Category Archives: Tract

Tract – “Young Workers at the Heart of the Struggle” (22 May 1968 – Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 6-12 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

J.O.C.F St-Etienne, 22 May 1968
ST. ETIENNE SOUTH
4, rue Mi-Carême

YOUNG WORKERS

—————————————————–
AT THE HEART OF THE STRUGGLE
—————————————————–

The Friends were out and about ….
What we saw, is Important ……

COME
Saturday, May 25 at 2pm sharp
Salle Saint-Etienne – 4, rue Mi-Carême
In the hall of the Bishopric Bookstore

In order, together, to see how, as Jocistes, we can live through these Events and to reflect as a group on how we can continue our Action. –

“The J.O.C. has always maintained that ONE YOUNG WORKER IS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE GOLD IN THE WORLD – More than ever it is important to tell Society what we want.”

— A unique and tremendous way to help us:
A Young Worker/Alive – At the Heart of the Struggle –
   (You shall find the Federation)

In Friendship
The Federal Team

Tract – “National Office of the UNEF to the Trade Unions (early May 1968 – UNEF)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 6-12 1968, Tract, Uncategorized, UNEF

≈ Leave a comment

NATIONAL OFFICE OF THE UNEF
TO THE TRADE UNIONS

  Dear Comrades,

  Since Friday, May 3 the police have occupied the Sorbonne (after locking-out Nanterre), something that hadn’t been seen since the odious regime of Petain.

  Since Friday, May 3, when the police savagely beat them, students have called on their union, UNEF, to defend their right to political and collective expression.

  Currently the government and the press are trying to isolate the student movement, which is why in the face of this offensive, which affects the entire labor movement, we appeal to you to publicly affirm solidarity with our actions, and ask you to consider an inter-union demonstration with us in defence of the right of political and collective expression and against police repression.

NATIONAL OFFICE 
OF THE UNEF

Tract – “After De Gaulle’s Speech (31 May 1968 – PCF)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in de Gaulle, May 27-June 2 1968, PCF, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

After De Gaulle’s Speech

DECLARATION OF THE
FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

With Workers on strike for their demands, with students and teachers in a struggle for a democratic University, with millions of the French people wanting a change of policy, de Gaulle responded with a veritable declaration of war.

 in his opposion to the workers, De Gaulle first takes on the Communist Party which has always defended the interests of the working class, inseparable from those of the nation.

 This attack against the Communist Party is designed to mask the wish of General de Gaulle to impose its own dictatorship. In reality, the working class and its organizations have shown remarkable composure; they have developed the fight for their claims and theit mass political struggle taking care to avoid any kind of provocation. This is true in both the factories, occupied by millions of strikers, and in the impressive street demonstrations organized by the C.G.T. and other unions, supported by the Communist Party.

 Scorning all workers, both blue- and white-collar, the head of State did not judge it worth saying a word about their claims.

 However, the first condition for settling the huge conflict caused by the harmful policies of a State at the service of corporations, is to uphold the legitimate demands of the workers. This is the unanimous demand of the unions. It is also that of the French Communist Party.

  De Gaulle announced his intention to call new elections. The French Communist Party has not been waiting for this speech to demand that the people be given their say as soon as possible.

 The Party will go to this compaign explaining its program of social progress and peace and it’s policy of the democratic unity of all forces. It now calls upon the millions of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen for their trust, to defeat the Gaullist government; and to establish a true democracy that serves the interests of workers.

 It calls on workers, to join strongly with the democratic forces, to develop their unity in the interests of the people and France.

The Political Bureau
of the French Communist Party
May 30, 1968.

Tract – “Comrades Workers and Students of France” (27 May 1968 – Tendance Marxiste-Révolutionnaire)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 27-June 2 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

(Translation – Fisera 81)

COMRADES WORKERS AND STUDENTS OF FRANCE

  An unprecedented revolutionary crisis has just broken out. It is not the result of a major economic crisis and was not started by the proletariat under a revolutionary leadership. 

  It is following its own path, which points to the continuation of revolutionary creation in the world and the particular courses that revolution will follow in advanced capitalist countries. It was students who launched the historic movement of May 1968 in France by starting out from the total rejection of “neo-capitalism” and by putting forward demands concerning the democratic control of the universities and education in general by students and teachers.

  Fearing that similar demands might reach the proletariat as well and that the irresistible movement of Workers Councils running the factories and businesses might spread like wildfire through the country, the Communist Party, the CGT and all the other traditional organizations who associate themselves with the working class rushed in to stem the tide of the movement and contain it within the framework of immediate wage demands. But the real meaning of the historical events that are presently shaking France is to be found in the undeniable fact that they objectively pose the question of the struggle for Workers Control and genuinely democratic socialism.

  There can be no question of sacrificing the pay claims, but they must be organically linked to the demand for workers control of the economy and the struggle for revolutionary and democratic workers power. There can be no question of separating the students and workers. They must be united in the same struggle for these objectives.

  The Socialist Revolution in France has just begun, in an unprecedented way. This is the essential fact to understand. Everything is now possible and depends entirely on the quick formation of a united revolutionary leadership capable of speaking with the authority of one voice to militants, to the masses and to the whole population, which is waiting for a precise plan of struggle and precise forms of organization, which will go beyond the obsolete framework of the institutions of capitalist society. Because there is not yet a united revolutionary organization, the provisional revolutionary leadership must be created in the form of a central Revolutionary Council, made up of representatives of all the political and trade-union organizations committed to the revolutionary struggle and open to all those who will follow this path.

  This Council will rely on the support of grass-roots Committees, which will act as real organs of power in their respective fields: factories, businesses, neighbourhoods, various services – everywhere. It is by these means that the struggle for Workers Power and Socialism will be carried on following the programme set out here:

– The socialization of the principal means of production, the banks, the monopolies, the big industrial, commercial and property-owning concerns, etc… and their democratic control by the workers.
– The democratic control of all education. housing, health, town planning and leisure services, etc., by the producers and consumers of these services.
-Encouragement for the creation of production co-operatives for small farmers with the powerful material, technical and scientihc aid of the workers state.
– The abolition of the traditional army and the police and their replacement by a democratic peoples militia.
– Immediate and unconditional independence for all territories under direct or indirect colonial rule.
– The breaking-off of all alliances with imperialism.
– Systematic propaganda for the creation of a Socialist and Democratic Europe united from East to West.
– Unconditional support for all revolutionary movements struggling for the national and social emancipation of their peoples.

Comrade students and workers of France! 
Aim high and far, aim at power. 
Take the immediate social organization of the country into your hands. 
Take control of everything involved with your working life. 
Run the factories, the universities, the social services yourselves. 
Substitute yourselves for the decaying capitalist state! 
Don’t let the strike and the struggle founder in paralysis.

  Your historic struggle is being followed, and soon there will be active sympathy from workers all over the world. Soon it will stir the whole of capitalist Europe and stimulate revolutionary struggle all over the world. 

Forward for Workers Power and Socialism. 
Forward for the Great Socialist French Revolution that will change the face of the world from the West to the East.

The International Leadership
of the Marxist-Revolutionary Tendancy
27 May 1968

Tract – “A Call from the United Socialist Party” (20 May 1968 – PSU)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 20-26 1968, PSU, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

(Translation – Fisera 70)

A CALL from the United Socialist Party

 Popular anger is mounting continuously among the workers and students. It is starting to appear among the peasants. Everywhere it has the same grounds: the rejection of a capitalist and centralised society, the challenge to the autocratic powers of the government, of the employers and of the big farm owners.

 The movement which emerged from the Latin Quarter has come as far as challenging power in today’s society. Action should now spring from the generalisation of occupations in workplaces, and through the adoption of precise slogans on the establishment of real popular powers:

– The students must organise their power in the schools, the faculties and in the grandes écoles.
– The workers must impose their power and that of the trade-union organisations, creating the necessary conditions for exercising this power.
– The peasants must construct collective organisations on a regional basis, and establish the conditions for the production and commercialisation of their products.

 All those who no longer accept submission to the laws of a reactionary state ought to take it upon themselves to manage their own affairs. They should set up Popular Action Committees: committees for students and teachers in the universities and schools, workers committees in companies, peasant committees in the countryside, local committees, neighbourhood committees, committees on the large estates, etc.

 The PSU calls on its militants, and on all those who have confidence in it, to join existing committees or to speed up their creation where they do not exist. It is in such committees as these that the form of a new society should express itself, through discussion and confrontation, but also through action and the setting up of effective powers

 To all those who wish to confine the peoples movement or to limit its aims in order to control it better, to those who think they can answer the overall challenge to capitalist society by simply changing the parliamentary balance or a governmental formula, to those who are still hesitating because they did not believe in the student revolt and had doubts about the student-worker liaison during the struggle, we must in future respond by opening up new prospects for them.

THE PSU PROPOSES

1. WORKERS’ POWER
in addition to the necessary political and trade-union freedoms:

The right to veto decisions made by the bosses concerning employment and working conditions. Discussions of real wages and the length of working hours. Control of the utilisation of profits and investments.
The right of civil servants to negotiate their pay and working conditions with their employer (the state). The creation of Company committees in administration and public establishments. 
Management of public companies by state and workers representatives.
The increase of financial shares in national companies and the extension of the public sector by the nationalisation of centres of economic decision-making.
Workers management of social security.

2. PEASANTS’ POWER

For the peasants, represented by their trade unions and co-operatives: 

The management of the organs of regional planning and production. 
Control of the methods of processing and selling agricultural products.

3. STUDENTS’ POWER

For the students, the main objectives are those of UNEF:

The immediate establishment of real student power in the faculties, with the right to veto any decisions taken. 
Dependent on this first point is the autonomy of the universities and faculties.
The struggle for the recognition of the CAL (School Students’ Action Committees) and for their freedom of expression and action

WE MUST DEMAND

1. INFORMATION serving the workers:

 The transformation of ORTF into an autonomous public body, independent of the State and democratically controlled. 

 Nationalisation of the press printing companies delivery services, advertising, by the creation of national boards managed by workers representatives, and by putting the technical information services at the disposal of the various trends of opinion.

2. A CULTURAL POLICY with a socialist character: 

a) the transformation of the activity of the Youth Centres and Culture Centres into free debating and creative centres under the management of young workers; 

b) the takeover of other sectors of cultural life by writers and artists who have taken a stand against bourgeois culture.

3. A REGIONAL ORGANISATION

 To fight underdevelopment and authoritarian centralisation. It is vital that the Popular Acton Committees co-ordinate their actions at a regional level.
Instead of Gaullist government agents, regional authorities controlled by the people should be created, as embryos of assemblies capable of solving the problems of cultural and economic development (education, employment, industrialisation).

The PSU presents these proposals for open debate by the Popular Action Committees

Tract – “Waldeck Rochet’s statement to ‘France-Inter’ ” (18 May 1968 – PCF)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 13-19 1968, PCF, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

SATURDAY MAY 18  at 1P.M.

STATEMENT TO “FRANCE-INTER” by WALDECK ROCHET

 Secretary General of  The Communist Party of France

 The events which are unfolding in both the University and in the Working Class express the profound dissatisfaction that has accumulated over ten years, directed against anti-social and reactionary policies and a state in the service of big capital.

 The Workers’ struggle experiences new developments every hour.

 The French Communist Party reaffirms its total solidarity with workers fighting for their claims, as it has asserted with the students’ struggle for a modern and democratic University.

 Both workers and unions demand increases in wages, the immediate revocation of the orders on Social Security, the guarantee of full employment, reduction of working time and the extension of trade union freedom.

 It is essential to meet the most pressing demands of the workers. 

 The current events constitute the condemnation of the Gaullist government and its policies.

 It is high time to bring this government to an end and to promote a genuine democracy which can open the way to socialism, and act in the interests of the people and the Nation.

 For the achievement of these objectives the French Communist Party considers it imperative to reach an accord on a socially progressive programme between parties of the left and trade unions, by majority agreement.

 We believe this program should provide for the application of far-reaching reforms to shield the state from the grip of capitalist monopolies, and for the implementation of a plan for economic and social development to progressively meet the demands of both blue- and white-collar workers. These reforms should aim to involve citizens in decisions affecting the economic, political and cultural life of the country.

 It is time to plan for the establishment of a popular government and a democratic union. For its part, the French Communist Party is willing to take on it’s full responsibilities.

Tract – “Workers Students” (20 May 1968 – Comité d’Action Etudiants Ouvriers)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Comites d'Action, May 20-26 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Students Workers

 During the protests that have shaken the sterile “Gaullist order” the people have become aware of the immense force they represent, while at the same time assessing the real weakness of the state.

 10 years of the Gaullist regime have proven to the total ineffectiveness of traditional forms of struggle.

 The bosses and the government are stunned. Panic-sticken Capitalism entreats the “representative leadership” of the working class to take things in hand.

 It knows that in times of profound social crisis the reformist leadership are the best and ultimate bulwark of the regime.

 In the trap of their negotiations, these leaders divert workers from total victory in favor of interim financial benefits quickly offset by the increased cost of living.

 The workers and students do not want their fight to end up like the movements of 1936 and 1945.

        It must go all the way. WE HAVE OCCUPIED THE FACULTIES, THE ADMINISTRATIONS , THE FACTORIES …

we will stay there

 Let us make them function by us and for us, showing that workers’ management has the ability make things better for all, rather than the benefit of the few that the capitalists scandalously used them for.

 Do not let the bourgeois politicians or the social democrats negotiate a return to order with a sitting cabinet.

 We insist on the departure of De Gaulle and the creation of a workers’ government. The state which we want must institute direct democracy within a socialist framework, established through the directions of grass-roots committees.

 These committees will have the duty to ensure its effective implementation.

 WE WON’T FALL INTO THE TRAP OF FUTILE DISCUSSIONS

power is to be taken

Students Workers Action Committee

Tract – “We Support the Strikers and we also Commit Ourselves to the Struggle” (around 19 May 1968 – Comité d’Action Censier)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Comites d'Action, May 13-19 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

WE SUPPORT THE STRIKERS
AND WE ALSO COMMIT OURSELVES TO THE STRUGGLE
  —————————————

The strikers are a family:

1) ORGANISE FUND-RAISING
2) NEGOTIATION STRIKE
3) RENT STRIKE
4) TAX STRIKE
5) OCCUPY VACANT APARTMENTS
6) SEIZE THE STOCK FROM THE SUPERMARKETS
7) ORGANISE OURSELVES INTO AN ACTION COMMITTEE FOR THE QUARTER

THE MASSIVE MOVEMENT ALREADY UNDERWAY OUTFLANKS ALL THE
POSSIBLE REPRESSIONS OF THE STATE

ACTION COMMITTEE CENSIER
15 RUE DE SANTEUIL
Office room 325

Tract – “Progressive Students’ Plan for a University to Serve the People” (around 20 May 1968 – Mouvement de Soutien aux Luttes du Peuple)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in May 20-26 1968, Mouvement de Soutien aux Luttes du Peuple, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

(Translation – Fisera 58)

PROGRESSIVE STUDENTS PLAN
 FOR A UNIVERSITY TO SERVE THE PEOPLE

 The progressive students submit to the working-class masses a programme for the radical transformation of the university, with the aim of placing it under the control and at the service of the people:

 

    1. Education should combine intellectual and productive labour. For a few months of the year, students will work on factory production lines, on the streets and in the countryside, in order to transform and to learn from their life with workers and peasants.

    2. Universities will be completely open to workers who wish to attend courses there. All university facilities will be available to the people.

    3. Higher education will reserve more than 50% of its places to working-class and peasant children.

    4. All lecturers and assistants of higher education will devote a certain amount of their time to helping workers study, and especially to improving the literacy of immigrant workers.

    5. Education will be reshaped, and useless subjects will be scrapped. Exams will no longer be suddenly sprung on students, who will be allowed to collaborate freely amongst themselves and with their lecturers.

To achieve this plan, the masses must unite, overthrowing Gaullist, conquering and radically transforming society.

 This will only be possible if the large mass of progressive students unites closely with the mass of workers and poor peasants. Students must move resolutely towards the people, in order to support their heroic struggle against unemployment and starvation wages, against the monopolising of land and against fascism and repression in the factories.

 For a people’s university in a free peoples regime. 

 LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF WORKERS, OF POUR PEASANTS AND OF STUDENTS.

 DOWN WITH GAULLISM, THIS ANTI-POPULAR REGIME OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY.

Movement of Support to the People’s Struggle.

Tract – “Workers, Students” (21 May 1968 – JCR)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in JCR, May 20-26 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

(Translation – Fisera 73)

WORKERS,
STUDENTS

The red flag of the working class flies over the faculties and factories. Millions of workers are occupying their enterprises. The hard-working masses, whom people called “apathetic”, have started to move.

On 13 May 1968, they became aware of their enormous strength, at the same time as they were judging the real weakness of the authorities. During the ten years of Gaullist rule they have experienced the total ineffectiveness of their traditional battle tactics, inherited from the Fourth Republic: parliamentary battles, token strikes, “the days of National Action”, were broken by the strength of the police state, without achieving results.

Only the direct, resolute action of the masses can force the Gaullist state to give way. This is the lesson that millions of workers have learned from the victorious student struggle. They have spontaneously and massively applied this lesson in order to solve their own problems.

Today the centre of gravity of the fight has moved from the faculties to the factories. The challenge to the bourgeois university has changed into the challenge to capitalist society. For let us not be fooled: if the workers are occupying the enterprises in their millions, it is not simply to obtain a satisfactory answer to their wage demands. The question of Power is being posed in the enterprises and in society. The future of the regime is at stake.

The employers and the state are dumbfounded. The panic-stricken Bourgeoise is calling upon the “organisations which are representative of the working class” to take things in hand. It realises that during periods of marked social crisis the reformist leaders of the working class are the best and the last rampart of the capitalist regime: steeped in parliamentarianism, scrupulously respectful of bourgeois legality, these leaders will channel the combativeness of the masses and will direct it towards aims which are in harmony with the survival of the system.

To preserve its authority, the cling class is ready to allow temporary concessions. It knows how to wait for the ebbing of the movement, to take back with one hand what it has had to concede with the other.

The young workers and the students, who are in the thick of the battle, do not want their fight to end in the same way as the 1936 and 1945 movements ended. The movement of unprecedented size which has sprung up in France today must not produce a damp squib. 

WE MUST CONTINUE TO THE END!
WE ARE OCCUPYING FACULTIES, ADMINISTRATIONS, FACTORIES

LETS STAY THERE!

 – Do not allow the bourgeois or social-democratic “politicians”, the Mitterands, the Guy Mollets, to negotiate a return to order in exchange for a cabinet seat! 
– Do not permit the trade-union leaders to negotiate a return to work in exchange for certain advantages, these may be appreciable ones, but they will be rapidly pruned by inflation and by intensification of work rates.

LET US TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF THE BALANCE OF FORCES WE HAVE ESTABLISHED:

    Let us consolidate our positions: set up Strike Committees at base-level in the factories, Action Committees in the faculties and neighbourhoods, gathering together all the workers involved in the fight!
    Impose the nationalisation of large occupied enterprises and the democratic management of them by workers committees!
    Set up workers’ control over job training, over the organisation of labour, over the management of enterprises!
    Seize the account books!
    Create organs of popular counter-power at the workplace, free from the bosses and the state apparatuses
    Enforce the departure of De Gaulle and the setting-up of a workers’ government!

The power we want is not that of a left-wing government taking over from a right-wing government. 

The power we want has nothing to do with parliamentary combinations of bourgeois and reformist politicians!

The power we want should create the direct democracy of socialism, based on the authority of local committees in the enterprises and in the neighbourhoods.

The power we want should emanate from strike committees and from workers’ and students’ acton committees.

STUDENTS, WORKERS, WE ARE BEING OFFERED A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY: LET US NOT THROW IT AWAY!

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST YOUTH
(May 21 1968)