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The Ideology and Practice of Contestation seen through Recent Events in France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Richard Gombin
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Extract

THE NEW FORMS OF SOCIAL CONFLICT IN FRANCE AND THE IDEOLOGIES underlying them pose some formidable questions to the historian and the sociologist of the workers’ movement. Those which particularly interest us deal, on the one hand, with the existence of anarchist ideas and concepts within the sum total of ideological utterances in May and June 1968 and, on the other, with the libertarian character of the methods of contestation which have appeared in France during recent years. I have deliberately confined myself to the wide notion of the ‘practice of contestation’ precisely because it goes beyond the phenomenon of the wildcat strike or the unrest in the universities and corresponds to a more general concept which has not as yet been monopolized by any theory. ‘Generalized contestation’ does not claim to be a definitive sociological category. On the contrary, it is a provisional portmanteau word which will take a more definite shape once we emerge from the chiaroscuro of impressionistic criticism and philosophical reflection.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1970 , pp. 410 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1970

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References

1 Genuine anarchists like Daniel Guerin (‘Mai, une continuité, un renouveau’ in he fait public, 6, May 1969) or historians of anarchism like Jean Maitron (‘Anarchisme’ in ‘Le mouvement social, 69, October-December 1969) have stressed the libertarian inspiration of the ‘events’.

2 The almost complete absence of the political aspect before the end of May has been noted, but less than one might have expected, seeing how obvious it was. See, for example Simmonds, Harvey G.: ‘The French Socialist Opposition’ in Government and Opposition, Vol. 4, No. 3, p. 306.Google Scholar

3 One of the best-known members of the Anarchist Federation expressed this as follows: ‘We had no influence on the events which we had not foreseen’. Maurice Joyeux, in an interview in Le fait public, 14, January 1970, p. 40.

4 Cf. for example, Jacques Julliard ‘Syndicalisme révolutionnaire et révolution étudiante’, Esprit, 6–7, June–July 1968, who believes that the students revived the subterranean current of the workers’ movement which seemed to have died in 1914. He also noted the anarchist themes shared by the revolutionary trade unionists and the students in 1968. Similarly, G. Adam asked in ‘Mai ou les lecons de l’histoire ouvrière’, France-Forum, 90–91, October-November 1968, whether the May slogans did not represent the expression of the modern dream of the total emancipation of revolutionary syndicalism.

5 As M. Rebérioux pointed out (‘Tout ca n’empêche pas, Nicholas, que la Commune n’est pas morte’) in Politique aujourd’hui, No. 5, May 1969. Proudhon’s influence on revolutionary trade syndicalism is studied by A. Kriegel: ‘Le syndicalisme révolutionnaire et Proudhon’ in L’actualité de Proudhon, Brussels, published by l’lnstitut de Sociologie Libre de Bruxelles, 1967. The delayed arrival of Marxism in France has recently been stressed by M. Dommanget, L’introduction du marxisme en France, Paris, 1967. The sectional life of the sansculotterie in Paris is analysed by A. Soboul, Les sans-culottes, Paris, Seuil, 1968.

6 Some of the inscriptions are to be found in Les murs ont la parole, Paris, Tchou, 1968.

7 For a more detailed study of the themes of small groups see my Le projet révolutionnaire: éléments d’une sociologie des événements de mai-juin 1968, Paris, The Hague, Mouton, 1969, which also contains references to the original documents which I shall therefore not reproduce here.

8 An analysis which has been perfected and taken to its logical conclusion by I. Deutscher in The Unfinished Revolution, London, 1967.

9 The essence of situationist ideas is to be found in Debord, G., La société du spectacle, Paris, Buchet-Chastel, 1967 Google Scholar; Vaneigé, R., Traite de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations, Paris, Gallimard, 1967 Google Scholar, and in the twelve numbers of L’Internationale situationniste, especially in the last five numbers.

10 Cf. especially the prophetic pages of Bakunin on bureaucracy and ‘official democracy’.

11 This is André Breton’s expression which he seems to have borrowed from Maurice Nadeau, Rimbaud., Histoire du surréalisme, Paris, Seuil, 1964, p. 160.Google Scholar The idea that the cultural revolution is inseparable from the political revolution was very strongly held by the German dadaists, cf. the dadaist text: ‘What is dadaism and what does it mean for Germany’ (which must date from 1919), translated into French by A. Guillerm, Le luxembourgisme aujourd’ hui, Spartacus, n.d. (1970).

12 The situationist movement grew out of the Internationale Lettriste and COBRA movement. The first numbers of L’internationale situationniste are. devoted to art criticism, especially of architecture and modern town-planning. In 1959 a further appeal addressed to intellectuals discounted the possibility of a proletarian revolution, believing solely in a ‘cultural’ one, brought about by the intellectuals through unitary urbanism. For the origins of the Internationale Situationniste cf. Brau, J. L., Cours, camarode, le vieux monde est derrière toi! Paris, Michel, A., 1968.Google Scholar

13 In addition to the text by Annie Kriegel already quoted, see also this phrase of Monatte: ‘Syndicalism … has based its concept on work, on respect for work, on the usefulness of work, on its emancipation and organization’, quoted by Dubief, H., Le syndicalisme révolutionnaire, Paris, Colin, 1969, p. 36.Google Scholar For the situationists, on the contrary, ‘it is work itself, that must today be attacked … its suppression is the primary condition for the effective overtaking of the mercantile society’. De la misère en milieu étudiant, AFGES 1966, pp. 30–1 (first edition).

14 M. Nadeau, op. cit, p. 62, footnote 31.

15 R. Vaneigem, op. cit., pp. 268–76.

16 See what Vaneigem has to say on the subject, loc. cit.

17 R. Navarri: ‘Les dadaïstes, Ies surréalistes et la révolution d’octobre’ in Europe, 461–2, September–October, 1967. The themes of the socialism of the workers’ councils had already appeared in the early 1960s; see, for example, No. 6 of L’internationals situationniste, August 1961.

18 D. Guérin demonstrates clearly that the idea of self-management, common to the Italian anarchists and to the group of Ordine Nuovo did not mean the same to both groups. This was the cause of the break between the anarchists and Gramsci and his friends after the sit-ins in 1920. L’anarchisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1965, pp. 129–31.

19 The most radical criticism of trade-unionism has been put forward by Benjamin Peret who was himself a surrealist rather than an anarchist. He urged the ‘destruction’ of the unions as long ago as 1952 and his writings are fairly well known to the groups of the Anarchist Federation. Peret, B. and Munis, G., Les syndicats centre la révolution, Paris, E. Losefeld, 1968.Google Scholar The problem is a far older one since, from the foundation of the CGT, the ‘pure’ anarchists opposed the idea that their comrades should join. The creative capacity of the masses was stressed by Rosa Luxemburg and there is certainly a measure of ‘Luxemburgism’ in the French Left. At the very end of her life, she proposed ‘the liquidation of the trade unions’ and believed that workers’ councils (Arbeiträte) were the only bodies capable of establishing socialism (Congress of the Spartacus League, third session).

20 In an ‘Address to all Workers’, the situationists described the current events as ‘a revolutionary movement in which only the awareness of what had already been accomplished was lacking; reproduced in Vienet, R., Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations, Paris, Gallimard, 1968, pp. 282–4Google Scholar (italics supplied by the present author).

21 On the central role played by the movement of 22 March during the May–June revolt and their ‘identification with the latest trends’, see Arval, F.: ‘Sur le mouvement du 22 mars’ in France-Forum, 90–91, 10–11 1968.Google Scholar

22 The arguments about tactics and the attempts to systematize among the militants of 22 March are to be found in Ce n’est qu’un début—continuons le combat, Paris, F. Maspero, 1968.

23 The history of the group of the Enragés-Internationale Situationniste and of the CMDO has been written by R. Vienet, op. cit. and pamphlets are reprinted in an appendix. The contents of these pamphlets can be compared with the very clear exposition of the political ideas of the situationists by Mustapha Khayati in ‘De la misère en milieu étudiant’, op. cit.

24 See, for example, the strange pamphlet of 6 May 1968 in which the enragés jeer at the ‘anarchists-à-la-Cohn-Bendit’, reproduced in R. Vienet, op. cit., pp. 260–1. In number 12 ot L’internationale situationniste, which was published after the ‘events’, the situationists denied that they were ‘spontaneists’. Pinning their revolutionary hopes on the masses, but opposed to any vanguard, they relied nevertheless on the ‘spontaneous’ gift for organization of the workers whatever that might amount to.

25 G. Debord, La société du spectacle, p. 75.

26 Loc. cit., p. 72.

27 Ibidem, p. 97.

28 Interview with Wolff, Karl D., president of the SDS in L’bomme et la société, 8, 04‐05‐06, 1968, p. 134.Google Scholar

29 Interview with D. Cohn-Bendit in Magazine littéraire, 8, May 1968. The main reproach made to the anarchists of the older generation, was that they had withdrawn into the realms of philosophy and utopianism.

30 Op. cit. It is remarkable that Daniel Cohn-Bendit says that he too was influenced by dadaism. As can be seen, the sources of inspiration of the contestarians were the same.

31 Cf. for example D. and Cohn-Bendit, G., Le gauchisme, remède à la maladie sénile du communisme, Paris, Seuil, 1968.Google Scholar

32 The incidence of strikes which heralded a general strike was noted by several observers, cf. Les événements de mai-juin 1968 vus à travers cent entreprises. Centre National d’Information pour la Productivité des Entreprises, n.d. (July 1968). In spite of the attitude particular to this study, there is no reason to doubt the basic data, especially as they are corroborated by other written or verbal sources.

33 Burnier, M. A., ‘Besancon: occupation d’usine, colère froide’ in L’événement, 15, 04 1967 Google Scholar. According to the author this was the first case of a factory being occupied in France since 1947.

34 Pérignon, S.: ‘Action syndicale et décentralisations industrielles (les grèves de janvier 1968 dans la région caennaise)’ in L’homme et la société, 9, 07‐09 1968.Google Scholar

35 See the remarkable study by Galard, P.: ‘Le second pouvoir du mai nantais’ in Politique aujourd’hui, 8–9, 08‐09 1969. Cf. also an invaluable document: ‘Nantes, toute une ville découvre le pouvoir populaire’, in Cahiers de mai, No. 1, 15 06 1968 (a series of interviews with the strikers in Nantes during the occupations)Google Scholar.

36 P. Galard mentions the contacts between the students in Nantes and the situationists in Strasbourg before May 1968; during the strike one of the situationists went to Nantes and met the leaders of the Student Association. Cf. Internationale situationniste, 12 September 1969.

37 Thus in the CSF of Issy-les-Moulineaux, the functional action committees continued to exist after the strikers returned to work, Cabiers de mai, 2, 1–15 July 1968.

38 M. F. and Mouriaux, R.: ‘Le mai des prolétaires à Usinor-Dunkerque’ in Politique aujourd’hui, 2, 02 1970. Three conflicts have taken place in Usinor-Dunkerque since 05 1968, two of which have involved occupying the buildings, op. cit. Google Scholar

39 Cahiers de mai, 12, June 1969.

40 Ibidem. The Cahiers de mai, are an inexhaustible source of information, all the strikes are mentioned by name and research on the spot has been undertaken among the strikers. Although this is a partisan journal, the facts as reported in it do not appear to suffer from this.

41 This is what happened in the strike in the Penrroya de Largentière mines (Ardèche) which in February 1970 entirely paralysed all mining operations, see Cahiers de mai, 18, March 1970. It is very significant that the trade unions themselves had to have recourse to procedures (spontaneously in nearly all the plants) such as a referendum to decide the outcome of the strike. The same thing happened in the case of the recent vote held by the CGT on 4, January 1970 in the EDF (Electricité de France).

42 This is true of D. Guérin. See his interview, already quoted, in Le fait public.

43 Nairn, Tom: ‘The Beginning of the End’ in Anarchy 5, 05 1969 Google Scholar. This is also, on the whole, the thesis of Edgar Morin, quoted by Nairn.

44 The lack of impact which the Trotskyist and Maoist groups had on the events of May-June has not been sufficiently noticed. They were unable to implant their ideas (and more understandably their organization) either in the occupied factories or in the innumerable action committees which sprang up the day after 13 May 1968. Later, they joined the fashion of the day, underplaying their slogans on the formation of a revolutionary party, and fell back on forms of action advocated by the 22 March Movement. There were even cases of unnatural marriages taking place between Maoism and Spontaneism (e.g. the ‘Mao-Spontex’ group). On the lack of impact of the authoritarian groups, see F. Arval, ‘Sur le mouvement du 22 mars’ quoted above, and my study, Le projet révolutionnaire, chapter 2.

45 See for example, Horowitz, I. L., The Anarchists, New York, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, Introduction.Google Scholar

46 As Claude Lefort so justly remarked about the student revolt in Nanterre in 1967–68: see Morin, C., Lefort, C., Coudray, J. M., Mai 1968. La Bréche, Paris, Fayard, 1968, p. 45.Google Scholar

47 It must be remembered that membership of the trade unions in France does not exceed 20% of the active population. Thus the trade unionists were unable to channel the revolt towards reform until after an outburst which lasted three weeks or more. For, although the unions (including the CGT) in periods of social unrest become in France as they do in other countries ‘a restraining factor’ (the term is G. Lefranc’s in ‘Visages du syndicalisme francais’ in Revue de defense nationale, January 1969), the unions are too numerous, and have too little influence over the bulk of the workers, to play a regulative role as well as in Great Britain and the USA.