Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 38, 20 September 1948, pp. 1 & 3.
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The political balance in France today hangs by a frayed line that is giving way under the increasing strain. This is the common conclusion of spokesmen of all camps. The breaking strands are visible in the downfall of cabinets, one after the other.
Since January of last year, France has had five Premiers. Ramadier lasted less than 10 months. Schuman less than 8 months. Marie barely a month. The second Schuman Cabinet two days. No one ventures to predict more than a brief span for the new Henri Queuille Cabinet which could be formed at all only on sufferance of Queuille’s friend, the fascist-minded de Gaulle.
The big political question now standing over France is what will follow when the last thread of these stop-gap regimes snaps?
Grave economic ills underlie the successive cabinet upsets. After the Allied victory in World War II, the French capitalists set their sights upon recovery as a world imperialist power. This meant financing costly expeditions to the colonial areas, especially Indo-China, to put down independence movements. It meant diverting workers from the factories into the armed forces and diverting production from the restoration of the ravages of war to the construction of a hew war machine. It meant backing Wall Street’s blueprint for assault on the Soviet Union, thus converting France into a European beachhead for American Big Business and American militarism instead of a center for the unification of Europe.
The cost of this imperialist policy as always was placed on the backs of the workers and farmers. The universal scarcity of consumers goods that accompanied the increasing abundance of arms has forced prices continually upward. Three-quarters of the average French worker’s pay goes for food alone nowadays.
Each cabinet has sought to carry out this task imposed on it by the capitalist class – to strengthen French imperialism at the expense of the living standards of the working class.
The French workers in opposition to this policy have sought to safeguard their living standards and to bring them back to prewar levels. Repeatedly they have engaged in strikes and demonstrations that at times have swept the entire country. Each time inflation has swiftly wiped out their bitterly-won gains.
Consequently their dissatisfaction with the capitalist system has grown more and more profound and their desire for a fundamental solution to the acute economic problem facing them has been expressed in actions going far beyond the pure and simple demands of trade unionism. Thus they have formed widely representative committees, taken over City Halls, occupied factories, shut down key industries, and otherwise indicated that they want an end to capitalism with its poverty, misery, and wars.
The aspirations of the French workers have been thwarted in every way possible by the cowardice and treachery of their official leadership, in the first instance, the Stalinists who still enjoy the largest following. The French Socialists act, as they always have, as the docile servants of the French capitalists. The Stalinist policies, on the other hand, remain wholly subservient to those of the counter-revolutionary Moscow oligarchy.
But all this has neither resolved the social crisis gripping France nor softened the class struggle there. On the contrary. The sharpness of class conflicts in France is graphically reflected in the polarization of political camps. The center parties have steadily lost to the de Gaullist authoritarian movement to the right and to the traditional working class parties to the left which appear to the working people to represent their socialist aspirations. As a result, these center pieties, the supply house for all the recent Premiers, have found it more and more difficult to balance the two big camps.
Clearly a showdown is shaping up that will end this balancing role of the center and ultimately result in either the victory of fascism with the crushing of all workers organizations and a further degradation of the living standards; or a Workers and Farmers Government coming to power in France and leading the country back on the road to progress.
American Big Business hopes de Gaulle will be winner in this unfolding conflict. Through the editorial columns of its press Wall Street has indicated its impatience over the political instability in France and the “desirability” of a “strong” government such as de Gaulle proposes.
Part of the impatience of American imperialism arises from its desire to consolidate Western Europe for operations against the Soviet Union. This is coupled with fear of the outbreak of a socialist revolution in France which would not only force revision of the war plans but bring Wall Street face to face with serious consequences at home as the inspiration of a new proletarian revolution resounded throughout the World.
Washington is already thinking in terms of a de Gaullist dictatorship in France. This was shown beyond all dispute by the statement Sept. 10 of Paul G. Hoffman, one of the chief administrators of the Marshall Plan, that de Gaulle in power would not be considered a “fascist” but would be entitled to receive American dollars under EGA.
De Gaulle, at present, is stepping up fits campaign for new elections. The keynote of his current political tour is “To Power!" The precise moment he chooses to strike is a tactical question. Undoubtedly he bears in mind the advantage of seizing power under cover of strict legality as did Hitler before him in Germany.
The great danger facing the French workers in face of de Gaulle’s threat is the lack of the mass revolutionary party.
However, the French Socialists have discredited themselves, while the Stalinists have lost political capital heavily since the end of the war. If civil strife erupts in France there is every possibility that Stalinism will not succeed in preventing the formation of the mass revolutionary working class party. Such a party can grow with unexpected speed under the pressure of stern necessity.
The Trotskyists, who pointed out the danger of de Gaulle when the Stalinists were among his most ardent supporters, are certain to head the movement that will end once and for all the threat of fascism in France. The rapidity with which key slogans advocated by the Trotskyists have gained popularity in France indicates that such an outcome is already in the making.
Last updated on: 18 October 2022