France: On the elections, the wonderful situation and our tasks
We hereby publish a translation of an article by Nouvelle Époque:
The imperialist bloc represented by Macron has saved itself from drowning, and that in itself is one aspect of this great sequence of an increasingly disgusting masquerade. Faced with its bankruptcy, Macronism could only be temporarily saved by a poker stunt that worked, but which only aggravates the political crisis that is taking shape more clearly every day in our country. The Macronist bloc, as the political bloc of French imperialism, is the real enemy of the working class, the popular classes and the peoples of the world subjugated by French imperialism. It is this bloc, and only this bloc, which has been in power for seven years, which controls the direction of the country: the pro-NATO policy in Ukraine and the march towards war, the policy of ever-stronger support for the monopolies, the anti-worker and anti-people laws, the radicalization of the police forces, the ultra-reactionary media blanket, and so on. This bloc, with its leader Macron, is the main actor in the reactionarization of the country, and therefore in the march towards fascism. It is Macron, through his ‘Jupiterian’ practice of power where the executive is above all else, where the Prince rules the country with an iron fist with his council; this Macron who is ‘above parties’, ‘neither left nor right’, is the one who is the most fascising figure in the country because, and this is the only truth, he holds the all-powerful power of the Presidents of the Fifth Republic.
The working classes are not mistaken: they voted for the Rassemblement National (RN) in order to do away with this figure who embodies all the hatred of the ruling classes, since the other forces have so totally tied their future to this imperialist bloc at the center of the National Assembly. It is the false left which has enabled the imperialist bloc not only to maintain itself, but to make rain and shine by feeding off instability. In the absence of a real Communist Party, the imperialist bourgeoisie ALWAYS finds a way out.
The ‘people’ of the left must see all this only as a profound defeat of the working classes. France Insoumise (FI) has enabled the ‘Socialist’ Party, whose voters are ‘disappointed’ with social Macronism, to be the unlikely phoenix of the last elections. Glucksmann, the CIA agent, immediately set the record straight, explaining that the application of the program of the New Popular Front (NFP) would be through ‘discussion’ with the Macronists and… FI. This is the death warrant for the so-called NFP. In short, little or nothing will be implemented. He also stressed that there would be no ‘Jupiterianism’ or ‘Robespierrism’ (sic).
They will try to apply a ‘calmed’ Macronism by constraint, which will only be a poor and impossible attempt to calm the tensions linked to the development of the class struggle and the political crisis that the country will experience over the next two years. The form that the birth of the NFP has taken is not magical. It is not the result of an in-depth popular movement, but the desire to save seats and prepare the plan of Olivier Legrain, a big bourgeois, millionaire and former businessman who is preparing in the shadows the return of ‘the left’ in power in 2027, i.e. a less radical form of Macronism, in the service of imperialism. The revival of the Socialist Party is, therefore, a fait du Prince: it’s the strategy for keeping those disappointed by Macronism with Macronism and, above all, for isolating and destroying FI, as the driving force of the false left, but on the margins. Macron’s abrupt changes of helm have accelerated the process of recomposition, but the substance is the same: a false social-liberal but genuinely imperialist bloc, isolating FI, which is already totally cut off from the working classes. A bloc that will be able to rely on the RN to push through much-needed reforms, which has already begun. This means ever greater integration of RN personnel into the state apparatus. The advantages and privileges of these positions in the institutions have corrupted everything and integrated the RN into the Macronist imperialist bloc, like everything else. No one is against NATO or the EU anymore, and everyone supports US imperialist policy in Ukraine. In a way, this is the same path that the French ‘Communist’ Party has taken. Betrayal of the path to revolution, betrayal of the interests of the proletariat, integration into the state, and finally an openly reactionary bourgeois force. Betrayal leads to decay, of which Roussel is the paragon.
Political crisis and accentuation of the class struggle
These elections, more than any others, have shown that the electoral system in a bourgeois democracy is only a tree that hides the forest of the system of domination of one class over the others. It is clear that this ‘national’ Assembly, of which the vast majority is made up of executives and higher intellectual professions, is completely cut off from the real world. 87% of French people do not see themselves in the results, that’s saying a lot! The situation is in upheaval. Imperialism is absolutely anti-people, as the masquerade of the demo-liberal system proves on a daily basis. The fundamental fact about this whole dance of opportunists is that the real power is not to be found on the benches of the National Assembly. Politicians of all stripes are managers of the old secular order of exploitation. The powers of money, via their information networks, have the capacity to make and unmake pretenders to highly paid positions. They make the P’C’F exist to steal a few votes from FI; they raise the P’S’ from the dead; they buy the media to pour out a flood of anti-people ideas to explode frustration and the RN vote. They use ubuesque devices, like FI’s so-called ‘anti-semitism’, to save the Macronist bloc. Tomorrow, if this or that pretender doesn’t please the banks and the stock market, then they launch a massive smear campaign and that’ll be that.
The most important thing about this sequence is that the working-class electorate of the Rassemblement National, and the working classes in general, have a deep sense of historic theft, and that’s normal: the RN is ahead of the NFP by 3 million votes, it is the real leading force and the only one that is popular. It’s only the political wheeling and dealing between the Macronist bloc and the false left that has relegated the RN to third place. This theft will accentuate the dull rage of these classes completely abandoned against any emancipatory political discourse. This rage will be accentuated by the ever-greater integration of the RN, which will leave the working masses, once again, with no way out.
All this profoundly weakens the confidence of the masses in the institutions. We are the people in Europe who have the least confidence in politicians. In the end, as in every deep crisis in the country, there will remain the Army as a pillar uncorrupted by parliamentary decay and, facing it, the proletariat which must rapidly reorganize itself as a subjective force. The senior officers have said it: the Army will have a role if the ‘Nation’ is in danger. The bourgeois state must be understood as synonymous with ‘nation’ in the mouth of a military man, because the Army is the backbone of the system of domination.
This historical acceleration is simply the expression of the world crisis of imperialism, its crisis of decomposition, its final crisis; this crisis marks the return of the World Proletarian Revolution. All over the world the same patterns are emerging, the same issues at stake, the same path. As a reflection of world events, this political crisis, which is very French, is one more marker of the return of the struggle for Socialist Revolution. Everything we see on a daily basis expresses a developing revolutionary situation in our country. This situation, without subjective force, without an organized proletariat, can only be suffered by the working classes.
Our task, our only task, is not to cry of the fascist wolf, it is not to be indignant about racism, it is not to be afraid of a situation that does not exist, but to understand this new sequence which can only be positive. The truth that emerges from this major political crisis is that they can no longer govern as they used to, regardless of the color of the party in the National Assembly. The Fifth Republic, a regime born of the “Thirty Glorious Years”, is a corpse in advanced decomposition. This regime has been able to integrate all the forces that claim to be in opposition in order to disintegrate and domesticate them in the service of French imperialism. Today, despite the situation, they no longer know how to extricate themselves from the Gaullist project.
So, as we keep saying in our newspaper, it’s time for action. Everything has been said about the situation, the important thing is to organize. Organize the masses for class struggle in the factories and working-class neighborhoods. Organize the women of the people, the abandoned youth, the proletarian trade unionists, the white and Muslim workers, convince the working classes of the metropolitan suburbs to take action, recreate the networks on which we will build a proletarian organization autonomous from the bourgeoisie, and lay the foundations for the Reconstitution of the only political tool for emancipation, the Communist Party.
This path, which we are already exploring, is and will be the fruit of a few determined groups, working, living and fighting with the proletariat in rupture with the old world. Nourished by the immense historical experience of the world proletariat and the proletariat of France, we are going to respond to all the problems. In a short space of time, we have acquired a wealth of experience in mass work, and we already know all the basics of the only revolutionary work today. Problems can only be solved through movement. We can no longer continue to remain on archaic forms where the main part of the movement is reflection and analysis. We repeat it, the time has come for concrete organization in the class struggle. The aim is clear and marvelous: to repeat the glorious Paris Commune. Our times are marvelous : everything has failed, nothing will ever be the same – the path is known, let us put all our strength in motion.
