It is difficult to exaggerate the opportunity lost in the recent French events, For a period the French state machine had disintegrated and the way was clear to the overthrow of French capitalism - that the result would have been a workers' regime there can be no doubt: the workers held the factories and there were tens of thousands of people on the street ready and willing to initiate a revolution; the police were on the verge of striking, and the conscript army could not be relied upon, All sections of the community had completely lost confidence in the regime. To deny that there was a revolutionary situation in France, as the French Communist Party did (echoed by its British counter-part), was to fly in the face of the ABC of social science,
A workers' state in France would have decisively changed the relationship of forces between world revolution and world reaction. It would have sparked off a process which would have rapidly led to the overthrow of many other capitalist states, The perspective of democratisation in the existing workers' states would have been vastly strengthened. With an advanced country torn from the capitalist world the prospects for the industrialisation of the third world would have been speeded-up immensely. It is only by cataloguing the lost opportunities that we can gauge the extent of the treachery of the French Communist Party in opposing a revolutionary answer to the French crisis, But this party got its reward: the disastrous defeat it suffered in the elections was predictable and justly deserved. Once again it has been proven that those who choose the "parliamentary road to socialism" are putting off socialism until the Greek calends,.
But the French working class remains undefeated: it is confident of power and ability to win concessions, Tens of thousands of young people learnt the lesson of revolution, Thus, there are favourable circumstances for building the missing factor in the French events: the revolutionary party. While May, 1968, may go down as France's "1905", it should not be necessary to wait twelve years for her "1917".
There are rich lessons in this for the British working class - lessons which will be discussed by all sections of the left for a long time.
Those who have given up the revolutionary path seem to have been impelled further to the right by the French events: witness the MORNING STAR and TRIBUNE both blaming the ultra-lefts for the election losses in France, What would these gentleman have said about Lenin had they been around in 1917?
We will return to these questions in the future, but now we want to concentrate on one aspect: that of appealing for support for our collaborators, the now-banned JCR. As we went to press the news came through that Alain Krivine (who is well-known to many readers of INTERNATIONAL for his activities in the Vietnam war campaigns) and his wife, Michelle, have been arrested by the French police, They are accused of trying to re-form the JCR, Several other of their comrades have been arrested and accused of the same thing.
We are sure that the comrades of the now-banned JCR will play an important role in building the [party] in France which will lead to the overthrow of capitalism in that country, This is precisely why the authorities are persecuting them, Our solidarity with the JCR is, therefore, not merely a question of internationalism: we are striking a blow for socialism in Britain too. Being persecuted by the state machine places great burdens on revolutionaries - it is difficult for many of them to follow their normal professions and any activities they take part in are doubly expensive, An international fund has been set up to assist the comrades of the banned JCR, Contributions from Britain should be sent to: Renate Prince, c/o BLACK DWARF, 7, Carlisle St., London W. 1.
Messages of support and resolutions protesting against the arrests and banning of the JCR (and the other ten revolutionary organisations) are needed. Send them to M. van Ceulen, 111 Ave. Seghers, Brussels, 8, Belgium,