Spontaneous Maoism

[The Feral Underclass]

If any one is interested in reading and learning about the seemingly most esoteric part of the historical left, then here are some links.

I am very new to this particular history and ideas, so if any one has any further links or suggested texts and information, please share it with me.

"This text, part of a series of interviews with leaders and members of the Gauche Prolétarienne, was carried out in 1971, around the time of the group’s dissolution. Benny Lévy appears here under his nom de guerre of Pierre Victor."
Investigation into the Maoists in France (http://www.marxists.org/archive/levy-benny/1971/investigation.htm) -- Benny Lévy

This gives some insight into the ultra-Left Maoists, Gauche Prolétarienne and the banning of the paper.
Maoists in France (http://www.oocities.org/c_ansata/Maoists.html) -- Jean Paul Sartre

This is a chapter from a book that talks about non-hierarchical Maoism in France.
Trotskyism and Maoism: Theory and Practice in France and the United States (http://www.isioma.net/sds00500.html) -- Belden Fields

There is this, which I haven't read. It is a chapter from a wider work by Simon Hardy. The website looks really interesting: http://www.marxisttheory.org
Maoism in East and West (http://marxisttheory.org/maoism-in-east-and-west/) -- Simon Hardy

There is also this archive, which is in French. Alas, I don't speak French: http://archivescommunistes.chez-alice.fr/gp/gp.html

[Parvati]

I don't understand why you are saying "most esoteric part of the historical left". I could understand if someone is agreeing or not with what they did, but honestly, their practice had direct impacts on many basic proletarian struggles. I'm really familiar with the texts from the original period, and less with other texts like Simon Hardy.

However, since I speak french, if you're interested in any specific texts from the archives, I can provide a rough translation.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I don't understand why you are saying "most esoteric part of the historical left". I could understand if someone is agreeing or not with what they did, but honestly, their practice had direct impacts on many basic proletarian struggles. I'm really familiar with the texts from the original period, and less with other texts like Simon Hardy.

However, since I speak french, if you're interested in any specific texts from the archives, I can provide a rough translation.

I'd be very curious to read anything they wrote on their conception of "the party".

Also, stoked on that little "Nouveaux Partisans" ditty.
It may have just jumped to the top of the list of things I'd like to hear at a manif.

[The Feral Underclass]

I don't understand why you are saying "most esoteric part of the historical left".

Erm, because they seemingly are...

It is a tendency whose history and ideas remain largely unknown, with very little written about them, as far as I can see. At least in English.


However, since I speak french, if you're interested in any specific texts from the archives, I can provide a rough translation.

Thanks.

[Parvati]

For those able to read French, there are also texts from the UJCML (Marxist-Leninist Communist Youths Union), it used to be the Youth sector of the Parti Communiste de France, before they split and start to denounce the revisionnism-collaborationism of the PCF, anticipating the May 68 and general strikes events. Then, this group formed Gauche prolétarienne.

The document called "Coup pour coup" is probably the closer thing to a Party's programme. I will translate it, since I personnaly like it much (even if it is not 100% accurate, it is still f**king good)

So here is the first part on Unions :
The central task and the highest form of revolution is the seizure of power by armed struggle, it is to solve the problem by war.
MAO TSE-TUNG


WAR OR PEACE?
We do not hide that we are strongly opposed to unions.

Just like the miners in Limburg ransacking houses while shouting « Unions : Bandits »; just like the miners in Sweden, in Denmark rejecting their so-called delegates, just like the workers from the Fiat factory imposing in their struggle the watchword « We are all delegates ».



And if in this Europe of Peace, contracts, and capitalist prosperity, workers begin to fight without asking permission to their union, this means that in the decadent West, a new idea spreads like lightning: down with social peace; we need new forms of struggle; down with the current practice of unions.


On one side are those who declare war on the bourgeois social order, on the other, those who want to organize social peace at all costs.

The most lucid rulers openly say that they want to encourage unions to have a « countervailing power » in factories.

What does Chaban (Former Gaullist politician) said on TV?


« My bet is... the existence and development of sufficiently representative unions to engage, on a contractual base, with focusing on the defense of professional interests ».


In large companies, it is vital for the capitalist social movements to predict and prevent, to achieve this goal, a power shared between employers and unions is needed: bosses and trade unions are bound by progress contracts like at EDF or by agreements to respect some limits like at Berliet.


When it's possible, we gripe, without really seeming to do so, for the right to strike. This allows to the company management to predict and calculate the price of « the class struggle ».


It has reached such a point that in Germany, for example, industrial stocks are well ranked in the stock market when the company in question has « strong unions ».


But the social peace is a peace in slavery; it is like getting a slap and then turns the other cheek.


Accepting this peace, it is to suffer from bosses terrorism without reacting :




to accept inhuman standards and speeds while saying « Amen » and « This is the technique ».
to accept murders disguised as work accidents while saying « Amen » and « This is fate »



That means : accepting to be reduced at the level of a commodity. We refuse, we will no longer present the other cheek, we will make war, totally but appropriately until we impose peace, a true one, peace in freedom.


At this time the terrorists, those who are killing workers, those who are tormenting poor families, those who will have survived, will be put on the work chain; the long run productive work will give them more just ideas.







:lol:

[The Feral Underclass]

^Dude, that is really kind of you, thanks so much for doing that.

[blake 3:17]

I read the Fields book years ago and found it a bit not quite there. I should look at it again.

I'm relatively sympathetic to elements of this current but find some of it fairly weird. I've been looking at some of the controversies of the French far left in the last couple of years, mostly out of interest in Deleuze and Guattari and Jean Genet, and Sartre ends up not looking so so great. I don't think he was intentionally dishonest, just more oblivious.

I don't have the materials at hand, but am pretty sure that Gauche prolétarienne took some really weird class reductionist positions on anti-Arab and anti-Black police and fascist violence. I think they opposed it on an absolutely pure class basis.

[Parvati]

but am pretty sure that Gauche prolétarienne took some really weird class reductionist positions on anti-Arab and anti-Black police and fascist violence. I think they opposed it on an absolutely pure class basis.

What do you mean?

[blake 3:17]

What do you mean?

I don't have a proper reference to the cases involved. I believe the detailed account was in Edmund White's biography of Jean Genet -- highly recommended! -- From the bits I can gather and remember there was a murder of an Algerian in 1971 who may have groped a woman. He was shot to death. A bunch of the radical Left took the case up.

From what I recall GP put forward a very simplistic populist class line without addressing the reality of racism within the working class. From their strategic position that may well have been right. And given where their leadership ended up, I get a little suspicious.

[Parvati]

TO RESIST OR TO CAPITULATE



When we are under attack, we can either resist or abstain, even if this means to find some leverage to deter the aggressor.


But experience shows that the good deterrence is resistance.


When, in a factory, rates are increased, you can either wreck them by WORKING LESS, by reducing production, or create a petition to put some pressure on the management for agreeing not to ask too much; but if the rates were increased, it's because they want to ask us too much; so no need to put some pressure, we just resist.


A bastard chief treats us like nobodies; are we going to put some pressure on his boss to make it stop? At best, He will be transferred and He will annoy other workers in another factory.

No, as long as we do not have made him shut his big mouth properly, He will not change his way of acting. So, no pressure, resistance!

A worker is killed in a construction site or at the bottom of a mine.


What do we do?


Are we waiting for the Minister of Industry to investigate, according to the pressure we put for that?


We see what is happening at the Feyzin refinery : it is not the real criminals from the Elite that will pass in court.


And will the Coal Industry Direction pass to the Assizes?


As we are realistic, we know that the answer is no. So we abandon?


No, we resist : we wreck the production tool on the construction site or we warn the direction with striking means of the Coal industry that they will need to take attention : if they believe in the inevitability of killing gas blast, we don't.


We resist.


On every aspect of the life of the exploited, there are always two paths : to resist or to capitulate.


The disguised capitulation is « lobbying ». Pétain also, under the German occupation, was lobbying on German authorities.


However, this trend goes way back:at the beginning of the century, a union leader, Griffuelhes, said « lobbying is the purpose of the Labor movement ».
It is this Union trade practice that we are refusing. Almost at the same time, the most audacious militant workers did not hear it that way.


When after a long strike of Post workers, hundreds of people were fired, revolutionary groups of partisans organized to sabotage telegraph wires on a massive scale : sabotage in retaliation until the reinstatement of the dismissed.


Resistance and no lobbying.


Each individual worker know that there are two attitudes : the revolt or the acceptance.


But individually we do not get anywhere, we must transform the individual revolt, the individual hate of the workers into a collective revolt, a class hatred.


Our view is that we need to systematize these ideas of rebellion and resistance, and not the ideas of acceptance, of servility.


Unionism that is « lobbying » do not systematize revolt but rather servility.


By their own situation of exploitation, the proletarian has the instinct of resistance.


In their mind, a lot of ideas are formed to put an end to the unbearable.


He creates war ruses, He thinks about beaten up a chief, to sequester the boss to sabotage the organization of work, by disrupting the pattern desired by the boss, sabotage the production tool in such a way that is hitting the boss (in his wallet) and not any consumer.


Our job is to build upon these tricks to make factory-prison grounds stuffed with pitfalls for the boss.


Unions say that they want to put a constant pressure on the management; we, we are harrassing them without interruption.


On all aspects of exploitation and enslavement. We are giving blows to the boss that make him lose money, or that make him lose his arrogance.


Groups that are built within this practice are groups of resistance, not lobbying groups. They impose their law to the oppressor, they do not bow to the law of bosses.