To the Workers of France (1968)

From the July 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following manifesto (for distribution in France) was adopted by the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain on 28th May. This is the English translation.

We address you not as citizens of one country to citizens of another but as world socialists to fellow members of the world working class.

We reject frontiers as artificial barriers put up by governments. All men are brothers and the world should be theirs. All men should be social equals with free access to the plenty that could be if only the means of living belonged to a socialist world community. We oppose governments everywhere, all nationalism, racism and religion, all censorship, all wars and preparations for war.

Workers! We support your class struggle for better wages and conditions against the employers and the government. But do not be taken in by the ease with which you have occupied the factories. They allowed you to do this because they know that in time you must give in. Political power is always in the hands of those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces and the sadistic CRS. Do not be misled by those who say that universal suffrage is a fraud. Learn from your masters. You too must organise to win political power if you want a new society. Do not let cunning politicians or the discredited Communist Party return to power on your backs. Ignore those who would be your leaders. Rely on your own understanding and organisation. Turn universal suffrage into an instrument of emancipation.

Students! We share your distaste for the indignities and hypocrisies of the present order. We share your wish for a new society with no exploitation of man by man. But do not underestimate what a task it will be to change society. It will be a hundred times more difficult than changing the government. A democratic world community, based on common ownership with production for use not profit, can only be set up when people want it and are ready to take the steps needed to get it up and keep it going. Democratic political action is the only way to Socialism. There are no short cuts. We must have a majority actively on our side. Do not be misled by student demagogues, those who praise Bakunin, Trotsky, Mao or Che Guevara, who would use you for their own mistaken ends. They think that an elite should use unrest to gain power and then set up a classless society. What dangerous nonsense! Look at state capitalist Russia where a new privileged class rules, with police intimidation and censorship, over an increasingly restless population. Look at state capitalist China where power-hungry bureaucrats cynically manipulate the people in their own sordid squabbles. Learn the lessons of history: elite action leads to elite rule. No Socialism unless by democratic political action, based on socialist understanding.

The task you face in France is the same that we face in Britain and our brothers in Germany, Russia, the United States and other countries: to build up a strong world-wide movement for Socialism. What is needed more than anything else in this period of social unrest is a clear, uncompromising statement of the case for a socialist world community.

If you agree, please write to us. We will be glad to help you ensure that the voice of Socialism is again heard in France.

Workers of the world, Unite!