THE FRENCH BOURGEOISIE CATCHES COLD The occupation of the Renault factories in France is an event of the greatest significance.
In particular it represents a real step forward in the struggle against the French Communist Party IPCEL.
The original dispute in the present struggle was mas at the Le Mans plant where for some months the workers had been fighting a vicious job.
evaluation scheme, Matters finally came to a head on Thursday April 29th and the warkers * Le Mans occupied the factory. Meetings were held in solidarity with Le Mans at the other main Renault factories Clean, Billancourt, Flins The management retaliated with a lockout, The situ abon was then posed as to whether the workers were to back down or to heighten the struggle. They responded first by occupying Cleon and then Balancourt. If the management now wished do continue the lock out it would have to fight • pitched battle to evict the strikers from the factory. The result was the largest factary occu pations in France since May-June 1968. In Euro man terms what it means is that the Renault workers are once again showing that the best may to defeat the capitalist class is not to let it take the initiative, but to take the employers by the throat right from the start, In addition the Renault workers are once more showing that the the factory occupation is one of the most effecTive forms of working class struggle.
The role of the French Communist Party The French Communist Party for over 30 years has completely dominated the political life of the French working class. It is the most Stalinied Communist Party outside Eastern Europe. and its policies are an object lesson in what a Ongesting creature Stalinism is. In internal French politics its antics have ranged from beating and sometimes killing, left opponents. to dilarming the French working class in 1954. and ending the factory occupations in 1968 ts internal policies are nevertheless mild comoare to its foreign politics, whore at various times it has denounced Algerian fighters against French Imperialism as "Hitlerite killers" and sent messages of solidarity to French troops in Indo China, From the revolutionary events of May June 1968 the PCF emerged dazed. Its massive elect oral defeat in that year made it all too clear that it could never claim to be the party of order" which it so much wished to be. On the other hand, even the vague 'left" noises which it did make were not sufficient to prevent a rapid growth of revolutionary organisations, partic: ularly the Ligue Communiste (The French Section of The Fourth International):
From June 1968 to the beginning of 1971, the PCF had attempted to deal with these rev olutionary groups by declaring that they were composed simply of students. But this became more and more obviously a lie as the revolut. onaries gained stronger footholds inside the factories and became capable of organising large demonstrations and campaigns on key political issues The climax of this period of struggle came when 20,000 demonstrated in support of the Burgos prisoners threatened with death by the Franco regima, and in full scale physical confrontation with the Fascists when the Ligue Communiste and other organisations decided to break up an election meeting of the Drore Nouveau (French Fascist Org anisation, This action was supported by large sections of Socialist and Communist workers All these actions put tremendous political pressure on the French CP. But the final straw came for it on May 1st on the traditional May Day parades. The PCF and the Trace Union Federation under its control, the CGT, tried to pravent revolutionaries marching on these parades. The revolutionaries replied first by organising their own parade in Paris, which was attended by 15,000 people, and then by marching on the CGT demonstration. Most important ed with the revolutionarios, and outside Paris, in many areas the CFDT insisted on the right of the revolutionaries to participate in the parades, It was now impossible for the PCF to assert that the revolutionaries were not paret of the working class movement. The PCF there fore decided to resort to methods of physical violence against the revolutionaries, It found a pretext in the daubing of the tombs of two exleaders of the PCF, Thorez and Cachinlan act almost certainly carried out by the police.) The PCF declared that the revolutionaries were res ponsible and that they were "fascists'! At Ren sult and Li Coumeve, a suburb of Paris, they argenised gangs to attack the revolutionaries including members of the Ligue Communiste and the OCI-AJS with razors, clubs and flickknives. Unfortunately for the Stalinists howerer the revolutionaries are no longer so tiny that they cannot hit back. In particular, the PC F's action has met with a horde of condemnations from within the French working class movement itself. In addition the Fourth Inter national, on Sunday May 16th, held a demon stration of 35,000 to mark the centanary of the Paris Commune. This did not fit in with the PCF's portrayal of the revolutionaries as a "mere handful" and dented their confidence. The final straw however is the Renault strike. The French Communist Party and Renault Even fater the occupation of the factories, acc ording to the PCF there was no strike at Renault, and the factories were occupied "to prot ect the property of the peaple of France against sabotage. The line was a bit much even for the experts in double talk of the PCF but was forced on it by the previous line of the French Communist Party in Renault First of all the PCF took no action in support of the workers at Le Mans and they then dec farad that the threat of a lock out was merely a rumour spread so as to scare the workers. they then set about systematically sabotaging the strike.
At Le Mans they used their position to get all votes taken by a secret ballo: so as to allon an easy time for the scabs. 1,500 workers left the meeting in disgust. At Clean, a vote was or genised de wich there was a massie majority for an unlimited strike. The PCF, acting was a crushing majority for a strike, The PCF shift of the decision and organise it for the strike. The naxt morning no represen titive of the CGT appeared and only the Ligue Communiste militants were there to inform the workers of the action. At Billancourt, the CGT organised a meeting at which they denounced the left wing fascists who were urging a strike. Thay declared that the problem was one for the Le Mans workers and not for Billancourt When the workers went on to ignore the advice of the PCF and occupy their factories, the Party went mad. It declared that the occup ations were part of a vast "plot against the nat ¡onalised industries", it declared the government was behind the occupations, it declared that the strike would force Renault to losa its position in the car market and everyone would be made redundant.
Unfortunately for the PCF, the workers of Renault have understood that the struggle of the workers at Le Mans concerns them all. In fact this is so obvinus to all except the Stalinists that even members of the CT have distributed leaflets declaring that "when a group of workers have decided to have a strike, the role of trode unionists is not to put a break on the movement On the contrary, the task is to look for, with the workers, the most efficient way of achieving success. The most important weapon in this is the spreading of the strike until it involves the greatest number of workers possible" challenged in its greatest stronghold in Western When the CGT leader Sylvain tried to speak egainst the occupation he was first heckled, and then the Billancourt workers followed the reolutionaries and voted neerwhelmingly for a strike and occupation.
At the time of writing, the struggle inside Henault has not come to an end. Thanks to the оираноп, t worersare in a position of strength, but the PCF is continuing to try to sabotage the strike. It wants the workers to give up the position of strength and unity they have achieved through the occupation and instead rely on the CGT negotiators. If it succ eeds in this then the Reneult workers may be defeated, but otherwise their position is enormously strong. Whatever happens they have given the PCF one of its greatest shocks in years.
Renault and the French Working Class The workers of Renault are the vanguard of the French working class. They work in the ІЗ ЕЗИ ВИСОАН most important industry, they have the largest factories, they are amongst the most militant workars in France and they have the strongest union organisation in the country. For the PCF to be defeated, even temporarily, on a question of such importance in this section of the French working class is a fact of enormous significance.
It would of course be ridiculous to believe that the PCF's influence will now collapse and its place will be taken by the revolutionaries. On the contrary, even the strongest of these groups together only number a few thousand. But the Renault strike raises in an acute form the graat question for the PCF of how it is to pravent the revolutionaries from steadily eating into the Party's support. It is now no longer a question of a few studants but of at least the most ad. vanced sections of the working class. At long last the tactics of terror against the Trotskyists are not succeeding as the PCF would wish. The great monolith of the PCF is nowhere near cracking yet, but it is beginning to lock slightly mouldy around the edges.
The importance of the Renault strike is by no means confined to France. On the contrary, the workers of Ronault show to the working class of every country how to cOnduct a real struggle with the capitalist class. For the revol utionaries of Europe the events of recent months in France show that if Stalinism can be Europe, then indeed a new period is opening up. At long last Trotskyism will begin to break out of its isolation on the fringes of the working class movement, and when that day comes it won't just be the PCF who will be trembling.
J.M.
STOP PRESS As this issue goes to press the news has just arrived that our comrades in the Argentine with other revolutionaries organized in the Popular Revolutionary Army, have just kidnapped the British Consul. Red Mole sends revolutionary greetings to these fighters against imperialise and expresses its solidarity with their action. Long live the Latin Americun revolution! Forward to the day when the last capitalist consul and all other such vermin ane booted off the face of the earth!
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of all, the other main trade union federation, the CFDT, wes completely split down the middle through the CT forced a recount. Again there on whether to support the revolutionaries or not. In Paris itself, many CFDT members march- guaranteed that they would inform the morning