France: Bonapartism and democratic demands – a necessary polemic with Révolution Permanente

In an article published on 2 March, Révolution Permanente announced the launch of a campaign entitled: ‘Against Macron and the Fifth Republic, we need a radical democratic response from below’.

Below, we will subject the article in question to a detailed Marxist critique. This is an excellent opportunity to clarify the position of the Revolutionary Communist Party – the French section of the Revolutionary Communist International – on ‘democratic demands’ and, more generally, on the revolutionary programme.

[Originally published in French at marxiste.org]

Révolution Permanente alone against all?

Révolution Permanente writes: “At a time when anti-democratic attacks are multiplying, and in the face of the danger of a new authoritarian leap, the workers and the popular classes must intervene in the political crisis with a militant programme!”

We have already responded to Révolution Permanente's ideas on the “danger of a new authoritarian leap” (or ‘Bonapartism’) in the short term in France. We will not return to this here except insofar as it is necessary for our analysis, which will focus mainly on the “militant programme” supposed to respond to the “danger” in question.

What does the “militant programme” promoted by Révolution Permanente consist of? It consists of “radical democratic demands”, which are as follows:

“Let us fight to place power in the hands of a single Assembly, which votes on laws and governs, free from the Senate, the Constitutional Council and the President of the Republic.

“To put an end to this political caste and the impossibility of controlling them, its members should be paid the median wage, elected for two years by local assemblies and removable at any time.

“Finally, against the anti-democratic voting system and the exclusion of part of the population, the Assembly must be elected from among the entire population aged 16 and over, granting the right to vote not only to foreigners but also to all young people who are nevertheless of an age to be exploited!”

It should be noted that Révolution Permanente's general programme is not limited to the democratic demands we have just mentioned. The same article states: “Our goal remains the expropriation of the capitalists through a workers’ revolution.” Elsewhere, Révolution Permanente puts forward a whole series of demands relating to purchasing power, employment, health, housing, etc. However, the democratic demands we have cited constitute the be-all and end-all of the “campaign against Macron and the Fifth Republic”, which makes no other demands (except for socialist revolution).

A much broader bourgeois democracy would still, by definition, be based on private ownership of the major means of production, the pursuit of profit and the exploitation of workers by the big bourgeoisie / Image: IAEA Imagebank, Flickr

Why limit ourselves to a few democratic demands? Because, according to Révolution Permanente, these are the appropriate responses to the current political situation. These demands constitute the best “bridge for current and future struggles”, but also “an essential lever to counter any attempt at cosmetic reform of the regime”. Or again: “Only a mass mobilisation that takes democratic issues head-on can shake up the situation”.

On this basis, Révolution Permanente criticises the rest of the ‘far left’ for failing to understand the fundamental role of its “radical democratic demands”:

“Unfortunately, in the face of the political crisis in France, those who share our strategic perspective on the far left” – that of a workers' revolution – “most often content themselves with defending the just but totally abstract necessity of 'counting on our struggles,' or with propaganda incantations that 'workers should run society,' which are also just but powerless. Thus, they offer no strategy or programme to confront the concrete situation, no bridge for current and future struggles.”

This quote is surprising, to say the least. One can find a thousand flaws in the galaxy of the ‘far left,’ but it is absurd to claim that all organisations claiming to be Marxist – except Révolution Permanente – are content to “defend the necessity” of “counting on our struggles” or “repeat propagandistic incantations that ‘the workers should run society’”. Most, if not all, of these organisations formulate various transitional demands, however shaky and poorly articulated they may be (that is another question).

For our part, we have recently adopted a programme formulating a whole series of transitional demands, which point the working class towards the conquest of power. It even defends ‘democratic’ demands. But here's the thing: our programme does not formulate the democratic demands that Révolution Permanente considers decisive in view of the current political situation, the crisis of the regime and the political consciousness of the masses. Without defending these democratic demands, our programme and our policy in general would be frozen in the “total abstraction” of “propagandist incantations”.

We believe that this point of view is utterly wrong, as is the entire theoretical justification for Révolution Permanente's campaign “against Macron and the Fifth Republic”. Let us explain why.

How the question arose in 1934

Taken on their own, the democratic demands promoted by Révolution Permanente are unquestionably progressive. A single Assembly; the permanent revocability of deputies elected for two years and paid the median wage; the right to vote from the age of 16; the right to vote for foreigners; the closure of the Senate, the Elysée and the Constitutional Council: all these demands paint a picture of a bourgeois democracy much broader than the Fifth Republic, which is locked down and corrupt from top to bottom.

However, a much broader bourgeois democracy would still, by definition, be based on private ownership of the major means of production, the pursuit of profit and the exploitation of workers by the big bourgeoisie. As Lenin constantly emphasised in The State and Revolution, “we must not forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people, even in the most democratic bourgeois republic.”

Therefore, the democratic demands promoted by Révolution Permanente are only justified – from a revolutionary point of view – if they can play a positive role (even a minimal one) in the development of the struggle to overthrow capitalism and transform society along socialist lines. However, this does not depend on their intrinsic value, but on the concrete circumstances. Demands can be progressive in the abstract, but disconnected from the concrete political situation and the tasks that arise from it for revolutionary militants. We believe that this is precisely the case with the democratic demands put forward by Révolution Permanente. But the most serious mistake, from a Marxist point of view, is the organisation of a systematic campaign centred solely on these demands.

A good way to approach this question is to recall where the democratic demands promoted by Révolution Permanente come from. They come from part of the Programme of Action published in 1934 by the Communist League, which was the French section of the Fourth International of which Leon Trotsky was the main leader and theorist. In Part 16 (out of 18) of this Programme of Action, entitled “For a Single Assembly”, we find almost all of the democratic demands put forward by Révolution Permanente.^[1]

Let us try to understand the concrete political situation to which this part of the Programme of Action was responding. In 1934, the French fascist organisations – then much larger than today – were on the offensive and wanted to crush not only the workers' organisations (parties and trade unions), but also the bourgeois Parliament. On 6 February 1934, four months before the publication of the Programme of Action, a violent fascist demonstration brought down Daladier's ‘centrist’ government. It was replaced by the Doumergue government, whose Bonapartist tendencies Trotsky emphasised:

“Parliament exists, but it no longer has the powers it once had and it will never retrieve them. The parliamentary majority, mortally frightened after 6 February, called to power Doumergue, the saviour, the arbiter. His government holds itself above parliament. It bases itself not on the ‘democratically’ elected majority but directly and immediately upon the bureaucratic apparatus, the police and the army. (...) The Doumergue government represents the first step of the passage from parliamentarianism to Bonapartism.”

The shock of 6 February aroused among the masses of workers a powerful desire for unity of action between the two main workers’ parties – the social-democratic SFIO and the then Stalinist PCF – against the fascist and Bonapartist threat. Under enormous pressure from the masses and events, the leaders of the PCF and the SFIO proclaimed the need for a ‘united front’ of their organisations. ^[2] In the wake of 6 February 1934, this united front aroused enormous hopes among the working masses.

Under enormous pressure from the masses and events, the leaders of the PCF and the SFIO proclaimed the need for a ‘united front’ of their organisations / Image: public domain

However, the vast majority of workers still had illusions in the possibility of defending their bread – and even of going all the way to socialism – within the framework of bourgeois democracy, provided that Parliament was composed of a majority of deputies from the two major workers' parties. But Parliament was threatened by the growth of the fascists and the Bonapartist tendencies that flowed from it. Faced with this threat, very many workers wanted to defend bourgeois democracy insofar as it represented, in their eyes, the possibility of a gradual and peaceful transition to socialism – which Léon Blum and his associates at the top of the SFIO promised to build within the rotten framework of the Third Republic.

Such was the general context in which the small Communist League had to address the vanguard of the working class, its most conscious layer, with the aim of winning it over to the programme of socialist revolution. This meant, in particular, explaining to this vanguard how it should address the workers who still had “democratic illusions”, in Trotsky's words, i.e., illusions in bourgeois democracy.

To do this, it was not enough to proclaim the necessity of a workers' state that would liquidate bourgeois parliamentarism in favour of Soviet democracy. Without renouncing the defence of this programme in the slightest, it was also necessary to address workers who had democratic illusions in these terms: ‘You believe that it is possible to achieve socialism through the electoral machinery of bourgeois parliamentarism. We disagree with you on this point; we even think it is a dangerous illusion; but we are ready to fight with all our strength, alongside you, to defend Parliament against the fascists, the police chiefs and the army officers. However, we propose that you fight for a parliamentary democracy that is much better than the current Third Republic, which is rotten and corrupt. For a single Assembly! For the permanent recall of MPs! etc.’

It is this tactical approach, responding to the concrete situation of 1934, that finds expression in Part 16 of the Programme of Action of the Communist League. At the time, this tactic and these slogans were absolutely correct. However, they were only justified in their indissoluble link with the whole set of transitional demands formulated in the Programme of Action. This programme was an organic whole, a coherent set of demands that declared open war on the economic and political domination of the big bourgeoisie. It defended “the nationalisation of the banks, large-scale production, transport and insurance”, the creation of “anti-fascist militias” and “the arming of the proletariat”, the “dismissal of the bourgeois police”, “the performance of police functions by the workers’ militia” – and many other measures, which together constituted nothing less than the programme of socialist revolution.

Without their indissoluble link to all the other measures of the Programme of Action, the demands of its 16th section – those which Révolution Permanente makes the be-all and end-all of its campaign – would have lost their political force and justification. In particular, these democratic demands had to be linked to the necessity of creating “workers’ militias” against fascist organisations. This is very clearly formulated at the end of Part 16 of the Programme of Action: “The poor remains of democracy cannot be defended, and the democratic arena for mass activity cannot be expanded, except by destroying, by annihilating the armed fascist forces that shifted the axis of the state on 6 February 1934 and continue to shift it.” Far from constituting the basis for a specific ‘campaign’, the democratic demands of the 16th section of the Programme of Action were subordinate to the programme as a whole, and in particular to the need to arm the workers in order to annihilate the fascist organisations.

The “authoritarian hardening” of the regime

We have just seen the concrete political situation to which the democratic demands of Part 16 of the 1934 Programme of Action were linked. Now we must address the question of the differences between the situation in 1934 and that of 2025. These differences are so clear that Révolution Permanente itself is forced to take them into account in the way it draws inspiration from the Programme of Action of the Communist League. Révolution Permanente cannot simply repeat the following formulation from Part 16: “As long as the majority of the working class remains on the basis of bourgeois democracy, we are prepared to defend it with all our strength against the violent attacks of the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie.”

Drawing directly from this passage, Révolution Permanente writes: “In the current situation, where the majority of workers and the popular classes continue to stand on the ground of universal suffrage and bourgeois democracy, we consider that building a mass movement to fight against the Fifth Republic and authoritarian hardening, alongside all forces ready to participate in this struggle, is a major challenge.”

The main difference between the two formulations is obvious: the 1934 Programme of Action spoke of “violent attacks by the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie”; the Révolution Permanente campaign speaks of “the Fifth Republic” and “authoritarian hardening”. Why does Révolution Permanente not speak of “violent attacks by the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie”? Obviously, because such attacks do not exist today.

Emmanuel Macron does not preside over a regime similar to that of Doumergue / Image: kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons

Emmanuel Macron – who is forced to rely on Prime Minister François Bayrou, who is himself forced to rely on Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure and National Rally leader Marine Le Pen – does not preside over a regime similar to that of Doumergue, “the first step of the passage from parliamentarianism to Bonapartism”. ^[3] Similarly, the numbers, organisation and activities of fascist groups today are not comparable to those of the fascist organisations that fomented the violent demonstration of 6 February 1934 in front of the National Assembly.^[4] Moreover, while big capital directly supported the demonstration of 6 February 1934, as Trotsky pointed out, the bourgeoisie is not currently preparing any major joint action by the various fascist groups.

This is so obvious that Révolution Permanente replaces the “violent attacks of the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie” with a much vaguer phrase: “authoritarian hardening”. But in doing so, Révolution Permanente fails to grasp the significance of this difference. Its implications are nevertheless very important, including from the point of view of the democratic demands that revolutionaries must advance.

What is the undeniable “authoritarian hardening” of bourgeois democracy in France over the last ten years? It is an intensification of repression against youth and workers: police violence, ‘preventive’ arrests of activists, criminalisation of trade union activity, bans on demonstrations, gatherings and meetings, etc. Does this mean that bourgeois democracy is giving way – or could in the short term give way – to a Bonapartist regime, that is, a form of military-police dictatorship? No. The bourgeoisie cannot and, moreover, does not need to embark on a Bonapartist adventure. It cannot do so because it would risk provoking an uncontrollable social explosion. And it does not need to do so because it is still able to carry out its policies, including “authoritarian hardening”, thanks to the more or less active complicity of the official leaders of the workers' movement.

This is a fundamental element of the current situation. In its attacks on our democratic rights, the French bourgeoisie is taking advantage of the passivity, conservatism and complicity of the reformist leaders of the labour movement. This is what revolutionary activists must emphasise as a priority, instead of announcing every other day the imminence of a “Bonapartist leap”.

For example, the banning of several pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the wake of 7 October 2023 elicited virtually no reaction from the tops of the ‘left’ and the trade union movement. The leaders of the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) even approved these bans. Another example: on 6 December 2018, the leaders of all the trade union confederations signed a joint statement condemning the ‘violence’ of the Yellow Vests, which was a way of justifying the brutal repression of this movement by the bourgeois state apparatus.

There are many more examples. The scandal is not that the leaders of the CGT and La France Insoumise (not to mention the others) refuse to campaign for the “radical democratic demands” promoted by Révolution Permanente. The scandal is that they refuse to seriously mobilise workers against the anti-democratic offensive of the bourgeoisie – when they are not supporting these offensives with half-words, as the CGT confederal leadership did during the Yellow Vests movement. It is therefore primarily on this terrain that revolutionary activists must advance ‘democratic demands’: for the right to demonstrate and assemble, against the criminalisation of trade union action, against any limitation of the right to strike, against police repression of demonstrations, etc. To these demands must be added those aimed at democratising the trade unions themselves, so as to place them firmly in the hands of their militant rank and file and purge their leadership of the careerist, conservative elements that allow the bourgeoisie to attack our democratic rights.

Take the question of fascist organisations, which, while not as strong as in 1934 (far from it), are carrying out a growing number of violent operations against left-wing activists, pro-Palestinian meetings, mobilised students and immigrants. How do the leaders of the left and the labour movement respond to the attacks by fascist splinter groups? Without exception, they all call on the bourgeois state apparatus to dissolve these groups. In response, Bruno Retailleau [French Minister of the Interior] absolves the fascist organisations and threatens to dissolve… the far-left organisations. In this context, the role of revolutionaries is to explain that the workers' movement must settle the problem of fascist groups itself, organise the defence of its meetings, organisations and demonstrations itself, and teach a few memorable lessons to the daddy's boys who, under the protection of the bourgeois state, engage in intimidation and violent actions.

In our programme, we defend these ‘democratic demands’ – and other fundamental ones, such as the regularisation of undocumented workers. If our programme does not defend the democratic demands of the campaign launched by Révolution Permanente, it is not, once again, because they are intrinsically wrong or reactionary. It is because they miss the most burning and pressing issues facing the French workers' movement, and first and foremost its vanguard.

“Democratic illusions” in 2025

The article announcing Révolution Permanente's campaign rightly points out that the crisis of the French capitalist regime is deepening in a context where the bourgeoisie needs a “plan of anti-worker reforms.” It also emphasises that “distrust of the political class and institutions is growing among large sections of the population.” This is correct. But things go seriously wrong when Révolution Permanente asserts that “in the absence of a serious response to the democratic aspirations of workers and the popular classes, demoralisation and disgust with institutional politics end up fuelling the aspiration for Caesarist answers, as reflected in the 73 percent of people surveyed by Cevipof who believe that there is ‘need for a real leader to restore order’.” It is to this supposed “Caesarist” (Bonapartist) danger that Révolution Permanente's campaign for “radical democratic demands” seeks to respond.

Révolution Permanente's interpretation of the Cevipof poll is extremely superficial. The “need for a real leader to restore order” is a very general phrase which, in the minds of those ‘surveyed’, can mean anything and everything. The “order” in question can be reactionary or progressive. The “real leader” can be an individual or a party, and can be on the right or the left. For example, a significant number of workers see Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise, as a “real leader” capable of “restoring order” for the benefit of the exploited and oppressed. This does not make Mélenchon a new Caesar or a new Bonaparte. In short, among the 73 percent of those surveyed who believe that there is a “need for a real leader to restore order”, most do not aspire to a military-police dictatorship.

The mass of the working class, in particular, does not aspire to “Caesarist answers”. It aspires first and foremost to defend and improve its living and working conditions, which are under constant attack. But to do this, it needs “real leaders” – or, to put it better, political and trade union leaders who are up to the task. Such leaders are conspicuous by their absence. The ‘leaders’ of the working class, including Mélenchon, are not up to the task. This is the central contradiction of our era, and it is neither new nor specific to France. As early as 1938, Trotsky opened his Transitional Programme with the following idea: “The world political situation as a whole is characterised above all by the historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.”

The ‘leaders’ of the working class, including Mélenchon, are not up to the task / Image: Pierre Selim, Flickr

Stumbling from one abstraction to another, Révolution Permanente falls into absurd contradictions. On the one hand, it tells us that the democratic aspirations of the masses have been disappointed and that they are increasingly seeking a “Caesarist answer”. But on the other hand, Révolution Permanente emphasises that “the majority of workers and the popular classes continue to stand on the ground of universal suffrage and bourgeois democracy.” The “majority”… including among the 73 percent who aspire to a “Caesarist answer”? But Révolution Permanente is not troubled by this contradiction; in fact, it mobilises both terms to justify its campaign. A “radical democratic response from below” is needed to cut short the “Caesarist aspirations” of the masses; and this “response” must be situated on “the terrain of universal suffrage and bourgeois democracy”, because that is where the “majority of workers” situate themselves. Make of that what you will.

The problem is that Révolution Permanente applies a formalist, not a dialectical, method. It analyses certain aspects of the problem in the abstract and disregards others that are nevertheless decisive. In particular, it does not take into account the role played in the consciousness of the masses by decades of capitulation and betrayal by the official leaders of the left and the trade union movement.

Let us take up this whole question again, starting from a formulation that Révolution Permanente extracts from the 1934 Programme of Action. Is it true that “the majority of workers and the popular classes continue” – as in 1934 – “to stand on the ground of universal suffrage and bourgeois democracy”? In a sense, yes, it is true, but it is a very general truth. In fact, only a revolutionary crisis will open up the possibility for the masses to completely abandon bourgeois democracy. But that tells us nothing concrete about the differences between the democratic illusions of the masses in 1934 and in 2025. And there are very important differences.

Once again: workers today do not fear that the fascists will crush the National Assembly and the workers' organisations. Since this threat does not exist objectively, at least not in the short term, it plays no role in the democratic illusions of the working class, whereas it played a major role in 1934. As we pointed out above, this threat alone justified the democratic demands of Part 16 of the Programme of Action of the Communist League.

But there is more. Over the last thirty years, the democratic illusions of the workers have been deeply undermined by the painful experience of a bourgeois democracy that has seen several ‘left’ parliamentary majorities come and go without any fundamental change, except for the worse (Mitterrand, Jospin, Hollande). As a result, the masses no longer have the same illusions as in 1934 about the possibility of radically transforming society through a ‘left-wing’ parliamentary majority.

This does not mean that democratic illusions have disappeared. For example, it was enough for Mélenchon to raise the banner of a parliamentary ‘Sixth Republic’, based on a broad programme of social reforms, for these illusions to manifest themselves positively. But as this example clearly shows, these democratic illusions perpetuate a powerful rejection of the current democratic ‘system’ (the Fifth Republic), of all its institutions and of all the parties that have governed the country over the last thirty years. These elements are closely linked. There is an organic link between the discrediting of the old leaders of the reformist left (PS, PCF, Greens) and the rejection of the institutions of the Fifth Republic.

In 1934, there were not only massive illusions in the Third Republic. There were also, and above all, massive illusions in the leadership of the SFIO, which had never governed alone (without the Radical Party) and which sought the votes of the electorate on the basis of a socialist programme, a programme of breaking with capitalism. The mass of workers had not yet gone through the painful experience of a social-democratic government.

Today, on the contrary, most workers no longer have any confidence in the social-democratic leaders. The PCF, which has become social-democratic, is just as discredited as the PS. The Greens are only slightly less so. Moreover, no leader of the reformist left – including Mélenchon – defends a socialist programme, even on paper. This is the concrete situation ‘on the left.’ It is a central factor in the massive rejection of the Fifth Republic.

But then, what should revolutionary activists focus on? On the possibility of a “broader” bourgeois democracy? No. Revolutionary activists must insist on the need for a programme of breaking with the capitalist system. They must call on the large reformist organisations of the workers‘ movement – starting with the most “radical” ones, the CGT and La France Insoumise – to break with the bourgeoisie and put on the agenda a massive struggle for a “workers’ government” based on a programme of expropriation of the big bourgeoisie. In doing so, revolutionary activists must advance their transitional programme, their revolutionary programme, and develop their forces on this basis.

Take, for example, the campaign of La France Insoumise for a ‘Sixth Republic’, which is finding some resonance among a section of the working class and youth. What attitude should we adopt towards it? Should we, like Révolution Permanente, criticise this campaign for “outlining nothing more than a return to a more parliamentary regime, based on the model of the Third or Fourth Republic”? No. On the one hand, this is inaccurate. After all, the Constituent Assembly that Mélenchon proposes to convene would, in theory, have the possibility of “drawing up” something quite different from a rehashed version of the Third or Fourth Republic. For example, the “mid-term recall referendum”, which Mélenchon makes much of, did not exist in either the Third or Fourth Republic. But the essential point lies elsewhere. What revolutionary activists must criticise in Mélenchon's Sixth Republic is, first and foremost, its bourgeois character; it is the fact that Mélenchon is spreading illusions about the possibility of solving the problems of the masses under a Sixth Republic without expropriating the big bourgeoisie. This is what we must emphasise, not the difference between a “recall referendum” (Mélenchon) and the “permanent recallability” of MPs (Révolution Permanente).

Sectarianism and opportunism

Trotsky emphasised that sectarianism and opportunism are two sides of the same coin. Révolution Permanente's attitude towards La France Insoumise is a good illustration of this. On the one hand, Révolution Permanente castigates La France Insoumise in a few sentences, asks nothing of its leaders, and offers nothing to its activists and supporters (apart from inviting La France Insoumise to join Révolution Permanente). But on the other hand, Révolution Permanente is launching a campaign which, like La France Insoumise's campaign on the Sixth Republic, is content to “sketch out” a bourgeois democracy “broader” than the Fifth Republic, instead of insisting on the need for a workers' government and a break with the capitalist system. Sectarianism on the one hand, opportunism on the other.

These two errors run throughout Révolution Permanente’s article. Take, for example, the following quote: “Only a mass mobilisation that takes democratic issues head-on could shake up the situation: a political general strike, fighting for Macron's resignation, against the Fifth Republic and for a workers’ programme to tackle the crisis!”

Trotsky emphasised that sectarianism and opportunism are two sides of the same coin / Image: public domain

Question: which organisations can put a “political general strike” – i.e. the beginning of a revolutionary crisis – on the agenda? ^[5] Révolution Permanente's answer: itself, its little campaign “and all the forces ready to participate in this struggle.” This is all the less credible given that throughout its article, Révolution Permanente dismisses with a wave of the hand “all the forces” that could play a role in preparing a “political general strike”, starting with the CGT and La France Insoumise. Here again, Révolution Permanente expects nothing from them, asks nothing of them, and puffs itself up to the point of suggesting that it could play a decisive role in the development of a “political general strike”. This is a caricature of sectarianism. But opportunism follows this sectarianism like a shadow, because Révolution Permanente informs us that the “political general strike” would have as its goal the resignation of Macron, the end of the Fifth Republic and… “a workers’ programme to confront the crisis”.

A “workers’ programme”? Which one? The reformist leaders of the CGT also have a “workers’ programme”. What they firmly reject is the conquest of power by the working class. And Révolution Permanente? “Of course”, Révolution Permanente is for a workers‘ government, but its great (opportunistic) wisdom allows it to never fall into “propagandist incantations”. So, a “workers’ programme” is quite enough: no need to go too far. However, Révolution Permanente forgets that if an unlimited “political general strike” develops in France, it will very quickly raise the question of power. It will raise the question: which class should rule society? The working class or the bourgeoisie? In the minds of millions of workers, the question of the “workers’ programme” will immediately be subordinated to that of workers’ power. Isn't this one of the great lessons of the general strikes of June 1936 and May 1968? In both cases, the Stalinist and reformist leaders succeeded in containing the revolutionary upsurge by means of a “workers’ programme” that left the reins of the country in the hands of the bourgeoisie. At a time when Révolution Permanente is proposing to launch and lead an unlimited general strike, we call on these comrades to review the fundamental lessons of June 1936 and May 1968!

Ultra-left sectarianism and opportunism reflect the same impatience, the same attempt to skip several stages in the political conquest of “the majority of workers”. The sectarian turns his back on the large reformist organisations of the workers' movement, asks nothing of them, offers them nothing; he throws them all into the same bag and sends them to hell, because he wants to address the masses directly, over the heads of the large trade unions and left parties. But since the masses hardly notice him, the sectarian waters his wine, adapts (roughly) to the democratic illusions of the masses, castigates the “propagandist incantations” of the Marxists – in short, falls into opportunism.

For its part, the Revolutionary Communist Party does not claim, at this stage, to influence the masses, let alone to launch and lead an unlimited general strike. Everything in its own time. In accordance with the Leninist method, we are building our party in the most radicalised layers of the youth and the workers. And we are building it on the basis of an authentically communist programme, which closely links all its transitional demands to the central goal: the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society. There has never been and there will never be any other means of building a revolutionary party capable, when the time comes, of bringing the working class to power.

References

[1] The only differences are: the Programme of Action defends women's right to vote, which has now been won; it defends the right to vote at 18 (and not 16), because at the time this right was only granted to men aged 21 and over; finally, it does not defend the abolition of the Constitutional Council, because this was only created in 1958. Apart from these three obvious differences, the Révolution Permanente campaign takes up all the demands of Part 16 of the Programme of Action of the Communist League.

[2] In reality, the social-democratic and Stalinist bureaucracies were quick to reach out to the Radical Party (a bourgeois party). In doing so, they transformed the ‘united front’ into the ‘Popular Front’ – and the latter into a major obstacle on the road to socialist revolution. See our article [in French] on the Popular Front and the general strike of June 1936.

[3] Incidentally, contrary to what Révolution Permanente claims, the absence of a solid majority in the National Assembly is not sufficient to open up the immediate possibility of a Bonapartist regime. The French bourgeoisie has other options, notably a government led by the RN, similar to that of Giorgia Meloni in Italy.

[4] In 1934, the various fascist ‘leagues’ had a total of several hundred thousand members.

[5] We assume that Révolution Permanente is referring to an indefinite general strike, given that a 24-hour general strike would not bring down Macron, let alone the Fifth Republic.