omm
hi Unis¢ Party,

SAM RUSSELL

‘is PARIS
ue ig Perspective for
France now that

ne ha and what
© perspective

eft after its
Ce in these elec-

a to the Left
aldeck Rochet,

4 tae told me guiet-
Uy in an inter-

Bey, Caull;
ares 'Sts, of course, will
46s in

ower Maintain them-
ee will try to
eeble Vvernment even

y. Majority in the

athe

, Sauls regime has
Severe) ae low; it has

n aken and the

he 2 ed Clearly that
Parties of the

es Upon to be
( Tr
: “Oy aS mme sae and to

“strong

"Y€ar-old de
ars, thee for the
a € same free
S had for the

aKs

i lisue: Port, in tea World

S March 20

lary of the French

ALDECK ROCHET, leader of the French
a discusses results of re-
“lection with the foreign editor of
London Morning Star.

of the Left, above al] on the
basis of a joint program.

“We think that if we reached
an agreement on such a pro-
gram, this would enable the Left
to win over an even greater part
of the population, some of whom
still hesitate to join with the Left
but woild do so once we reached
an agreement.

“As to the future of the Gaul-
lists, what Gen. de Gaulle will
do is as usual still a mystery.
But he is getting old (in three
years he will be 80), and under
present conditions it is not at
all certain that the new National
Assembly will run its full term
till 1972.

“If there are difficulties, there
may be changes. All the objec-
tive conditions in France point
to—and require—a_ strengthen-
ing of Left unity.

“Conditions in France are such

that it is obvious to everyone.

now that without the Communist
Party there is no possible per-
spective for a real Left advance.

“In the fight against the Gaul-
lists, there is no other way for
the Left to progress except in
unity with the Communists.”

“The significance of the elec-
tions,” said Waldeck Rochet, “is
that they constitute a severe set-
back for Gaullism and a victory
for the unity of the Left parties
in France, particularly for the
French Communist Party.

Waldeck Rochet pointed out
that while the Communist Party
got a million: more votes com-
pared with 1962, the Left Feder-
ation vote increased by half a
million, so it cannot be claimed
that the Communists made their
increase at the expense of the
other Left parties.

“Both Left-wing groups gained
as a result of their alliance,” he
said, “and there can be no doubt
that if we had been able to reach

agreement on a full, joint gov-
ernmental program last year, we
would together have got a ma-
jority of seats in the Assembly,
as well as a majority of votes
in the country.”

. The success of the Left-wing
electoral alliance depended in the
first place on the agreement be-

tween the French Communists ~

and Socialists, and so I asked
Waldeck Rochet just how this
agreement was reached despite
the long years of division and at
times sharp and bitter differ-
ences.

“Our alliance,” he replied,
“was based in the first place on
the fact that Socialists and Com-
munists are opposed to Gen. de
Gaulle’s regime of personal pow-
er, and this contributed to the

rapprochement of Socialists and
Communists.

“The French Communist Party
did not sacrifice any of its prin-
ciples to reach this rapproche-
ment, nor did we expect the
Socialists to sacrifice any of
their principles. ~

“But we provided the basis for
agreement on a number of im-
mediate democratic objectives
with the Left Federation of So-
cialists and Radicals.

“These included the fight for
the re-establishment of a truly
democratic regime in France, for
social justice and for a foreign
policy based on peaceful coexis-
tence. We did not demand that
the Socialists. accept all our
views, but we did agree on com-
mon objectives.”

ECCLES [London Morning Ster)

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

Mao’ s policies will be defeated —

Unist 3 Rare

, ar
att ay. a Reet United
rity “Tum j, 78 Of the

Y aan ' the Bronx
ey. z hina is not 5

: reactj
Pte eee bu-
ReCa api-

et
j ty d Peo ple. Old the meet-

0" i Y Commu-
Ene a Om ne my
tine h 3a of trade eee
j é ions,
He ® Fac, PIGGE you 4

M he mon o bureaucracy
th e bes yout gro
1 Aap strum ups

Maiq. Bt these Mae with
x uences ”

Hall accused Mao Tse-tung of
being most guilty of fostering
bureaucracy, and referred speci-
fically to the cult of the person-
ality Mao has built up around
himself.

“Nor is it a struggle between
socialism and capitalism,” Hall
said. “The present struggle in
China is a struggle over the
problems of the path of con-
struction to socialism.” To those
who see the end of this struggle
in the defeat of socialism, Hall
Said that that is impossible.

“* Revisionism’ as Mao has
used the term, ‘is one of those
phrases that has no meaning..
an abstraction * It is part of the
theory and science of Marxism
that it be revised with new ex-
perience and knowledge. ‘A
science grows that way. ”

Hall urged everyone present
to read ‘that little Red Book

that they’re waving around.” He
said, “there is nothing new

about the thoughts of Mao Tse-

tung.” They are a “collection of
the ideas of non-Communists,”
and are largely non-Marxist in
nature.

The ‘cultural revolution,”
Hall said, “has nothing to do
with culture and it is not a re-
volution.” He said it cannot be
victorious; if anything, “it has
already failed.’ He compared
the hysteria of millions of teen-
agers let out of school and
travelling across the country-
side to the Beatlemania of teen-
agers in this country.

“The basic concept of the role
of classes and the historic mis-
sion of the working class,” has
been denied by Mao. He denies
that the “main contradiction is
between the capitalist and work-
ing classes and argues against

” He has replaced the working
ae in that role by the peas-
antry.

Mao’s policies, Hall said, have
caused a “damaging but mo-
mentary disruption of the Chi-
nese Revolution.” He has main-
tained the leadership of a party
that has rejected his line. And
he has retained power in a na-
tion where most of the youth
and trade unions have rejected
his line and 80 percent of the
leadeship of the army has re-
jected that line.

But, Hall said, “the Chinese
workers, peasants, and the peo-
ple have refused to be provoked
in this turmoil, Their calm and
resistance is of such a gendris
that it will be victorious.”

“China could have had the
fastest growth of any socialist
country.” It has the advantage
of the existing strength of the

March 31,

Waldeck Rochet pointed out
that, alongside these discussions
with the Left Federation, the
Socialist and Communist parties
decided to attempt to reach
agreement on a number of ideo-
logical questions—principally on
the ways and means of a possible
peaceful transition to socialism
in France, and on what would
happen afterward.

-It has to be pointed out that
if the elections had been con-
ducted. on the basis of propor-
tional representation, which was
the rule before 1958, there would
have been 105 Communist Depu-
ties in the National Assembly.

But the significance of these
elections in France goes far be-
yond the mere counting of heads
in the National Assembly.

These discussions also includ-
ed exchanges of articles by lead-
ers of both parties which appear-
ed in the columns of the Socialist
weekly, Populaire, and the Com-
munist weekly, France Nouvelle,
and in these exchanges a number
of misunderstandings were clear-
ed up.

“In these discussions,” said
Waldeck Rochet, “we put for-
ward our point of view and made
jit clear we were against the
existence of only a single poli-
tical party under socialism in
France.

“We made it clear that while,
for historic reasons, such a situ-
ation may have been necessary

in the Soviet Union, in France’

we Communists consider it pos-
sible to advance to socialism by
peaceful means and that one of
the essentials for that advance
is agreement between the French
Communist Party and the French
Socialist Party—not only now
but in the future.”
* * *

On the day after the French
elections, William Kashtan, gen-
eral secretary of the Commun-
ist Party of Canada, sent a tele-
gram to Waldeck Rochet which
read: “Congratulations. The fine
election results emphasizes
anew that unity of the working-
class and democratic forces is
the key to democratic advance.”

us Hall

socialist world, the aid of the
Soviet Union and other socialist
nations, and the most immense
manpower potential for build-
ing a- socialist society. But
“Mao rejected this path.”

In response to a question from
the audience, Hall said that the
present hysteria in China makes
conflict between the Soviet
Union and China a possibility
but that it would not reach the
point of war.

In closing, Hall said: “There
is only one way of building so-
Cialism ... a slow steady plan
. .. it is much easier to destroy
the old society than to build a
new one.” And, he said, ‘“‘histo-
ry will say that ‘there was a tem-
porary disruption and diversion
in China but that China conti-
nued building a socialist society
as part of the world socialist
system.”

1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9