A Promising Movement in France
After the war of l914-18 and the seizure by the French capitalist class of the rich mineral-bearing districts of the Saar and Alsace-Lorraine, the industrialisation of France made rapid developments. Before the War, France was mainly an agricultural country, but it has now become one of the foremost industrial countries in the world.
Whilst this development was going on, unemployment was almost negligible, and many Poles and Italians were imported to work in the new industries which were springing up. That country, however, could no more escape the effects of the development of capitalism than any other, and in the beginning of this year its concomitant, unemployment, again became verv serious.
During the past, various reformist parties, calling themselves Socialist, Radical-Socialist, Centre Party, etc., have competed lor the workers’ votes.
In May last, an organisation called the Spartacus Group was formed, and a perusal of their monthly journals shows that on many points their views are parallel to our own.
In the first issue of their journal, the leading article, after pointing out the absurdity of people going hungry when the world is gorged with wheat, states that the French workers are beginning to see that in the misery of the workers in Germany and Great Britain is a mirror of their own future. The Trade Union leaders have been leading a campaign for unemployment relief, either by the industries or by the Government, to be administered by the Trade Unions, and the paper points out that the result will simply be to make the unemployed workers into a permanent army receiving doles from the Trade Unions, whose leaders would thereby be still more secure in their jobs, and would end in a system of “thoroughly organised misery” for the working class.
But these claims, it adds, run counter to the wishes of the capitalist class, who see no point in maintaining a growing army of useless workers which has got beyond the stage when they form a reservoir of labour to help keep down wages to the lowest point, and their minds are now turning towards “surgical” solutions, such as another world war, in order to destroy some of the surplus workers and factories.
The article concludes with an appeal to the workers not to be misled bv capitalist propaganda, whether anti-Mussolini or pro-Soviet.
We must join issue with them on one important point, however. Whilst they affirm that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself, they do not seem to be quite clear as to the means by which this must be brought about. Several references are made to the necessity for “action,” but it is not clear what this means, seeing that they condemn the vote.
It is Parliament which controls the army, navy and police, and until control of Parliament is obtained, those forces can always be used against the working class. To secure a majority in Parliament after winning the workers over to Socialism must, therefore, be the object of a working-class political party, and once this is accomplished, they will be in a position to control the armed forces and to start organising society on a Socialist basis.
No doubt the Spartacus group are disillusioned by the failure of so-called Socialist parties in the past, but this is because those parties have been Socialist in name onlv. It is for a working-class political party, democratically controlled and without “leaders,” to educate the workers on Socialist principles and finally to capture a majority of seats in the Parliamentary machine. Until this is done, Parliament, can always claim to represent the “nation” and will take any steps that the capitalists may deem necessary to crush any revolt by the workers.
We invite the Spartacus group to study our Declaration of Principles, which, they will find, contain the essential basis for Socialist organisation in France as in other developed capitalist countries.
R. M.