The publication of a "joint programme of government" has given rise to real satisfaction among C.P. militants in France. Certainly comrades tell us, but it is not unprincipled. The coherence of the Communist programme has been preserved. The Communist plattorm is not just a platform for anti-fascist repartee as in 1936; it is not a national reconstruction pact as in 1945. It actually aims at changing direction, It is not a programme of new style botching-up of the system, like the German social-democrats or the English workerists; it includes a mass of anti-capitalist measures, that is to say dealing an actual blow to the forces and power of the big bourgeoisie. Nationalisation cannot be reduced to the nationalisation of losses. It does not concern the deficit sectors of the economy but certain central key sectors of the accumulation of capital (electronic, chemical, metallurgy) and the banks, that is to say the nervous system of the capitalist economy. At the company level the programme limits the absolute power of the employers; trade union control is instituted on hiring and firing, speed-ups, etc., organisation of work, and even on certain management decisions. At the level of political institutions a whole mass of measures are aimed at reactivating the elected national, regional and local assemblies to the detriment of executive DOWCE Certainly, in foreign affairs important concessions have been agreed concerning N.A.T.O, and the European Economic Community. But the international context of easing off considerably restrains the reach of the former. The heavy-handedness of European construction and the affirmed guarantee of the independence of the French government reduces the consequences of the latter.
Briefly, they say, the joint programme considerably weakens the big bourgeoisie reinforces the position of the working class and the working masses, releases a dynamic offensive and assures, through the development of "advanced democracy", progress towards socialism in France. In their polemic with militants and sympathisers of the CP revolutionaries must, of course take into account that the joint programme is presented (and is perceived) not as a classic "minimum programme" but well and truly as a transitional programme for socialism. Our criticism concerns the content and the means.
CONTENT The programme of nationalisation leaves out the numerous "big monopolies". It is false to say that it assures control of the "do minant poles" of the economy. The "minimum threshold" defined by the CP is given elastic qualities which it does not possess: not only have 25 industrial groups been cut to 13 but also Paul Laurent writes in the latest number of Nouvelle France (No. 1390): "There is always a distinction between that which must be done from the time a democratic government takes elfect, and that which has a more gradual, more progressive character. Example: the realisation of a minimum threshold of nationalisation unfolds over a certain period". If one adds to that an embarrassed silence on the problem of indemnification of the large shareholders (notably Americans and West Europeans: how could a member of N.A.T.O. and of the Common Market "wrong" the big investors? one can see that the Communist PartySocialist Party at the start would only dispose of the actual extent of the public sector and not the levers of economic organisation as they claim. These levers are in the hands of big capital which uses them to overthrow "advanced democracy" as they have always done in similar circumstances.
Together these measures of democratisation of industries aim not at ensuring true workers control over production (carried out by the workers and their delegates, organised at the base in the workshop and on the conveyor belt) but at giving the trade union bureaucracy certain rights which would lead to an opening up towards joint management by functionaries of the State and permanent trade unionists. This conception of democracy, limiting workers democracy, symbolised by the claim of one hour a month for the information of personnel (1) does not have the educative and mobilising virtues of the revolutionary demand of workers' control by elected workers' councils.
Commenting on institutional reforms, the very reactionaryle Figaro (which meanwhile ceaselessly vituperates against the joint programme in terms worthy of the worst years of the cold war) recognises .. that on the whole the changes envisaged touch on more than thirty articles of the Constitution. A closer analysis reveals that if changes appear to be the rule, in reality they rather overlap the fundamental principles of the present institutional system and on certain points even go in the direction of an increased cohesion"
As to the allegiance of the SP-CP government to the Common Market and N.A.T.O., it says much for its determination to concretely change the socio-economic system.
THE MEANS But, necessary as it is, a criticism of the content of the joint programme is not enough. It is completed and made clearer by a criticism of the means which this programme advocates to arrive at its ends; that is to say by a criticism of the strategy of which it is the product. This strategy is based again and again on electoralism, in other words on the illusion that one can realise the greatest social revolution of all time, overthrowing the strongest ruling class in history, by ine means or ciccuons, in accordance with the legal framework set up by the enemy. This idea is so absurd that it is relatively easy to pin down the MP militants on this point and to win over militant workers. All the history of the 20th centry, and again we have the example of Chile before us, shows that one cannot substitute socialism for capitalism gradually, little by little.
However large the electoral victory, whatever the intentions of the "democratic government", if it leaves intact the state apparatus which the ruling class has built up in the course of centuries, if it maintains in place the institutions and high-ranking personnel which they have provided, it leaves them the real power. And they will exert themselves to stop, by all means, the measures which strike a blow to their fundamental interests. One can only impose genuinely anticapitalist measures on the basis of a strong mass movement, organising the workers for the taking of power.
To the militants of the (French) CP we say: Don't wait for a hypothetical electoral victory in 1976! Do you want to end the absolute power of employers in their companies? Do you want to establish the control of wages, of organisation of work, and from there of production itself? You want control of workers' representatives for hiring and firing, speed ups, promotions? Very well. We are not in agreement with the forms which you advocate, which we consider bureaucratic. Let us discuss it in front of the workers and let them decide for themselves. But nothing prevents us from engaging in struggle from today towards these objectives. Don't wait till they are granted by a "democratic government". Perhaps it will not come; perhaps it will have changed its programme. Impose these claims now by struggle. The SP and the CP are in agreement on a joint programme? The majority of the Unions are in agreement with their objectives? What are we waiting for to organise a struggle, unified at the base by these objectives? It is in organising the mass movement right through, in industries and localities, that on one hand forces favourable to the victory of the workers are created, and on the other among the masses a training in economic and political power takes place, that is to say that cadres are formed with intuitive knowledge of socialist power.
But far from choosing the means of building an attacking mass movement, the CP in France leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to maintain mass combativity within limits compatible with its prime objective: to win over as large a part of the "moderate" electorate as possible. Their claims will be appeased by a democratic government. The mass struggle must not on any account interfere with the coming election. Thus the CP cuts itself off both from relating to forces absolutely necessary to carry out its own objectives, and from the conscious and organised forces capable of checking the sabotage of the big bourgeoisie in the event of the victory of the United Left in 1976.
- Roure *Le Figaro, 3rd July; Jean-Luc Parodi: "Will the United Left stick to the rules?"