Extracts from the Political Theses adopted in January 1977 by the 2nd Congress of the LCR, French section of the Fourth International.
The political theses accepted by a majority of the second Congress of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire comprise seven sections: The Regime; The Union of the Left; The Workers' Radicalisation; A Policy for the Unification of the Workers on a Class Basis; Our Policy for Unity; Our Tasks in the Face of the Crisis; The International Context. Extensive extracts from the first six sections follow:
I: THE REGIME:
Two years after his election Giscard has failed. His project was threefold: to enlarge the social and electoral basis of his majority; to solve the difficulties created by the legitimate institution inherited from the era of De Gaulle, while moving towards a presidential regime supported by a large conservative party; widen the divisions within the Union of Left in preparation for its destruction. The predictable failure of his reformist demagogy, of his economic policy and of his institutional projects are manifest.
Gaullism ensured the restabilisation of French capitalism by solving the colonial question and placing itself in the fore of imperialist developments, notably in Europe. It was able to carry out this transformation only by virtue of its Bonapartist character, the political defeat of the working class allowing it to find social support within the petty bourgeoisie and even a section of the working class.
The rapid accumulation of capital, following on a brutal increase in the productivity of labour and the devaluation of 1969, gave the regime a reprieve (the 'contracts for progress', 'the new society of Chaban'). The present crisis calls for a new transformation of the productive apparatus. It is no longer allowing capital to purchase social peace. On the contrary, it requires attacks against the very layers which used to support the regime. The divorce between the immediate interests of big capital and the petty bourgeoisie is deepening and the regime cannot enlarge its petty bourgeois social base without the prior defeat of the working class. [illegible] The Bonapartist strong state moulded the political instruments which the bourgeoisie has at its disposal today. In contradistinction to traditional bourgeois parties which support themselves on local notables, elected in the different stages of parliamentary democracy, the UDR [1] has [illegible] directly implanted [itself] in the state apparatus. In the context of the rise of the workers movement and the possible victory of the left, the bourgeoisie can neither rely on a parliamentary party nor a broad presidential party benefitting from a wide popular electorate (such as the Radical Party in the past or the large American parties). The new situation calls for a remodelling of the political system...
The disagreement between Giscard and the RPR (2) does not fundamentally express lines of divide between different fractions of the bourgeoisie. It is the historical product of the crisis of the political system set up under De Gaulle, a crisis which is becoming more and more acute, as the confrontations between the classes extend and amplify.
The debates and the political differentiations within the bourgeoisie more and more turn on the decisive question for them of the reversal of the relation of forces between the classes since the general strike of 1968. Both direct confrontation with the workers movement and recourse to the Union of the Left are dangerous solutions for the bourgeoisie, as both can lead to an explosion onto the scene of the mass movement itself, escaping the control of the bureaucratic apparatuses.
II. THE UNION OF THE LEFT (3)
Since their historical betrayal, the Communist Party and Socialist Party have pursued an active policy of class collaboration. They have responded to the situation opened up by May 1968 by assembling a class collaborationist coalition.
The policy of the CP and SP is a policy of class collaboration, the effects of which are evident as a result of their hegemony over the working class. The Union of the Left distorts the meaning of workers' unity; it blocks and breaks struggles and encourages passivity and disarray. It is this tendency which is largely dominant today. The CP and SP have the project of continually broadening their alliances towards new sections of the bourgeoisie (the policy of 'the union of the people of France', the willingness expressed to retain Giscard). They reinforce the illusions about the nature of the existing political institutions, promising to continue the 1958 Constitution and to democratise the state apparatus, thus reinforcing the workers' illusions in bourgeois democracy.
But the unity of the reformist parties, an accomplished fact, can under certain circumstances stimulate the self-confidence of the workers and strengthen the aspirations of the working class for its own unity, while nonetheless distorting these trends. This tendency is favourable to the reformist parties in a contradictory way. It explains the flow of new members into these parties, and consequently assists them, for an initial period, to proceed more effectively with their policy, even though it is a situation full of contradictions.
...While it is absolutely necessary to denounce the alliance of the CP and the SP with the Left Radicals, to characterise the Union of the Left as a Popular Front would imply giving a disproportionate weight in our propaganda and agitation to the necessity of breaking with this tiny bourgeois grouping. This would lead logically to abstention in the municipal elections in towns of over 30,000 inhabitants, in order to avoid voting for a Left Radical, and to prioritising interventions into the trade union congresses on the need of the CP and SP to break with the Left Radicals.
To consider such a struggle as primary leads to the underestimation of the critique of the Common Programme and various current aspects of the Union of the Left's policy of class collaboration, as well as underestimating the fact that today it is this programme which ties our hands in the struggle. But these aspects are essential. They make it possible to sow distrust in the minds of the workers influenced by the reformists. It is on them that we place the emphasis in our trade union intervention, for example by starting from established facts such as: 'The Common Programme doesn't meet our demands; it doesn't even grant us the 35 hour week, today we are told that the nationalisations will be voted by Parliament; it doesn't anticipate the abrogation of the 1958 Constitution or its institutions, and under the pretext of concluding new contracts our struggles are systematically broken, misled, [illegible]'
III: THE WORKERS' RADICALISATION
Since 1971 the annual figure of days lost in strikes has [risen and] has no equivalent over such a period in 30 years: it was between 3.5 and 4 million days lost from 1971 to 1975, and the five million mark was topped in 1976; whereas, after the establishment of Gaullism in 1958, there was a maximum of [illegible] 1967 and 1968.
If we take into account, moreover, the qualitative features which characterise these struggles, we can conclude that despite the effects of the economic crisis the intensity of struggles has been maintained at a very high level. Dozens of factories are permanently occupied, selling off stocks and resuming production for the benefit of the struggle; [illegible] These struggles have been marked since 1968 by the progress of self-organisation, still embryonic, but all the more significant given that the accumulated experience of the French proletariat on this [remains] rudimentary...
Class confrontations stimulate the entry into struggle of new sections of the proletariat (bank and insurance clerks, workers in small factories, women workers, immigrants)... Within the general radicalisation, the emergence of women's struggles is notable, as is the fact that consciousness of their oppression is no longer a marginal phenomenon among working class women. For several years, as a result on the one hand of the upturn in workers struggles after 1968 and, on the other, of the economic crisis which hit sectors employing a large number of women (textiles, for example), we witnessed the massive entry into struggle of women workers. But this phenomenon of radicalisation is not a linear one.
Thus in 1971 the strikes in the large stores (such as Thionville), the struggles of the office workers (social security), expressed an outburst of anger by women suddenly becoming conscious of their super-exploited position: discrimination, salaries, working conditions... In 1975-76 half the labour conflicts affected factories in which a majority of the workforce was female, many long conflicts with militant forms of action, such as Cerisay, CIP... In this context of an upturn in the struggle which permitted and encouraged the proliferation of debates on self-organisation and forms of action, it is clear that the entry into struggle of women, poorly unionised or with little history of activity, and until then playing little part in trade union activities, posed from the outset the problem of workers democracy...
The development of women's trade union commissions, as are foreseen by various projects, is an indication of the desire of the trade unions to intervene in this field. The response which MLAC (Movement for Free Abortion and Contraception) has had in the factories, and the current emergence of family planning centres, confirm that today a certain number of matters once considered private can now be dealt with at the level of the factory.
The emergence of women's factory groups is a qualitatively different phenomenon: the success of their interventions, the response which their leaflets find, go well beyond their actual membership.
In this sense, it can be said that there exists today a real advance of consciousness on the part of working class women, including on the questions of their sexual oppression.
The existence of a broad vanguard, making it possible to bring to fruition united fronts with a revolutionary content, draws its roots from the social conditions (crisis of late capitalism) and historical conditions (crisis of Stalinism) which are producing a realignment of forces in the workers movement. The post-1968 situation is thus qualitatively distinct from the periods following 1936 or 1945.
The broad vanguard is thus defined as a fixed feature of the period, which modifies the conditions for the construction of a revolutionary party and lays the basis for our break with entryism. In 1972 the revival of struggle inaugurated a new phase of working class radicalisation, as the deferred effects of May '68 unfolded more rapidly within [illegible] the theses [of the majority of the LCR — Ed.] performed a sociological dissection of the broad vanguard, which thus became merely a tactical concept rather than an historical one: alongside the broad workers vanguard, we had a broad [illegible] confusion did not have serious consequences in our working class interventions, which from the first were situated in a restraining united front framework (the unions); but it encouraged in other sectors the temptation to treat the broad vanguard as if it were made up of autonomous sectors, to the detriment of an overall united front tactic.
There exists within the working class a layer of advanced workers who acquire in the process of struggle a consciousness of the need to organise themselves in a collective and stable manner. It is this force which lies behind the responses to the employers' attacks. It is these workers who are capable of igniting, stimulating and orienting the struggles of the broad masses. It is therefore this layer of workers which revolutionary Marxists must win over in the course of the revolutionary process.
Some can be led, generally from their own experiences as militants, to oppose one or several aspects of the reformist policies, and from there to adopt an attitude of distrust towards the bureaucracies and their policies. It is this phenomenon of a clear break which defines the broad workers vanguard (the word 'broad' distinguishing it from the political vanguard of revolutionary Marxists). In the absence of any possibilities of going beyond this mistrust to a systematic challenge to the reformist policies, their rupture with the leadership of the workers movement remains partial, confused, subject to retreats, and often unstable. This vanguard is thus in constant motion, its features closely linked to the conjuncture as well as to the elements of the realignment of forces within the workers movement, of which the broad workers vanguard is a product. It is this phenomenon of the broad workers vanguard which will tomorrow create upheavals within the reformist parties and open the door to splits within their ranks...
IV. A POLICY OF UNITING THE WORKERS ON A CLASS BASIS
A. Our strategic aim is to win the working class to the fight for socialism, to become conscious of the revolutionary goal of its struggles, and therefore to throw off bourgeois democratic illusions and free itself from the reformists' hold. Our actions aim to seek every step forward in this direction, every advance in the mobilisations and consciousness of the masses.
B. The working class today identifies in its vast majority with the reformist [parties]. This [confidence] is deeply [rooted] in the normal level of consciousness of workers, who [illegible] built up over a long period of time, [on a historic basis], and the working class won't free themselves of it without losing their illusions in the possibility of a peaceful and gradual road to socialism. We will therefore not convince them of the validity of our propositions solely by 'programmatic battles': they will have to experience in practice the ineffectiveness (the treason) of the reformist parties.
C. [illegible] to achieve their unity in closing the gap between a situation where 'the problem of power is posed' (even in the consciousness of the masses) and the present level of [organisation of the masses, who do not know how to] resolve it. Despite the extreme weakness of our forces with regard to those of the reformists, it is incumbent on us to find means of influencing the course of the class struggle. To proceed in this direction a particular tactic is necessary.
D. Our approach is the following. We ask: (1) What is the current class situation? What are the conditions of the [mobilisation of the masses, and what is] immediately possible for a significant section of them? [We start from their demands, even if they are not yet conscious] of their necessity. On the other hand, our agitation establishes a 'bridge' between these demands and the concerns of the workers, what they feel to be 'urgent requirements'. It is not the language, the level, the time, nor the place where it is carried out that distinguishes propaganda from agitation: it is their relationship to the level of consciousness of the masses. Our aim is therefore to work out a class line, a mass line, capable of mobilising in a united way the workers and raising the consciousness of the workers.
The adoption of a united front policy is necessary in all circumstances, but its practical application depends directly upon the relationship of forces. It is necessary to avoid giving credibility to the idea that our own initiatives can at one blow achieve unity (or even that it is only correct to fight for it [when we can] ground such initiatives). But at the same time revolutionaries must, through basing themselves on all or part of the advanced workers, take initiatives (within the factories — essentially through the trade unions) which make it possible, no matter what obstacles the reformists put up, to launch action...
V. THE POLICY FOR UNITY
One of the characteristic products of the period of revolutionary upturn is the emergence and multiplicity of centrist organisations and currents which oscillate between reform and revolution. They express and take advantage of the radicalisation of a part of the broad workers vanguard, which has broken in an uneven and empirical way with reformism. They therefore constitute a component of the workers movement and will remain a substantial force so long as there has not been a qualitative modification in the relationship of forces between the main classes in at least one key country of the continent...
[illegible] for societies or the groups of revolutionaries [we propose to]:
* Systematise unity in action within the framework of a united front tactic, on the base of the central anti-capitalist tasks in the struggle for the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus, the expropriation of capital and the establishment [of a workers government based on] workers councils, workers democracy, democracy in the trade unions, workers self-defence, anti-militarist work and the soldiers movement, the autonomous women's movement.
* Open up on this programmatic basis, which must include agreement on those strategic points and on the necessity of a democratic centralist party, a process leading to the possibilities of principled fusion.
On the basis of these criteria we formulate a common unitary policy towards the PSU [4], Lutte Ouvrière [5], and the OCT [6], which does not prevent us applying our approach in a different way to each of these groups. Thus the links which the PSU maintains with a periphery of leading trade union militants shows that it occupies a different role in the realignment of forces within the workers movement from that of Lutte Ouvrière.
That is why the Central Committee which will be elected by this [Congress] is mandated: to pursue our unitary policy on the basis of the above criteria, and along the lines in which they have been concretised, notably by the moves and the agreement concluded with the OCT and LO for the municipal elections (7):
* to establish resolutely our paper Rouge as the forum of debate and confrontation between the publications of the far left;
* to elaborate attentively the tactical and practical means of implementation of our unitary policy for each sector of mass work, along with the immediate axes and forms of discussion with LO, the PSU, and OCT.
VI. FACING UP TO THE CRISIS
Our response to austerity is to defend the workers' own demands while putting forward a unifying platform:
* for the defence of living standards: a minimum wage of 2,300 francs a month (£60 a week); 300 franc (£8 a week) rise for all; a sliding scale of wages calculated on the basis of a common index of the trade unions;
* for the defence of jobs: rejection of redundancies; reduction of the work-rate; the 36 hour week; opposition to short time working; exposure of the 'maternal wage' [allowance granted to a woman who leaves the workforce for an extended period to have children — Ed.] as a disguised form of female unemployment;
* for the defence of social security: 100 per cent coverage of the costs of sickness and voluntary termination of pregnancy, which are not covered at the moment; repeal of the 1967 rules, for a single system of social security contributions borne by the employers
But in the present situation we cannot be satisfied with an approach that starts from the elementary level of consciousness of the workers. Our approach, on the contrary, must have a two-fold starting point:
* the fact that the Giscard Government is discredited, in a minority position in the face of the crushing majority of workers, and in constant retreat on the electoral terrain;
* the perspective of a frontal attack on the living standards of the working class (the Barre plan).
This involves taking both facts into account while at the same time explaining: (a) that a counter-attack of the whole working class is necessary to get rid of the Barre plan and those who drew it up; (b) that the CP and SP, without waiting for the 1978 elections, must demand to form a government, not to manage the bourgeois state within the framework of the market economy as the Common Programme anticipates, but to drive Giscard out, meet the workers' demands, and take [illegible] measures which will open the way to workers [power]...
From now on it is necessary to launch the struggle without [giving] the bosses time to manoeuvre and reinforce their positions:
* nationalisation of the large firms without compensation;
* abolition of VAT;
* [illegible] inhabitants organised into local committees;
* expose the facts about wealth and profits, workers control of stocks, orders and accounts;
* against the attacks on public and communal services, we must start fighting for:
— the development of free, 24-hour nurseries staffed by men and women and under the control of the staff and those who use them;
— the development of local abortion clinics in the neighbourhoods, hospitals and factories, controlled by the staff and women;
— repeal of the 25 per cent IVG limit in the hospital system, which means employing skilled staff and extending the intake capacity of the hospitals;
— free collective services (launderettes, restaurants, day nurseries, etc.) which will end the isolation and specialised roles of women;
* against the outflow of capital and speculation, control by the bankworkers of all transactions, lifting of bank and business secrecy.
The attacks of the austerity plan and the bosses' manoeuvres in the face of the probability of a victory of the left lead us, then, to place the question of workers control once more to the fore. Henceforth concrete experiences can be translated into reality. Even if their practical effects remain limited, we can publicise them in order that lessons can be drawn from them on the national level. They can also assume an enormous educative value for a whole series of vanguard trade union militants and constitute an effective preparation for the strategic tasks which the working class will have to take up, and to the reformists' solutions.
1. UDR: Union of Democrats for the Republic, the ruling class party which supported De Gaulle and Pompidou. Following the death of Pompidou in 1974, the UDR presidential candidate, Chaban Delmas, lost in the first round to Giscard d'Estaing, the Independent Republican candidate. Chaban-Delmas had tried to hold the electoral base of De Gaulle together — but in a situation where the structural changes in French society, such as the move away from [illegible], made this project impossible. Jacques Chirac, the new Gaullist leader, took the post of Giscard's Prime Minister between 1974 and 1976, both to block the rise of the left and to influence the more 'liberal' aspects of Giscardian policies.
2. RPR: On December 1976, at a mass rally in Paris, the UDR became the 'Rally for the Republic' (RPR). This followed the resignation of Chirac from the Government on 25 August. The crisis in ruling class circles had been precipitated by the March district elections, in which the Socialist and Communist Parties increased their vote. Chirac came to the conclusion that a snap election was necessary, fought on the basis of the 'communist menace'. Giscard rejected this proposal in favour of pursuing his policy of mild reforms aimed at winning the middle ground from the SP.
3. Union of the Left: This alliance was formed in June 1972 by the [illegible] collaboration [illegible]. The [aim was to] broaden [the coalition] to a 'Union of the People of France' through the inclusion of left Gaullists and other 'anti-monopoly sectors'. In electoral terms, the Union of the Left has been [illegible] local elections.
4. PSU: The Unified Socialist Party was formed in 1960 and by the [illegible] revolutionary [illegible] within [it] remains confused. The PSU has a federal structure and rejects democratic centralism. In the 1977 local elections they supported the Union of the Left slates and now have 940 local Councillors. This decision provoked a sharp crisis within the PSU, leading to a split by former members of the Alliance Marxiste Revolutionnaire, [illegible] May.
5. Lutte Ouvrière: LO is the mainstay of a small international current comprising Spark in the USA, the African Union of Internationalist Workers, and Combat Ouvrier (Antilles). Their origins lie with a group which split from the Fourth International [prior] to the Second World War. They maintain their allegiance to Trotskyism, but argue that only the USSR can be [considered a] workers state, the rest being state capitalist. LO previously maintained fraternal relations with the British SWP, but these were broken at a conference in November 1975 on the Portuguese revolution. Since this time LO have been discussing with the Fourth International to clarify areas of political disagreement and possibilities for joint work.
6. OCT: Organisation Communiste des Travailleurs, emerged in December 1976 from the fusion of Révolution! and the Groupe Ouvrier et Populaire. At the time of the fusion, Révolution!, a split from the French section of the Fourth International, numbered 1,100; and GOP, whose origins lie with the PSU, 400. Both organisations agreed on the central political, and ultra-left, project [of the] construction of a [illegible] political charter [of] reformism'.
7. [In the] municipal elections the LCR, LO and OCT agreed [on joint slates and] presented [candidates] in over 30 [towns]. In Paris the average vote was 3 per cent, in the provinces it averaged 6 per cent. High votes were obtained in important working class towns — Orleans 12 per cent, Nancy 8.3 per cent, Caen 8.3 per cent and Rouen 7.6 per cent. Following this success a further agreement was reached for a joint revolutionary contingent on the May Day demonstration in Paris. 15,000 people marched behind the [illegible].