Work within the Socialist Party

 

Raymond Debord (june 2005)

 

This short text folows from discussions among several individual comrades of our editorial committee and some of our international friends. The first reaction of several comrades was to ask themselves if the ‘No’ victory and the crisis within the SP did not pose the question of work within that party.

 

In my opinion the SP is going to win the next elections in every case, irrespective of who the candidate will be. It has made consecutive gains in all the local regional, cantonal and european elections. In 2007, whoever the candidate, it will emerge as the leader of the left and everybody will not support it at the second round . One has to take the internal divisions of the Right into account, and their increasingly important rejection throughout the country. Seeing as the will of the masses is to put a complete stop to liberal politics and public service cuts, they will do this with the tools at their disposal.

 

Fabius’ dismissal as SP no. 2 isn’t necessarily a handicap for the Left: in fact, it has already had disastrous effects for the party’s leadership in the eyes of the public. Already an opinion poll shows that more than 70% of SP voters disapprove of the attitude of the leadership in this affair, even though this is more than the number of socialists voting ‘No’ in the referendum on the European constitution. In the Socialist Party, the decisive moment  is the conference taking place next November. Before the referendum the minorities on the  Left represented 42% of the militants. After the the rejection of the referendum, the question is to know on the one hand if they will gain ground among those militants and, on the other, if they will get the the support of new members

 

If the Left does not succeeed in winning the Party, anything is possible, including a split and Fabius standing as a dissident. In that case the idea of general regrouping of the Left wuld be possible (with the Communist Party as its backbone). One could even imagine a victory for Fabius, if he were the sole Left anti-liberal candidate. But such an eventuality would collide with the hostility of the left Cp-ers, the LCR etc..

 

Today a whole movement is trying to to move in the direction of a ‘New Force’ by relying on the existence of the committees. It is difficult to predict the outcome of such a project, which could come up against the interests of party apparatuses  and the fact that the committees have ‘run out of steam’ after the ‘No’ victory. Up till now the policy of transforming committees into something other than what they were made for  (the LCR regular call) has never worked.

 

One should  watch out for the gap between the masses and their « vanguard ». The way things actually are, the social base of the Left remains principally the middle classes, intermediate professions, public sector workers.  In this sense the working class and popular layers who voted ‘No’ are not involved and will no doubt be less involved in the future than now.

 

I can only agree with comrades who defines our task as « to struggle througgh mass direct action in the streets and workplaces » and to link the ‘No’ question to drawing up an action programme. The problem is that none of the groups which have taken part in the ‘No’ committees is ready to accept such a plan, apart perhaps from the LCR – in words. It has to be understood that  what we are dealing with  is a mixed bunch which thinks in purely electoral and not at all in class terms.

 

Is it possible to fight « citizenism » in its own terms, i.e. with democratism itself ? that is the question we are faced with and which determines our possible general orientation.  In my opinion, if it is necessary to attack « citizenism » as a utopian capitalist ploy, then « citizenism » cannot « overstep » itself to create a new proletarian movement (the implicit attitude of the LCR). As far as we are concerned, we have taken part with the radical democrats in a fight for the ‘No’ vote against liberalism etc. but also as external affiliates to the extent that our standpoint is not the same.

 

In this sense the idea of creating a ‘a new regrouping of a united left?’ is not a horrific one for us, but neither is it our objective. Our aim is the construction of a mass revolutionary party : that is to say winning the proletarian vanguard to this perspective. The stage we are at today is not division among the « revolutionaries » but the reawakening of class consciousness of the workers. From this point of view, we are only at the very beginning of the beginning even though indisputable signs of improvement do exist. To name some of them : 1] rise in the share of wages/salaries in surplus value ( i.e. in the combativity of workers) since the 1995 strike 2] the rise of an anticapitalist mood in public opinion 3] the beginning of a link between Left voting and class voting since the referendum on the European constitution.

 

The most likely scenario for the future is that rising militancy at the workplace will be reflected in the political parties, starting with  the most important, the Socialist Party, which will partly make up for its alienation from the working class. We have not forgotten that the SP is a party made up, in the great majority of cases of managers, the liberal professions, miscellaneous technocrats and that 25% of its staff are MPs, mayors, councillors... Without having the slightest illusions of gains within the SP as it is, we do have to the dynamic which is emerging.

 

From this perspective, it could be useful for our orientation to be present within the SP, though in a limited way at first

 

In any case, the tiny number of comrades able to engage in the SP is so slight that this step is primarily of a symbolic nature : the image we wish to present. 

 

Equally, this does not exclude a presence in the Communist Party to the extent that there is a chance that it will also grow in the coming period. The supporters of Ted Grant (La Riposte) are doing good work there and actually achieving a certain success. By contrast, in our experience it is certainly more difficult to become integrated in the PCF than in the SP  In any case, the mounting class struggle will be reflected in all the parties. It remains to be seen  which way the main current will flow. That depends in large measure on the result of the socialist conference in November and the Fabius-Hollande duel. And if one tried to affect the result ?