AROUND THE WORLD
PEACE MOVEMENT
AROUND
END convention
THE SEVENTH convention of European
THE
Nuclear Disarmament will take place this year in Lund, Sweden, from June 29 to July
WORLD
2. The END convention has always been a focus for peace activists from all over the world to discuss the issues of the day. Previous conventions have been held in Brussels, West Berlin, Perugia, Amsterdam,
Daniel Guérin: farewell to a friend and comrade
ONE OF THE BEST KNOWN and most courageous of French left intellectuals, Daniel Guérin, died in late April at the age of 84. He was an activist and a scholar and leaves behind a number of works that remain basic references for revolutionary Marxists. In the latter part of his life, he was a leading figure in the gay rights' movement in France. ERNEST MANDEL ID ANIEL GUERIN died recently, after a long and painful illness. With him has disappeared one of the leading personalities on the French far left for a half century.
Guérin came to socialism through opposition to colonialism, which was not so common in the early 1930s. He remained an anti-colonialist activist all his life. You find the quintessence of this fierce loyalty to proletarian internationalism in the collection of his writings on this subject, Ci-git le Colonialisme ["Here lies colonialism"].
However, very quickly this initial motivation was broadened by the fascist peril, which rose throughout Europe in the wake of the Nazis seizure of power in 1933. His book Fascism and big business was the first detailed explanation of the fascist phenomenon from a revolutionaryMarxist standpoint. It was largely inspired by Trotsky's penetrating analyses, which were far superior to those of the Comintern. Despite a slightly mechanistic approach, his analysis remains valid to this day, although we now have a great mass of documents at our disposal that were not available to Guérin at the time.
The young Daniel Guérin joined Léon Blum's SFIO harassment of the Trotskyists who joined this formation and the disciplinary measures that followed against them.
During this entire period, which was to continue into World War II, Guérin moved toward Trotsky and TrotskyIsm. He admired the Old Man's extraordinary clearmindedness. But he accused him of suffering from a tactical rigidity that had supposedly encouraged his French followers to fall into sectarianism and maneuvers.
The last word on the detailed questions belongs to history. All this seems very far away today. But no one can deny, in the light of history, that the fundamental options were not tactical but political and strategic. On these, Trotsky was right. In the mid-1940s, Guérin himself largely recognized this. This is what led him to join the Fourth International for a brief period at that time.
The whole conflict-wrought process of Daniel Guérin's rapprochement with revolutionary Marxism, Trotskyism, over the 1933-40 period is described sincerely in his book Front-Populaire, revolution manquée ["Popular Front, aborted revolution"].
In the wake of World War Il, Daniel Guérin produced his most valuable book, one that would continue to be a landmark in the writing of history in general and in the history of Marxism. La Lutte de Classe sous la Premiére République ["Class struggle under the First Republic"] extended the analysis based on the theory of the permanent revolution to the French Revolution.
Today it remains a task for young Marxist historians to re-examine the history of all the bourgeois revolutions -not as a three-cornered struggle between the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, but as a four-cornered one in which a pre-proletariat, a semi-proletariat or even an incipient proletariat were beginning to appear as an in-
[French section of the Workers in- [French section of the Workers' International, the social-democratic party of the time]. But the vulgar •electoralism of the "old home" repelled him. Quickly, he moved to the left wing of the party, the celebrated "revolutionary left" around Marceau-Pivert. This current had Its moment of glory in June 1936, but it did not manage to translate its revolutionary convictions into organized and organizational action. It ended up being expelled from the SFIO In 1938, when workers' struggles were in a declining phase.
In the Parti Socialiste Ouvrier et
Paysan (Socialist Workers' and
Peasants' Party), which was formed after this expulsion, Daniel
Guérin was again in the left wing. 10 In particular, he opposed the International Viewpoint #143 • June 13, 1988
100 YEARS of
LABOR in the USA
FISHER - NC.2.
1.1272
10/22
Daniel Guérin dependent social force.
At a time when preparations are underway for the bicentenary of the French Revolution, French Marxists should take inspiration from Daniel Guérin's clear-sighted work to continue this line of research.
From general history, Guérin turned toward sociology and the history of the workers' movement in several works devoted to the United States. I collaborated on one of them, Où va le Peuple Américain? ["Whither the American people?"), contributing an analysis of capitalist concentration in the USA. The book was published in 1950. My friendship with Daniel Guérin began then. It was renewed during the Algerian war. It was never broken off after that, despite our manifest political and theoretical differences. *
Paris and Coventry.
Last year, the international organizing committee nearly blew apart over a preemptive invite to Eastern European communist parties by Ken Coates, which would in effect have meant the non-attendance of representatives from the independent peace movements of Eastern Europe.
This tension between advocates of "dialogue from below" among rank-and-file peace activists and "dialogue from above" among the politicians and bureaucrats has been very much a feature of END conventions. It remains to be seen what this year's convention will make of Gorbachevism and the INF treaty. Many leaders of the European peace movements have been cock-a-hoop over this year's developments and even claimed the super power summits as a success for themselves. Most peace activists will be very sceptical, however, and will want to hear what the independents from Eastern Europe have to say about the realities of glasnost.
There are also other developments, as in Denmark, Indonesia, the Philippines and Central America, which need to be discussed. One of the features of END conventions, since the Greenham Common women stormed the platform at the Brussels meeting, has been positive action for women. At least 50 per cent of the participants and platform speakers are women, there are women-only areas, workshops for women and led by women.
The registration fee is 300 krona (£27). Accommodation can be found in the area at no cost or in the student halls at 120kr per night. To register, send money to END Office, Box 1682, S-221 01 Lund, Sweden S 46 11 21 24. * Dave Spencer
SUPPORT THE UNITED NATIONS THIRD SPECIAL SESSION ON DISARMAMENT MARCH!
• K. Having 88
SATURDAY, JUNE I1, 1988 TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO STOP MILITARY INTERVENTION TO COD MAILITADY INITEDUCATIONI FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
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