capitalist parties ex/sung demoralised as it was when De Gaulle took power.
It is ine French ruling other ideas about what to do with the capitalist regime.
The emergence of a daily revolutionary ary press in Britain.
Can you make a very genover the first 100 issues of the daily?
We started with the idea that there was a potential much larger than the periphery of the organisation itself, which could be interested in a revolutionary munist daily. It's not a question of pinching another paper's readership but of winning a public to our type of paper.
That implies two things. First. to have a paper which responds to the preoccupations of that audience what we call the broad vanguard. Secondly, we underestimated the necessary effort. it impiles a campaign to make people aware of the paper's existence and finally to get them used to buying the paper regularly.
In France the majority of worker mutants ustco norouv a saver every day - whether it be L'Humanité (the Communist Party paper) or Le Monde and so they only bought Rouge from time to time, say two or three times a week. We thus had many more readers than our sales figures would опосте. OUT regular ones. A big problem.
As to the contents, and the changes we've been led to make, we sent out a questionnaire to our readers produced 500-600 replies thing which we regarded as a very encouraging response. since came mainly from readers who weren't militants of the organisation but sympathisers, members of the Communist and Socialist Parties, and trade unionists. We could see how far we'd progressed towards the goals we'd set ourseIves First, starting from the plain fact unar people witnour muen money can l go buying several papers each day, we quotidion communiste révolutionnain rouge JEUDI 26 AOUT 1976 Cher pétrole DANS I ETAT LIBRE"
The resignation of Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chirac last week paved the way for Giscard d'Estaing to attempt to follow De Gaulle in constructing a new 'majority", centred not on an alliance between the but on the achievements class which is in disarray. parliamentary elections, which are the immediate target of Giscard's project, are likely to result instead in a victory for the Union of the Left —an alliance of the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and the Left Radicals. Even though the reformist leaders have said that they would be happy for Giscard to remain as president in that situation —one must 'respect the institutions'-big sections of the working class might have voice movement which can begin to organise such a current is a vital gain in this situation. Rouge, the daily paper launched by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR-French section of the Fourth International), has now brought out well over 100 issues. John Watts recently spoke to joint editor ALAIN KRIVINE about their experience so far. It is one which also has many lessons for militants striving to build a revolutionpublic, comALAIN KRIVINE-joint editor,Rouge.
wanted to be a newspaper, r.e cover the news, national and international, satisfactorily course making certain choices relating to our activity and specific orientation. SCOTC more or less admitted by one and all.
We hadn't missed out events thanks to a network of national and international correspondents.
But the second aspect is not merely to cover events but to be a paper Inal which gives a certain orientation and provides revolutionary analysis of events. Here success was much more reduced. which thing for the journalist comrades was SUllIC" to strike a correct balance; writing official communiqués from the oreanisation OUT apolitical reporting either.
In fact it's a completely new kind of journalism for you.
Exactly, and that's led make certain changes.
stance, we force ourselves in the main sections of the paper always to cover the news, but try whenever possible to have a section editorial which spells OWI out our politics and throws a clear next light on the entire page. allows us to provide factual information without having to tack on the end the statutory three lines of analysis -three lines which Trotskyist position on an event in such and such a country so baldly that they say nothing.
in the workers' spread considerable interest.
first to be a newspaper, the second to be a paper clearly revolutionary Marxist in its orientation, and finally to be a paper open to discussion coming every movement. principle, corresponding to our position on unity of the revolutionary left our Tu treecom or alscussion This means three things: 1. 1o give wnal we Tribune' space systematically to any organisation in the labour movement, from people outside the Fourth International. though of 3. To own militants participate. Of course where the LCR has a clear-cut position on a question we apply demo -SUGGOSS cratic centralism - if comrades don't agree with the majority position, they can take up the question internally. On the other hand, on other questions the leadership can decide to open up the debate in Rouge.
Marxist ion with special reference to Corsica;
For questions closely related to the nardest where there was a huge volume of to avoid such as electoral tactics in Portugal, slip into were ine discussion was and con tinues to be very thoroughgoing in side the sorts of discussion we make it very clear that a debate is taking place, organised and controlled by the leadallow different viewpoints to be exFor in- sation itself.
lire page 4 et 5 had the This format reflected the dominant force summarise Ine no-one ese aim students. we The daily Rouge has also concentrated a lot on debates-whether between memb- nave been ers of the LCR or more widely - which have aroused Instance. plantation.
SNCF This is the third characteristic we wanted the paper to have: the taking throughout France quarter of the labour It's also a question of opposite.
call 'Open reformist or revolutionary, which asks Fbu caucal 2. To give space to signed articles A railway worker, carry debates in which our pocket to say:
It could be over the national quest- daily is.
movement such as rape correspondence; or tactical questions G they're organisation. But for these oisie. ership of the whole organisation, to pressed on subjects which we hope are of interest well beyond the organiIn what areas has the paper most impact on French political life?
Well, obviously our impact has our implantation Amongst ine students, were we were during the big national strike, the daily was a very important weapon because it gave information on what was happening in and throughout France from day to day - something could do. Rouge also recounted all the discussions which took place in ine cental and local strike committees - again with the space to minority positions in a way which would help develop the overall debate amongst take the other extreme, inside the workers' millieu, where in no sense do we have a truly national influence, we can say that the results struggles disproportional to our In the SNCF (French railways), for But during strike in Apr, nouge drone provided regular news on what was place in about depots ent That was all the more important because the Stalinists were trying to break the strike by putting a block on all normation, uying to get a return how to work station by station, explaining that next door the strike had been 1O1 wound up. And we were saying the tions because we had the real situation phoned through each day This gave rise to some astonishing scenes in certain stations, even where we had hardly anybody. At St Lazare in Paris, for instance, a trade union explained in a general assembly that he had no information on what was happening elsewhere we don't know who, then pulled Rouge out of his "Look, you can think what you like about Inis paper, but just read this. Here's a couple of dozen items of information on our strike, so you could be up to date if you wanted to.' He then read the paper out in front of the entire assembly. That's just an example, but not an isolated one t shows how useful the What about the "scoops' • you've pulled off?
Of course, those aren't just news, subversive news and paper. therefore political. It's a way denouncing the regime by publishing confidential. circulars of the bourgeFor instance, we exposed a project of the Home Secretary which sketched out measures which could be taken in the event of a victory for the Union of the Left. It was all in veiled terms but it was a viciously repressive project going from extending the powers of the military courts to clamping down on the civil service and beefing up the presidential powers to bypass Parlia ment and the Government.
The effect was immediate.
and so did the judges' union. Not only did the paper achieve a great deal of credibility, but the more we publish that sort of story, the more people who have knowledge of such goings-on will be emboldened to tell us about them. 9 any changes when Are you going to make life picks up again after the holiA things. We're going to change certain For instance on international questions and workers' we're convinced that the most interesting and educational way of approaching the workers' vanguard is straight on-the-spot reporting.
We've already done it with some For the Italian elections, we sent a reporter who alant stop at sending us back the official press statements of the differparties OUTOOK electoral campaign in the different regions. For instance, after the earthquake in Friule, we had reports on the population organised cope, the first forms of self-organisaafter the quake, relasoldiers who wanted to help but whom the army wasn't keen to send in for fear of fraternisation. So instead of reading about a natural disaster, workers could read about the real human and class relations and struggles engendered by the earthquake All this means we'll have to increase the number of reporters, which im plies yet more financial effort. We've got to change the 'look' of the paper: either we go to 16 pages with the same format, or to 8 double-size pages - we're still discussing it.
What can militants in Britain do to help the daily?
If they can read French then a subscription is a good way to help. Also see it gets into French cul tural and educational institutions. Ob viously the comrades will understand what a considerable gain it is for the whole Fourth International that one of its sections is able to produce a daily And if some comrades can afford to send some money to Rouge on top of their other commitments that will help to build up its quality and strength of analysis so it can become a paper with real international resolland Send your cheques to: Pierrette Chenot, 2 Rue Richard Lenoir, 93100 Montreuil, France.
10 US/Volcanos Red Weekly 2 September 1976
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eral balance sheet of the experience you've accumulated