Paris May 1968
Source: The May Events Archive of Simon Fraser University;
Translated: by Mitchell Abidor.
In the revolutionary situation created by the enormous mobilization of students and workers, the refusal of the Grenelle “agreements” by ten million strikers has taken the government out of the game and brought about the decomposition of the regime.
Unlike traditional bourgeois democracies, the strongman state has no dampers for appeasing the anger of the workers: in taking from an already discredited assembly first all of its representivity and then all its power, De Gaulle himself has taken on himself the dissipating all parliamentarist illusions.
Against the revolutionary impulse of the masses the bourgeoisie had several weapons: either the billy-club or the wide-scale reformist maneuver (Mitterand or Mendes-France).
It is now those with the billy-clubs that are setting the tone by speculating on the legalism and the reformism of the working class leadership. Once again under the banner of rabid anti-communism De Gaulle is attempting to regroup his frightened troops: it is in vain that the leadership of the PCF and the CGT did everything possible to appears as “reasonable” interlocutors: here they are, accused of revolutionary subversion!
Comrades: It is absurd to pretend to accept the Gaullist challenge that is being imposed on the electoral plane under military threat. The combat is being fought in the factories and on the streets.
ORGANIZE WORKING CLASS MANAGEMENT IN THE TOWNS AND FACTORIES
REINFORCE AND FEDERATE THE ELECTED STRIKE AND ACTION COMMITTEES!
ORGANIZE WORKER SELF-DEFENSE!
FORWARD TO A WORKERS” GOVERNMENT!
Parti Communiste Internationaliste
(French section of the Fourth International)
May 31,1968