Interview conducted by the magazine Ballast of France, within the framework of a dossier on strategies for breaking with the capitalist system.
We present below a translation of the interview conducted by Ballast magazine with members of Révolution Permanente and the Revolutionary Communist Current (CCR) of France, Anasse Kazib and Laura Varlet. Currently, the militants of the CCR are immersed in an intense campaign to collect signatures to try to present the anti-capitalist candidacy of Anasse Kazib in the next presidential elections in France [1]. At the same time, they are taking advantage of this campaign to claim a revolutionary program of class independence.
*
Anasse Kazib and Laura Varlet are railway workers and union activists for SUD-Rail. Together with their colleagues, they form part of the leadership of the organization Révolution Permanente. This is also the name of his communication medium, an integral part of the international network La Izquierda Diario and of the Trotskyist Faction - Fourth International. Since its break with the NPA in 2021, Révolution Permanente sails alone and bets, through the voice of Anasse Kazib, on the next presidential elections: the difficult collection of 500 sponsorships is underway. Facing the “reformist” left, Kazib and Varlet claim a revolutionary path; Against the "spontaneous" left, they defend the seizure of state power through a general strike and the establishment of a workers' government. The young Marxist organization aspires to unite "the working class in all its diversity": anti-racist, feminist and LGBT struggles are therefore at the core of its commitment. Within the framework of this dossier entirely dedicated to the different strategies of rupture with the dominant order, we went to meet him.
Ballast: A few months ago, a statement by Anasse disconcerted some sectors of the anti-capitalist left: while a large part of the militants fear that we are in a "pre-fascist" period, you seem to disagree with this idea.
Anasse Kazib: First we would have to define what is meant as such. There is an increase in reactionary ideas in the media-political sphere and in a part of the population: on that we agree! These discourses influence even the institutional left: Montebourg [2] searches the dictionary of the extreme right to talk about the expulsions of illegal immigrants; Roussel [3] preaches returning illegal immigrants to their place of origin; Jadot [4] appreciates the intervention of RAID and GIGN in Guadeloupe. But even if the most leftist political ideas are in the minority in public debate, on the other hand they are very strong in society, in youth, in social movements. The Yellow Vests movement in 2018 was a true popular revolt, the most subversive since 1968! The strike against the pension reform in 2019 put the organized working class in the spotlight, with a new generation of immigrant workers (such as the RATP bus depot drivers hired after the 2005 riots in the banlieus [5] Not to mention the movements in support of Black Lives Matter, the Adama Committee against racist police violence, the Nous Toutes demonstration, the environmental movements…
In fact, largely as a reaction to these phenomena, a part of the ruling class and of the political debate is radicalized to the right. Without denying the danger represented by the ideas defended by reactionary forces such as National Regroupment or Eric Zemmour, or the fact that certain small fascist groups feel strong and take action (as is happening in cities like Lyon), to speak today of “pre-fascism ” I find it problematic. Because we run the risk of believing that there is a kind of inevitability of fascism, as the only horizon, when in reality the situation is even more polarized and open. And its evolution will essentially depend on the development of the class struggle.
Laura Varlet: I don't think that "society" as a whole is moving to the right: in the popular classes and in a large part of the population, the concerns are mostly social. But there are sectors of the ruling class that radicalize their discourse and want to impose right-wing responses to the rage that exists from below. For example, with the issue of the pandemic. This has accelerated the underlying economic crisis: layoffs, degradation of working conditions, threats of salary drops... the question now is who is going to pay for the crisis. Now, the extreme right tries to make people believe that the way to limit the ravages of this crisis is to attack foreigners or Muslims.
Anasse Kazib: There was a Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, who affirmed that, within the framework of bourgeois democracy, the ruling class relies on the domestication and channeling of the popular classes through elections and through their intermediaries in the direction of the labor movement. Instead, fascism is the choice of the bourgeoisie to militarily confront the organizations of the labor movement: the moment when the bourgeoisie considers that its democracy is insufficient to defend its interests. Are we at that historical moment? Is there such political instability to consider that we are in a pre-revolutionary situation for the bourgeoisie to consider fascism? Is there a force capable of wiping out France Rebellious, the Communist Party, the NPA, the CGT, Solidaires, Attact and the social movements? No. At least not at the moment, and this is important because it gives us time to prepare. We are not saying that fascism is a phenomenon limited to the 1930s and that it cannot happen again. But not stopping saying that the wolf is coming can make it end up devouring us. Those who consider that “fascism is at the door”: what do they do to be consistent with that characterization? Should a person like me live underground or go into exile to avoid prison or being killed by fascists?
Our generation (in their thirties) has lived through periods of relatively calm struggles: in the 90s, the only police you saw at the demonstrations was the traffic police. We have been experiencing an authoritarian turn since 2016 and in the demonstrations against the Labor Law. But the fact that there is an authoritarian, repressive and reactionary situation is not equivalent to the existence of a fascist state that devastates the labor movement. October 17, 1961 [6] or the ethnic persecutions of the 1980s have not been analyzed as fascist phenomena, despite the fact that the level of violence was clearly higher than today!
B: In 2018 Anasse said that “a party of the working class” had to be built. Three years later, he is a presidential candidate for Révolution Permanente. How is that game going?
Anasse Kazib: We haven't defined ourselves as a party yet. We are an organization or political current of the extreme left made up of several hundred comrades. A party has to be able to influence an important part of the masses, which is not our case. We fought against the implosion of the NPA through a political reading: we defended –along with other tendencies– a line of intervention in the class struggle, while the old historical leadership –coming from the LCR– defended, ultimately, a strategy of electoral alliances with the institutional left. There was the Big Bang with Clémentine Autain [7], then the alliances with La France Insoumise at the municipal and regional level. As revolutionary communists, we questioned that the party defined itself only negatively (as anti-capitalist) but did not openly express a project of struggle for communist emancipation. My candidacy was proposed internally at a time when a significant part of the organization's leadership, including Phillipe Poutou, did not want to present a candidacy. In some internal debates, but also in public statements, they dropped that there would be no “testimonial candidacy”, and we understood that they were seeking to give space to Mélenchon or to a hypothetical recomposition of the anti-capitalist left together with the institutional one.
In response to the proposal of my candidacy, our exit was forced by excluding us from meetings and general assemblies, renouncing all the principles of workers' democracy: the tendencies debate and convince themselves about the strategies to adopt! Unfortunately, after a decade of NPA crisis and a huge militant hemorrhage (the NPA went from more than 9,000 militants [8] to just over 1,000 today) the democratic tradition of the former LCR has been spoiled. The current leadership considers that all means are good as long as they maintain control of the organization, even though they are actually a minority at the base.
B: But Révolution Permanente is first and foremost known as an online newspaper. Isn't there confusion?
Laura Varlet: Révolution Permanente is the newspaper of our organization. We wanted to innovate compared to the classic black and white pamphlet distributed at the factory gate – something that must continue to be done anyway. Our ideas are current. We have reflected on how to reach a greater number of people through new tools: Trotskyism 2.0 (laughs). Not only because of the use of digital media, but also the language, the topics addressed, the visual and the way in which the fights are articulated. All this while maintaining our strategic perspective, that of fighting to bring down this system. We are talking about struggles: some of the most successful articles and content are those that denounce the bosses' dictatorship inside the workplace. But yes, it is true, the name of the newspaper and the organization coincide, but the question of founding a new revolutionary organization of our class in France will be raised soon – after 2022. Without a great collective and militant project, we can fight, go on strike, rebel, appear in the media, but our adversaries will continue to win.
B: “No, we don't want a testimonial candidacy”, recently stated one of the CCR militants, Gaétan Gracia. However, you yourselves say that you do not believe in the electoral route. What is then the strategic sense of this participation?
Laura Varlet: We are not against participating in the elections! We do not think that the elections are “piège à cons” [9] [just a scam] and neither do we put Le Pen, Macron or Mélenchon in the same bag. The elections are an important moment of politicization for our class. On program issues, male and female workers, as well as youth –whether in universities, work centers or in the neighborhoods– are more receptive to the different political proposals. We have just presented the program of Anasse's candidacy and we have verified a desire for political proposals in the electoral period.
Anasse Kazib: It is clear that the presidential elections are not the class struggle, but they allow for a political experience. The other day, a co-worker asked me if I have already reached 500 signatures; I told him specific cases of mayors who feared losing subsidies. In a town in Normandy, a mayor told me honestly: here everyone hates Macron but we all want to sign him because Le Havre is next door, and Édouard Phillippe can expand the financing of the projects. You see Mélenchon making efforts to obtain the signatures when he has relevant political weight while Hidalgo [10], with 700 signatures, is politically null. Anyone who is not politicized immediately understands that it is a rigged system. And my colleague ended up telling me: 'I hope you get 500 signatures, otherwise I won't vote'. 90% of the people we talk to are abstentionists who talk a lot about politics. They talk to us about Zemmour, Le Pen, Macron and the rejection of what they produce.
When we say that we do not want a “testimonial” candidacy, we mean that we are not only here to represent ourselves, but to make our voices heard and regroup a vanguard that has fought hard for five years. That is why it is essential to bring people like Assa Traoré, Youcef Brakni, the Transdev strikers or Sasha Yaropolskaya from XY Media, a transfeminist media outlet, to our events.
Laura Varlet: For us, the key to this campaign is also convincing of the need to organize politically, beyond punctual and precise support for Anasse's candidacy. In other words, we call on all those who think that Anasse should be able to present himself as a candidate to support us, either with an economic contribution – we do not have the financing of other candidates –, helping with the search for mayors' signatures, going to the acts and pasting of posters… But we also want to convince them of the need to go further, of a revolutionary political project and of emancipation that needs the political commitment of a great majority.
"A revolutionary candidacy of workers, of the youth and popular neighborhoods" is the orientation that we want to give to this candidacy. And that is why it is not just a testimonial candidacy.
B: Both are union activists and regularly criticize the union leaders. But wouldn't these be a reflection of their bases?
Laura Varlet: In the first place, there is a material problem: freed for decades [11] and receiving a remuneration higher than that of the average worker, the union leaders do not live the same life as the rank-and-file workers, and that is important. It is therefore necessary to evaluate whether or not its policy reflects the will of its bases. They often say: “Declaring a general strike is not as easy as pressing a button” and, in a sense, they are right! But the question has to be formulated in another way: How can we help the creativity of the masses unfold as widely as possible? When our class mobilizes and raises its head, it turns the plans of the capitalists upside down... Now, we can verify that the union leaders and the reformist parties do not seek to organize the anger of the base, they do not try to establish ways to generalize and extend conflicts, nor to build offensive strategies in national mobilizations. In recent years, in 2010, in 2016, the strategies they put into practice were defeatist, actions in isolated days of action. In 2018, against the railway reform, it was a fragmented strike: two days of strike, three days of negotiation, two days of strike, three days of negotiation... In short, they gave the company the calendar to organize and break the strike. On the contrary, when on December 5, 2019 we had a debate on the reconductable strike [12] against the pension reform, it was imposed from the grassroots, under pressure from the RATP workers [13]. At that time it was seen how little the union leaders did to mobilize the strategic sectors to fight on their side.
Anasse Kazib: Take a look at the current situation: there are wage strikes at Leroy Merlin, Décathlon, Sephora, SNCF. The union leaderships do not lead any! The role of a union is not to be a thermometer of social unrest. The workers can build the strike alone; the strike belongs to the strikers and the general assemblies must be sovereign. But as a union, they must support the mobilization, give them the means to win it. Do not limit yourself to observing what happens and later demand to be the interlocutor with the bosses or the government to start the negotiations, but try to generalize the strike. We have seen to what extent the opposite is done. The Yellow Vests movement was a clear example of this. The explosion of anger that it represented showed the rage of a part of our class, from precarious, subcontracted, rural sectors and abandoned by union organizations. At the beginning of the movement, many rank-and-file union activists were with the Yellow Vests and wanted to support them, but for a while, not only did the union leadership refuse to generalize the movement to the companies where they were strong, they even put out a statement condemning the violence… of the protesters!
Laura Varlet: We are not against unions. We militate in unions, we build them and we participate in mobilization fronts with precise slogans. But our political current defends the need to systematically combat and denounce the betrayal of the union bureaucracies – while trying to develop self-organization to the maximum. It is us, workers, who lose money by going on strike, who take risks, so we must decide when and how to go on strike, the strategy to win it and the slogans to defend. It is the condition for each struggle of our class to allow the workers to become aware of their real strength and learn to organize against all passivization.
Anasse Kazib: A very interesting experience was the RATP-SNCF [14] coordination during the strike against the pension reform: believe it or not, it had never existed before!
At the beginning of the movement, when we talked about "union bureaucracy" and "resistance box", everyone looked at us as aliens. The comrades, especially the younger ones, had not had the experience of other strikes, they were convinced that it would be a matter of a week: "How is the establishment going to resist a week without the metro or RER?" [fifteen]. The strength of revolutionaries in the trade union movement lies in the experience of past struggles and in dialectical analysis. We are neither geniuses nor fortune tellers: the political analysis of what macronism is led us to the conclusion that it was the key reform. When on December 17, after two weeks of strike action, Phillipe Martinez left the Elysée calling for a day of strike only for January 9 [almost a month later], everyone quickly understood what we were talking about when we said that the bureaucracies trade unionists are traitors.
B: You recently gave support to the Left and Workers' Front (FIT-U) of Argentina. It is an alliance between four Trotskyist parties. Why is such a regrouping impossible in France? Not to mention France Insoumise –since they reject reformism–, it could be between the NPA, Lutte Ouvrier and you.
Laura Varlet: In Argentina it was initially a defensive electoral front as a result of the rise in the electoral floor to access the general elections. But that does not detract from its current relevance: it is the demonstration of what the extreme left in France must do. Each one can remain independent and maintain differences in political practice, even in the slogans during the mobilizations, but it is possible to formulate common perspectives on the political scene. The comrades of Révolution Permanente are part of the same international organization as the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) of Argentina (the main force within the FIT-U) and we think that the extreme left in France should be inspired by this political experience. Contrary to those who take the example of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in the Spanish State, or even Boric in Chile (who the same night of his victory already said that the aspirations of the masses had to be limited, respect the institutional framework and even refused to answer to the elementary demand to release all the political prisoners of the October riots).
In Argentina, this front is carrying out a battle against the IMF's neocolonial agreement with a so-called "left" government, from the Kirchnerist tradition, which impoverishes the workers. They managed to organize a great mobilization in the streets on December 11, to protest against the government's policy, in an unprecedented united front between dozens of union organizations, politicians, associations... During the electoral campaign they defended the need to reduce the working day without salary reduction, to show the irrationality of the capitalist system. This allowed them to reach a whole sector of the popular classes. They are the third political force in the country and have managed to elect the first worker deputy who is a garbage collector and indigenous, from one of the poorest provinces in the country. In France, we have always defended within the NPA the idea of an alliance with Lutte Ouvrière, considering a joint candidacy or at least discussing it publicly.
Anasse Kazib: A debate is needed from the extreme left on the political situation and the challenges of the revolutionaries today. We have not made self-criticism of our failures: Why during and after the Yellow Vests movement, people did not join our organizations? It is time to question the famous political strategy of a “broad party” to the left of the Socialist Party [16]. When the NPA was founded in 2009, the Front de Gauche [17] emerged shortly after, a few months later. People made their choice at that time. At Révolution Permanente we are convinced that it is necessary to build a revolutionary organization clearly separated from reformist strategies, which postulate that it is possible to “change the system from within the institutions”. Raised this, we do not refuse to also defend a united front policy in the mobilizations. Something we have already done, with the Adama Committee [18], in a common intervention in the Yellow Vests movement; we find ourselves in some combats with militants of the Untamed France; We invite the deputy of France Insumisa, Éric Coquerel, to support our strikes; we participated in the demonstration against Islamophobia in 2019. It is a policy of alliances from the base, within the framework of the struggles, which is essential to combat our enemies. Take the example of the strike at the Grandpuits refinery. How to deal politically with a giant like Total? With the comrades we thought of making an alliance with the ecologists. We contacted Youth for Climate, Extinction Rebellion, Les Amis de la Terre and Greenpace, we made an alliance of petrochemical workers and environmental organizations: "The fight against the end of the world, and to reach the end of the month, the same fight!" . As Adrien Cornet, CGT militant in Grandpuits and comrade of Révolution Permanente said: we are the workers who must lead the ecological transition because we are the ones who live around the factories. We live next to the factory and we don't want it to suddenly explode like Lubrizol. We walk with our families and children in the forests and near the rivers, we do not want them to be polluted. We must put together a response as soon as possible, not content with saying "don't touch our jobs, 700 families on the street." We must gain strength and consistency, with the best of environmentalism. If not, you leave ecology to Jadot, with its green capitalism applauded by the bosses and its bike lanes.
B: You present yourself as Trotskyists. Anasse has even written a prologue to Editions communard.es' reissue of Trotsky's Transition Program. In what sense do you say that Trotskyism is a political compass for the coming period?
Anasse Kazib: Trotskyism is for us the name of revolutionary Marxism after Stalinism. It is more alive than ever. Since we live in a period of instability, organic crisis of bipartisanship and social democracy.
At the beginning, I was very unionist: the union, the strike and the struggles were the alpha and the omega; politics, shit. When the comrades spoke to me about Trotsky, I replied: your gulag stuff doesn't interest me. Trotsky was for me a paragraph in a 3rd grade school manual.
I am the living example of what Trotskyism can be today: the fusion of a unionized worker, coming from immigration and popular neighborhoods, with revolutionary Marxism. What surprised me is the ability of Trotsky's analyzes to shed light on current political processes. That the texts written in the 1920s and 1930s are capable, with such precision, of explaining to me what I see with my eyes in 2021. I read your reflections on the strikes of 1936 for the first time when the approval of the El Khomri Law (law of work), in 2016. At that time, I thought that the trade union leaderships in the past were serious, revolutionary. Trotsky said, regarding February 1934, that the masses wanted to fight, but there was a limitation that did not come from the masses: it was dictated from above. The only instrument used by the leading centers was the fire hose to put out the fire. The only slogan that the masses heard was: shut up! shut up! The base wanted to fight, but their leadership was holding them back. That is the main danger and can result in a real catastrophe. There were concepts that I was experimenting with: “union bureaucracy”. After a month of redirectable strike in the SNCF, the union leaders proposed skipped strike days: Martinez in Nuit Debout [19] said his famous phrase "there is no button to declare a general strike". I said to myself: "it's incredible, Trotsky had already explained it, the leaderships don't want us to win, they want to pay homage to the ministry." On December 6, 2018, as I told you before, the workers' unions – except SUD-Solidaires, fortunately – published a letter denouncing the "violence" of the acts of the Yellow Vests on December 1, and demanded to be the privileged interlocutors with the government. Trotsky again: in times of "war", that is, in times of acute class struggle, the union bureaucracy plays a central role for the bourgeoisie since it seeks to maintain the current order.
Our class does not know Trotsky, nor Marxism. But after making many media appearances, I assure you that the bourgeoisie does know him. His look doesn't fool me. In Grandes Gueules [TV program], with two million viewers, talking about revolution and the perspective of a workers' power, is the worst thing for the bourgeoisie. I have not felt more hate than when I was talking about Marxist politics – more than during all the strike actions I have been able to do. When our ideas appear in public debate, the new generations do not take you for a madman or an enlightened man when you talk about class struggle, capitalism or the bourgeoisie. Perhaps there will be no changes in the short term. But if, during this presidential campaign, we manage to convince more and more people that this system is contrary to our interests, that it is necessary to confront it and expropriate its power and wealth, and that for this it is necessary to organize politically, we will continue advancing.
B: They speak of “avant-garde”. This idea, however, is currently discredited.
Laura Varlet: The idea of a vanguard, far from stereotypes, takes into account the fact that the consciousness of the masses is not uniform, there are always individuals who accumulate more experience, knowledge of combats from the past. And it is necessary that this allows us not to start from scratch on each occasion. The vanguard, in this sense, and even more so the party, is the collective memory of our class: learning from the strikes, from the defeats, from the traps that they set for us, from betrayals, from state repression, to formulate a winning strategy . For us, it is not about “self-organization or party”; it is party and self-organization. For example, in the Onet cleaning workers' strike at SNCF stations, there was so much creativity! No one had “explained” them how to picket every night. They and they saw that the management and the police came to break the strike at night. The workers are smart enough to find solutions to the problems that arise! But we must avoid redoing the experience over and over again from the beginning. When the repression fell on them, we had the experience of past struggles: you have to look outside, to the population, to obtain massive support, which they achieved! We do not defend the idea of a vanguard in the sense of people who are more intelligent than others and who want to impose a strategy. But the revolutionaries play a very concrete role: to propose an orientation, keys to reflect on the defeats and victories of the past. Unfortunately, the capitalist system does not give each worker the time and means to learn from their own rich history of great rebellions, and the great masses learn in the course of action. The objective is the fusion between the experience of our class and the most subversive and combative elements of the current struggles, so as not to stop at partial conquests, including when we win claims, but rather to mobilize to fight and change everything.
B: They refer to “our class”, “the workers”. “the workers”, “the proletarians” or “the working masses”. Two questions: Why is "the people" not the revolutionary subject and how do they deal with the loss of appeal of the workerist lexicon?
Anasse Kazib: If some terms are no longer used, it is also a matter of political will. The bourgeoisie not only needs to dominate us physically to exploit us, it also needs to control our thoughts. As Marx said, the dominant ideology is that of the ruling class. Sabemos que muchos proletarios se identifican con la clase media y no se reconocen a sí mismo como parte de una clase social, que es la clase obrera. Un camarada me decía el otro día: “soy un pequeñoburgués, gano 1.200 euros al mes”. ¿Y entonces? ¿Abandonamos la pelea y dejamos de hablar de “clase obrera”? Es el trabajo político que hicimos con los Chalecos Amarillos. Al principio, nos decían: “aquí somos el pueblo, ciudadanos, los franceses”, y después se multiplicaron las preguntas (“¿Los que no son franceses pueden venir? ¿Macron es ciudadano o no?”) y se llegó a la conclusión de que hablaban de los explotados, los oprimidos, de una categoría social que sufre la dominación clasista. Nuestro mayor orgullo y victoria en ese movimiento fue el canto de los Chalecos Amarillos, que modestamente cantamos por primera vez el 24 de noviembre con un cortejo de ferroviarios, en la avenida de los Campos Elíseos: “Estamos aquí por el honor de los trabajadores y por un mundo mejor”. Y esto en un movimiento que muchos acusaban de ser “pardos”, pequeñoburgueses y fachas.
Laura Varlet: Esta dificultad de nuestra clase para reconocerse a sí misma, es una victoria ideológica del neoliberalismo de los 80 y 90: la clase obrera no se reconoce ya como clase. Pero tengo la impresión de que esta identidad de clase ha recuperado fuerza actualmente. Con la pandemia, todo el mundo lo pudo ver: los patrones estaban apalancados en sus segundas residencias, mientras que nosotros estábamos haciendo funcionar los trenes, vendiendo tickets, conduciendo autobuses, haciendo funcionar los hospitales. No tenemos una lógica “obrerista”, hablamos de clase obrera en toda su diversidad. No solo de obreros blancos de mono azul en cadenas de montaje de Peugeot. Hablamos de una clase obrera racializada y feminizada, de trabajadores de supermercados, de logística, de mujeres de la limpieza, de conductores de bus… Articulamos también las cuestiones LGTBQI+: una portavoz de nuestra campaña es una militante transfeminista inmigrante. Se trata de articular toda la diversidad de una clase obrera muy heterogénea, que, si se une en tanto que clase, se vuelve una fuerza imparable con la que podremos vencer a quienes nos oprimen, y podremos lograrlo.
B: Hay un sector de los asalariados que no se encuentran en estas referencias de clases: los supervisores en las empresas. Representan el 20,4 % de la población activa –es decir, un poco más que los obreros–. ¿Cómo tomar a estos asalariados, que, si bien son algo privilegiados, viven igualmente la opresión capitalista? ¿Están perdidos para nosotros o se debe tratar de organizarlos?
Laura Varlet: Es un tema complejo. Las situaciones pueden ser muy diferentes. Por ejemplo, en la SNCF, algunos supervisores lo son por antigüedad y gracias al reconocimiento de su cualificación. Ellos continúan sufriendo la presión de constante de la jerarquía. Otros forman parte de la dirección y son formalmente asalariados, su posición en la cadena de mando y su nivel de salarios les permite acumular capital.
Anase Kazib: Hay diferentes casos según los equipos. Un supervisor puede poner su compromiso al servicio de la clase obrera. En 2019, en un Tecnicentro de Landy, todos los jefes de equipo hicieron un paro junto a los maquinistas para demandar más medios. Es otra cosa el que aspira a ser jefe de sector, que multa huelguistas, demanda despidos….
B: La cuestión policial y militar estaba muy presente en los textos históricos del movimiento socialista y revolucionario. Actualmente, casi nadie reflexiona sobre eso. Sin embargo, en Francia, se pueden contabilizar más de 200.000 militares agrupados según el ministerio del Ejército y cerca de 150.000 policías. ¿Cómo se puede pensar la toma del poder frente a esta fuerte potencia de fuego y sabiendo que una gran parte de estos son ya simpatizantes de la extrema derecha?
Anasse Kazib: Muy a menudo, la cuestión de las fuerzas militares minimiza la importancia de la cuestión política. El uso del ejercito puede volverse a menudo en contra del poder, incluso de una policía y ejército profesional. Los desertores pueden existir en momentos de crisis revolucionaria. Muchos, en la izquierda, comparten el análisis de que encontraremos enfrente a hombres armados hasta los dientes, con satélites y drones, y que será cosa de dos segundos. Hay todo un imaginario de aplastamiento que no es casual –se piensa en la inteligencia artificial que controlaría todo–. El objetivo es dominar los espíritus, hacer creer en un fatalismo. Pero no olvidemos el rol primordial de la clase obrera todos los establecimientos ligados al armamento ya la información. Nosotros hacemos funcionar las máquinas en las fábricas de armamento, en el mantenimiento técnico, en las telecomunicaciones. Imaginen un proceso revolucionario donde los obreros e ingenieros de esos lugares se pongan en huelga y desactiven todas las infraestructuras de telecomunicación. En un periodo revolucionario donde la pequeñaburguesía se una al proletariado, la fuerza militar del enemigo puede derrumbarse. No es una cuestión de enfrentamiento militar sino político, ideológico, de control de los medios de producción. En nuestra estrategia de la huelga general revolucionaria, los medios de producción se detienen: ¿Cómo le pones gasolina imaginaria a tus carros, blindados ya tus cañones de agua?
B: Denuncian de forma regular al “Estado burgués”. ¿Cuál es el horizonte: ¿reemplazarlo por un Estado obrero o abolir el Estado en pro de otra forma de coordinación colectiva?
Laura Varlet: Lo primero es que nunca habrá una revolución químicamente pura. Es un debate que tuvimos a menudo durante las movilizaciones de los Chalecos Amarillos con otras corrientes que se reivindicaban revolucionarias: si esperamos a que todo ocurra como quieres, que todos los proletarios tomen conciencia de hacer la revolución y derribar al Estado, eso no ocurrirá nunca. La cuestión reside entonces en nuestra intervención: a partir de nuestra perspectiva y nuestra estrategia revolucionaria. Vimos escenas insurreccionales en los Campos Elíseos, los Chalecos Amarillos decían: “vamos a entrar en el Elíseo”, pero no habían pensado el después. Nosotros, los trotskistas, decimos a menudo que la huelga general plantea la cuestión del poder, pero no la resuelve. La huelga genera permite detener todo y plantear la cuestión de quién dirige la sociedad, y quién tiene el control sobre los medios de producción. Paramos la producción y eso muestra que los obreros son quienes hacen funcionar la sociedad, pero eso en sí no explica qué hay que construir en lugar del sistema capitalista. Para nosotros, la huelga general es la oportunidad de decir a los trabajadores que ellos mismos pueden decidir, tomar los medios de producción y decidir qué producir, cómo producirlo, respetando al ser humano y al planeta. El Estado transitorio es la autoorganización en base a formas de coordinación del conjunto de los sectores explotados de la sociedad. Los soviets en Rusia, los cordones industriales en Chile, eran embriones de esa nueva forma de Estado. Ninguna logró desarrollarse, fueron destruidos antes de dar pie a una nueva sociedad libre de opresión y explotación, pero prefiguraban una forma de Estado obrero que nosotros reivindicamos. La Historia nos enseña que, frente a la revolución, frente a las clases populares que se ponen a la cabeza y que están listas para defender sus intereses y un mundo mejor, la clase dominante se organiza y responde. Ellos no se darán jamás por vencidos. En esta situación, no podemos simplemente decretar el fin de toda forma de Estado, en tanto que herramienta de dominación de una clase sobre otra, como proponen los anarquistas. El Estado transitorio responde a esta situación de confrontación, a la necesidad de organizar la resistencia contra los antiguos explotadores que no se dejarán derrotar fácilmente –incluso si, a fin de cuentas, este Estado transitorio está pensado para desaparecer–.
B: ¿Cuándo?
Laura Varlet: Cuando no haya más clases sociales.
Anasse Kazib: Muchos Chalecos Amarillos sacaron la conclusión de que la espontaneidad y la valentía sin organización no era suficiente. Trotsky decía que el fracaso de la revolución española de los años 30 se explicaba casi exclusivamente por la ausencia de un partido revolucionario. En una situación revolucionaria, el partido juega el rol de un estado mayor, órgano de reflexión política y estratégica. Frente a esto, la burguesía está dividida también, pero al ser atacada, responde en bloque: represión policial, patronal, mediática, judicial en una perfecta coordinación.
Luc Ferry [20] no estaba loco cuando pidió que se disparase con munición real a los Chalecos Amarillos: es un burgués consciente de que era una situación insurreccional. Por ejemplo, el número 2 de la patronal MEDEF [21], Thibault Langsade, escribió una carta a los empresarios pidiéndoles que cediesen y aumentasen los salarios, porque corrían el riesgo de perder lo que pudieran ganar actualmente si la clase obrera entraba en escena con toda su fuerza. Hasta la mitad de diciembre de 2018, los Chalecos Amarillos ocupaban las rotondas, bloqueaban las zonas industriales y comerciales y las gasolineras. No era una huelga químicamente pura, pero buscaba atacar la producción sin que ningún militante marxista se los hubiese explicado. Si mañana renaciese un movimiento de Chalecos Amarillos XXL, como nosotros deseamos, los mejores elementos de ellos vendrán con su experiencia, tratando de influenciar, de dar una perspectiva para no cometer los mismos errores. Me encanta esa frase de Rosa Luxemburgo que dice que la victoria final no será obtenida que por una serie de derrotas y el camino al socialismo –considerando las luchas revolucionarias– está pavimentado con derrotas.
Mi candidatura y todo el trabajo que hacemos con los y las militantes de Révolution Permanente en la lucha de clases, incluso durante el periodo electoral trata humildemente de construir las bases de una fuerza militante y política que se prepare para estas confrontaciones de clase decisivas que sin dudas van a llegar. Sooner or later. Y por ello, ¡invitamos a todas y todos a unirse a esta aventura!
*Todas las notas al pie a continuación son notas de la traducción y edición en castellano de esta entrevista para la Red internacional de Izquierda Diario.