No proletarian revolution will take place behind the flags or national armies of the bourgeoisie !

No proletarian revolution will take place behind the flags or national armies of the bourgeoisie !

It is since 1830, the date when the modern workers’ movement was born, at roughly the same time in France and England, that placing one’s trust in "progressive" trade union leaders, politicians, regimes, and bourgeois armies has been disastrous, fatal in the literal sense, for the workers.

The enemy of our enemies often remains our enemy. It is by building their power that workers will work toward their emancipation, not by supporting one bourgeois party against another.

Now it is perhaps in France that currently more than in any other country in the world, parties that call themselves revolutionary or radical are proposing this kind of "tactic" (supporting the adversary of our enemy) to workers : from Lutte Ouvrière (LO), to Révolution Permanente (RP), the NPA-A and R, as well as LFI.

Nothing can be expected from the opposition of one bourgeois army to another, if we do not build the Red Army of the workers.

One of the main substitutes that the electoralist extreme left gives to its militants to replace the propaganda, agitation and action that authentic revolutionaries carry out within the framework of the class struggle, is bourgeois patriotism.

Certainly, revealing the reality of their merchandise would no longer distinguish these revolutionaries from the Socialist Party, the CGT, or the French Communist Party who, in 1914 for the first two, and in 1935 for the third, took this step. But the Socialist Party, the CGT, and the French Communist Party took this step at the request of their bourgeoisie (through Stalin for the French Communist Party, during the Stalin-Laval Pact). Our far left is not there yet ; therefore, its patriotism still hides under an internationalist veil. It is the patriotism of "oppressed peoples" like the Palestinians, or Iranians during the recent US attacks. But this far-left nationalism has nothing proletarian about it ; it is very bourgeois because it consists of waving the Palestinian or Iranian flags and stirring up hatred not against the French army, but against Israel and the USA.

LFI, to the applause of RP, organized the "flotilla against the blockade of Gaza," where the caviar left, Halal version with Rima Hassane, did nothing to help the Palestinians. In a recent statement by its young pseudo-Trotskyists, RP said nothing about French colonies like New Caledonia ; the main enemy is not imperialism, the bourgeoisie, or the French army, but Israel and the USA :

"Following the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, social media was flooded with messages evoking the start of a ’third world war,’ given the possibility of an international escalation of conflicts in the Middle East. Images of the genocide perpetrated in Gaza by Israel and Netanyahu are also making the rounds in the media. This acceleration was made possible in particular by the action of the Freedom Flotilla and the march to Gaza, which moved thousands of young people around the world."

https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Declaration-of-the-youth-of-the-FT-QI-For-a-pro-Palestine-anti-internationalist-youth

Are the young people moved ? Of course, RP forgets to mention that "moved" young French people, with dual French-Israeli nationality, went to "kill Palestinians" in Gaza. RP has not conducted any union or political propaganda to denounce this commitment, drawing parallels with the presence of French soldiers in Romania or Abu Dhabi. This would bother SUD, which tolerates Anasse Kazib on the condition that he does not denounce this union organization’s alignment with French imperialism.

Are the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip suffering a genocide, as RP and the NPAs endlessly repeat to appear radical ? This term has become a catch-all since its use by the UN. Repeating the term genocide in relation to Gaza, without always recalling that the three main genocides of the 20th century were those of the Armenians, the Jews, and the Tutsis, with the participation of the French state in the last two, is to behave like a left-wing imperialist, a specialist in these false "democratic protests."

The worst betrayal of the electoralist extreme left in these questions of wars or national oppression is to manipulate "moved youth" by making them believe that because a people is the victim of a massacre, its bourgeois national flag becomes synonymous with workers’ internationalism.

When the Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian people unfortunately did not become revolutionary. The parties of the Second International were right to denounce these massacres in the name of the socialist proletariat, but above all to do so by waving their red flag of the international socialist revolution. All those who today brandish the Kurdish question outside the class struggle should not forget that the Kurdish militias were one of the main tools of this genocide, even if the Kurds are today oppressed by the Turkish state whose leaders had served in its most abject works.

When the Jews were exterminated by Nazi Germany, they did not become a "revolutionary people." Many of them, like R. Luxemburg and Trotsky, had become so long ago and did not fight behind any Jewish flag, but the flag of communism. Many Jews were Zionists when they were deported to Auschwitz, but denouncing their extermination did not require rallying to their Zionist ideal. It was when revolutionary armed struggles such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps broke out that revolutionaries began to question the policy to be pursued and welcomed the struggle of a nationality, even if it was regimented under the wrong flag, while continuing to criticize this flag, because it would lead them to a dead end. Unconditional support for a people undergoing a massacre does not mean unconditional support for its various flags and political currents. Waving the Palestinian flag is not support for the Palestinians. The NPA-R and A are wrong to do so, as well as to be complacent toward the flag of Ukrainian S. Bandera under the pretext of the Russian invasion.

The Palestinian flag was designed on a corner of a table by British imperialism in 1916 to frame the revolt of their lackeys like Sharif Hussein (future king of Iraq), proclaimed leader of the "Arab Revolt" by Lawrence of Arabia. What is called Palestine today is an ill-defined piece of the British Mandate, product of the Treaty of Versailles. The revolutionaries in France who are waving this flag are in fact only the left wing of bourgeois democracy who proclaim : the Treaty of Versailles was potentially good and just for the Middle East, but the French bourgeoisie having been incapable of applying it well, the workers will know how to do it : for a just and viable Palestinian State !

The bourgeoisie of Hamas or the Palestinian nationalist movements are the worst enemies, today and tomorrow, of Palestinian workers. The far-left organizations that "support the Palestinians" avoid this fundamental question, and create a diversion by preaching hatred against Israel, without participating in any concrete action to prevent this State from perpetrating its massacre. This denunciation of Israel takes too much precedence in their propaganda over the denunciation of our French imperialism, for example in N. Arthaud who writes in his editorials :

"Trump and Netanyahu dare to talk about peace after having devastated Gaza, attacked Lebanon and bombed Syria, then Iran. When these people talk about peace or war, it is always with weapons in hand, with devastating firepower. (...) And in Gaza the Israeli army continues its massacre."
(June 30)
"The most revolting thing is to present Israel and the United States as the liberators of the Iranians. As if a people could be liberated by the bombs falling on their heads !"
(June 23)
"Hand in hand with the United States, the Israeli state has therefore decided to crush under its iron heel all those who oppose its policy of colonization and oppression. And to do this, it is ready to set fire and blood throughout the Middle East. »
(June 16)
« From its inception, the construction of the State of Israel has been an enterprise of colonization and brutal expulsion of the Palestinians, condemning any possibility of fraternal and egalitarian coexistence. For 77 years, the oppression of the Palestinians and the dispossession of their lands have hardly ceased, provoking ever more deadly clashes. »
(May 19)

For Lutte Ouvrière, the main enemy is the Israeli state ! This main enemy is no longer, contrary to Karl Liebknecht’s maxim, "in our own country" ! The San Remo conference (1920) where the French governmental left (Alexandre Millerand), supported by the majority faction of the CGT (Léon Jouhaux), created the French and British Mandates is forgotten ! That was 105 years ago, neither the Israelis nor the Americans were there, so let’s start the story in 1948 : this is historical materialism revised by N. Arthaud, who no longer takes a question at its origin to study its historical development, but arbitrarily creates an origin consistent with official bourgeois, or CGT-ist, history, in order to be able to remain at peace with... the union bureaucracies.

The CFTC, a split from which created the CFDT, a split from which in turn created SUD, was founded in 1919. All these trade union organizations therefore bear, like the CGT, the stigmata (they will like this Christian term) of this creation of the British mandate, one of the objectives of which was precisely this type of massacre that we see today in Gaza. Neither the CFDT nor SUD denied at their founding the support of their parent company for the Treaty of Versailles.
As for Lebanon, which emerged from the French mandate, the far left does not touch it at all !

This Palestinian state that the far left is calling for is a future machine for massacring Palestinians. In 1870, the war between France and Germany ended quickly when the bourgeoisies of these two powers joined forces to crush the Commune with their armies. The patriotic surge is certainly what gave birth to the Paris Commune, but its leaders immediately set about the socialist transformation of society. Yet today, none of the far-left organizations that denounce the massacre of Palestinians are calling for proletarian revolution in Palestine. Hamas is the Palestinian Versailles troops, who will crush any proletarian revolution if it breaks out.

Unfortunately, there is no beginning of a national liberation war in the Gaza Strip today.

Expect nothing from one bourgeois leadership against another : the example of a CGT which would be "against" the RN

The electoralist far left has replaced the class struggle with the electoral struggle. These parties give their activists hopes and illusions, making them believe that one aspect of the class struggle "miraculously" coincides with the struggle of the "progressive" bourgeoisie against the "reactionary" bourgeoisie. The "miracle" consists of opportunist groups making their activists believe that they intervene in "big politics," that they "have weight."

An example is recently given by the NPA-R, in an article entitled : Layoffs at De Dietrich : when the extreme right tries to exploit social anger . Is this not proof that the electoral struggle against the RN is an element of the class struggle, in this case that led by the workers of the De Dietrich company against their layoffs ?

Who is leading the struggle ? Is it a strike committee led by the De Dietrich workers ? Is it the usual inter-union, thanks to which reformists from the CGT, SUD, CFDT or FO, in the service, essentially, of the bourgeoisie, will lead the workers into the wall, or limit the potential strength contained in any struggle ? Now the heart of the struggle is in "the camp of the workers" : the one sometimes open, sometimes hidden (in the terms of the Manifesto of Marx and Engels), between a proletarian leadership, and a bourgeois leadership.

By headlining against the "extreme right", the NPA-R masks this main conflict, in the struggle of the workers of De Dietrich, to highlight an electoral struggle, that of the left against the RN :

"Once the march was over, speeches were made by union representatives and local elected officials, including National Rally MP Théo Bernhardt, who was booed as soon as he arrived at the podium by left-wing activists. Without further ado, the FO Métaux members, who were holding the podium, did not hesitate to play the police, supported by RN activists and private security agents to remove the activists who were chanting slogans against the far right, then called the police, who checked several of them."

https://npa-revolutionnaires.org/licenciements-a-de-dietrich-quand-extreme-droite-tente-dinstrumentaliser-la-colere-sociale/

The NPA-R implicitly provides the answer to a question it should ask explicitly, in an article and to the workers themselves : who is leading the De Dietrich workers’ struggle ? We can guess from the NPA-R report that it is FO, but the NPA-R does not specify whether "the members of FO Métaux who held the platform" are outsiders, representatives of the FO-Métallurgie Federation, or the leaders of the company’s union. All of this becomes secondary, because for the NPA-R this struggle is subordinate to "the fight against the extreme right."

As for the "left-wing activists," are they De Dietrich workers ? If not, how do they help the struggle of the De Dietrich workers ? A spontaneous testimony of hostility from De Dietrich workers toward the extreme right would be a remarkable element to take into account, because it would prove that in embryo, the extreme right leadership by FO could be contested, this is in particular what can be accomplished by the establishment of a strike committee, a leadership apparatus of the struggle set up in opposition to the union apparatuses.

In any case, "left-wing activists" who boo far-right speakers aren’t doing anything very useful. Shouting, applauding, and booing have become modes of intervention for the NPA-R, LO, and RP. Among themselves, we applaud and congratulate ourselves. Here, the intervention of "left-wing activists" consists of "booing." What argument does the NPA-R provide to its activists or readers ? None, one must "boo." A worker activist confronted in his workplace with a similar situation where FO imposes a far-right direction on any struggle could draw on an argument provided by all the "revolutionaries" who speak in the name of the workers. However, parties like LO, the NPA-R, and RP do not apply Lenin and Trotsky’s program in the unions : to form a core of communist activists in the unions where they are present.

Shouting "hurray !" or "down with it !" pretty much sums up the training these parties give their activists. These methods apparently allow these parties to grow. The NPA-R boasts of bringing together several hundred young activists. 500 activists would make an average of 5 per department in France. Where are these activists on occasions like those of the De Dietrich workers’ struggle ? If they were present, their commitment consisted of expressing "critical" support for the left and the CGT :

"While the CGT, alone, spoke of the rapacity of the bosses and rightly denounced the National Rally, it too is calling for the State and nationalization. How can we save jobs ? When we see the fate reserved for hospitals, education, and all public services, we wonder how the fate of nationalized companies would be any different."

But the NPA-R implies that the PS, the PCF, the leadership of the CGT, have a policy substantially different from that of the RN :

"These statements have served the RN, which wants to claim to be a party concerned about workers (...) The RN’s only perspective is to drive out foreigners to force their voters to accept their working conditions, to divide us in order to better exploit us. And the bosses will continue to lay off workers, including to optimize their productivity gains. The bosses’ offensive is general, the response must be just as general. The bosses and the RN are trying to divide us, but only a coordinated, collective struggle by workers could force the bosses and the government to back down on layoffs, even to the point of imposing a ban on them !"

So according to the NPA-R, the RN is a false friend of the workers, meaning : the PS, the PC, the CGT and other "republicans" are real ones ! Certainly they do not go far enough, but in the right direction. And we will be able, by going a little further, to "coordinate" a "general struggle of the workers" without fighting locally in each factory for a strike committee. However, the bourgeoisie has learned to "coordinate" the struggles of the workers by co-opting the union leaderships in its institutions since 1914. The task of the proletariat in struggle is to destroy this coordinated bourgeois leadership of the general struggle of the workers formed by the CGT, SUD, FO by establishing a coordinated proletarian leadership of the general struggle of the workers . But the NPA-R, like LO and RP, are not waging this struggle against the bourgeois leadership of the unions, because they want "leaders" who "appear on TV", and are therefore approved by the union leaderships.

Through this political form of "fighting the extreme right", LO, RP and the NPA-R are only applying a Popular Front policy, although they boast of not having participated in it.

Conclusion

To give false objectives to the militants and the working class, by appearing to "hold on", to limit oneself "unfortunately" to what revolutionaries can do in a period which is not "revolutionary" ... is to build on sand.

After the crushing of the Paris Commune, Karl Marx made a statement that remains relevant today :

"That after the most terrible war of modern times, the vanquished and the victor fraternize in order to jointly massacre the proletariat, this unheard-of event proves, not as Bismarck thinks, the definitive crushing of a new rising society, but the complete disintegration of the old bourgeois society. The highest heroic effort of which the old society is still capable is a national war ; and it has now been proven that this is a pure mystification of governments, intended to retard the class struggle, and this mystification is discarded as soon as this class struggle breaks out into civil war. Class rule can no longer hide behind a national uniform ; the national governments are one against the proletariat !"

No national war has any positive meaning for the workers if it is not part of the preparation or accomplishment of the civil war that is the proletarian revolution ! The slightest strike must carry the seeds of this civil war : the formation of factory committees, of soviets, with the aim of destroying or discrediting the annexes of the bourgeois state apparatus that are the reformist parties and the trade union leaderships.