Politics in Action

 “The French Communist Party versus the Students,“ by Richard Johnson, 1972.  (Out of print)

This is a detailed study of the relationship between the French Communist Party (PCF) and the other political forces involved in the May-June 1968 rebellion in France.  While seemingly dated, it actually reveals quite a bit about present spontaneous rebellions and riots, as well as the present flaws of neo-Stalinism. Johnson attempts an even-handed account of the rationale behind the CP’s opposition to the student movement, as well as the logic of the student revolutionaries, especially anarchist and Luxemburgist Daniel Cohn-Bendit.  It also involves the rightist positions of the Italian CP under Togliatti, ‘workers self-management’ coming from Tito, independent existential Marxists like John Paul Sartre, Trotskyists like Alain Krivine, Ernest Mandel, Pierre Frank and Pierre Lambert and Maoists under the intellectual leadership of Louis Althusser. 

Johnson starts by explaining the early links between Sartre’s existentialism, his turn to Marxism and his role as a ‘fellow traveler’ of the PCF until 1956.  He covers the debate between Luxemburg and Lenin on organization, which directly related to events in France.  He shows that Althusser’s role in the PCF was limited to theory.  Althusser actually did a 'self-criticism' of his class background and flawed ideas, much to the delight of the PCF leadership. Sometimes Johnson conflates Stalinism with Leninism in his detailed analysis of the PCF’s ‘democratic-centralist’ structure.   Johnson at times calls it ‘Leninist Stalinism,’ then “Stalinist distortions of Leninism.”   Its structure could serve as a template for the structure of many CPs.  He does understand that conditions in France ’68 were different from those in Russia. 

Johnson’s politics are not clear, though he is sympathetic to the left.  He opposes the bureaucratic and reformist logic of the PCF, showing how the Party’s pre-1968 politics and structure had already set the stage for 1968.  The PCF advocated a popular front with the Radical Liberal and Socialist parties, adopted the ‘peaceful road to socialism,’ heartily endorsed Soviet tanks in Hungary, banned factions in 1965 and disappeared from opposition to the colonial French occupation of Algeria.  The tricolor French flag and “La Marseillaise” were features of their rallies during May-June.  The party itself was a formidable machine run by dogmatic workerism, ideological binaries and dichotomies, firmly entrenched in the electoral road to socialism, with its greatest allegiance to ‘socialism in one country’ – that country being the USSR, not France. 

THE ‘INTELLECTUALS’

Thus a massive, spontaneous student-initiated rebellion against the police that grew exponentially put them back on their heels in opposition to the ‘petit-bourgeois’ students. The rebellion spread to young workers in the factories, even those under CP / CGT control, resulting in splits under the PCF leadership of Marchais.  Ultimately it led to the French general strike of 10 million workers, the students providing the ‘spark’ that started a ‘prairie fire,’ to use a Maoist phrase. 

Johnson’s focus is on the contradictory nature of part of Marxist practice itself, which combines theory, propaganda and agitation, joining high-end Ph.D and public intellectuals with factory proletarians with high-school educations in an organization.  Johnson at various times calls the former ‘bourgeois,’ then ‘petit-bourgeois,’ then ‘middle-class’ – conflating all students with this strata, as the PCF also did. The PCF preferred their Party ‘theorist’ intellectuals not theorize or analyze new conditions, thus blocking a part of Marxism. Instead they relied on a dogmatic and rote understanding of social reality.  This was a form of workerism by the apparatchiks, which Johnson goes into at length.

As part of this Johnson does a useful sociological analysis of college students in France.  In 1968 the majority of college students – but not all – were from professional, managerial or some kind of business roots.  Yet only 60% passed the exams and graduated.  This might bear out part of the PCF’s distain for students, except for one other thing.  As one of their isolated and more creative theorists Garaudy pointed out, French capitalism in 1968 was moving to a heavier reliance on white-collar workers and higher technical skills, where many students would end up.  So a hostility to students reflected a misunderstanding of the trajectory of capital.  The development of monopoly and technical capital also negatively impacted the PCF’s attempt to continue their traditional attempt at winning small business men and small farmers.  Their blanket hostility to students meant that they were cutting their ties to white collar allies of the future.

SPONTANEITY

The other thing the PCF objected to was spontaneity.  If they did not control or originate a situation, they wanted to have nothing to do with it.  This reflected the heavy bureaucratic nature of the Party, which at this point preferred planned rallies where their leadership spoke to its seated supporters - instead of building barricades against the flics, occupying plants and schools, holding bosses hostage or wild-cat strikes –all which happened during May-June.  Johnson claims the Bolsheviks also functioned in this manner.  He seems to forget that the women’s demonstrations for food in February 1917 were unplanned by the Bolsheviks, who didn’t even participate.  Yet they took full advantage of the situation, as the women’s day demonstrations precipitated the Russian revolution.

As part of this Johnson interviews students in the riots, who had a large number of rationales to come out of their 'individualism' and join a collective struggle.

Cohn-Bendit on the other hand distained all organization and advocated exemplary actions by a militant minority that would inspire others.  Sartre somewhat agreed, saying that these experiences would create leftists, as they did in volume, but he also advocated ‘going to the workers.’ Some Trotskyists endorsed the student movement’s development of hundreds of ‘committees of action’ and the parallel development of factory committees, which they saw as the beginnings of dual power and ‘soviets.’ They also participated in the street fights. Other Trotskyists advocated ‘going to the workers’ like Sartre.  The Maoist organizations focused on education the most, learning the ‘classics’ of “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought” and Althusser.  They ignored the student movement as did the PCF, with some stupidly advocating “going to the French peasants” and even adopting rural guerilla struggle.  Farmers gave De Gaulle a huge majority in the June elections.

10 Million Workers on Strike

THE GENERAL INTELLECT

Johnson’s focus on the question of ‘intellectuals’ is somewhat dated.  In the U.S. the majority of young people now go to certificate programs, 2 or 4 year colleges or trade schools.  The internet and auto-didacticism allow anyone to educate themselves readily on a variety of subjects.  An isolated strata of ‘intellectuals’ is hard to locate anymore. Marx’s concept of the ‘general intellect’ is relevant here, as the huge barrier between paid academic Ph.D ‘intellectuals’ and the rest is lessening by spades.  Specialist Ph.D’s are no longer the unchallenged authorities on everything, especially as most are now very close to the power structure.  This was true in France even in 1968. Johnson looks at the rigid school system in France, showing how it too replicated the bureaucratic structure of both French society and the PCF.  This is one of the reasons why the students started the rebellion, which originated with a rumored incident of deadly police brutality on the Left Bank in Paris.   Police brutality again sparks confrontation.

The PCF had to oppose the students’ ‘adventurism’ in order to keep their organizational position from this threat on their left.  They attempted to guide the rebellion into advancing working-class wages and conditions, but not as a more general attack on French capital, social conditions or widening its base. They kept to economist trade-union demands, and many of these were won, vastly improving the lives the working class. They then advocated an electoral popular front, which lost heavily in the election.  Their ‘revolutionary’ credentials (once again) were shattered because of this behavior.  Today the PCF has a small fraction of representation in the French National Assembly and Parliament, garnering around 3% of the vote.  It is strong in some proletarian municipalities and is an accepted part of the French political landscape.  In a way it has become a more left version of the Socialist International it split from.  The events of May-June 1968 confirmed this.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left to investigate our 14 year archive:  “Thieves of the Wood,” “The Coming Insurrection,” “The Left and Islamic Literalism,” “The Committed,” “Thomas Piketty,” “The Beach Beneath the Street,” “The Permanent Guillotine,” “The Age of Uprising,” “The Merry Month of May,” “Society of the Spectacle,” “Something in the Air,” “The Conspiracy,” “Finks,” “The Ghost of Stalin.”

And I bought it at May Day’s excellent bargain cutout / used book section!

Parts of the book are available as a free .PDF online, though stopping at page 155 out of 188.

Red Frog / June 8, 2021