Dissident Voices From Paris

...His recent humiliation at the Nanterre conference of the CP should be sufficient evidence of how wrong his book is...

...Whatever one may think about the effectiveness of these books, one thing is certain: at the very least, both are concerned with what has long been recognized as the basic wrong in industrial and post-industrial societies—the sense that everything happens without our being able to do anything about it...

...That is to say, both camps deem it sufficient to persevere as they have in the past for everything to work out right in the end...

...The two young /ycge students, obviously inspired by the example of Jan Palach, who immolated themselves after the collapse of Biafra signify a grave phenomenon that must not be underestimated...

...Le Grand Tournant du Socialisme, by Roger Garaudy, a leading Communits intellectual...

...By way of analysis of the two kinds of society, Galbraith said all this long ago...

...Whatever differences in language the two men exhibit, they are essentially in agreement, and which of their two formulations one chooses does not matter...

...Furthermore, it is the party that rejected the opportunity offered it by Mendês-France...

...Both men insist that the hereditary handing down of control over the means of production must be abolished, as must any illusions that social progress is brought about by economic progress...

...There are few middle-class families who do not see a child leave home to join one of the more or less hippie-type communes that are beginning to spring up in France, or simply to go live "somewhere else" and in "some other way," driven by their repugnance for a society that can provide everything and satisfy no one...

...Cocooned within a sacrosanct theoretical ritual, the party is concerned solely with daily tactics and not at all with "socialism...

...or to be able to round up a few electors in Presidential campaigns by playing the Gaullist tune, as is the case with Chaban-Delmas...

...Garaudy's point of departure is, in fact, the same as ServanSchreiber's...

...That is, both affirm that a technological revolution is taking place which no one has undertaken to analyze in terms of a politicoeconomic theory, and the realities of which no political party is attempting to transpose into a political context...

...and Le Manifeste du Parti Radical, by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the editor of L'Express—all three demonstrate, each in its own way, a wish to cope with a new situation, yet each also testifies to its author's inability to deal effectively with that situation— a dilemma that is shared by the people these men are addressing...

...or simply to be able to say "I told you so," as is the case with Garaudy—nonetheless, the fact of putting the doctrines of the Left on trial is interesting and, particularly in the case of Garaudy and Servan-Schreiber, deserves attention...

...Hence, Garaudy rejects the Soviet model...

...While one may feel that these men are simply going on record for a purpose —to be able some day to try their luck in political life, as is the case with Servan-Schreiber...

...To put it perhaps oversimply, one can say that both take off from the computer...

...Nor is anything changing in Gaullism or in the Radical party—and if the latter were to take seriously its new "Manifesto," it would have become something different from what it has always been...

...One must see these snares for what they are...

...The conclusions at which both men arrive can be formulated in one and the same word—"democratization...

...If his discovery of what all the world knew has been at the root of his present reflections, his second thoughts are more interesting than his tardy enlightenment...

...Servan-Schreiber acknowledges the fact of the technological revolution, but asserts that the traditional structures of the capitalist world must be revised for the sake of both justice and efficiency...

...To achieve "socialism's big shift," Garaudy addresses a Communist party that is, as he knows perfectly well, conservative and sclerotic to the point of being incapable of the slightest political reflex...

...It was a profound feeling of frustration, isolation, and impotence that gave birth to the revolt of May 1968...

...Chaban-Delmas promises France "a Swedish, albeit sunnier, socialism...

...Capitalism holds that the problem can be resolved solely by developing the productive potential...

...Both men attempt to do so against the opposition of a government and a party which find themselves again in agreement, in that each is prepared to respond to the revolt of the young with repression...

...The "Manifesto" is therefore a kind of rehabilitation of "politics" at the expense of economics...

...Translated by ADRIENNE FOULKE 202...

...The French CP has never made a move toward de-Stalinization, much less toward any overall reevaluation of Communism in national or worldwide terms, such as the Italian Communist party attempted and only the Czech party achieved...

...Garaudy's excellent critique of American society and his conclusion that it is childish to try to make a socialist revolution in the United States but that it is appropriate to create there what he calls a "finalized capitalism"— all of it comes straight out of The Affluent Society...

...It must be said to the credit of Garaudy and Servan-Schreiber that they have understood the importance of that rebellion and, to the best of their abilities, have tried to find an answer to it...

...It is not true that thanks to Garaudy "something in the Communist party has changed...

...In the Galbraith book, one finds the situation already diagnosed (Keynesian production solves none of the basic social and political problems) and the solution spelled out (discard Keynesian theories and, above all, achieve the same goals through socalled nonproductive expenditures—which is to say, public services...

...The point is this: confronted by the technological revolution, capitalist and socialist governments have assumed parallel and equally fallacious positions...

...As for Servan-Schreiber, the vehicle he has chosen for setting in motion basic structural reforms is a party that one might term nonexistent...

...In France, as in the United States, some of our young people are beginning to feel a disgust and a hopelessness that lead 'them either to some form of extremism—whence the growth of the Maoists and other far-out groups that lack any roots in reality—or to pure and simple escape...

...FOR AN AMERICAN READER, these two books must sound a familiar note...

...It would therefore seem that in responding to the dual Soviet and American challenge, the two authors are, regrettably, a good ten years behind American politico-economic thinking...

...There's nothing surprising in this, for these problems are only now beginning to arise in France...

...The least to be said of the Radical party is that for the past 50 years it has been a sturdy bulwark of political and social conservatism...

...But whereas Garaudy remains faithful to the Marxist critique of capitalist society and places the responsibility for this revolution on a renewal of socialism, Servan-Schreiber contends that capitalism is more efficient in the development 201 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS of production and intends to make his revolution "in the context of a market economy...

...But it is not he who governs France, and George Pompidou, who 200 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS has never wanted to hear talk of so-called Gaullist Participation, is anything but a socialist, Swedish or otherwise, either in his way of thinking or acting...

...Under the present conditions, the role of this historic bloc must be broadened beyond that of the classic Communist party acting as spokesman and guide for the working class...

...socialism claims it will be resolved solely by a change in production relations...

...As to Garaudy, let us pass over the fact that this political philosopher was among the most strictly and blindly obedient of Stalinists, and professes to have seen the light thanks to the "Khrushchev report" and the Twentieth Congress...

...Garaudy declares that the new "historic bloc" formed by the working class and the ensemble of technicians of all kinds is henceforth to be the "productive force" in the new society—"productive force" being understood in the Marxist sense of the term...