an article by saying, nor man the barricades.' Only a month afterwards France was gripped by a general strike and barricades in Paris stood in the same places as in earlier revolutions. But Gorz was not alone: left-wing as well as bourgeois thinkers were taken entirely by surprise. But then Gorz is in distinguished, has been to have a revolution with company: Lenin did not anticipate no revolutionary party. The lesson the Russian Revolution! Four should not be lost on us. In Britain months before it occurred, he ad- today, squabbling Marxist groups dressed some young workers, tell- do not have impact on immediate ing them that it would not happen issues, such as Powellism and Inin his lifetime but they were sure comes policy, because activity to see it in theirs. not co-ordinated. If suddenly a situThis illustrates an important char- ation like that in France were to acteristic of revolutions-their un- arise, they would not be able to predictability. Nobody can be sure cope. The need for unity is urgent.
they will break LOUT But, Time is not on our side. equally, revolutions are inevitable.
The social tensions within capital- Alas for Wilson ist society, the inability of the rul- In Britain, has ing class to solve the basic contra- undergone the period of rapid dictions, that the working growth of its French counterpart. class will, sooner or later, revolt. Real wages in France have generThis ConTention be doubted ally risen whereas in this country by some socialists, because they they have been subjected to a series fail to keep to Hegel's dictum, 'to of squeezes and freezes. Having exhold fast to the positive in the neg- perienced an almost perpetual ative! They see the negative side economic crisis for the last 20 years. -exploitation, misery, submission the frustration welling up inside -inherent in present-day capital- the London worker is likely to be ism; they do not see the subter- even greater than that of the Paris ranean changes, the slowly emerg- worker. The big question is not ing new values, the growing need whether the British revolution will for an entirely new way of life-the come but when. positive side-that rumbles beneath Three factors make the situation the surface and may burst forth at more favourable for socialist revoany moment. The whole progress lution in Britain than in France: of Mankind, as Bakunin pointed First, the ailing state of the British out, has arisen from an essential economy. This gives the ruling class human quality, that of rebellion. It less room for manoeuvrability. has been the desire to improve will be less able to make concesupon things as they are that has sions, buying one section of the kindled the spark of discontent, a workers off, playing one against the preparedness to struggle relentlessly other. against the status quo. Second, the bankruptcy of the parInevitable liamentary game. Tory, Labour, ( Tribune MPs alike, all have been We live in a period of escalating soiling the bed-clothes of British class Whether in the politics. All of them agree on basic Negro ghettoes, factories. or in the Third student campuses, World. principles. They have each contri the general trend will be for the fight 1o become more fierce and violent. We cannot tell when breakine-point will be reached-when the revolution will occur-but occur buted, in their own special ways, to necessary step in the evolution of the present mess. Consequently, in ine prolest movement. Way back a crisis situation it will be extreme. in 1958. when C. Wright Mills ly difficult for anybody to play the wrote his penetrating book. *The Mendes-France, diverting a revo- Causes of the Third World War, lutionary protest movement into socialists were worried and afraid. harmless channels. Party politics in They could see terrible things tak Britain do not have the same allure ing place, but they were powerless as in France, where General De to influence the course of events. Gaulle effectively stifled them for There appeared to be no agency the last ten years. for progressive change. Then came Che Guevara, a saviour because he Third, the absence of a large Com munist Party in Britain. Anybody demonstrated that the peasantry studying the recent antics of Wal- had not been assimilated into the capitalist world order, that in redek-Rochet and Seguy must be mote parts of the globe guerilla driven French Communist Party is not in to wonder whether the action could defeat reaction. Then fact being financed by the CIA! But Professor Marcuse took the process really it is idle speculation for even a stage further and showed that the if it did receive American money. entire Third World, not isolated it would still act in precisely the pockets revolutionary force. What we must peasantry, WAS same way. More than any other now do is to show that the worksingle factor, the French CP leaders -the "Stalinist shit-bags, 10 usc ing class, especially in the advanced not | Comrade Cohn Bendit's expressive European countries, can be drawn into the fight for socialism. Marx. phrase-were failure of the responsible for French Revolution. the said so, and they are being proved Trotsky and Luxemburg Instead of trying to unite workers and students, calling for the forma- right. tion of soviets, attempting to spread Universal disaffection among the army and police, the Communist quislings universal revolution embracturned their backs on the class ing the whole of suffering human. struggle to go electioneering. The ity, is taking place. Even the rulers election results have therefore come are beginning to realise the magnias a rightly deserved kick in the tude of the threat. For instance balls to them. Alas for Wilson Robert MacNamara, ex-us secreCo., the British Communist Party of defence, told a Montreal will fortunately be unable to play fATU meeting: In the last eight years such a decisive counter-revolution alone, there have been no less than VEC HON ON STRIKE UNDER OCCUPATION In France, the movement has been one The most important lesson for social-
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IN ' SOCIALIST REGISTER 1968' the French Marxist, Andre Gorz began *The working class will neither unite politically.