Last May, the French Government banned the Maoist group, La Gauche Proletarienne (the Proletarian Left). The concrete results of this ban were that dozens of militants were jailed and are still in jail. In addition to this their paper, La Cause du Peuple, was submitted to censorship; sometimes it was banned before several months.
Although the ban on political groups is the most spectacular step so far, it is only a step in the escalation of repression undertaken since June 1968 by the bourgeoisie to restore "moral order" in every strata of society shaken during the May 1968 upsurge: in secondary schools, in mention the small shopkeepers and peasants.
From De Gaulle/Marcellin to Pompidou/ Marcellin asically the attitude of the bourgeoisie toward:
he working class has not changed with the new regime. With de Gaulle/Marcellin we had participation and "police parallele" (private police), that is, the CDR* and the SAC* ; with Pompidou/Chaban-Delmas/Marcellin we have 'La Nouvelle Societe" and "Contrat de Progres"
on one hand...and the same police and jails on the other.
But in the referendum-plebiscite of 1969 de Gaulle was ousted by certain sections of the bourgeoisie as well as the working class. To achieve the necessary reforms of the capitalist structures the ruling class had to get rid of de Gaulle-Bonaparte and his so-called "third way between socialism and capitalism" on the one hand, and the Great International Independent policy on the other.
In fact the political problems faced by the bourgeoisie are guided by the situation. French industry, to become competitive, has to be modernised as quickly as possible. In order to able to invest as much as possible and to expor as much as owe us necessit allow only small increases in wages. Clearly, for the working class, this means accepting a reduction in the rate of expansion, creating redundanles, making working conditions worse ncreasing the productivity of workers without increasing wages, trying to solve the problems of inflation through creating more unemploy. ment.
But what the bourgeoisie can do is limited by the class struggle. The government plan brought in after devaluation is already condemned by the increase in wages obtained since autumn, and this in spite of the unions' policy of fragmentation. The bourgeoisie faces the following contradiction: to increase productivity sufficiently it must attack the workers by Germany has played an important ideological role in the mystification of the British working class over the last half-century. Firstly presented as an aggressive militaristic country, which must be resisted in the name of our "democratic freedoms": then as an example of what progress Britain could make "if only the workers were more industrious. "The Red Mole will be publishing a series of articles about Germany, which will attempt to provide a materialistic analysis of recent German history. The first part ublished in this issue deals briefly with th eriod to the end of World War I PART ONE: GERMANY TO 1945 Uneven Development According to the capitalist press in this country, Germany has got the image of being either a cannibalistic monster or a "wonderland", depending on the immediate needs of the bourgeoisie. Both myths have an internal function: once the personified evil of the bellicose junkers and Krupps was meant to make the English masses defend "their imperialism against a young competitor. Today it is the country of the "economic miracle" that, demonstrates to the English working class how good they could have it, if they were as industrious and servile as their German colleagues. This propaganda is of great service to the bourgeoisie and, of course, only obscures and hinders a real understanding of the development of Germany.
To compare two imperialist countries one simply cannot apply useful standards derived increasing work speed, transfers, sackings, accompanied by very small increases in wages: but as profits increase the determination of employers to resist wage demands diminishes since the workers' combativity is still high, though not generalised. "The Stick and Carrot"
In fact, for two years the ruling class has been balancing precariously between repression and integration. The revolutionary movement has not been crushed; on the contrary it is developing more and more in numbers and maturity. To use only repression would be risky, to use only integration would be ineffective. This is the dilemma confronting the French ruling class.
In the universities and schools the urgent task was to divide the masses from the revolutionaries. The Edgar Faude law on education, стелите "student participation" in university councils and "autonomy was supposed to Tuitil this task but after May, the student milieu, which remained highly politicised, realised at once that the law was not a step towards a socialist university but merely an attempt to adapt the old Napoleonic system to the needs of a modern capitalist economy. The student response was a massive boycott of the elections to the councils; only an average of 10% voted But at the same time, to complete this policy, the Gaullists tried to purge the "bad elements" in education: pupils, students, teachers, are regularly sacked and the CRS continues to make reguent raids on the campuses restore the practice of peaceful negotiations through the unions, the five days' notice before striking, and in general to eliminate the practices of direct action learnt in May 68. The integration offensive was mainly carried out through "contrats de progres (industrial agreements) which related wage increases to productivity increases, with the proviso of undertakings not to strike for two or three years! But at the ame time, during a power strike the polic ere immediate sentin to restore ere tre dom to work".
Adapting the economy to international competition also meant eliminating the mail trades and firms, and concentrating them in large monopolies. But the government had to do this carefully, since it had drawn its support in the elections from these very people. Its policy is the following: the government ncreases taxes, the shop-keepers protest anc hreaten to go onto the streets "like the students"; the government retreats somewhat. makes promises for the future, calls for the "representative organisations" of the small enterprises to engage in a dialogue, yet still pushes through the essential clauses of their legislation. When the resistance of this section "miracles". In those days, England was decades ahead of her competitors. German capitalists started their thrust towards world power later and, therefore, they had to compete with the British for markets. This fact is the key to an understanding of the causes of the two world WELS The German Left The struggle against superior English competitors forced the German capitalists to pay their workers low wages, whereas in England the situation was different owing to the extra profits which were a result of the wide margins enjoyed by British capitalists: by means of minimum wage increases they succeeded in weakening the militancy of the proletarian movements. For this reason the German working class was less susceptible to bourgeois ideologies. The working class movement of the social democrats took over Marxist theories, even if it happened in a terribly gross and mechanistic manner. It didn't, however, prevent the organisation of the working class movement from bureaucratic degeneration. Approval of war credits in 1914 by leading officials of the working class movement reveals that fact unmistakably. In opposition to this opportunistic current a revolutionary Marxist wing arose. Its most prominent figure was Rosa Luxembourg. Inevitably she must have been hated by any middle-class or social democrat bourgeois, considering that she was a woman, a revolutionary socialist, an intellectual, of Polish and Jewish origin-all at the same time. To bring ol the petit-bourgeoisie becomes too determined, they send in the CRS, "comme pour les etudiants" , and arrest Gerard Nicoud, leader of a radical organisation of shopkeepers.
There was another section of society which was to be shaken, though belatedly, by the ideas of May 68- the army. The conscripted young workers and students who had fought in the streets in May '68 were not very willing to Stomach the stupid rules and hierarchy of this institution, nor receptive to training in how to combat subversion. The government could not tolerate such deviation: soldiers were tried swiftly, sometimes secretly, for the mere possession of left-wing literature and the national campaign organised to press for their release was banned as an attempt to "demoralise the army"
The Need to Oppose Repressior Every political militant must understand that the ban on the Gauche Proletarienne represents a defeat of the class in the long run. It is a fact that the bourgeoisie always begin with the weakest and least organised elements; those who are on the periphery of the class itself. Then afterwards, when the time is ripe, they attack the workers' organisations. That is why it is a duty to defend to the militants of the Gauche Proletarienne, that is why it is criminal for the French C.P. to join in the chorus with the government to discredit "the leftists". La Gauche Proletarienne and its "Partisans"
The G.P. was formed from the remnants of ditterent Maoist groups disorganised and frag mented after May '68 through factional struggles. The elements which it attracted were those newly-radicalised by the General Strite but still at a low political level. Believing that a single spark is enough to arouse the masses, they sank into commando activities and putschism only to meet mass indifference and sometimes hostility. They are the bewildered children of May who glorify exemplary action without taking into consideration the present political On 27th May, day of the trial of Le Bris and Le Dantec, former editors of La Cause du Peuple, the G.P. called for *The Great Day of Kesistance . For them, France is occupied by the bosses as it was by the Nazis in 1940. Our pseudo-Maoists are therefore the new partisans charged with the liberation of their country. The looting of luxury stores, the sabotaging of factory machinery these are the new Resistance. But putschism and reformism are often neighbours and our Mao-spontex friends are just as preoccupied with organising creches in Nanterre for immigrant children or handing out looted caviare in the shanty towns. Fascism & Ultra-Leftism The time had come when German capitalism was not in a position to cope with the problems of the slump of 1930 within the constitutional framework of German bourgeois democracy.
After the breakdown of mild attempts to deal with the crisis, the capitalists reassured themselves of the support from the national socialists in order to bring the workers to their senses. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD), founded by R. Luxembourg, had already degenerated to a will-less appendix of the Kremlin bureaucracy and had become the party of the unemployed masses, It had just been directed on an ultra-left political course. This policy failed to notice that the "worst" formal democracy was still better for the working class than the "best" fascism. Instead of temporarily cooperating with the social democrats with the strategic aim of offering a clear alternative to reformism, reaction and fascism by an active militancy, the workers were disorientated prematurely with the slogan that the social fascism of the SPD was worse than Hitler's fascism. This lack of orientation of the masses eventually enabled the fascists to win a legal victory without fighting. The best cadres of the left then gathered in groups outside the traditional working-class parties.
The Repression The failure of the bureaucratic organisation of the working-class movement became obvious promptly after the Nazis had come to power: the parliamentary SPD continued to sit peace27th May--"The Great Day of Resis tance"
They wished to be the self-proclaimed lea the choice offered to the other groups, "t revisionists, on 27th May was either to fo them blindly or play no part. It is well kn how badly organised and inefficient this g is and how wide open to provocateurs-no no one followed their directi The incredible sectarianism of the G.P prevented any united action. The two Gre ays or resisance were a amenaoie oar May '68. The masses did not rise up: the f cycle, exemplary action repression-solid was not renewed. It only served to reinfor government in their vociferous attacks ag 'smashers" and those of the C.P. against turists. As usual, hundreds of militants, vi of the characteristically low level of organ for these various actions, were arrested an fined.
France is not on the eve of a revolutior situation. It is precisely because the masse went through the experience of May '68 t they are not prepared, though their comb is still high, to raise the question of powe vithout political perspectives. The role o evolutionaries is to politically educate ti newly radicalised sectors of the masses. Th not the time for armed insurrection: we h win the masses to socialism before we can them to revolutionary violence. Revolutionary Violence We can disagree strongly with the politica of the G.P., but this does not mean that w not see the necessity for political violence state cannot be destroyed little by little, b only by an armed insurrection prepared w advance. We deny the right of the bourge to condemn violence when one can see eve day the tortures in Brazil, in Greece, the massacres in Vietnam. To demand now the release of Le Dantec and Le Bris and the li of the ban on the G.P., the release of all political prisoners, is to defend tomorrow whole workers movement even the Frenc *Comite de defense de la Republique and ices d Action Civique private groups wh Jaulle created on May 31st "68 to patrol streets, to prevent the sticking up of poste distribution of leaflets, in other words, to restore "moral order". together with their employers in the festiv on May Ist, the day of "national labour" name of the combined interests of capitali and workers. In spite of that, on May 2nd, fascists occupied trade union centres and confiscated their funds. The KPD maintair thesis on social fascism, which said that th social character of the state had not chang Consequently the communists were urged carry out the same activities as before, wil the effect that they were exposed to the N terror. The following years saw the nation socialist rearmament boom. Inevitably thi to lead to an imperialist war. The Nazis us any possible means to manipulate and terr the German proletariat in order to oblitera their class-consciousness. Nevertheless, the was a wide resistance by socialist groups, v to a large extent, did not cooperate with t party leaderships in exile. In 1937 there w 40,000 political prisoners, who, on the w were members of the socialist resistance. T Nazi terror worked so efficiently that unti the German Left has not succeeded in compensating the loss in terms of quantity quality.
The Bourgeoisie Distorts History Bourgeois historians withhold these facts nowadays. Instead, some officers, civil sen and bosses who wanted to kill their Fuehr after they realised that capitulation was inevitable are made heroes of the resistanc due course they wanted to come to a "sen agreement with the western allies. For the
Europe versus America Contradictions of Imperialism, by Ernest Mandel; 35/-, NLB.
The essence of the dialectical method is to see and analyse society and economy in all its aspects-seeing all the elements as a totality in their interrelation and interdependence. In the ers of imperialism, to get a proper appreciation of "the divided soul of the contemporary of developments in individual countries one has capitalist-on the one hand world citizen, on to see such developments in an international context. Ernest Mandel's Europe versus America of a Europe of nations-corresponding to the Contradictiorts of Imperialism is an analysis of quite concrete contradiction between the developments in the world economy -in particular it is a study of the objective basis for the formation of the Common Market and deals the ideology and interests of De Gaulle. with problems in the American economy and the international economy generally, Originally formation of "European state" can be overcome written in 1967, this work has now been published in English by New Left Books.
Despite the fact that it was written three years ago, it is essential to an understanding of contemporary economic developments. As Mandel points out in his introduction to the English edition. *The most recent events have only confirmed the theses of the book."
The book is set within the context of the expansion of post-war capitalism on the peak of national governments hand over important a long wave the upswing of the so-called Krondatieff cycle stimulated by accelerated technological change, massive arms expenditure that the capitalist circles who persist in and the massive pyramids of credit built up in the main imperialist countries. The United States emerged from the war the leading industralised and military nation, yet it was forced for strategic and economic reasons to rebuild its enfeebled European and Japanese competitors. On the one hand there was a danger that European countries might have deserted the capitalist camp. On the other, Europe and Japan were an outlet for the surplusaddition, the rapid growth in Japan has also goods and capital in the American economy.
The result of the economic miracles of Europe tion and by rapid advances in technology. These and Japan is that they are now beginning to challenge America itself.
However, in order for the Buropean (and Japanese) corporations to compete with the American monopolies and trusts they must be able to match the Americans advantage in economles of scale and advanced technology.
This in turn entails, in the last analysis, the formation of gigantic companies on a European leaing position is already noticeable. As the scale the interpenetration of capital between the major countries of the EEC. Thus the increasingly fierce inter-imperialist competition until 1964; thereafter it rose consistently more generates its dialectical opposite increased films concentration of capital on an international scale. This in turn generates increasingly sharp confliets between thelarge trusts.
Mandel analyses in depth the problemseconomic and social-involved in the formation s of the EEC as European big capital tries to pretect itself from control from the other side of the Atlantic. The formation of European companies in a classic example of the forces of production breaking out of the boundaries of the nation state entailing all sorts of superstructural problems-such as the establishment ?* of a common commercial law for Western Europe, common economic policies, common •tax structures and so on. This entails resolving the contradictory interests between different sectors of the bourgeoisie and the overcoming the other hardened nationalist and proponent objective tendencies of economic development. Nowhere was this contradiction clearer than in Whether the problems involved in the forma or not remains to be seen. It is the siowing down of postwar economic growth and the movement into a Krondatieff downswing that will be the real testing ground for the EEC. If it finds itself in the grips of a general economic recession which threatens to become a serious economic crisis, the "European" companies will be forced to demand anti-recessionary policies on a European scale ie. they will demand that powers to the supranational authorities of the European Community. The other possibility is defending national economic policies will triumph in which case the BEC will tear itself apart and Europe will be open to the American companies.
As already mentioned, the tendency towards capital interpenetration in the Common Market is already proceeding apace, and the technological gap between the U.S. and Europe has already been closed to some extent. In been accompanied by rapid capital concentradevelopments have eroded the ability of the giant American companies to compete on the world market. The giant American corporations have always been able to pay their workers two to three times the level of European wages because of enormous advantages in the productivity of labour. Their advantages are now being eroded. The effect on America's diagram below shows, the marginal propensity to import for America was about constant rapidly than National Income.
defeating it."
Cuba itself identifies very strongly with the struggle of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong US Merchandise Imports and US Gross National Product Rearsion Tine 1050.25 + First three quarters In fact, increasing money wages have made these problems more acute and have been met by the classic response of reconstituting the Reserve Army of Unemployed. From 1960 to 1964 the U.S. Export price index rose only 2%; but from 1964 to the third quarter of 1969 it rose by 15%. In contrast, export prices in industrialised Europe rose by less than 3% as did export prices in Japan(1). The recent falls on Wall Street do not just reflect concern over Cambodia and Vietnam they also reflect a pessimism about the long-term prospects of the American economy. At present, the U.S., alongside most other imperialist nations, are "suffering" periods of rapidly rising wage rates, at a time of high unemployment in many countries. To attempt to clamp down upon this development will, of course, further exacerbate class conflict and unrest in the States. Not to do so may eventually lead either to a squeezing of the rate of profit and/ or the pricing of United States goods out of the world market, even allowing for wage inflation in the other imperialist countries.
The recent development in the international economythe revaluation of the mark and the general crisis of the International Monetary System based upon the gold exchange system (but with a very narrow gold base) -are all understandable within the context of Mandel's. general analysis.
Mandel devotes a chapter to the question of Britain's entry into the EEC. The argument is simple enough. Although capital concentration among British companies-and increasingly the larger British companies-has been accelerating in the 1960s (with, one might add, generous help from the Labour Government via the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation that has 3* thrown in financial help to promote mergers sometimes even ones condemned by the Monopolies Commission e.g. Ross Group and 30 Associated Fisheries) -despite this the British companies cannot hope to compete with the Americans on their own. As with the other European states, the choice is between being in a united Europe or American domination. • Next to Canada, the U.K. claims a larger share of the foreign direct investments of the United - States companies than any country in the world. At the end of 1967 there were more than 1,600 American subsidiaries and Anglo- is American financed firms operating in Britain with a cumulative investment stake of $6,101 million (2). Of course, entry into the EEC involves a special loss of pride to the British "bourgeoisie which once ruled an Empire on which the sun never set. But pride would be even more shattered by American control and 1othe continued loss of world markets.
Of course, as far as socialists are concerned, - the choice between America and an increasingly "Americanised" united capitalist Europe is no choice at all. Servan Schreiber's call for the European labour movements to drop their "out-dated" thoughts about socialism and opt for the true paradise predicted by Hermann Kahn in his Report on the Year 2000 is in fact a call for increased exploitation and alienation of the worker and consumer. Socialists should not get pulled into commitments either for or against the Common Market. "The working class was never intended to prop up small scale capitalism or to prevent capitalist concentration ... The historical role of the labour movement in late capitalism...can never consist in allowing itself to be reduced to the status of auxiliary to one or other interest group of the bourg aisie-either in support of the inter.
natio. I interpenetration of capital or to uphold the be irgeois forces clinging to the nation state. It the same time the workers' movement has 1, organise on an international level with great urgency if it is to avoid severe defeats.
Already some international companies have switehed operations to other countries in the face of strike action in one country. For socialists, however, "the alternative to the interpenetration of European capital must be a united socialist Europe.
Brian Davey 11) "The U.S. Deficit-Who Cares?" Henry N.
Goldstein-National Westininster Bank Quarterly Review, May 1970.
(2) Survey of Cement Business, September 1968 -cited in "The Effects of United States Direct Investment in Britain on British Technology"
by J. H. Dunning & Max Steer in Moorgate and Wallstreet, Autumn 1969. KWAS
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bee Danteednd Le theis diors of the par antec and Le Bris) have been in jail tor