Union de la Jeunesse Communiste (marxiste-leniniste) 1968
Source: http://archivescommunistes.chez-alice.fr/ujcml/ujcml26.html;
Translated: by Mitchell Abidor 2008.
June 1968
Starting with the student revolt, the first phase of the popular revolution had two principal characteristics: the development of a powerful mass strike movement, and around the working class the unity of the people in solidarity with the strikers in the fight against the regime of big capital and its assassins.
This immense tidal wave swept away all the capitulationists, all the defeatists, all the chamber and verbal revolutionaries.
The many sabotages and betrayals by the PCF, supported by the national leadership of the CGT, the maneuvers of the social democratic leaders, the blackmail and repression of the Gaullist regime have not put a stop to the popular determination to fight. A million strikers are organizing the proletarian resistance along with those who, betrayed, have returned to work, and are again preparing for the struggle. The population of the cities and the countryside is united around the workers.
Nothing can any longer stop the march of the popular revolution, whatever its detours.
But the power of capital and its accomplices in the PCF is trying to smash the popular flood.
Their weapons: the club and the rifle on one side, electoral trickery and maneuvers on the other. For this they seek to rely on those fractions of the people who have not yet joined the struggle, on the still hesitant masses.
The poor and middle peasantry have not yet risen up; certain fractions of the proletariat, not mobilized because of the treason of the bureaucratic union leadership, have not actively participated in the strike; a portion of the petite bourgeoisie of the cities still maintains a wait and see attitude.
Who will win over the not yet committed masses? The bourgeoisie or the proletariat? It is certain that it will be the proletariat, for the immense movement that the people gave rise to has shown that 90% of the population can and must unite, and that the reactionaries are only a handful.
Young people have a great role to play in this. In large numbers students have shown their desire to connect with the people, to SERVE THE PEOPLE.
Through their action they have contributed to uniting the people around the working class.
The tasks of the young are clear:
Young people are united on all these points. This unity must be made real today. As we have seen, the foundations are clear and healthy. Upon them a united mass movement must be built as quickly as possible, setting aside all quarrels. Under these conditions young people can make this watchword theirs: “UNITE WITH THE PEOPLE. UNITE THE PEOPLE.”
The students are already united with the workers. Through their action they have already added all strata of the population in order to tighten their ranks against capital. The long march of youth has already begun.
It must be continued and intensify. To the factories, the quarters, the countryside.
To the factories to support the bastions of the proletarian resistance. To the quarters to make every electoral meeting a popular meeting to denounce the regime and the elections.
To the countryside to massively explain to the poor and middle peasants the struggle of the workers and students, to place themselves at the service of the working peasantry and to assist it in entering the great popular combat en masse.
The popular revolution will be a prolonged struggle, the very one that will progressively unite in the struggle 90% of the population against a handful of exploiters. The experience of the Chinese Revolution sweeps away the theories of the instant revolutionary seizure of power, of the “active minority taking power by surprise.”
Our revolution will not be the fruit of a lucky chance; rather of a bitter, merciless, and prolonged struggle.
It won’t be the sudden work of a minority, but the progressive rallying, by stages, of the large masses of our country. One doesn’t make the revolution for the masses; it is they who make it.
The task of youth: THE LONG MARCH TO THE PEOPLE, TO THE 90% OF THE POPULATION WHO, AROUND THE PROLETARIAT, HAVE BEGUN THE POPULAR REVOLUTION.
We will easily sweep aside the negative currents that brake or lead the student movement to deviate; the routine of the sterile violence of barricades, the decadent and petit-bourgeois style of work, the maneuvers of groupuscules.
For this, the unity of intellectual youth and working class youth is indispensable.
The young workers who are an active and enthusiastic part of the proletariat will assist the students in uniting with the people and uniting the people.
FORWARD FOR THE LONG MARCH OF YOUTH