demands that go beyond the present aims of the Ovando regime. The October 22 Le Monde reported:
Austria
"The workers' confederation demands the nationalization of other American mining operations, of imports, of the banks, and [calls for] the establishment of diplomatic relations with all the socialist countries. They also demand the expulsion of the members of the American military mission, of the Peace Corps, and of the Inter- American Regional Labor Organization [Organización Regional Inter- Americana de Trabajadores-ORIT- the discredited affiliate of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions]."
CP in Crisis Over Czechoslovakia
Brussels
At a meeting held at the beginning of October, the Central Committee of the Austrian Communist party [Kommunistische Partei Oesterreichs] decided to bow to the pressure from Moscow to support the invasion and occupation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The opposition nevertheless made strong showing. A motion that a would have required the party to continue to support the Dubcek tendency against the unreconstructed Stalinist Husák-Strougal group was defeated, with thirty-six votes against but with twenty-four in favor.
The strength of the opposition derives from the support it enjoys among the youth and among Communist trade unionists and shop stewards.
The opposition now fears that it may face expulsion. The magazine lagebuch, considered to be the voice of the opposition, is no longer being handled by the party's printshop. A new organization has been formed, "Association of Friends of the Tagebuch," to support the publication.
An indication of the more objective attitude adopted by Tagebuch is the review, published in the latest issue, of the German edition of The Young Lenin by Leon Trotsky. It is so favorable that it amounts to a reversal of the former stand on Trotsky.
On October 13 the theoretical leader of the opposition and the party's most respected spokesman, the wellknown Marxist professor, Ernst Fischer, was expelled because of his forthright stand against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. See Intercontinental
"CPs Glum at Groveling Press, of
Czech Stalinists," October 27, p. 959.]
A few days later, some filty prominent intellectuals protested the expulsion. Another plenum of the Central Committee was called for October 27- 28 to review the action taken against Professor Fischer.
The official reason given for expelling Fischer was his public appeal, calling on the Austrian Communist party to break with the Kremlin and turn towards building a "new left" in Austria.
The opposition within the Austrian Communist party is composed of disparate elements, ranging from rightwing opportunists to sincere, revolutionary-minded anti-Stalinists.
The right-wingers are, of course, responsive to the pressure of bourgeois public opinion. The left-wingers, on the other hand, are acting in accordance with what they consider to be the principles of Communism.
The crisis in the Austrian Communist party creates new openings and possibilities for the revolutionarysocialist movement in Austria.
Notes
* De Gaulle appointed Edgar Faure minister of education after the May-June upsurge to direct the pacification of the universities. -IP.
* Napoleon III and his army were cap-" tured by the Prussians at Sedan. -IP.
* The "hundred days" in which Napoleon uled after escaping from Elba and before being defeated at Waterloo. - IP November 3, 1969
* The PSU [Parti Socialiste Unifie - United Socialist