| The Revolution that wasn’t What might have happened if, forty years ago, workers in France had taken over the factories and tried to keep production going.  1968 saw an outbreak
of protest in various parts of the World. Much of
it was very violent and the main thrust of this protest was in France
and in America, where a longer-term campaign was being pursued. To a
lesser extent, again, some of them very violent, demonstrations took
place in Germany and in this country.No doubt there were some links between these various protests but it was also true that the background in each country was very different. For example, in America there was the civil rights movement being organised by blacks, and of course there was no element of this in what was happening here or in France. The civil rights movement was beginning to find its feet in Northern Ireland; here again, the background was different with its strong element of catholic/protestant conflict. In Europe, many of the main activists were Trotskyists or anarchists. In America the hippy movement was much stronger than it was here. One common feature was the protest against the Vietnam War and this was linked with the opposition to nuclear weapons. So if we are to remember 1968 as a year of world wide protest and demonstrations, we must also acknowledge that these were not the actions of a world-wide coherent movement; these events erupted at the same time as a result of different and widely dispersed elements. In retrospect, perhaps the spontaneity of these events gave them their immediate strength, but the lack of any cohesion was their longer-term weakness. In some ways, the ideas which were coming forward were very welcome, especially ideas being produced by the hippy movement which were a reaction to the soul-destroying life of wage slavery with its pursuit of material things. I remember reading a book by Jack Kerouac in which he railed against what he called the ‘white furniture’ culture. By this he meant that people were selling their human soul in order to acquire refrigerators, washing machines and these sorts of objects on which they mistakenly focused all their hopes for happiness. Well, of course you could only agree with this outlook, and it was very welcome to see these ideas being popularised. What was slightly irritating was that these ideas were being put forward as if they were some sort of revelation. In fact socialists had been talking about this for years. Since the 1950s we’d had access to the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of Marx, and we’d been talking about the alienation of man in practical contexts. We had been talking about the “sterility of the consumer culture” for years and arguing that individual self-realisation could only be achieved on a basis of common ownership, and where you had people working in direct cooperation with each other to provide for each other’s needs. The trouble was that Jack Kerouac hadn’t been reading the Economic Manuscripts of 1844, he had been reading some ancient Buddhist manuscripts. So, this very useful development of ideas was diverted into some regurgitated version of Buddhism, flower power and the drugs scene. Socialists like myself had been active for years throughout the 1950s and what we had suffered from was a most appalling complacency. We couldn’t get a meeting or a debate; there was almost no interest in politics; the social aspirations of people seemed to have become totally trivialised. People only seemed to be concerned about buying a television or a second hand car on hire purchase. So when there were various stirrings, first perhaps with CND, events in Hungary and the Suez crisis, we were able to feel that people did care after all, Of course as these were able to gather momentum during the 1960s this brought about a very changed situation and it was most welcome. Against this it has to be said that there was disappointment as we say this healthy indignation being diverted into lines of action which we argued would be unproductive. One of the ideas being pursued by many activists in the 1960s was the aim of workers’ control. A lot of people still believe that we can achieve an advance towards socialism as a result of workers taking over their places of work, the factories etc., bringing them under their control and operating them in their own interests. It’s quite true that in 1968, in France, at one point, over 9 million workers were on strike: industry was at a standstill and hundreds of factories had been occupied by strikers. Some people thought that industry in France was on the brink of being taken over by the workers. In fact this was not the case. For one thing, although it was in the minds of Trotskyist activists, it was not in the minds of the trade unions in France to establish a system of workers’ control. They took over the factories, and others went on strike, so as to press their demands for wage increases and other improvements in conditions. When these demands were largely met, they resumed normal working. Another reason why industry in France was not on the brink of being taken over by the workers is of course that the forces of the state would never have allowed them to do it. There was the usual heroic talk about smashing the state, but the workers had no intention of smashing the state and even if they did have that intention they would have failed. It has to be said that in all the violent confrontations which took place between demonstrators and the various police groups, even in France, the force of the state was only used minimally. You had the very vicious CIS—the special riot police—but the armed forces in their tens of thousands, with all the firepower at their disposal, were always in reserve and not brought into use. At the time, the activists said that the reason for the failure had been the failure of the mass of workers to support the objective of workers’ control. So they came out of it still believing that their theory of revolution had not been tested - many people still believing in the theory today. ..Continued next page 12 |
| Socialist
Standard May
2008 |
11 |