Mendès-France: Reasons for a Choice
ONE OF THE MORE interesting political events of the past few months was passed over in virtual silence by the American press: the decision of Pierre Mendel-France, former premier of...
...There was perhaps some ground for skepticism, since this was hardly the first such pronouncement in French radical politics during the past few decades...
...Men and women must be prepared to take over and to be ready as soon as possible to play their part in the economic development of our country .. . If the aim of collective life and of those who are in charge of it is to improve the lot of the people and, in the first place, of those who are less favored, then we must above all develop the production of goods and riches...
...He is, no doubt, looking forward to the post-Gaullist political struggle which awaits France...
...By his decision to join the Autonomous Socialist Party and to declare himself a socialist, MendPs-France apparently hoped to reverse the process of splintering and atomization which has afflicted the democratic left...
...Here we are following Jaures who explained that socialism was for him the conclusion of the lessons drawn from the French Revolution, an extension of the principles of 1789...
...The first need is that of general economic information and information pertaining to a particular enterprise, as has so often been stated by worker and union representatives...
...And so, here too, we are in agreement with the Socialists whom we rejoin...
...Our ambition is to form tomorrow a nation where socialism will be the comcomplement of political democracy and its natural and normal consequence...
...We want the growth of our economy to be stimulated...
...But is is obvious that the situation of 1960 is quite different: economic power, the power of money, the great corporations issuing from 19th century liberalism, have become obstacles to political freedom...
...First of all as regards freedom, which is our inheritance as republicans, as old Radicals, as descendants of those who have been called—sometimes with illapplied irony—the great ancestors: In 1789 an economic system founded, as you know, on the medieval guilds was destroyed so that freedom could prevail...
...He has been a nominal leader of the Radical Socialist Party, traditionally the party of French lower middle class interests, anti-clericalism and parliamentarism...
...It should be stressed that this split did not, like all too many unfortunate predecessors, follow the usual "right-left" lines...
...Reports indicate that several thousand persons, including many youth, immediately followed Mendes-France into the ASP...
...Do we really live—as we believe—under a regime of freedom, when the freedom of the press applies only to those who can afford to found and maintain a newspaper...
...For an appreciation of this event, a few words of background are necessary...
...These questions deserve straight answers...
...Some months ago, a considerable section of the French Socialist Party (SFIO), disgusted with the compromising policy of the Mollet leadership in regard to Algeria, decided to break from the SFIO and form an organization of their own...
...We proclaim the right to strike...
...But what now makes it seem at least possible that such a trend toward reunion of the democratic left without the Communists will occur in France is that Mendi s-France has decided to join the Autonomous Socialist Party...
...Are you prepared to adhere to this or that among the Marxist conceptions— to the abolition of private property," etc...
...Do we really enjoy freedom of speech and free elections if men of means can fool and mislead the people...
...We want all the means of production to work at full capacity so that the community benefits all the time from the maximum production of goods and riches...
...These Socialists, who included such respected figures as Andre Philip and Ren6 Blum, set up the Autonomous Socialist Party...
...ONE OF THE MORE interesting political events of the past few months was passed over in virtual silence by the American press: the decision of Pierre Mendel-France, former premier of France, to join the Autonomous Socialist Party...
...We proclaim it to be intolerable and scandalous that the means of production—men, equipment, capital—are lost, wasted, not utilized or utilized solely for the satisfaction of narrow interests...
...But does it really exist under a regime which exercises a continuous pressure on the working class through recessions and threats of unemployment...
...This party, however, has suffered much discredit during the past two decades, and Mendps-France found himself, undeservedly, tied to a dying organization...
...we want the brakes on that growth to be broken...
...Political democracy requires today that the economic powers should no longer be able—as they have all too often in the past—to make laws in their own interest alone...
...In a country as advanced as France, where there exists a widspread capital of knowledge, experience and education, there can be no contradiction between the demands of political democracy, of freedom and dignity of man, and thr necessities of a controlled economic expansion, needed for a rapid growth...
...continued on page 93 continued from page 2 We must have the courage to understand that a new mode of economic organization is needed if freedom and independence of man are to grow...
...For some years Mendel-France has suffered from the lack of a coherent political force behind him...
...and we hold that it is the responsibility of the state, of the government...
...Representatives of employers and workers do not debate today on terms of equality...
...At that time, political freedom and economic renewal required a great push in the direction of what used to be called liberalism...
...A second fundamental preoccupation is the formation of a workers' elite capable of playing its part wherever economic aims and investments are decided, plans are made and control exercised...
...The right to strike is rather theoretical than practical here, at least in certain periods...
...Before joining the ASP, MendPs-France spoke to a gathering of still-active members of the Radical party, in order to explain his decision...
...What, in the view of the Autonomous Socialists, was here involved was nothing less than an elementary sense of democratic and socialist honor...
...For this purpose we must promote an economy of full employment...
...Below, taken from the French weekly L'Express, we quote a few passages from his talk, entitled "The Reasons for a Choice": 0 SOME OF OUR FRIENDS have asked us: "That party [the ASP] is a Marxist party...
...The employers possess all the technical, financial and economic data, while workers' representatives can put forward only vague demands based on approximate figures reached by guesswork and therefore easy to refute...
...The socialists of our time must become aware of certain things that are needed to achieve concrete, effective and rapid results...
...Competent union leaders have recently asserted—and rightly—that even social reforms as spectacular as workers' participation in profits do not make much sense unless the workers and those who speak in their name have a more adequate knowledge of the enterprise...
Vol. 7 • January 1960 • No. 1
