the problem! the formation of workers councils.
iiself."
it the CRS. Plerre Rousset JCR] is in foreground. existence by saying that "no revolution was possible" in May, that a successfil Insurrectionary coup was out of the question. As if this was •Whether or not success, a selzure of power, was possibi. (a problem one could debate), there is absolutely no doubt that the Party of Revolution could have at least recognised its own, in May, could have generously welcomed the beauty of May, and advanced the real process of revolution in a thousand ways. It could have reached out to The new workers instead of shutting them off from the old workers. T could have tried to rise to the level of the Itallan Communists of fift! ycars ago, by leading the factory occupation movement and urging All that could bave been asked of these apostles of reasonableness was to exploit the situation in a reasonable, realistic fashion. Instead, they spat phlegin at the revolution until the harricades, and spent the rest of the month beilding their own harricades against the revolution Tom Nairn: The Beginning of the End, France, May 1968 other Communists, to a thor ough analysis of the whole of this text; serious statoments call forth Under covor of a reference to the theses of the 22nd Con formal, a number of summary positions of Communist Intellectuals who have expresse COUTSARE organs of the because of their rejection by choice fled to our conception of pluralism points of view in relation to these contributions, but that Is precisely the richness of our To treat which doesn't come from the leadership which has gone adrift, to taik in this regard of a desire for a penacea in the liquidation of Ise pany: me tonundiation ol being Communist', or a retum
and socialist democracy.
Looking around Western Europe, Japan and North America, one :s confronted by a somewhat bleak political landscape. These countrics have witnessed important polítical and economic upheavals. Bourgeois leaders have fallen prey to a diverse set of convulsions. countries have confronted pittevolutionary crisn: But ten years of strugales bave yet to produce a revolutionary party.
Elsewhere on these pages, Alain Krivine correctly stresses the novelty of 1968, It is true that we broke out of inside the organised working class. We saw the emergence of a layer of militants inside the factories and on the campuses wno werc and semim responsive to the initiatives of the far lelt: me saver descmbed accuraters enough as the "new mass vanguard' in the Jargon ernational (FI).
Al nis marKca importane stups forward the movement. But inite ablat no mone io narn garte THE POST-1968 years saw the flowering of a whole range of groups to the left of the Communist and characterised as the 'far left'. The dominant currents on a European scale were inspired in differing degrees The last ten years confronted the far left with a number of critical tests. It failed many of them.
TARIQ ALI discusses the reasons for this, and suggests that the ihree trump cards in our political arsenal remain the united front, transitional politics davs 1975 twO Italian capitalism left Tailed the decisive tests Fourth notion of popularised by political nonsense in any event organisation with several revolutionary the Socialist They have been loosely majority bave made a qualitative leap forward? We would answer in the affirmative.
The extremely favourable situation lelt. which opened up in Portugal after the fall of Spinola and lasted till the STOL BS ill-Fated purchism of the November was such opportunity. The prolonged agony of and the continuous POnERE CHo O Is InstuIOns 8d parties was anther. And yet it was in Both Portugaland in Italy that the far the survived In Portugal, the PRP-BR, a quaint mixture of syndicalist practice and ultra-left politics, ignored the small problem of winning over the masses. Its insurrectionist chetoric was very appealing, but wide off the mark. its soviets" (also Tea de urRD was grist to the mill of Soares anu Portienese soch denkscy - and a A correct strategic line applied by ar thousand members and supporters would have TATErE made some inroads into the base of Party and the Communist Party That opportunity position of attacking trade unions and trying to circumvent them towards an opportunist stance to the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the union bureaucracy. Whereas the process of recomposition has seen a berger of a minority of AO with th Manifesto organisation sees i itself as a pressure group on the PCI, Its likely evolution Es towards an ultimate merger with At the same time, a lew bundred militants despairing of both the PCI and the far CA BUYE O LEKEN Meenhet groupie in Germany. tor- terrorism Unlike BaaderRed Brigades do have a limited amount of support from the former members matty of the far-left Draaisuaons TECTE CESUUR EU the political collapse of the italian far It is mot a pure accident that the large which have gone into political decline either emerged from flirted Maoist political positions else IE ESLE understand the primacy of politica in the struggle against the State The organisations which bave held For developed since 1968 TEIT IIWT have been linked programmatically to POITIE exception is the British Socialist Workers Party (Tormerly: IS) which by avoiding excesses of its co-practifioners on the Contincot, There are specific rason for this fact, but they are best discussed elsewhere. For the moment it is necessary to register this fact However, the ambiguities Sop on theue doene SETSEIST questions of socialist democracy: its LETSELU TICI revolutionary orgacisation. will be built by a process of aritmetical growt, continue to place a question national and further developed by Trotsky in 1930-33, remain the ouly vibie approach in the bourgeois-democratic countries of tbe West. the West.
For without them, it will not be possible to grapple wich the twin problem of winning the masses and This combining struggles. The concerned essentially with achieving united actions of revolutionary and reformist workers OD CeS,A c sunc anc. forees within it would retain complete ideological and political independence.
The modern significance of the united front lies in the fact that the central probiem of the Twenties and Thirites is still with us. How do we achieve a union between political and economic straggles? To refuse to sec the problem in this way is eiber to lapse into syndicalism or imply that the parliamentary struggle is the DOUCE SWUEIC DHE CAECHCHCE position rejected MEEUSE The Our aim remains a rupture with tbc institutions of the bourgeois State.
atwas-to deal Worst problem that the rinal bi thea Coto facit TOIR. transition from economic to political strugele gainst the bourgeois State and its institurions.
Such demands were not necessarily socialis. They were designed to be acceptable couvinced of the need for socialist solutions. On the other hand. united permanent integration into capitalism was also impossible. Their Tusction was to create a desequllibrium in the political system.
The ultimate aim of cransitional demands was to lead the creation of transitional institutions question.
party economic and political united front wAS take for revolutionary much with hy revolutionary Party the demande saon of WTI WE TUNE InternaMSS TO BACiLlATe the on it now.
Dyer thei machine.
mas:
WE SHALL FICHT Communist Parties should convince the doubters of the centrality of this In their own way: these currents have raised the question of how a itself should function. Althusser's devastating indictment of structures of the French Communist Party (PCF) should make lenders of a number of far-leit grougs notice. Ironicajly enorgh Althusser's description of the PCF's internal regime could casily he applicd to the functioning of many far-left currents in Europe.
We have stressed thar no tea] party crists roday However, the conditions in which such a party could be buile are very us. In order to take advantage of them we have to pur politics in command. A soctarian approach could prove to bc tatal.
The divisions in the French and Spanish Communist Parties offer real opportumities to the far left in Spain and France. In Britsin, the possibitity exists to bulld a large revolutionary oranisation on the left of the Labour But this will only soc the light of das if the traditional responses of the British far Jeft: a seccarian insularits elevation T0S1 IRC UCH differeaces into geestions of principie arc decisively rejected. We bave reached a stage of development wil not be able t pit failures exclusively on the traditional musleaders of the working class. Fora lot will depend on us. That is the advance of 196H, and we bave to build •Stakhanor was the 'model" Stalinist worker, He worked "extra lard". His productivity was 'above average" A: a result be was transformed into a cult figure by the Stalinist propaganda
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social-democratic parties. by Trotskyism and Maoism.
We gained a modest toehald insic