NUMBER I2 SEPTEM BER.OCTOBER T 968 To the Brink and Backt FRENCH REYOLT]TIOI\

The immediate origins of the French struggles can Travail (CGT) over the strike through the building of be traced'to student activity at Nanterre and the Sor- workers' councils. That the revolutionary French work- bonne, but these student rebellions had revolutionary ers were hnable to take power was principally, although significance only insofar as they were the spark which not solely, due to the treachery of the French Comrnu- (PCF) set off a conflagration within the working class. It was nist Farty " the social crisis, not the stu

R.EBELLICIN AT EOI[,'MBIA, eN Left Flounders I{ost of cLrr i=eadcrsl r.re fa'riliiiar rr'ith the events of Students who had not previously been "political" were the Columbia Univr:isity [.risis I the occupation of Ham- enraged by the cop inlasion of'their campus and the ilton Hall on ?.3 Aprii ].r-.- tril'oteslers led by Students for extent of the brutality. Columbia rvas ripe for rebellion; a Democratjo Socir:ti' (lil)S) iind the Student Afro- its structure is particularly feudal even in comparison American -Sor:ii:ty' iS*\i:li, tl'ir: rv

. FNANCE or another variant, his theories per- tendencies operating in France, all prs. . . meate the writings and speeches of sently banned, Two groups are afrliated practieally (Continued from Page 1) the whole constellation of with assorted "Fourth fnternationalsrtt and,!947. Through the laek of a revolu- the New Left "heroes'-Mao, Guevara, the Organization Communiste Inter- tionary communist alternative, the FCF Castro, Fanon, Debray, , nationale (OCI) with thc Healyite In- and CGT have until now managed to Lin Piao, C. Iilright Mills. ternational Committee, and the Parti maintain the loyalty of the French Marcuse's thesis is that the working Coinmuniste Internationale (PCI) with workers. The French events demon- class has become socially moribund and the Pabioite United Secretariat. Also strate once more the necessity of build- obsolete. This thesis, an attempt to assoeiated with the Pabloites is the ing an alternative for the eommunist explain the twenty-year hiatus in re- Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionaire workers to the PCF-that is, a com- volutionary worliers' struggles in the (JCR), a left split from the PCF siu- munist party which will honor its pro- post-war period, dovetailed quite nicely dent federation. The thild ter.rdency, the gram and fight for state power in its with the liberal capitalist line that Union Communiste, which publishes own right. I,t is not enough that this "post-industrial" society was sufficient- Voin Ouariire (ll/orkers Voice), is ot- party break formally with the PCF or ly flexible to comfortably integrate the ganizatiotrally independent of these .,fn- with "KhruFhchevite revisionism"l it u,'orking class and dispense with class 'telnationals" but has fraternal rela- rnust also break with the methods and struggle. This theory deepened petty- tions with g?oups in other countries, policies of Stalinism, What is needed bourgeois contempt for the workers amonE thern the Spartaeist League in is not another left-talking agency, but and gave impetus to all kinds of elitist the U.S. a Leninist-Trotskyist party. Only the conceptions of historical change. By kind of party which won the 1917 Oct- shifting the blame onto the victims of Ilealyites Screw Up ober Revolution in Russia will be able these policies of non-struggle rather Despite attempts by the British to get to the yoots of the PCF's be- than onto the perpetrators, onto the Newsletter and the U.S. Bulletin trayals. . worlcers rather than the assorted bu- (Healy's EnglishJanguage propaganda reaucrats who mislead them, this theory apparatus) to make it appear that the Ile Gaulle Cracks Down dismisses the workers as a revolution- OC[ was leading the entire rebellion, The government's craekdown on all aly class and searches instead a its presence in the working class was the major organizations to the left of for new "vanguard agency,t' In favor of limited to a few important factory con- the PCF becomes an even more serious Mao's peasants or Guevara's guerillas, centrations; its influence in the radical threat context. there in this To date, the militant of the industrial West is student movement was non-existent. have eleven working-class and stu- been encouraged to become not a revolution- Over-reaeting against "student van- dent groups ordered dissolved-most guardismr" ary but a vicarious enthusiast of "othertt a real problem, the French of them, according. to the bourgeois forces. Healyites went so far as to oppose stu- pless, proscribed "Tlotskyite." These The French workers did more than dent struggle at the very rnoment the organizations are forbidden to publish students were building the barricades propaganda; shake up French bourgeois society: their militants who con- their struggle rendered obsolete which triggered the whole revolt. subject prison the tinue their wotk are to whole carefully constructerl myth-Mar- This rea terms. cuse, liberalism, the New Left and its ist. After The ban on these orgahizations is a heroes. t'bought-off" sode many fferce The workers in attack on the civil liberties of action, the strikes, factory occupations, tioned in the various comi,t6s Xactian French workers and students. It is a the red flag everywhere, as individuals disgusted with their class-determined govern- the workerst ban: while the drive for power and group's policies. The OCI did not even ment illegalized their rejection of the French left, it was the concessions have a propaganda stall at the Sor- at the same time releasing jail exacted from the ter- from rifi ed French bourgeoisie-these events bonne (altholgh eaery otherleft organ- extreme rightists, proto-fascists the and show concretely where the social ization did). conspirators of the attempted paramili- agency for change is to be found in our era. tary coup d'Atut of 1958. And what makes Pabloite Revisionism the ban especially damaging now is Role of The French Left The Pabloites wer€ limited in a more that it is the militants of many of the The pro-Chinese groupings seemed subtle manner, deriving from their es- banned organizations who best appre- out of their depth in the complex sit- trangement from the working class and ciate the pernicious role of the PCF. uation. The question facing'the working a concept of '(student .,t and can draw the necessary conclu- class was the fracturing of the CGT's Tlus, within the student milieu they sions. power, a situation in which the played an active role, with some in- Both the Gaullists and the PCF ben- "thoughts of Chairman Mao" rnust have crease in influence and leadership. But efft from these decrees; to assume that appeared eyen more gloriously irrele- central to their weakness was their the PCF was not an accomplice to the vant than usual. The Maoist students inability to break out of the stud.ent crackdown is to stretch credibility be- understood the necessity of involving arena, Their isolation was of course yond the breaking point. It has been themselves in the workers' struggles not accidental but stemmed frorn tac- acknowledged that from the beginning and managed to build themselves an in- tical and theoretical shortcomings of of the crisis the CGT leadership was in duStrial base, but seemed to have no Tany yearst dutation, characterized seeret, daily contact with the g.overn- idea what to do with it. But whatever chiefly by a renunciation of the neces- ment. At any rate, neither L'Humanitd they did must have had little support sity for revolutionary not ?he Worker has to date said one from their chosen lead.ers in Peking; consequent adaptation word in regard to these bans. the 'Chinese themselves consider De bourgeois and Stali Gaulle a "progressive" anti-imperialist. This revisionist trend Proletarian Reyolution vs. New Leftism The political work of the Paris anarch- in a number of notorious resolutions on Many "newt' ideas about revolution ist students appears largely to have the part of the have surfaced United Secretariat which within the American consisted in'(confronting" the police. In declared that the .,epicenter', of revolu- left in the 1960's, and Franee offers three weeks they moved from their tra- tionary struggle had shifted to the col- us a laboratory in which to test them. ditional concept of super-individuality onial world, and away Since from the inelus- so much of late has been made to participating in the demonstrations trial working class, of Herbert Marcuse, considered the in the manner of a super-organized Their line is only mentor of European radical youth, his lockstep action squad. decked out in {,revolutio ideas are of central importance. ,.Trotskyist,, fn one There are three distinct to a variant of the Ma SEPTEMSER.OCTOBER I'68 -5 vara thesis preaching contempt for the upon "all organizations claiming to be of brass! workers while looking about for other Trotskyist to join in this move.t' The The Pabloite press has smothered it- "agencieE.t'That this theory has borne VO comrades feel the recent events con- self in a general line of: "If the French little fruit has not dissuaded them from stitute "the Freneh 1905." Let us re- (or any other) revolution hasn't yet their search. In praetiee the Pabloites member that the sequel to the 1905 taken place it's all the fault of the Stal- have done little more than participate Russian Revolution was a uniffcation inists." This serves only as a conven- in popular front ttpeacet' demonstrations of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks! It ient-if by now rather boring-scape- and lend themselves as a left cover for took Lenin several years to break this goat. The Stalinists have been function- Stalinists, pacifists and liberals. over-fratetnal unity. What has been ing as agents of the bourgeoisie at And. so it happened that, precisely pointed up in France by the latest CP- least since 1933; this has been codified when the French workers went into CGT 'betrayal 'is not the need for a in the Trotskyist movement at least moticin 'and even e small eonibat.or- "Trotskyist regroupment" but the. need since the L938 Transit'ional Progratn. iented Marxist nucleus could have by for a new revolutionary party based on Yet the central prbmise of Pabloism is example alone wielded enormous in- the vindicate4 Bolshevik prograni, unit- that the Stalinist parties are subject to fluence, the Pa-bloites were outside the ing all those, even from such tenden- "left" pressure to such a degree that movernent, And then when cies' as the Maoists and syndiealists, they can at times play a revolutionary the isgue w,as posed of linking tlre stu- who stand in favor of workers' commit- role. Thus the Pabloite co-thinlrers of dents with the workers, it came to tees of power. We hope that VO, the the USec. in the U.S. (Socialigt Wot'k- little more than an expression of soli- French Bolsheviks, have not been dis- ers Party-) darity rather than pointing the way to oriented as were the Russians in 1905. find themselves caught in a elassic cen- the assembling of the cornmunist party. trist trap. British sd U.S. Lieft On one hand, has Voix Ouvridre The Healyite orgahizations apDear the the Militant done accurate and enthusiastic job comrades incapable of learning any of-the les- an The Voix OuwiCre are the reporting French although sons of France. As of this writing they the revolt only organization claiming to be Trot- seriously flawed seem inclined simply to brazen it out by "student vang:uard" skyist which has carried out a working- substitutionism and a vacuous position were wilh wild claims. A Socialist Labour class line. Initially, their cadres on the need Trotskyist party. the League congress passed a resolution for the concentrated in the factories to And in New York &rrd s,re Bay Area the extent that they lacked an adequate containing these grotesqueries: praiseworthy jobs contemptuousfu rejecta SWP-YSA did in base within strldent and petty-bour' "Congrese the building united fronts defending the able allegatione of coward,ice leaelled, agui,nst geois arenas. They were, however, outlawed French organizations. On the. to egtablish permanent liaison com- our cornrad.es as baseless. . . . The In- ,ternational other hand, their p"ervasive opportun-t mittees with the Pabloite organizz- Committee of the Fourth ism and capitulation bureaucratic anil its French section to tions, enabling them to coordinate their Internationnl is forces, nationalism, student vanguard- one has prepared theo- intervention with the radical students the only that ism, etc., had ah'eady led them to give of the JCR. Such increase in contact retically and organizationally for this general up on the workers and the vanguard between these organizations may in the crisis. . . . . The strike called party. The Pabloite press now applauds future allow the VO comr.ades to aid by the CGT on May 13, as a result of itself for its formal, generally ignored Pabloite youth in breaking awny from the intervention of our comrades . . . proof '(Tlotskyism," but its "Third World- the revisionism in their movement and ix odequate of the comectness of ism" has certainly done nothing to lay decisively toward a revolution- policies orientir.rg their and, their courage." (our the groundwork for the French events ary proletarian perspeetive, em.phasis) or to push them towards victoty. However, the axis upon which the Further evidence that according to the VO-Pabloite unity of action is based is Ilealyites all you need to make the Yindicateil a falsb one. The joint statembnt called revolution is a prlnting press and a lot For those who held to a position of consistent Trotskyism, the French re- volt was a tremendous vindication. MARXIST BULLETIN SERIES For the revisionists it 'r,vas only a set- No. l-"In Defense of a Revolutionary Perspective." back, an expos6 and a tragedy. How A Statement of Basic Position by the Revolutionary Tendency. kesented to can anyone seriously committed to the the June 1962 plenary meeting of the National Committee of the Socialist position that the "epicenteL" of wolld Workers Party. (23 pages, mimeographed) ' 25 cents revolution has shifted away from the No. 2-"The Nature of the Socialiat Workers Party-Revolutionary or industrial working class to the colonial Centrist? " world see the French lvorkers' uprising Discussion material of the Revolutionary Tendency within the SWP. (73 as anything but an embarassr-r-rent? They pages, mimeographed) 50 cents , can only try to straddle, like one Bay No. in the Revolutionary Tendency." 3-"The Split 'Wohlforth Area YSAter's picket-line slogan, "Chb Documents and Correspondence on the 1962 Rupture by Philips, Viva in France," or SWP leader Fred and Healy of the Minority Tendency of the SWP. (40 pages, mimeoglalhed) Halstead's statement that "The colonial No.4-"Expulsion fnom the Socialist Workers Party." revolutionaries no longer fight alone.t' Documents on th'b exclusion of Revolutionary Tendency supporters. Parts f These incidents alone should raise some and II. (120 pagbs total, mimeogaphed) Each Part 50 cents interesting questions in the minds of |rf6. $-"fe; the Materialist Conception of the Negro Question" by R. Fraser. serious rwolutionaries still in the Reprinted from SWP Discussion Bulletin A-30, August 1955. (30 pages, SWP. mimeographed) 26 cents One best aids the French communist No. ?-"The Leninist Position on Youth-Party Relations." 'Workers . workers not by tail-ending their rebel- Documents from the Young Socialist Alliance and Socialist Party; lion but by furthering revolutionary i957-61. (37 pages, mimeographerl) 25 cents struggle here. One helps them by build- No.8-"Cuba and Marxist Theory." ing, both in France and here, sections of Selectecl Documents on the Cuban Question. (37 pages, mimeographed) an international communist party which (other numbers in preparation) 35 cents tuill take power. One only harrls the Order from: spARrAcISr, Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y. 10001 French revolutionary movement by re- fusing to learn its lessons. I 5- SPAR,TACIST

Scabs, Fake Lefts Push Merger:

SSEA Af fHE CROSSROADS Nery York City: On 28 June over By the fourth week the strike be- of the membership's wishes. One week 6,000 members of the Social Serviee came extremely hard and bitter. Ihe later, despite the increased strength of Employees Union voted on a proposal middle-class background and semi-paci- the picket lines, Mage returnetl with to re-merge with Local 371 of District fist attitudes of many SSEU members, essentially the same package, The Mili- Council 37, American Federation of which originally made difHcult picket tant Caucus was the lone organized State, County and Municipal Employ- line enforcement against scabs, began opposition to the settlement terms and ees, from which the SSEU broke in to give way and the incidents of vio- the deal was accepted 3 to 2 in a poorly 1962. Although the merger proposal .lence, police brutality and arrests of attended meeting. The Agostini Rank strikers rose sharply. was defeated-0L.8% vofnd, for, 66,6ok and,Filers, hiding behind an "Ad Hoc was constitutionally Committee against Reprisals,,, urged necessary-the fu- Strike Role of Oppo.sitions ,no' ture of the SSEU remaius uncertain. "Vote 'yest for the contract, vote Of the internal opposition groups, to reprisals." The bitter loss of lasf summer's six- only the SSEU Members for a Militant week strike resulted in a profound de- Caucus attempted to fill the vacuum For a Unified Stafr moralization of the officers and many created by a passive leadership; they With the defeat of the caseworkers, activists. The work stoppage was ini- kept the membership informed through the uniting of welfare staff into one tiated on 19 June 1967 by the Execu- weekly strike leaflets of the state of bargaining unit, a main point in the tive Board, frustrated by the defeatist the action and of negotiations pro- Militant Caucus' founding program, passivity and be- of the union officers (Spln- posed tactics to strengthen the actio4 came an urgent pre-condition to future TAcIsr No. 10). The morale of the mem- and win. The stril

Repression in New Orleons

New Orleans: During the past two in Louisiana and continue its sttuggle crowd of parade speetators and brutel- years the Spartacist League in New Or- as before." Iy beaten by eight policemen. \[hile one leans has sufered many attempts at re- On 22 August \967, three Sl'ers and cop was stomping on this throat and pression by state and clty police, cul- one friend, returning from an anti-war others were clubbing him, he was ac- minating in the current criminal charg- conference in Atlanta, were arrested on cused of "assaulting a police oftcer, es against Thomas Knight of the SL charges of loitering, reviling a police reSisting arrest and theft of a police- and Billy Brooks, financial director of man's hat" ! At his trial he was con- the United Liberation Front and form- victed of resistipg arrest in spite of erly of SNCC. JUU'u,lrq tljl0Fl.\cl testimony of three witnesses who ststed The first open police surveillance oc- that the entire incident was provoked curred on 22 June 1966 at a meeting by the police. called for n^embers of the International tffhite Killer Cop Longshoremen's Association, Local 1419 Joint Legislative Comnithe (black). Two members of the New Or- The latest and most serious anest leans Intelligence Squad shorved up, Un-Anuiean Aetivities was preceded bl'a sharp rise in tension claiming "interegt in what you have to in the black community. A black youth, say." Upon their expulsion from the 14-year-old Robert Lee Boyd, was shot and killed by a white cop for picking meeting they threatened to "bring this STATE OF TOTJISIANA before the City Attorney as a violation up soft-drink bottles from the back of our Civil Rights"! Of course, the yard of a bar. He had been given per- police were there to do lvhat the union mission by the bar manager to take bureaucrats' goon squad could not do the bottles. The local NAACP called completely- frighten away ILA mem- for a proteSt march but eancelled it, bers. saying: "We fepl there might be ele- Hon' John L McKeithel ments that would infiltrate our ranks, Later that sunlmeL every member of Gotcrnol elements we could not control.', (New the Orleans New Spartacist League lo- Orleans Times-Picagrune, 30 May 1g68) cal was pl4ced uncler: obvious surveil- As a result police, of this, the United Libera- lance by the as an attempt to tion Front of New Orleans, e coalition pressure them into ceasin.g their activ- IIIE SPARTACEE I,EAGI'E IID CENTAST Olg8, of militant black groups, and the Spar- ity. Then New Orleans police Sgt. Da- tacist League issued Rolland @uuuNEt ActwtrES !l 8otrtl LouEtat{^ a leaflet calling vid Kent whs sent into the for a march to protest the kilting and organization as an undercover agent. to demand that all cops be withdrawn Known as "David Rolland,t' Kent was from the black comtnunity. good at his job, working as an active member. How-ever, in the spring of FACSIMIIJ of cover page. The day this leaflet was issued was 1967, he exposed himself by wanting to the day of the murder of Martin Luther the police foi'cc to rvork on police King; tension sky-rqcketed in the black "join officer and using obscene language. The brutality from the inside"! r,r'as community with marches flom every He in- arrest had political and racist implica- formed that joining the cops was in- direction. Almost all these marches, led tions, since three of the four were quiet. compatible with SL membelship and by reformist leaders, were At bi.ack and several boxes of Spartacist the sanre time, United Liberation and was thrown out. He was later com- literature police were found in the car trunk. community people were holding mass mended by the Nei,v Orleans for The Jour were eventually not his activities. found rallies at several places. These rallies guilty, after considerablerlegal expens- only broke out into violence when po- es. (Continued Louisiana HUAC Screams on Page 7) fn the summer of 1967, the Louisiana Another Cop Frame-up Committee on Un-American Activities In January 1968, a second arrest oc- SUBSCRIBE IO THE issued a,185-page report on "The Spar- curred, with probably more racist than tacist League and Other Communist political motivation. A white comrade, Activities in South Louisiana." Though Tom Knight, was arrested, in a black SPARTACI5T one member's job was lost as a result neighborhood charges- on loiterin! lor 1377. 6.P.O. and nunrerous threats were received by These charges were dismissed and a the local organizer, the Spartacist suit for false arrest is now in progness. l{ew York, N. Y. 10001 League stated in its press release that: About three weeks later, comrade twelve issues - $l ". . . we are said to be a'revolutionary Knight rvas arrested for "interfering six issues - 501 Communist group with Trotskyite ori- with the wolk of a police officer" be- entation.' . . . the Committee and its police cause he refused to allow without Nome agents do not realize the full meaning a warrant to search the car in which of what they have said in public. If he and Floyd Nichols, one of the five they had, then they would have realized framed-up black students from Texas Address that trained Communist cadre are not Southern University, were riding, Then out mere public persecution. driven by on 27 February, Mardi Gras night, City . . . lhe Spartacist League will remain comrade Knight was pulled out of a