A GENERAL strike is one of the highest expressions solidarity. It inevitably pits the working class against the ruling class.
A general strike movement can develop from the base or be led from the top. A look at what happened in France 44 years ago shows what is at stake..
In 1936 French society entered a period of intense crisis. Fascism had triumphed Germany and was becoming a threat ås well. Following electoral victory of the Popular Front in April 1936, a general strike took place that came from the base up.
A great strike wave swept across on the. basis économic demands for higher wages. The strike movement developed from below, starting with two successful ' A general strike cannot be far off! We are in spitting distance of it.
of Railwaymen.
strikes at Le Havre and Toulouse. The movement rapidly support, becoming: confrontation between capital and labour.
At the end of May nearly all the factories in 'region were out on strike and in the next few days they were joined by textile, distribution, printing and other workers. Factories were occupied in a direct challenge to the rule of the bosses. class, seized panic, concessions, known as the Matignon Agreement, including massive across the board holidays.
Giving concessions succeed in subduing the class. but gave it tresh inspiration. They began to raise new demands, and the nationalisation factories.
In one area of Paris the Hotchkiss workers issued a call for an elected central strike committee tepresentatives factories.
On 11 June the country was at fever pitch and the capital ablaze with rumours that a demonstration to the city centre was preparation. Thorez, the leader the French CP, addressed a meeting of Paris Communists. But he could 'A general strike is the last thing people in responsible positions like me want — but if it's the BILL SIRS, general secretary of the ISTC.
see only one way forward: "We need to know how to end a strike' that was menacing "national security', he said.
Instructions followed Thorez on how to bring the strike to an end. L'Humanité, the CP's newsexplained his actions: 'We think it impossible to pursue any policy that would risk endangering the security of France in the face of the Hitlerite threat'.
The Russian diplomat, Witvinov. made it even clearer:
"The essential point is that France should not allow her military strength to be weakened. We hope no internabetore the primarily gained the caterings The ruling gave pay and paid did working of tional disturbance designs of the Reich'. to group The bureaucrats local Union wanted Party or French of anything to damage it.
were argued mood of the encouraged.
Maxim LEON BLUM will favour the in the Soviet an alliance Western powers against Hitler. Stalin had already signed a pact with the French government in 1935 and he didn't want the French Communist workers. doing A general strike always pits the working class against the ruling class, raising the question: "Who rules!' they argued, and this meant workers armed defence forming workers' coordinate control of production; distribution and to move towards the formation of a workers' government.
The Popular Front government saw that these militants expressed the revolutionary aspirations and French working class. Their paper La lintte Ouvrière while L'Humanité hysterical attack 'provocateurs' for daring to argue for revolutionary ideas.
The French CP then, as now, had movement NUM.
The were holidays.
prepared and socialism, capitalism. revolutionary That's of the fight confiscated, launched the to reformism.
right to the end. class. When it argued 'Everything for Front, everything through the Popular Front' the mass was disarmed unless it 'The British TUC should follow the example of the Welsh TUC and call a one day strike.
JOE WHELAN, general secretary, Nottingham moved on to challenge the reformist leaders and bourgeois figures inside tnal ropula rion bovernicul French capitalists soon counter-attacked. All the gains won in the Matignon agreements of 7 June liquidated, except paid The • Popular Hront collapsed, not having satisfied fully either the needs of the working class or the rulno class. The ground wa for the Hitler-Pétain dictatorship which succeeded in the task of destroying the organised workers movement in France.
Reformist leaders like Leon Blum Thorez will act in a similar fashion today as they did in 1936. When it comes to the crunch, when the choice is between capitalism and always choose 'Serious industrial consequences will follow' if the talks between the TUC and the government over the steel cuts produce no positive results:
TUC Steel Committee They always have more respect for the institutions and idea of the ruling class than the power and needs of the working class.
As in the '30s, so today, it is only those militants who arm themselves clear, perspective that wil give a lead when the going gets touglt.
while it's possible to alongside CP members and Labour Party members in building mass actions against the Tories, it's vital to build a revolutionary socialist party that gets across the alternative party that prepared to see the struggle through
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It's a 1926 situation." SID WEIGHELL, general secretary, National Union