A FASCIST TAKEOVER IS NOT IMMINENT IN FRANCE!
1) Le Pen's 17% is on the high end of the historic percentage for the French far right - and N.B. "far right", and _not_ fascist. Not "yet". 17% does not represent a qualitative leap in support for his party.
2) Le Pen is an old man and the NF is now virtually a "traditional conservative party", albiet of the far right. NF squadristi are not systematically attacking socialists or even muslims, there is not a large, militant extraparlimentary fascist right out on the streets acting in tandem with a parlimentary faction. Just a few individual fringe terrorists. Hardly the image of a young, vigorous neo-fascist movement.
3)The virtual collapse of the PCF's electoral turnout is the most qualitatively significant event in this election. It is the PCF's and French Socialist Party's OWN DAMN FAULT that they can't attract enough votes. It is the beginning of political maturity to admit this, instead of trying to blame your own failings on the "ultraleft". Conversely, it is now a fact that this "ultraleft" now collectively commands a mass base of support in France. And that is the other qualitative result of the election.
4) Yes, "people die" and I'll bet my life that the result will be: Jospin voters (and more) will swarm to vote for Chirac. Le Pen will lose, buried under a ton of EU-wide condemnation of the far right. The whole thing will backfire in the far right's face, especially after Le Pen makes use of his "bully pulpit", temporarily provided to him by events, to shoot his mouth (foot?) off. You won't need the "ultraleft" to "help" in this process, in _this_ way.
5) The independent/"Trotskyist" Left should not fall into the trap of "taking responsibility" for Jospin's defeat. Instead, it must take responsibility for the fact that it now, collectively, has a mass base of support by forming a united front among themselves, to present a show of unity to their supporters. Assuming the write-in vote is legal, and not just an impotent stunt, they should field a candidate, although I have qualms about Bove. To not do so WOULD be sectarian. But, most importantly in any case, they should militate in parallel for the organization of an extraparlimentary resistance in the event of a Le Pen victory, acting as if Le Pen had a chance in hell of winning, riding in the wake of the anti-Le Pen hysteria whipped up by our useful friends Jospin-Burford. Acting through all the communities and trade unions where they have influence - including especially the immigrant community - they should organize a resistence which aims to topple any Le Pen presidency, pointing to the great strike of the mid-90's as an example. It is not like there are no precedents in France!
The struggle to abolish capitalism is not risk-free - that is why fascism comes into existence. But accomodation with capitalism also carries the risk of paving the way for fascism as well - look at Venezuela today. But this is definitely NOT the case in France. "The danger of fascism remains everywhere under conditions of bourgeois democracy", is an empty abstraction only implicitly true of capitalism in general, and not just those of "bourgeois democracy". It is not true in every concrete instance, and it is not true in the present instance of France.
A fascist takeover is not imminent in France. The hysterics are rhetoric as empty as the abstractions deployed to buttress it.
The reference to Dimitrov was hopefully in jest. Or else we leftists are about to hear another chorus of how we are "fascist fifth columnists", a la Berlet? Aim the hysterics at Le Pen, and not at his most dedicated enemies.
-Brad Mayer ----------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 07:28:09 +0100 From: Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> Subject: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Time to read Dimitrov!
The danger of fascism remains everywhere under conditions of bourgeois democracy.
Not just in abstract. People get killed. The whole political spectrum lurches to the right.
As the arithmetic shows, groups to the left of Jospin (who was not particularly 'Third Way' compared to Blair and Schroeder) appealed to 14% of the voters. They were dominated by Trotskyists, who are not interested in how to win an electoral majority against the right. Jospin was only a few percent behind Chirac. But why should ultra-leftists stoop to consider electoral arithmetic! Their only goal is to prove themselves more correct than the next group.
The fruits of sectarianism!
People will die from attacks by the right as a result of this idealism.
Chris Burford
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