A Time Of Upheaval
Stecchini, Livio C.
After a brief period of excitement over fascism and Bonapartism in France, American liberals have returned to their cherished complacency by observing that nothing has really changed in that...
...He dreamed of the period of the Terror in France: if he could score just one military victory, perhaps he could get out of his impasse...
...Historical opportunities offer themselves once...
...It was a bitter pill to swallow...
...So far as one can read the future, one can expect that de Gaulle will be pushed far enough along the road to integration to antagonize the French bourgeoisie and not far enough to obtain the support of the Algerians...
...Hence the notion that if Russia were to be given a constitutional government she could conduct the war successfully...
...Whether they will be able to ride the tide or not, the former French supporters of Hitler have assessed properly the magnitude and the general trend of the future transformation of their country...
...It is the Army, without having 209 thought what it might mean, that embraced the idea of integration as a scheme to displace the political background of the war...
...Integration entails a revolutionary transformation not only of Moslem society, but also of French society...
...The victories of the French revolutionary armies came after a total transfer of power to new classes...
...Lenin's strength lay precisely in that he recognized that the war had to be ended even at the cost of a Brest-Litovsk or a "Dien Bien Phu...
...nothing short of that will be adequate...
...if there were in the United States a government capable of political initiative it would offer to foot the bill for the cost of integration* in order to exploit the first, and possibly unique, chance of turning the tide of Nasserism in the Arab world...
...when the American constitutional machinery had to solve an issue similar to the present French one, the result was secession and civil war...
...210 BY COMPARING DE GAULLE with Kerensky I did not imply that the former will necessarily fail...
...Newspapermen even report the significant fact that restaurants serve the same good food and wine...
...not before...
...But it is unlikely that de Gaulle will announce that henceforth the Comedie Francaise will perform in Arabic every third or fourth evening, or that he will appoint ten Moslems to the French Academy...
...But actually France is entering a period of upheaval which can bring about a revolutionary change in the social structure of the country...
...That de Gaulle is a sincere man 208 and actually believes this to be his task, does not speak well for his political acumen...
...It means giving political rights to the colonial proletariat...
...Not winning is tantamount to defeat in a colonial war: a colonial territory which has not been "pacified" is an unconquered one...
...And it is essential, too, that such steps as liberating Messali Hadj be taken...
...Not only is it necessary to proceed to concrete social reforms...
...There is no great period of revolution for which historians have not observed that most people in responsible positions carry on with their normal lives and without realizing what is about to engulf them...
...There is a compelling need for measures as sweeping and prompt as Lenin's land decrees...
...It may succeed because it corresponds to the true needs of the people of Algeria: the masses of Algeria would fare much better in a modern western state than in a nationalist Arab state in which they would be dominated by the native feudalistic elements...
...In this respect a true dictator would know what to do...
...The weakness of de Gaulle is indicated by the circumstance that he is already obliged to stress parliamentary legalism, the very institution against which he started his crusade because, so he said, parliamentarians were unwilling to take the burden of drastic political decisions...
...The first issue of Gregoire was dedicated to a comparison of Roman with French history to make the point that the Gauls, defeated by the Romans, reversed the tables by crossing the Rubicon with Caesar and marching on Rome...
...The French Army—by this I mean the professional officers—do not want to take responsibility for their defeat...
...De Gaulle could offer the Algerians what Kemal Pasha offered the Turks, but to effect such a project, drive and imagination are required...
...For this reason one may draw a certain parallel with the February Revolution in Russia...
...solid citizens were more concerned with Chaliapin's singing than with Kerensky's proclamations...
...We speak here, of course, of genuine integration of French and Moslem Algerians, not the schemes of the colons to rule the Algerians under the pretense of "integration...
...FIRST, ONE MUST dispel the myth with which de Gaulle has justified his seizure of power, namely, that the problem is one of reforming the French political structure by introducing a presidential constitution on the American model...
...it is also necessary to captivate the imagination of the people, since a matter of racial relations is also at issue...
...Whatever one's moral judgment, we cannot deny political perceptiveness to the group of Gringoire...
...It is significant that in the month of December there reappeared, under the name of Gregoire, the once infamous but highly-effective magazine Gringoire...
...The problem is political and not legal: England has a stable government with a Parliament that has more power than the French Chamber...
...But the essential point is that both have been confronted with the same problem: to finish a war without accepting defeat...
...Kerensky could have succeeded if he had grasped the implications of what he was trying to do...
...Since he is not willing to do this and since he cannot achieve what the parliamentarians would like, namely, give some backbone to their rule, the only alternative is power in the streets, and this belongs to the interplay of the Army, the fascists, the Communists, and Algerian national forces...
...The French Army does not want to bear responsibility for a military defeat...
...Revolutions take place precisely when the ruling classes persist in their routine in spite of changed circumstances...
...But, with or without de Gaulle, the wheels of history are grinding, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, in spite of the pious optimism of many American observers...
...Napoleon after his defeat in Egypt tried the expedient of conversion to Islam...
...but the Russian army did not produce a Valmy in spite of Kerensky's Jacobin rhetoric to the troops...
...I doubt that the French state radio is likely to broadcast that de Gaulle is ready to be circumcised if Moslem women drop their veils...
...The Algerians will not be appeased merely because some characters wrapped in blankets have been appointed to the French cabinet...
...He tried to cover up the defeat by resituating the problem and shifting the scene to world revolution, but was not as successful as he hoped to be...
...June 12, 1958 211...
...However, one may try to assess what forces are at play...
...The regime of the Czar was overthrown so easily because the Russian general staff had to blame somebody for the misfortunes of the Russian army...
...Lenin could have walked into the Winter Palace three days earlier, since Kerensky's program of democratic reforms had gone far enough to lose for him the once-enthusiastic support of the bourgoisie...
...Since there is a revolutionary situation in France, that is, a situation in which hitherto unrecognized forces push to the fore, the task of formulating predictions becomes by definition impossible...
...There are certain similarities between the personalities of the two men: both believed in their missions as saviors of the country, both fancied themselves to be democratic dictators, both were aloof from the facts of politics because of their integrity and vanity...
...It seems to me that the immediate cause of the crisis is the fact that the French Army cannot win the war in Algeria...
...but the Army is ready to play any game in order to avoid losing face, even if at the expense of the colons...
...Even Kerensky, in a different way, had tried to shift the political scene and make the war just another aspect of the democratic transformation of Russia...
...indeed, the day the colonial proletariat is united with the metropolitan proletariat, there will no longer be a problem of unstable governments in the French republic, since, as Marx remarked a long time ago, the political instability of France is the result of the even balance of social classes...
...Not only is it necessary to announce a massive program for the social betterment of the Moslems, specifying the number of schools and hospitals to be built, but it is necessary to announce immediately the establishment of equal standards of wages and social security for the Algerians...
...The stubborn reality is that war continues in spite of all speeches and noble declarations of principle...
...If, instead of pandering to the sentimentality of "la grandeur de ce vieux pays gallo-romain," he were able in a few months to address the world in the name of "ce grande nouveau pays gallo-arabe," he will have realized his image of himself as a great historical figure...
...Considering the aspect of political liberty, one must not forget that there are as many power-hungry cutthroats in the Algerian FNL as there are in the Public Safety Committees...
...the jackals have smelled blood and are coming out of their lairs...
...In this sense its interests are parallel to those of the French colons, who feel they cannot afford a defeat...
...One must keep in mind that on the evening of the storming of the Winter Palace the bourgeoisie of Petrograd was crowding the theaters and the movies or strolling on the Nevsky Prospect...
...The Army is willing to play with the fascists today and possibly with the Communists tomorrow...
...If the problem is not constitutional change, what is it...
...Since Rasputin was dead and the Czarina, with her allegedly pro-German clique was in eclipse, there remained only one possibility: blame the Czar and the autocracy...
...Thus de Gaulle may be compared with Kerensky...
...WILL THE CALL for integration succeed in putting an end to the war without a victory of the Algerian Front of National Liberation rebels...
...My guess is that de Gaulle will rely more and more on the power of traditional constitutional processes, because he is not willing to take those steps which can build support at the mass level...
...Hence they blame the politicians, just as Napoleon blamed the men of Paris for his Egyptian fiasco...
...After a brief period of excitement over fascism and Bonapartism in France, American liberals have returned to their cherished complacency by observing that nothing has really changed in that country...
Vol. 5 • July 1958 • No. 3
