(en) About the general strike – A booklet of 12 p. carried by comrades of the OCL (Organization Communist Libertar) Reims (machine translation)

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One example among other found on google by typing “general ” … During the movement
of this spring, we could hear the motto “General ” emerge here and there from the
lips of activists certainly revolutionary, but mostly fringes most determined workers in
struggle. Thus, among the most committed staff of National Education (significant minority
and very active) appeared the statement of the necessary general confrontation without
which their own claims have no chance of success. The same applies obviously for any
movement categorical. Before and at the same time, union branches of companies laying off
mass met to construct a reaction of workers to the stakes clearly denouncing capitalism
and defending the urgency of building a power offensive.

Today, the need for a general , the necessity to synthesize the growing discontent
of all employees, the unemployed and precarious germ in their movements. Without global
awareness without struggle together, it will be increasingly difficult to move anything to
any category whatsoever. Our salvation is once again active in the union of all workers.
However, we must maintain the links appeared in the movements or risk having to start from
scratch every time twisting power. For that need to become a reality, coordination and
are of vital necessity, because no movement is seeking victory can not be
content to pay lip.

Read full text here

Having no other resource than their ability to work, employees have no other way to put
pressure on their boss than interrupting their productive activity, essential for good
business. The right to is basically a weapon of the working class against the
employers, although recent trends to grow much beyond that framework, though also in
countries where it has been recognized, he may ever be of attempts restriction,
encroachment or even outright elimination.

In French, the word “” appears in the early nineteenth century and comes from the
name of the place de Grève (now Place de l’Hotel de Ville in Paris) which gathered the
workers pending a possible job. The has a history in Lyon, in the early sixteenth
century, “griffarins” of the printers that use the work stoppage, the cry of “Trique,
stick” (which may the term in English for the or because of strikes), to
empty the master workshop of recalcitrant and “throw the ban” on those who would replace them.

In the late nineteenth century, there are still bad between , riot and rebellion:
the most strikes since 1815 had taken a revolutionary character, the most famous being
that of the silk workers of Lyon in 1834. With the rise of unionism around 1900 in
industrial countries, confusion persists between strikes and riots, also fueled by fears
of the bourgeoisie and the hopes of revolutionary syndicalists who pay into the mystic of
the insurrectionary general .

The history of

According to historians, and historians, the idea of a general would appear during
the French Revolution, expressed by Marechal, Le Tellier, Mirabeau. It is advocated by the
British trade unionism in the years 1832-1842. Faced with the coup of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte, it is advanced by the Liberal Emile de Girardin. It is discussed at the Third
Congress of the International Workers Association. The strikes of 1886 in Chicago for
eight hours serve as a trigger for the French labor movement, which rebounded quickly from
the massive bloodletting of the Commune. Within the Federation of Labor Awards, founded in
1892, Fernand Pelloutier promotes the strategy of interruption of work that outlines in a
booklet written with Henri Girard, What is ? (1895). The Second Congress
of the CGT, in Tours in 1896, adopts the principle of an intense propaganda in favor of
. The same scenario was repeated in 1897 (Towers), 1898 (Rennes), 1900
(Paris). The Montpellier Congress provides the of a committee of strikes and
general strikes. Article 16 of the new constitution states that it “aims to study the
in all countries” and it “seeks, moreover, to all the propaganda useful to enter
the The spirit of organized labor the need for a general . ” The Eighth Congress, in
Bourges in 1904, entrusted the care of Paul Delesalle to lead a special commission to
conduct a campaign for the eight hours that would be obtained by 1 May 1906. On the front
of the Bourse du Travail de Paris, a sign proclaims: “From 1 May 1906, workers will more
than eight hours. 1906 will be the first attempted general in France.

During the Russian Revolution of 1905, which essentially lasted from September to
December, played a role completely unreported. Far from being a fantasy
anarchists, or a substitute for workers’ uprising, of 1905 proved to be
a formidable weapon in the hands of workers, carrying within it a dynamic to engulf the
entire country. In his pamphlet “The mass ,” written in 1906, Rosa Luxemburg drew
lessons from the reality of the events of 1905.

Discussions on in the nineteenth century and early twentieth

Within the labor movement of the early twentieth century there oppositions fundamental
objectives given to :

- For the reformist trend, is a means of obtaining partial and
immediate improvements for workers, sector by sector (sectoral general strikes) or set by
imposing economic action by the vote of social laws.
- The current Guesdist (1) was rather opposed to . He
subordinated the industrial action that the party so that the conquest of power by one.
The party is considered the only way to implement the revolution by setting up a “state
worker. becomes for Guesdists leveraged to the takeover by the
insurgent workers’ party.
- For the current revolutionary syndicalist general was the essential tool
of the revolution. It would indeed allow workers to take control of the whole economy and
the means of production: simultaneous cessation of production in all sectors, destruction
of the state apparatus, the abolition of the employers and the wage and finally resuming
production in the new economy socialized. This should be in service and under the control
of workers through democratic bodies from the unions. must be very
organized and as short as possible to avoid damage from too long to stop production for
the population. Obviously, this would not be triggered spontaneous but organized,
prepared after partial movements by sector. A very important concept is that of
“revolutionary gymnastics”: the was to achieve immediate improvements for
workers in various strikes, leading and organizing for .

The positions Guesdist unionist and revolutionary as the continuation of discussions
between Marxian and anarchist in the nineteenth century. Jules Guesde, resuming with more
stiffness still objections from Friedrich Engels, had condemned the strategy of the
general . At the time, purely theoretical, it was suggested that if all workers were
on together long enough (we often spoke of four weeks – the “holy month” as saying
the English revolutionaries, the “chartists”), supported by the workers’ funds, of course,
capitalism would collapse. For Marx and Engels, this position was at least naive,
especially with time, the “general ” had become the favorite slogan of the
anarchists. Engels quipped in 1873: “In the program of Bakunin, is the
lever employed to trigger a social revolution. One fine morning, all the workers of all
plants of a country or even worldwide, stopped work, binding of its kind in four weeks the
propertied classes, either to capitulate or to tap workers which then gives them the right
to defend themselves and at the same time to lay down all old society. “. Marx and Engels
finally consider had no role to play in the strategy working. But in
1893, Engels (Marx was already dead) reconsidered the question of in
the light of class struggle in India where, through such a , workers had to extract
significant political achievements . Far from denouncing the use of this new tactic,
Engels showed that it was a very powerful weapon that must be handled with care. As he
said in a letter to Kautsky: “political must either win immediately, by his mere
threat (as in Belgium where the army was very shaken), or end with a colossal fiasco or
ultimately lead directly to the barricades. ”

Trotsky said: “As any Marxist knows, is one means of combating the most
revolutionary. is possible only when the class struggle rises above all
special requirements Corporate and extends through all the compartments of professions and
areas, erases the boundaries between unions and parties, between legality and illegality,
and mobilizes the majority of the proletariat in actively opposing the bourgeoisie and the
state. Over and above , there can be only armed insurrection. ”

General strikes in France

The first attempted general in France is planned for 1 May 1906 with the aim of
obtaining the 8-hour day (already obtained in England). As we approach the fateful date,
Georges Clemenceau, the first cop of France, the future chairman, mass 50 000 men in the
Paris region. Pretext to thwart a plot, the minister stopped the secretary of the CGT
April 30. The next day, police on horseback makes it impossible to Paris rally. In the
provinces, the mobilization is poor. The agitation continued until the end of May However,
the motion failed. Parliament adopted July 13, 1906 a law on the weekly rest without the
union campaign has really affected the project designed by longtime Parliamentary Reform.
The congress of the “Charter of Amiens” is held from 8 to 14 October 1906. It draws
lessons from 1 May 1906 but also the formation in 1905 the Socialist Unity Party, the
French section of the Workers’ International (SFIO). Despite criticism from the poor
results of the action, the movement is initiated to continue. The rapporteur suggests a
pattern of four stages: struggles with branches, Case simultaneous general ,
revolution. The Charter of Amiens out any parliamentary strategy. Autonomous union, the
expression of the class, works to immediately improve the lot of workers and longer term,
their emancipation by .

In May and June 1936, after the victory of the Popular Front, a wave of strikes affecting
virtually all sectors of agricultural, industrial and commercial private sector (12 000
enterprises in the private sector – the “public” is not on , do not have the right
to – nearly two million strikers, with three quarters occupy their factories.) On
June 18, Jouhaux nonremovable Secretary (since 1909!) Of the CGT still can not: “The
movement was triggered without knowing exactly how and where.” No central record indeed
did its predecessor, or even support. committees, they have the merit to exist, to
be generally fairly representative of various sectors of the business, are rarely elected
other than the applause of the GA. Their coordination is lacking a few exceptions or
attempts by: CGT met several times Steward metallurgy; there is a committee intermagasins
whose delegates will accompany the union sector in the negotiations and finally the
committee to try to Hotchkiss support a coordination of 33 and 280 metallurgical plants in
the Paris region at the peak of the movement. The will impose the Matignon
agreements that go well beyond the platform of the Popular Front. But the fight has
radicalized fighters. It took all the Thorez authority to stop a movement that is at its
peak between 7 and 12, that is to say, after the so called Maquignon now.

Another general was that of May 68 (2). While students are endless “general
meetings” since the closure of Nanterre May 2, workers, tired of strikes and occasional
unsuccessful negotiations, decided to counter the worst employer intransigence. Struggles
harsh conducted early 68, can be traced in an article of trade union struggle of February
22, 1968, journal of the CNT (which had at that time a symbolic existence), in an article
titled “Viva direct action” :

- Nantes, January 20, 1968: “The installation of the new Board of Directors of the
Fund’s primary social security has led to a protest by unions of local labor unions. The
CRS from lend support to the guardians of peace, various projectiles were thrown at police
and the first summons was made ”
- Redon, 20 January 68: “The factory workers Jean Garnier, manufactures of farm
machinery, numbering five hundred, disconnected again Thursday night and through the
city. They even threw a few stones and bolts cons the windows of the apartment especially
the sub-prefect and the police. …
- Caen, 24 January 68: “The climate has tightened in Caen. A nearby hospital,
police tried to block the road to the workers who arrived at the elbow to elbow. The shock
was violent with demonstrators armed with pieces of Wood … Another skirmish took place
in the morning on the RN 13 to the entrance of Caen, where the mobile guards had to clear
the road blocked for thirty minutes by striking workers of Sonormel – Angers, January 27
68: hundreds of growers have protested against the conditions of application of VAT. their
profession …. Then a few incidents broke out, protesters throwing firecrackers in the
courtyard of the prefecture. Then a hundred demonstrators, despite the dispersal order,
went to the station and invaded the tracks. A 18 h 30, two trains have been blocked “-
Caen, 27 January 68:” The event in Caen on Friday afternoon to support the claims of
metalworkers lasted into the evening with real scenes of ‘riots. 18 injured, 86
people, mostly young, were apprehended. But when a procession was formed, it became clear
very quickly that the demonstrators, especially young people, were very heated. These
protesters do not conceal their intentions: they held the hand of iron bars and had their
pockets full of bullets. The guards appeared soon tear-gas. At night, three hours of
violent brawls were multiplied in the center of the city. At the same time, windows,
traffic lights, signs were broken, cars damaged. The NBR was stoned a truck tire was
engulfed in flames. (…)”

The student unrest, hitherto isolated, meets with the sympathy of the public: May 13 in
Paris and throughout France, the unions appear with students protesting against police
brutality. The crisis took on a new dimension, because the next day, quite unexpected and
spontaneous, a wave of strikes snaps: the student revolt succeeds genuine social crisis.
On the evening of May 14, employees of Sud Aviation, a suburb of Nantes, hold and
sequester the plant manager. The 15 and 16, the won the Renault of Cleon and
Sandouville (Seine-Maritime), Flins and Boulogne-Billancourt. Gradually, until May 22, and
no slogan National Union, the movement spread. The country is paralyzed by 7 million
strikers declared (excluding employees laid off, or blocked by lack of transport).
Factories, offices, utilities, transport, all stop work. Arising spontaneously strikes of
May 68 are framed by a posteriori unions, however, that stick as much as possible the
movement, trying to bring claims negotiable.

After a weekend marathon, are signed between the government side, the CGT and CFDT other,
the “Grenelle agreements” of Monday, May 27, which translates into:

* Raising the minimum wage of 35%, which was 2.22 F 3 F Generalization of the minimum
wage to all France (the SMIC did not exist – it will be introduced in 1970 -. The minimum
was the minimum wage, Minimum Wage Interprofessionnel Garanti, and indexed based on the
index of consumer prices, but it does not apply everywhere in France, and in all sectors
of activity).
* Increase salaries of 10% in 7 months
* Extension of trade union rights
* Recognition of the union section of company
* Agreements to reduce labor to return gradually to 40 hours
* Works on the right to training, culminating in the July 70 establishing vocational
training paid.

But this compromise Grenelle does not satisfy the basic working: it emphasizes the claims
“quantitative” standard, while the strikers are more relevant labor relations and power
structures within the company. Returning to work is slow. They fought again in mid-June at
Flins and Sochaux. Many strikers feel cheated, but they are isolated. These agreements
consecrated the liquidation of the revolutionary program by giving unions a formal status
of “social partner” they were already de facto in the Fordist mode of regulation in place
since the end of the Second World War.

May ‘68 was a huge protest movement. Challenging power, contestation of institutions,
challenge De Gaulle, protest university regulations, challenging police violence,
challenges to society, challenge sexual taboos, protest working conditions, challenges to
economic growth …

A partial general

Beginning in July 1953, granted special powers, Laniel, Chairman, announces that it will
take a series of measures to limit social spending (to finance the military expenditures
of the colonial war in Indochina) reforms of social insurance, abolition of 4 000 jobs in
the public service, extending the retirement age. The procedure was that these projects be
submitted by the Government in the Supreme Council of Civil Service to be held August 4.
That same day, the CGT, the Independent Union and the CFTC (the CFDT, which was after did
not exist) called to organize petitions, delegations, and a one-hour walkout against the
decrees announced. FP had contented August 3 into a “state of alert” to its unions. On
August 4, therefore, the activity ceased in almost all offices, centers, and postal
services but, as expected, work resumed after one hour, except in Bordeaux. There, a
militant FOR, Jean Viguié, trend anarcho-syndicalist, took the microphone and summed up
the situation: “Only an indefinite general and may lead to roll back government,”
and concludes by saying: “Why not start it – we not? “. The applause kept polling place.
By telephone, postal strikers Bordeaux warned their own colleagues in the rest of the
country. Two days later the was general in the PTT and other sectors gained, also
affected by the decree-laws. At its peak, the was followed by four million workers.
There were more trains, more mail. The phone, then manual between Paris and the provinces,
was paralyzed, the government had to use the internal lines of the army. The giro were
blocked, garbage piled up on city streets. It lasted until August 25. But as for the
government to unions, it was to settle this case before the end of August, before the rest
of the employees returns to work. On the 20th, an agreement was signed with FOR and CFTC.
The government retreated on pensions and wages lower. The order of recovery of FOR and
CFTC had no effect. For the CGT, he was making a gallant last stand demonstrative of their
influence. Demonstration against the CGT called for a return to work August 25, without
the workers get nothing more. But the government had been storing his famous decree-laws
and promise to raise low wages.

From 1968 to today …

The mass of 1968, if it has not shaken the regime despite good scare flanked to the
bourgeoisie, has nonetheless contributed to a rebalancing of power relations between
capital and labor. Achievements, certainly below what was expected, could be wrested from
power and the bourgeoisie. Moreover, this new balance of power was accompanied by a
frontal challenge to bourgeois values. Since then we have witnessed the erosion of this
balance of power that has influenced in favor of capitalism. Restructuring gigantic,
sometimes driven by the state itself, were thrown into the streets hundreds of thousands
of workers. The offensive of the bourgeoisie, then rises to reduce the state of the gains
accumulated crumbs half a century of social struggles. These elements of a “compromise”
between labor and capital as some thought possible are eliminated. The continuous action
of capitalism is the more effective it is determined to achieve its purposes and faces as
she scattered reactions, although they are sometimes spectacular, and organizations of
workers continuing to believe in part of a “compromise” that the bourgeoisie has long been
broken. Thus, recent years have left the initiative to a bourgeoisie jealous of its
prerogatives, does not share cash portion of power, keen to maintain and to significantly
increase its profit rate. In its severe strokes increasingly violent, she forced the
workers to be limited to a defensive posture. The latter, often desperate, remains outside
of any coordination, often unconscious of the new relationship between class and nostalgia
for a period of equilibrium that has proved illusory, a strategic withdrawal of the
propertied classes. This defense workers is not even part of a strategy that would work
cantonment construction of a new balance of power, a prelude at the same time an element
of an offensive strategy in the future, this time aware of ‘possible existence of any
lasting compromise with capital and state.

For this consciousness spill, the elemental revolt, even in its current form is an
imperative necessity. It must be the foundation of a new class consciousness leading to a
new political consciousness essential to finding issues related to class relations today.

During the movement of this spring, we could hear the motto “General ” emerge here
and there from the lips of activists certainly revolutionary, but mostly fringes most
determined workers in struggle. Thus, among the most committed staff of National Education
(significant minority and very active) appeared the statement of the necessary general
confrontation without which their own claims have no chance of success. The same applies
obviously for any movement categorical. Before and at the same time, union branches of
companies laying off mass met to construct a reaction of workers to the stakes clearly
denouncing capitalism and defending the urgency of building a power offensive.

Today, the need for a general , the necessity to synthesize the growing discontent
of all employees, the unemployed and precarious germ in their movements. Without global
awareness without struggle together, it will be increasingly difficult to move anything to
any category whatsoever. Our salvation is once again active in the union of all workers.
However, we must maintain the links appeared in the movements or risk having to start from
scratch every time twisting power. For that need to become a reality, coordination and
are of vital necessity, because no movement is seeking victory can not be
content to pay lip.

Camille and Christopher,

Sources: Encyclopedia Hachette, the CNT SAM Marseille, pamphlet CNT-AIT in Toulouse on May
68, Red, 31/07/2003, 15/08/2003 the Workers’ Struggle, a text of unknown authorship,
entitled “ [A perspective ... Marxist], “Time reviews and other readings.

Subscribe to AC, libertarian monthly, € 25 for 10 issues or 15 € for broke,
write to Egregore, BP 1213, 51058 cedex. Checks payable to “The Gallery”

Notes:
(1) French socialist movement which based its policy on Marxist principles and with the
ultimate goal: the overthrow of capitalism. In 1880, the French Workers’ Party was founded
by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue. In 1905, this current will participate in the creation
of the new Unified Socialist Party (which adhering to the Second International adopted
under the French Section of the Workers’ International: SFIO), but his views were not
those chosen by the party.
(2) we urge you to read if you have not already done so, the special issue on the subject
of AC, 3.80 €

Related Link: http://oclibertaire.free.fr

———————————————————–
* What we stand for ? Sunday 9 September 2007, by OCLibertaire

Today more than ever before, capitalism dominates the world. Throughout the 20th century,
the economic system has clearly shown that it is not only unable to eliminate inequality,
poverty and exploitation, but to the contrary, it feeds on them, and produces them. There
have never been as many wars, massacres and famines. Years and years of colonialism and
neocolonialism have speeded the plundering of the resources of the South, while entire
populations are exterminated at the same pace. Technological development, designed to
increase profits, has led to the slow but sure destruction of the planet’s ecosystem.
Everywhere, the exploitation of the proletariat by an affluent minority serving the
bourgeoisie that buys the services of armies of contingent workers forced into flexibility
and constantly threatened with unemployment is increasingly flagrant.

We are for the destruction of this capitalist system. It is neither eternal nor the best
of all possible worlds, contrary to what is contended by its advocates, of all leanings.
We are communists…

We are fighting for a society in which the means of production and exchange will not be in
the hands of their present “legal owners” or by State bureaucrats, but will be directly
run by the people who are primarily concerned, that is, the producers. This means
management by grass-root meetings of factory, neighborhood, village, town and regional
councils, composed of those women and men who live and work there, and who have the
faculty to federate freely to determine the amount, quality and use of what is produced. A
society in which the basic rule will be “From each according to her/his means, to each
according to her/his needs” : an economically , classless society with no State.

The role of political parties and trade unions will not be to manage this new
of production and distribution, but simply to make suggestions. These new structures will
exclude all permanent forms of delegation of power without a precise mandate and the
possibility of revocation at all times. Party leadership, Parliament and state structures
will be replaced by the self- of proletarians.

We cannot decide in advance what forms libertarian communism will take. The structures
will depend on context and on specific situations, on local culture, and on
people’s possibilities and desires. That doesn’t mean that libertarian communism is simply
some vague utopia. The history of revolts and of revolutionary attempts is full of
examples of the concrete application of our revolutionary anarchist project, adapted to
the particular situation of the time and place – the Paris Commune, the Russian soviets in
1917, the Makhnovist revolt in Ukraine in 1921, the collectivizations in Spain in 1936,
the Hungarian workers councils in 1956, etc.

Our libertarian project is the radical opposite of the state communism that
prevailed in Eastern Europe. We have every reason to rejoice at the collapse of that
really existing communism ! For some eighty years now, libertarians have been denouncing
the so-called regimes as bloody dictatorships, run on a state capitalist basis
with private property replaced by the domination of a class of bureaucrats who ran
production and exchange for their benefit.

The social democratic model, whose idea was to achieve socialism through a series of
reforms, by taking over the State through elections, ran amok on the all-powerful
capitalist system, which relies alternately on repression and integration. The
“socialists” gave up long ago on fighting for equality and the abolition of exploitation.
…. and libertarian

But the oppression we want to eliminate is not limited to the strictly economic sphere. We
are against all power relations. We want a politically libertarian society with no
domination of any sort.

We are opposed to uniformization of any sort (of ways of life, cultures, production and
consumption), imposed by capitalist development.

We fight for new relations between men and women, relations in which there would be no
reason to value virility and submissiveness. Because a classless society does not
necessarily lead to the eradication of the patriarchal system (the domination of men over
women), patriarchy must be fought specifically, since it crosses all class lines and is
pre-existent to capitalism. The fight against the patriarchal system is a fight for the
deconstruction of both male and female genders, shaped and imposed by all pre-existing
societies. Taking repossession of our personal identities means the refusal to accept a
social status linked to our sex, it means refusing to have our lives coded by today’s
norms (heterosexuality, monogamy…). We want to live our bodies and our desires freely.

We want to do away with this society in which work takes the form of salaried slavery
aimed at producing any old rubbish provided it sells and capitalists can make a profit on
it, rather than an activity that is shared on the basis of freely determined needs.

We have to demolish the old myths, including the necessity of economic growth,
productivism, and the supremacy of the “economy”.

Many socialist currents have contended that communism is only feasible once material
abundance is achieved. But the ideology of growth, both economic and demographic, is a
race that is lost in advance. It simply makes people more unequal, and lowers the quality
of living. Our planet cannot provide the wherewithal for the entire world population to
consume as much as the upper classes of the richest countries.

There are some local attempts, in all sorts of places, to set up alternatives to the
prevailing models of consumption and production. We view them as revealing the need for
collectively taking repossession of our lives, since our space is increasingly being
restrained by the productivists, even if the possibility for these alternatives to make a
real change in our lives remains limited as long as there is no overall opposition to the
entire system, and no political project.

Inasmuch as our political project has developed historically, along with and in the midst
of social movements, revolts and attempts to establish egalitarian social relations, we
feel that it is within these movements that we must continue the combat, including by
protesting against those aspects of their ideas which would tend to reproduce the old
order (or to create a new one) based on domination. The beginnings of a different form of
social , which sometimes burst out spontaneously in some situations, are
rooted in the contradictions and conflicts of present-day society. We believe that it is
when people are “in movement”, partially breaking with the status quo, that they are
vectors of ideas and practices that come closest to our own aspirations.


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