France, In the army, in the legal system, and among physicians important currents are challenging their particularly reactionary 8
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functioning. In a different social and political situation, big capital and the government would have an interest in lending support to these movements in order to integrate them into o program aimed at modemizing these institutions. But the class polarization is too strong; to accept dissent over their functioning would be to open the road to a dangerous questioning of their functions, In large part, then, the government is compelled to base itself on the most reactionary currents, mired in their obsession for order, which oppose any adaptations and accumulate the risks of explosion. Rapid erosion of the regime Giscard commands a most narrow social base and margin for political maneuver in defending the anti-working-class policy of big capital. This contradiction accounts for the incoherent aspects and gradual erosion of his method of governing. Conscious that he is a subBonaparte without influence in the working class, Giscard tried to make some reform moves in order to win over at least the labor aristocracy, which is sensitive to a liberalization of institutions, morals, and political behavior. He very quickly knocked himself out making overly spectacular promises about overly fabulous projects. Up to now, he has been able to carry through only a few reforms (divorce, contraception, right to vote for youth, addition of some women to the government). Although welcome in themselves, these reforms have not won the support of the labor aristocracy, which is much more affected by the slowdown in wages, the increase in social security faxes, and tax concerns. As for the mass of toilers, they were frankly exasperated by the provocative speech of this pretty-boy president, who pretended to forget the 1, 500, 000 unemployed, the deterioration of the living standards of the workers, and the brutality of the repression of the employers and the police and instead gave a fireside chat about easing social relations. To judge by the results of legislative by-elections (in Chotellerault, for example) and from polls, there is no doubt about the balance-sheet. The presidential majority has lost ground to the Union de la Gauche, and especially to the Socialist party. Giscard, on the other hand, has admirably succeeded in lending weight to the most conservative currents of his voters. This is probably why he is making many maneuvers of opening toward the Socialist party, perhaps hoping to coopt a possible centro-socialist shift to the present parliamentary majority. The initial results of this maneuver are not very promising. While Mitterrand has already met with Kissinger, he has declined to meet with Giscard. And he asked Gaston Deferre and Mauroy (the Socialist mayors of Lille and Marseille) to get rid of their municipal allies who are part of Giscard's parliamentary majority. Mitterrand has long since understood and explained that for the entire coming period only a coalition with the CP can win the support of the popular masses, expand the audience of the SP among the working class, and, in the final analysis, offer the bourgeoisie throughout this period of crisis a democratic alternative that imposes respect for the capitalist system and its institutions on the workers movement. Moreover, the revisions in doctrine effected by the CP have now comforted Mitterrand in his analysis. Giscard probably thinks that he can still maneuver on a European scale. Through the question of the election of a European parliament he hopes to bring the UDR (the Gaullist party) under his thumb, get rid of the diehard Gaullists, and above all counterpose Mitterrand's fidelity to NATO to the chauvinism of the CP. But Mitterrand seems to be preparing to parry this. He would abstain on European elections unless they were based on proportional representation, thus driving Giscard to the wall and making gains at the expense of the Communist party, which is mired in its own chauvinism along with a few of the Gaullist old guard. Hardening of anti-worker policy The parliamentary majority and the employers are beginning to have doubts about the effectiveness of Giscard's political maneuvers, The November 29, 1975, issue of Le Monde asked: *Why was it not clearly stated that if was not possible to do everything at the same fime and that the government, faced with the choice of a grand policy of reforms or the reestablishment of the financial health of the enterprises, opted for the latter?" In fact, there is not much point in ceaselessly chattering about reforms without being able to carry them out; this results in discrediting the regime and strengthening the Union de la Gauche, which claims to be for a real change. It is inept to flatter a Socialist party that is in the process of making big advances, for this amounts to an admission of weakness on the part of the parliamentary majority, which comforts the adversary. As Prime Minister Jacques Chirac said when thinking aloud, it would be better to confront the workers and their organizations with the austerity required by the economic situation and to cynically compel them either to submit to the exigencies of capital or to opt for a test of strength. In 1975, for the first time since the end of the second world war, the buying power of the great majority of workers stagnated; for those workers affected by unemployment or short-time, buying power was considerably reduced. Price increases during 1975 stood at 9.9% according to the state statistical organization, 14.2% according to the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail - General Confederation of Labor), and 12.4% according to the CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail - French Democratic Confederation of Labor). (We may note in passing that in the confrontation with the employers it would be much more effective if the two trade-union federations agreed on a common index, which would be known by the workers and discussed on a rank-and-file level.) At the same
FRANCE time, according to J. Graphin in Le Monde, the total wage bill in the public and nationalized sector increased 14-15% (if account is taken of the slight increase in the number employed in this sector, nominal wages increased 12-13%). In its balance-sheet for 1975, Le Monde estimated that the buying power of the workers advanced 1.7%, that of the agents of the nationalized sector 2-4%, and that of functionaries 4,8%. These estimates are made on the basis of the state statistics. According to the calculations of the CGT, the buying power of the various categories of employees in the Paris region declined as follows during 1975: functionaries -3,2%, truck drivers -1,2%, skilled and professional workers -2.5%, urskilled workers -2.3%, working-class families with two children -3.2%. Moreover, let us note in passing that in spite of the long period of expansion that preceded the crisis, and in spite of the wage increases won mainly since 1968, according to the annual inquiry of the state statistical organization into incomes in trade and industry (which Involves 13 million workers), 44.4% of wage-earners make less than 1,935 francs a month (USS435) and 68.9% make less than 2, 500 francs a month (USS562). Up to now we have been speaking of employed workers. But since October 1975 there have been more than one million officially unemployed workers in France. The official figure for January 1976 is 1,017, 000 unemplayed; the figure of the CGT is 1,400, 000. Now, we must be clear about the myth that unemployed workers in France are better off than unemployed workers anywhere else in the world. A recent study of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicates that, on the contrary, France has one of the least adequate unemployment compensation programs of the advanced capitalist countries. On the average, unemployed workers in France receive 40% of their normal gross income for a one year period; the figure is 51% for fourteen months in the United States and 68% for one year in West Germany. As for short-time work, lost hours are covered only if the workweek falls below forty hours. In most industries, however, the workweek is forty-three hours or more. Now, above forty hours, the hourly wage is increased 25%. This explains why a skilled worker can lose more than 1,000 francs a month (USS224) during a period of short-time work. Finally, 50% of those seeking work (that is, 61% of actual unemployed workers) get nothing; 10% get only 297 francs a month, and 10% get only 35% of their wages, that is, 86 francs a day for a wageearning couple with two children. With the rise of unemployment, the situation of the unemployment compensation fund has deteriorated constantly (2,000 million francs were paid out in 1974 and 6,000 million in 1975). To correct this, employer contributions to the fund would have to be increased. But the regime has preferred to administratively eliminate a whole contingent of workers from unemployment coverage. In addition, a November 29, 1975, circular of the Ministry of Labor instructed health insurance 10 funds to step up checks on workers who receive payments for more than three months and asked the family allowance funds to cut off payments to workers who have been unemployed for more than six months if they failed to respond to a questionnaire within a certain time limit. The government will once again be forced to seek a solution to the social security deficit. The brutality of the initial statements of Minister of Finance Fourcade expressed the objectives of this regime very well: "There is no question of further aggravating the burdens of the companies. " While the resistance of the workers compelled the regime to divide the charge between the contribution of the employers and the minimum fee paid by the patient, the unofficial plan is to move toward a guarantee of minimum care for all and to compel each social category to cover its own risks and health requirements through complementary insurance according to its financial means. Concurrently, the essential part of supplementary public expenditures is devoted to supporting the treasuries of companies or to the formation of French, European, or Franco-American groups of companies on an internafional scale (Citro#n-Peugeof, Renault-Berliet, CIlHoneywell-Bull, etc.). The breakdown of the support and pump-priming plans worked out in 1975 could not be clearer:
Feburary 25: 3,600 million francs in aid to the most needy.
March 17: 4,000 million for construction, exports, and investments.
April 22: 15,000 million for credit facilities and reimbursing of exceptional tax increases.
Finally, the September plan: 5, 000 million for consumption; 13,000 million for equipment orders; 3,000 million in tax breaks on corporate investment; 9,000 million in postponement of 1975 taxes to 1976. In order to wage such an economic attack on the working class, the employers and the regime had to erect an increasingly massive repressive barricade against the demands and struggles of the workers and against the workers organizations. Toward the end of 1974 and throughout 1975 this repression became more precise, systematic, and intense. Here is the report of a colloquium on repression held by the two regional unions of the CGT and CFDT in Lyon, cited in the December 4, 1975, issue of the CFDT weekly Syndicalisme: "Repression is not a new phenomenon, but it is taking on greater scope these days. ... In any event, it is better organized than it was in the past, for the employers are more and more frequently resorting to private militias and strong-arm gangs. In cases of conflict, they systematically call upon the police and seek to oppose strikers to nonstrikers or to the public. " Repression is developing simultaneously on all fields:
1. Breaking exemplary struggles through the intervention of employer commandos, cops, and, if necessary, the removal of machinery, which is designed to
demoralize the workers and to avoid only too educational experiences of workers re-starting production in the service of the strikes. The fact that VernierPalliez, the new boss of Renault, has used this antistrike weapon even at the key Billancourt factory testifies to the determination of the employers and the regime: They will respect no taboo bastion.
2. Intimidation of combative elements: The Renault strike ended with the layoff of seventeen union delegates; three of them were rehired, but fourteen were not. The Paris-Rhône struggle failed, with twenty-two workers laid off, nine of them delegates. Setbacks that result in the elimination of combative workers weigh heavily on the ability to remobilize a factory or a sec-
3. Challenging of trade-union gains:
*The time allotted to trade-union delegates for doing Trade-union work is more tightly controlled and the tolerances have been tightened up (for example, at Crédit Lyonnais and Dassault/Argenteuil). Trade-union delegates are now regularly laid off, with or without the agreement of the state labor inspection board. The CFDT estimates that as of September 1975 there were 70% more such layoffs than in September 1974.
*Trode-union representatives are now being prosecuted through indictments and searches after difficult struggles (for example, the CFDT representatives in Caen after the strike at Biaupunkt, the two departmental secretaries of the CGT and CFDT in Drôme).
*In 1975 the employers and the government brandished a new disuasive weapon against the trade-union organizations: fines against trade unions fo cover employers' losses during strikes; there have been trials with requests for reparations at Renault, Air France, Naphta-Chimie, Goboriau, Venot, and Pic.
*Finally, at the time of the operations against the movement of soldiers the government directly took on the frade-union apparatus: searches of headquarters and imprisonment of high trade-union leaders.
4. Moreover, a whole current among the employers and the government is pursuing a project of breaking the recognized and acknowledged representative character of the large trade-union organizations. These ideas were taken up by A. Roux, president of the national employers' organization, in his January 1976 report on the Factory Reform: "Notably because of the process by which they are elected, the factory committees have become organs of dissent much more than organs of cooperation. . . . It is necessary to modify the electoral system so that any wage-carner, whether he belongs to the trade union or not, has the right to be a candidate." This wing of the employers and the government dreams of strengthening the "independent" trade unions in the direction of "integrating" them. The deployment of this whole repressive arsenal is not the result of the fact that the employers and the government happen to be irritated by temporary difficulties. The economic exigencies of this period of crisis, the political fragility of the regime, and Gisca d's need to make liberal maneuvers constrain the employers and the government to make this hardening of repression (even against workers organizations as such) an increasingly important element in their method of government. The employers and the government do not at all expect the workers to resign themselves to the attempts to make the working class bear the burden of the crisis. They must therefore resort to repressive exhibitions aimed at dissuading the workers and their organizations from struggle because of the price that would have to be paid. But the aim is also to prepare public opinion for a certain "quality of repression" in case the working class becomes exasperated and risks a test of strength. At the Ghent workers conference of the European sections of the Fourth International in 1973 Ernest Mandel made a prediction that did not seem relevant to France af the time. Now, however, it is gradually coming to pass: "The survival of capitalism and the survival of trade-union freedom are increasingly mutally exclusive. That is the first conclusion that must be drawn. This is a particular application of a much more general rule: The survival of capitalist systems in full structural crisis ever more sharply threatens all the partial democratic rights won by the masses during the rising phase and height of this system." The workers response In face of these attacks and in spite of the obvious weakness of the regime, in no sector have the workers launched movements of any real scope during the past six months. First, we must look at the objective obstacles. In the public sector, relatively spared by unemployment, the workers, traumatized by the failure of the great struggles in the postal system and in public services during autumn 1974, resigned themselves to the wage "adjustments" assured by the contracts signed by the FO and FEN trade unions (Force Ouvrière -Workers Power; Fédération d'Education Nationale -National Education Federation). In the private sector, threats of layoffs and the development of significant partial unemployment largely neufralized struggles. In any event, it was necessary to find methods of action other than simple production halts, which are completely ineffective in the present slump situation.
11
FRANCE To these objective difficulties we must above all add a series of particularly powerful subjective brakes:
*The sharp repression and determined resistance of the employers and government to all struggles in all sectors generally acted to ward off many "spontaneous" mobilizations.
*But above all, never have the trade-union leaderships so crudely expiained that in the absence of early political electoral outlets, it was useless to become committed to national slogans aimed of centralizing struggles. They were content with two ill-prepared days of action, and in any case December 2, 1975, was a rather disturbing fiasco: The interprofessional and inter-trade-union demonstration in the Paris region attracted no more than 20,000 or 30,000 people, while the traditional mobilizations generally turn out between 80,000 and 100,000 people. The leaderships of the trade-union federations tried to soften this rejection of any centralized offensive by calling the demonstrations of October 3 and 4, 1975 (which were only half-successes), and above all by an ideological and organizational rivalry that had until then remained the game of the SP and CP. In preparation for its congress of May 1976 the CFDT leadership wanted to dispense with the toilendism it had been exhibiting toward the CGT since the CCTCFDT accord of June 26, 1974. The CGT was trying not to suffer too heavily from the sectarian and substitufionist activism of the Communist party in the factories, but above all to limit the progress of the CFDT, which is generally profiting from the social and political recomposition of the working class. On the whole, the CGT is stagnating and even losing ground in a number of sectors. The decline of the membership of CGT unions in the metal industry in the Paris area is well known. The CFDT estimates that it now has 800,000 dues-paying members and 1, 040,000 adherents, that is, 80% more than in 1968. Between 1971 and 1974 it grew by 10.76%, that is, by 74, 959 adherents, It claims to have won 25, 000 new dues-paying members in 1975. These figures have been partially verified by regional polls. Thus, in Upper Normandy, an old region of strong industrial concentration, the CFDT grew from 15, 00020,000 members in 1968 to 30, 000-40, 000 members in 1975, while the CGT leveled off at 80, 000. These trends are confirmed by Ministry of Labor statistics on the results of elections to factory committees, which concern the major enterprises of the private sector:
CFDT CGT FO 1972 18.9% 44.1% 7.6% 1973 19.6% 40.8% 7.7% This little ideological and organizational war, which in any event has not led to any official break, has developed apart from any debate with the workers about the perspectives of the day. This was completely incomprehensible to the working masses and acted mainly to 12 demobilize them. Nevertheless, the CFDT did gain a capacity for appearing independently, which it had not possessed previously and which has begun to alter the central relations between the two confederations. In spite of the demobilizing orientation of the leaderships of the union federations, there have been a considemble number of sectoral, local struggles. Various quantitative estimations of these may be made. Extrapolating from figures of the Ministry of Labor, the January 1976 issue of the employers' magazine Entreprise reported that 3.7 million work days had been lost through strikes in 1975. That is as high as the total for the three preceding years. During the period of the July-August vacations, the CT estimated that 210 factories were on strike, seventy of them under occupation. The November 12, 1975, issue of Vie Ouvrière, the weekly of the CGT, reported 100 struggles during the first two weeks of October, fifty-eight of them with occupations. These quantilative figures give a small idea of the potential of struggle that has been maintained despite unemployment and the blows of the regime. But the types of slogans, forms of actions, and experiences that are now found systematically in hundreds of isolated struggles shed much more light on the features that are ripening in the depths of the working class and that will shape the future intense mobilizations that the upturn and the coming economic difficulties threaten to stimulate. Le Monde's balance-sheet for 1975 testified to this in Its own way: "There was not just one Lip affair; there were a hundred, From Manuest in the Vosges to Teppoz near Lyon; from Griffet in Marseille to Grandin or Triton in the Parisian region, not to forget Ideal-Standard or COMSIP. " Occupation, sale of inventories, and restarting of production to aid the struggle are becoming usual methods of struggle, even in the workers bastions dominated by the CP and the CGT. Thus are developing the experiences that are preparing thousands of workers to rapidly advance: ward a generalization of workers control and dual power during the coming central confrontations. As for the most immediate targets: the struggles of the Rhône-Progil factory in Grenoble and the Rhone-Poulenc factory in Pont de Claix have popularized the demand for thirty-six hours work for forty hours" pay as a response to the spread of total and partial unemployment. At the same time, entire federations have integrated the demand for a thirty-five hour week into their platforms (the CFT federation in the postal system and banks; the CGT federation in the banks). The November 29, 1975, issue of Rouge reported on the experiences in Department 54 of Renault and in the Laudin and Gyr factory in Montluçon. In these two cases, the employed workers rejected layoffs and reintegrated laid-off workers themselves. Those are the demands and forms of struggle that can
June voie démocratique au socialisme un socialisme pour la france carry the central battle against the high level of unemployment (1 million) envisaged in the seventh plan of the government. And paradoxically, the tactic of fragmentation of struggles practiced by the CGT and CFDT leaderships, as well as the sectarian initiatives taken by CP factory cells over the head of the CGT, compel the reformist leaderships to soften their rejection of a central workers offensive by appealing to the local experiences that permit these isolated struggles to be fueled despite everything. Thus, at Ideal-Standard there was discreet talk of producing some gadget; the Triton workers, who are still on strike, decided to deliver a machine that had been ordered by the USSR for its truck factory under construction in Kama. Likewise, the Griffet strikers sold one of their machines to Libya. These are the sorts of experiences that have been undergone in the fiefs of the CP, experiences that will be remembered by thousands of workers. Finally, we must take note of the trend toward the link-up of the struggles of youth in training with the local organizations of the workers movement. In Paris, for example, seventy-five of the representatives of the departmental unions of the CFDT and CGT participated in a meeting of six striking Paris technical institutes held in a room at the labor exchange. The CGT officials were unable to ward off this proposal from the coordinating body, in which they knew revolutionary militants were active and recognized. Likewise, during the recent struggle of the students of Nantes, a demonstration was supported by the departmental unions of the CGT, CFDT, and FO. The delegation of workers representatives (in which the CT was absent) accompanied student representatives to the president of the university to show him that they were supporting the movement. This trend allows for the transformation of the nature of the struggles of youth and for their integration into the general battle to go beyond reformist obstacles in the workers movement, within the framework of a correct united-front tactic.
Conditions of the revolutionary Marxist intervention Our intervention is shaped by three particular elements. First of all the state of mind of the mosses and the workers vanguard in the current political situation: Unemployment, inflation, the repression of struggles, and the failure of Giscard's promises have widely spread the idea that "if things are going to change, we have to get rid of this regime. " In spite of its internal polemics, which are not very comprehensible, the Union de la Gauche increasingly appears as a possible and necessary alternative. The by-elections and polls are rather significant indications of this. But in the absence of any important trade-union campaign and of any struggle of significant weight in the political situation, this political change does not seem to the masses to be related to their direct intervention and the development of their struggles. The workers ore waiting, attentive and concerned, but very passive, for the battle of the political apparatuses and their preparation for the elections. A broad workers vanguard has been considerably politicized.
*The behavior of the reformist leaderships in struggles like those in the postal system or at Chausson, their scandalous passivity during the period following summer vacations, and their groveling during Prime Minister Chirac's offensive against the movement of soldiers are all experiences that have very concretely educated the vanguard about what electoral ism means.
*The Portuguese revolution has provided illustrations for revolutionary Marxist propaganda on workers control, the independent organization of the workers, the seizure of power, the transition, the socialism of workers councils.
*These militants are increasingly convinced that the electoralism of the reformist leaderships delivers the workers to the crisis plan of the employers, These militants are convinced of the validity of our alternative proposals (the urgency of a workers counteroffensive based on unifying slogans; the coordination, generalization, and centralization of struggles leoding to a test of strength with the regime in action). But they ask us: On what "spontaneous" movement of workers and on what organized forces can all this be based? In the meantime, they increasingly refuse to give an impetus to broad movements for which they have difficulty seeing any outlet. Neither voluntarism nor exemplarism will enable us to deal with this complex situation and to offer satisfactory responses to the workers vanguard: "Let's drive ahead, that will knock down or expose the traitorous leaderBut any foot-dragging limited to making systematic sniping criticisms of these leaderships would not be credible either. We have to hammer away regularly and pedagogically along the axes of our action program, systematically confronting the trade-union leaderships with our proposals.
13
FRANCE AIR FRANCE The second element, of course, is the influence of an economic upturn, even a limited one, on removing obstacles to struggles. The government is going to hail this upturn. The employers will take advantage of it to make up the ground they have lost during two years' of difficulties. Hiring will not be increased, but workweeks and production speeds will be. Prices will rise, but wages will be held down. These are factors that will stimulate wage demands and the struggle against the deterioration of working conditions. The strikes of Vallourec and Solmer are harbingers of this. We must be attentive to a possible turn in the cycle of struggles and must prepare it through systematic and hard-hitting agitation around the central slogans of our action program. The third element is the rapid recomposition of the workers movement that is occurring, which tends to modify the conditions of our intervention. After six years of beating around the bush, the Communist party, under the pressure of a Socialist party in the process of becoming the largest workers party on the electoral field, upset by the imminence of a probable victory of the Union de la Gauche prepared by the permanence of the economic and political crisis of the bourgeoisie and the radicalization of the workers, and confronted by the development of the crisis of the Stalinist movement, has suddenly decided to make its choice. in its doctrinal revisions it is speeding up its evolution toward a more consistently Social Democratic orientation: abandoning of reference to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the theory of the march to socialism through continuous democratization of bourgeois economic and social structures and institutions, submission to the verdict of parlition to include the entire people. In its relations with liamentary elections, broadening of the electoral, coathe international Stalinist movement and the Communist party of the Soviet Union, priority is clearly given to its national party interests within the framework of privileged relations with the Communist parties of southern
Europe. This is the meaning of the French Communist
14 party's rapprochement with the Italian and Spanish Communist parties and the distance it has taken from bureaucratic repression in the USSR. The French CP is thus asserting its claim to be considered as and to rapidly become the primary reformist government party. But the ideological rapprochement between the two workers parties (the SP and the CP) will only intensify their rivalries. Moreover, the SP is uneasy about a Communist party that may manage to alter not only its doctrinal references and its model of socialism, but also its public image and its Stalinist behavior (which is far from having happened up to now). Such an evolution would intensify the fascination already felt by many SP and CFDT members for the great effective force represented by the Communist party. The doctrinal revisions of the CP and the debate on basic questions between the CP and the SP reintroduce a strategic debate on the problem "reform or revolution" into the entire workers movement. The ideological evolution of the CP compels it to redouble sectarian and substitutionist activism in the factories in an attempt to gain credibility for its claim that the Communist party is the "only party of the working class. " This orientation will intensify the difficulties of the CGT leadership, which is already distressed about the progress of the CFDT. In principle, the evolution of the Communist party clears the way for the growth of the organization of revolutionary Marxists. The CP and all the reformist leaderships are conscious of this. With the complete unanimity illustrated by the campaign for normalization Maire has unleashed in the CFDT, they will redouble their virulence in trying to limit our influence, particularly in the trade-union bodies, and this just at the moment when they are preparing themselves to govern. We must understand that while political debate is more than ever indispensable, only our ability to develop a genuine mass base can really neutralize bureaucratic repression. Ol
FEBRUARY
1976