P. Frank | Trotskyist Writers | ETOL Home Page
First published in Inprecor, No. 9, 3 October 1974.
Republished at the Red Mile Substack
Transcribed by Duncan Chapel.
Copied with thanks.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The crisis is there for all to see. While certain bourgeois leaders are still trying to take the ostrich-like attitude of reducing the cause of all the current economic difficulties to the rise in oil prices, most are going further. They are no longer harping on the “consumer society” that was supposed to have put an end to the ills of the capitalism of yesteryear. Today they are denouncing a society of “waste” in a world racked by shortage. The singers of the praises of unlimited growth have given way to the advocates of “zero growth,” who ignore all those in the world who have never experienced the benefits of the period of prosperity.
Two countries in Western Europe – Britain and Italy – already stand on the brink of economic collapse. Countries like West Germany and France, which still appear to be getting along rather well, are nevertheless revealing an indubitable tendency toward declining growth rates. Unemployment and prices are on the rise everywhere, although to varying degrees.
For the most part, bourgeois economists pose the future in the form of the dilemma: “unemployment or inflation.” In fact, the governments of all capitalist countries, beginning with that of the United States, are at a loss as to how to fight inflation effectively. The new Ford administration has shown itself to be just as paralyzed on this question as the Nixon administration was. Moreover, it appears that all the bourgeois governments fear unemployment much more than they do inflation, because of the reactions unemployment has provoked and will inevitably provoke from the working class. Inflation, on the other hand, rather has the appearance of improving the economic conjuncture. In reality, however, the dilemma confronting capitalism is not “inflation or unemployment.” The years of the boom are behind us; the conditions that gave rise to the prolonged prosperity have disappeared; the time of the lean cow is upon us. Capitalism will now experience inflation and unemployment at the same time.
Hence the extremely serious political prospects facing the capitalist regimes. The more or less fascistic forces of reaction and repression that are raising their heads here and there are still insufficient – although they must not be ignored, despite the fact that they are only in an embryonic stage. At present, the dominant political factor is the revolutionary rise of the masses and their growing politicization. The upsurge inaugurated in May ’68 has experienced moments of hiatus, but in no case has there been an ebb of the tide. The fall of the Portuguese dictatorship and of the Greek colonels strengthens this dominant factor and will not be without consequences, especially in Spain. Shifts to the left are coming out clearly among the British working class and – in a less developed and slower, but no less certain fashion – among the West German working class. New forms of struggle are appearing, especially to combat unemployment. The example of Lip is the most spectacular one, but nearly everywhere the occupation of factories that are laying workers off or closing down is becoming common. The idea of self-management, even in the confused forms in which it has been raised, is an expression of growing anti-capitalist tendencies. As for inflation, which is now reaching rates of 15–20 percent a year, it is compelling the workers to seek new forms of struggle, for inflation cannot be countered solely with the sliding scale of wages or with increasingly more frequent strikes.
On the level of politics properly so-called, we have seen that even when the prosperity has only just begun to run down, even before the inflation-unemployment combination has actually arrived, the bourgeoisie, faced by an already perceptible rise of the working class, has in several countries called on the Socialist parties to form governments. This has taken various forms in different countries (the Labour Party government in Britain, the coalition in West Germany, the center-left government in Italy, etc.).
But in advance of the difficulties that are approaching, a new phenomenon has arisen among the bourgeoisie and among certain wings of the Social Democracy: the possibility of Communist parties participating in government coalitions is being discussed openly. To be sure, in the period just after the end of the Second World War many Communist parties participated in bourgeois governments that helped to reconstruct the capitalist economy and state. Since then, these parties have always claimed to be “government parties” and acted as such during the height of the Cold War. In France the CP has always respected the institutions of the Fifth Republic, which was born of a military show of strength in Algeria, and did not at all attempt to exploit the revolutionary crisis of May 1968. The Spanish CP poses the question of the elimination of the Francoist dictatorship only in peaceful terms with a view to introducing a democratic regime, even if in the framework of a constitutional monarchy. In Finland members of the CP have participated in a governmental coalition for several years; but throughout the capitalist world this is seen as only an exceptional case arising from very specific circumstances, a case that can scarcely serve as an example to be followed.
The situation is different today. It is not a question of the propagandist words, desires, or hopes of a part of the leaderships of the Communist parties. Even in the ranks of the bourgeoisie the question has arisen not as an academic debate, but as a real possibility. The bourgeois spokesmen who have brought this problem up and are discussing it are doing so in a very serious manner, as a means of dealing with political and social difficulties that are on the horizon and with dangers that are mounting; they see it as a means of utilizing the authority that the Communist parties command among the masses (knowing that the CPs have not been revolutionary parties for a long time) in order to block off and push back the rise of the workers.
Already, with scarcely any debate, Portuguese capitalism has called on the Portuguese CP and granted it posts in the government in order to assure the least painful transition process after the fall of the dictatorship. And it is a military officer as old and case-hardened as Spinola who caps off this operation with his authority before the Portuguese, and even world, bourgeoisie.
In France the presidential election of last May was notable not only for its numerical result (a difference of less than 1 percent), but also and above all for the failure of the bourgeoisie’s operation aimed at agitating around the danger Mitterrand’s alliance with the CP represented for him. For years it was said to Mitterrand: You are sitting down to dinner with the devil, and you do not have a very big spoon. Now, after the election campaign, wide layers of the bourgeoisie have accepted the view that the leaders of the French CP could make valuable ministers. In Italy the convulsions of the center-left have become so severe that even among the Christian Democracy there are those (and they are not at all isolated) who look rather favorably at the “historic compromise” proposed by the Berlinguer leadership of the Italian CP. In Spain the Communist party, counting its chickens before the hen has even laid the eggs, has just formed a “democratic council” (junta democratica) along with a certain number of bourgeois politicians; it is intended to provide a succession to Franco. It is true that this “council” has run up against another body created by the Socialist party; but it is no less the case that in Spain, as in France and Italy, a tendency of the bourgeoisie envisages a governmental coalition with the Communist party. In Greece it is not clear what will happen in the relatively near future, but the two rival Communist parties have both poured so much water into their wine that it would not at all be surprising if some bourgeois politicians were tempted to conclude some sort of alliance with them in order to deal with the rise of the workers.
In the other countries of Western Europe the Communist parties are so weak that bourgeois or Social Democratic formations and politicians have no need to consider the possibility of having them in coalition governments. Nevertheless, the embryos of “Mitterrand tendencies” can be discerned in some Social Democratic parties, and it would not be surprising to see Socialist governments appeal to Communist votes should the need arise.
That is, tendencies favoring alliances between the Socialist and Communist parties in contrast to the old anti-communist positions of the Social Democratic leaders.
Finally, without lending it more importance than it merits, the fact should be noted that for the first time in decades the leaders of the British trade unions have accepted the presence of a member of the British CP in the Executive Committee of the Trades Union Council.
Let us stress: What we are now seeing is not a theoretical or political innovation on the part of the Communist parties, but rather a very seriously considered possibility being raised by substantial wings of the bourgeoisie. The question that arises is, What would be the difficulties involved in realizing such a possibility? Certainly, it would engender ferocious reactions from those sectors of the bourgeoisie that are preparing for operations of the Pinochet variety. But what is most interesting to us are the difficulties that could come up in negotiations between possible partners in a coalition government.
Some answers cannot be given in advance; but what was said during the recent presidential campaign in France can and must be recalled again. When bourgeois politicians and journalists asked Mitterrand or leaders of the CP questions about the composition of a possible Union de la Gauche government, Mitterrand dodged the questions by giving Marchais the floor. Marchais said that the Communist party was demanding neither the post of prime minister nor any other specific ministries (interior or national defense, for example), but simply a number of ministries (about a third of the government) corresponding to its representation in the Union de la Gauche. There is no doubt that this was not an improvised response. Rather, it was the expression of an agreement worked out in advance at the highest levels of the Union de la Gauche. In other words, the CP leadership was playing it with kid gloves, being more concerned, at least for an initial period, with being accepted as a worthwhile governmental partner than with outlining any given policy in any given area.
It must not be forgotten that the French CP leaders expressed themselves this way while fully aware that a government arising from the election of Mitterrand would not apply the “common program” even partially. On the level of internal policy, the CP would show – and has shown – itself very accommodating – except when it comes to possible measures that would result in unleashing pressures from the “left.” Thus, at the present moment an expansion of the Socialist party is being prepared that would bring new forces into the SP, among others, the PSU (Parti Socialiste Unifié – United Socialist Party, the centrist organization led by Michel Rocard). Rocard would like some good-sounding formulas so as to make this operation go more smoothly. That was enough for the leadership of the CP, which has opened its arms to all sorts of “left Gaullists,” to suggest clearly to the SP that it would veto any such formulas.
On the level of foreign policy, the French CP has moved very slowly and with careful steps toward an evolution that allows it to take opportunities to manifest its distance from the Kremlin on questions that are secondary for the Kremlin but important for the “national” necessities of the French CP. Moscow is showing itself “understanding” about such attitudes. Even on the question of the Common Market, there is no longer any real conflict between the French CP and an important sector of French capitalism. The French CP now accepts the Common Market as a “fact”; CP deputies sit in the European parliament in Strasbourg. The unions of the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail – General Confederation of Labor, the CP-dominated French trade-union federation) are seeking to obtain the recognition of the EEC and to become members of the Confédération Européene des Syndicats (CES – European Trade Union Confederation), a step that has already been taken by the Italian CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana dei Lavoratori – Italian General Confederation of Workers, dominated by the Italian Communist party). The French CP remains opposed to the EEC becoming a political power, a superstate, which is a point of view widely held among European capitalists as well. Likewise, while it is prepared to accept a “European Europe,” as de Gaulle put it, the French CP is against an “Atlantic Europe,” which is also the position of broad layers of European capitalists in face of the claims of American capitalism.
While there appear to be no major obstacles in terms of strictly political problems to possible governmental participation by some Communist parties, nevertheless a truly thorny political problem is raised by the timing of such possibilities. Such governmental participation by the CP is envisaged in a grave social and political situation. But the question that comes up is, At what moment must the step be taken? Even for those among the bourgeoisie who accept such participation, it is still regarded as a last resort. So when? To do it too early would be to use the authority of the Communist parties prematurely and thus to risk weakening that authority considerably at the time when the CP’s intervention will be decisive. But on the other hand, the bourgeoisie must not play this last trump card too late, either; that is, at a moment when the dynamic of the class struggle would outstrip the ability of the CP leaders to bottle it up. In any case, if the possibility of Communist party governmental participation raises difficult discussions among bourgeois political circles, the realization of such possibilities would really be posed only in the most dangerous situations for the capitalist system.
The present revolutionary upsurge in Europe has not yet attained such a dangerous level for the bourgeoisie. But it is no less important for revolutionary Marxists to understand the meaning of these new tendencies among the bourgeoisie and to envisage what the consequences would be for the Communist parties and for the layers of workers controlled by the CP. It is possible, even probable, that differences or tensions will appear in the future inside the Communist parties because of the contradictions between the pressures coming from the rise of the masses and the inertia of the apparatuses of these parties and the trade unions under their control. These differences or tensions should be used by revolutionary Marxists to weaken the authority of the traditional leaderships over the masses. But it appears to us doubtful that these differences or tensions will develop rapidly enough to challenge the Communist parties’ policies of entering the government. For decades these parties have been imbued with a reformist mentality; they recruit and educate their members on a basically reformist basis.
The case of the French CP is a good example. At the moment, this party is suffering unprecedented difficulties; it cannot grow on its left or its right. But its membership more than ever holds to the perspective of electoral victories of the Union de la Gauche. It is thus probable that the moment of truth will begin to sound for the Communist parties in the course of their participation in governments.
The situation today is very much different from the situation just after the Second World War. Then, the CP leaders were basking in the aura of the victories of the Soviet army; they were confronted with a working class exhausted by years of unemployment, fascism, and war, a working class that quickly returned to the fold of the traditional leaders. Today, however, the CP leaders face a profoundly rejuvenated working class of growing combativity in whose midst there is a relatively significant vanguard that no longer has confidence in the traditional leaderships and is seeking a revolutionary orientation.
The resolution of the Tenth World Congress of the Fourth International on the building of revolutionary parties in capitalist Europe broadly defined the tasks of revolutionary Marxists in these countries. The tendencies that have recently found expression among wings of the bourgeoisie favorable to Communist party participation in bourgeois governments can only lend a growing urgency to these tasks. It is necessary to contribute toward pushing these parties to take power in their own name, but without any illusions. Thus, nothing is so ridiculous and dangerous as the formulas that are found in the press of the friendly enemies Healy and Lambert asking that the Socialists and Communists take power “on a socialist program,” which suggests that these parties could apply such a program. On the contrary, the masses must be warned in advance of the powerlessness of such governments. Thus, the essential task at present is the propagation and, wherever it becomes possible, even in elementary forms, the creation in the course of struggle of bodies of self-leadership for these struggles by the class itself.
At a time when nervous layers of the bourgeoisie are placing their hopes for the survival of their system in their making use of the leaderships of the Communist parties, it becomes more than ever necessary to teach the working class by propaganda and practice to show greater distrust of the leading apparatuses of the traditional formations and to increase the will of the workers to take their fate into their own hands.
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