The tasks of the communist party within the working class are essential. In order to deal with them what is required is to determine the main currents that today's class struggle raises in our country. At the same time, we should not leave aside the fact that they are linked to the international events and inversely. Doing so, we will thus be in best position to fix the frame of the main efforts that will lead our communist party to be ideological and political headquarters of the working class. In other words, that our party be able to work for the growing " awareness towards the irreductible opposition of their (the labourers, ndlr) interests to the whole political and social order in existence, meaning the social democrat consciousness" (In "Que faire?", book 5, Editions of progress, 1965, p.382). The class struggle on which this "irreductible opposition" to the capitalist imperialist system rises. Along the class struggle, and according to its importance and its features, some workers stand out, who reach a certain level of consciousness of the fundamental reactionary and oppressive nature of the capitalist imperialist system. We usually point them out as "the most advanced members of the working class". But since 1995, we call them "the sections ahead of the workers' and peoples' movement". Their number is more or less important. It depends on the development of the class struggle itself, but also on the level of the political and organising abilities that the party gains along its experience (history).

Elements of the history of the labour movement before, during and after November and December 1995

1981: Social democracy comes to power and manages capital's business in direct alliance (with the help and complicity of the revisionists) with the French revisionist party (French Communist Party - PCF) until 1984. This same year, the PCF ministers leave the government. Then social-democracy leads capital's politics alone (with the support of the French Communist Party inside the Parliament). 1986-1990 and 1993-1995 (the two 'cohabitation') were two periods during which social democracy had to deal with politics in the same way as the right wing. Before and after 1981, and with the support of its allied section inside the working class, the PCF, social-democracy endeavoured to maintain the ideological influence of reformism in the working masses and to lead them along its trade-unionist and political frame. The first real protests against the domination of French social-democracy finally took place in 1986. It happened when the SNCF rail workers wont on a long standing strike. A series of protest movements inside important companies will stamp the years following 1986. They happened also in whole sectors such as SNECMA, aeronautical construction; RATP, metro, Air France; Peugeot; Alsthom, electro-mechanical construction; hospitals, etc. These movements were mainly of an economic character. They have a trade-unionist origin (See our article "About the ebb and flow of the people's and workers' movement" published in Unity & Struggle, No 1, 1995). They have not led and will surely not lead to a wide spread protest against government policy. They will relatively remain isolated. Nevertheless, they ended up in stirring the sympathies of the other strata of workers as both the former and the latter mentioned above call on one another, particularly when it comes to demanding wage increases.
The opposition movement against the Gulf war will stand as the point of no return. Though limited to some sections of the working class, this opposition pushed these sections, weeks long, out to the street against war politics of French imperialism. Their slogan was : French troops, out of the Gulf: The movement against the Gulf war, being mainly of a political nature, will lead the most conscious labourers to a fundamental breaking off with Mitterrand and social-democracy. (These two proved to be entirely submissive to the interests of French imperialism which drove them to imperialist war. - à revoir)
Then, during the November-December 1995 social movement, the class antagonisms of the French capitalist society are brought back wide-open to the fore front. This movement corresponds in many ways to Lenin's definition of class struggle. "The struggle waged by the workers turn into a class struggle only when all the vanguard representatives of the working class as a whole in the country develop the consciousness of belonging to the sole and same working class and start acting not only against such and such boss but also against the entire class of capitalists and against the government that backs it up. Only when each worker gets conscious of being a member of the working class as a whole, when he considers that fighting daily for immediate claims against such bosses or such official, accounts for fighting against the whole bourgeoisie and all the government. Only then, his action becomes class struggle" (Lenin, book 22, p.221, Editions of Progress, 1965). The 1995 social movement put forward an important section of advanced workers ("vanguard representatives of the working class in the country"), who stood at the head of the country-wide strikes and street demonstrations that mobilised millions of men and women week after week against government policies at the service of capital (See our article "Some lessons form a strong and vigorous social movement" published in Unity & Struggle No 3, September 1996).
Before this important social movement, such workers, mostly employed in the public State sectors, have been at the forefront of lengthy battles much for wage increases as opposed to the erosion of their working conditions. For years, part of them have been pointed out as "rich" and "privileged" on the pretence that their jobs are guaranteed. On the other hand, the weight and the ability of the reformist unionist leaderships to keep the workers of these sectors in their union frame were strong. In spite of this massive strikes took the workers of these sectors in their union frame were strong. In spite of this massive strikes took place apart from any order issued out of union headquarters. This was already happening before December 1995. In other words, then, the workers at the head of these movements were already gaining authority and some independent range of action with respect to unions leadership.
During the months of November and December 1995, and though they had quasi-totally called together for the strikes, the unions worried most about restricting the protests to the "particular pension systems' and the State status in favour of the SNCF rail workers. That they wished to see other sections enter the protest movement was but in support of this line thought.
It was significant to note that, while demonstrations were raging in December, the CGT was holding its 45th Congress in its head offices at Montreuil, a suburban city next to Paris. Although millions of people were marching in every city, the union leaders kept the delegates locked in to look into the legitimacy of the renunciation of the reference to class struggle in the statutes of the unions!
During the preparatory events of the congress, numerous union activists rose their voices in defence of the validity and the actuality of class struggle trade unionism. Through our unionist activists and its organ, our party took part in this battle. And, instead of spending their precious time speaking on class struggle at the congress, the great majority of the activists who take side for class struggle chose to strike and demonstrate in the streets shoulder to shoulder with their comrades.
The movement widened mainly because these militants and other active strikers knew that the previous strike experiences had not succeeded in pushing the State-boss and the private bosses leaderships to retreat because of the lack of active solidarity.
This time, however, solidarity was able to stand out on the objective basis of common interests since the "Juppe Plan" was, in a way or another, taking it out on all the workers. This solidarity was proved through the slogan: Withdraw the "Juppe Plan"! As to the "All together" call, it was, beyond the different situations, the uniting spontaneous expression of regained class consciousness. Through their success in fixing the slogan "Withdraw the Juppe Plan!" to the movement, the most advanced sections of the workers put, actually, the movement along a line in opposition to of the different reformist organisations, be they trade unions or political organisations. The slogan itself was, at that given time, the political expression of the resolute opposition of millions of workers to the policies that the dominating class and its allies had decided for the preservation of their profits. It was this advanced fringe which led those millions of demonstrators and bore this political slogan.
All these weeks of struggle against the government during which the working class played an ascendant role, a large number of workers considered themselves as a whole society protest against the capitalist system. And the current of solidarity developed by the workers and labourers of other countries towards the movement reinforced the awakening of this consciousness.
The way the movement speeded up to reach its potency proves that its origins are way far in time. It strengthens and amplifies the abilities of large sections of the working class and, in general, of the peoples, to win their autonomy with respect to trade-union and political organisations lead by the reformists and the revisionists. The advanced sections of workers felt reinforced in taking up actions and initiatives during this movement. They developed their faith in millions of others. An important breach opened up in the struggle against capital during the days of November and December. We also witness the emergence of the break up with the politics practised for decades at the service of the monopolies. Hence, (on verra apres) ... We leave this matter aside for the moment.

Acting with the advanced members of the working class

During all these weeks, our party, its members and sympathisers helped the movement to reach its aims as far as possible. Hand in hand with the advanced sections of the working class, our party fought to stress ahead the slogan "Withdraw the Juppe Plan!". Our newspaper and different leaflets that we handed out to the strikers and demonstrators, raised up the question as to what alternative to the capitalist system is to be taken up. Whether our members could battle, they fought to gain the political leadership of the demonstrations. They created solid links with and won the trust of the workers who happened to lead the movement.
Following this rich experience, we have understood that building forward our party as a communist party requires that we work with these advanced members of the working class. To do so, the party must be able to figure out who they are. Some of them, we fought with during the months of November and December 1995, others we are fighting with today. Some others also, we will identify through their activities in the social movement and finally those whom we will know in the course of our work. Such work of "reconnaissance" is carried in close relation with our work of mobilisation on the basis of the party's line. The most advanced forces, namely the ones organised inside and around the party, have to be called upon in order that new working class elements can be even more widely mobilised and revealed.

The political leadership

Working with the most advanced workers means first that we are able to help them carry their role of leaders in the social movement. To do so, it is required that every mean be given to them such that they will succeed in impelling a political orientation, in fighting efficiently and leading the masses in the course of class struggle.
Our party knows why it is fighting and where it is aiming to. It has reached a certain level of capability to analyse a given political situation. It has drawn off political and action lines to still drive forward the breaking points with the capitalist system. Our party must make these advanced elements wholly conscious of these points of rupture, such that they will, in turn, take them over, and lead the masses. Working with these advanced workers should, in return, enable our party elaborate an even finer tactical line and get new means to undertake it in a larger scale. Indeed, these advanced workers are ready to get mobilised and, already, many of them do clearly so on the basis of political lines taking on the most striking features of the politics undertaken today by the bourgeoisie against the working class and the peoples. Such is the case with the protest movement in support of the working "paper-less" immigrants that the Pasqua-Debre acts have dispossessed of their official papers. This movement has, for the first time for a long time, mobilised large sections of the trade-union movement. Hand in hand with important youth sections, the movement against the process of fascisation, in which the phenomenon Le Pen is one of the attributes, against Maastrichtian Europe, considered as Europe of the monopolies, etc. proves as well the above assertions. Calling up the social movement round with the working class along one or more of these political lines hinders seriously and in concrete terms the reactionary politics developed by imperialism. That is where these axes of mobilisation are breaking points with the system. Impelling class antagonisms up from these political lines is a way of building the revolutionary political alternative. Working with the advanced elements such that an even greater number of workers, men and women of the people, and youngsters take up these lines will enable us to fill the gap that the reformists and the revisionists have created between economic and social battles and the revolutionary political prospect.
Through "acting with the advanced elements of the working class" it is assumed that they, also, be implied in the analysis we make of the situation, that we discuss it with them and check its correctness, and, if needed, that we give it a finer and a richer content with them such that we may together develop the resulting leading lines. It also means that we grow richer through the links they have gained with the masses, through their experiences and the practical knowledge they have of the labour movement.

The importance of the ideological work

Our party is so the more armed to act along these prospects that much before the November-December movement stroke, it had just completed an important theoretical study on socialism and imperialism, study of which our 4th Congress had realised a synthesis. Such an overall mobilisation of our party on the theoretical front enabled us to draw a better standing definition of its strategic aims, socialism (See our paper "A contribution to assess socialism in the USSR, a study of the economic basis and of the superstructure", March 1996), and to reach a more accurate understanding of present days working class (of the working class today) (See our paper "A study of technique in the capitalist system", June 1997). Bearing in mind the means of building the party amidst the working class, we must be able to outline its boundaries and answer as scientifically as possible to the highly actual question that is: Why do the transport, and even more widely, the communication sector workers belong to the working class?
This question is of such an authority that these sectors, in which a high rate of workers concentration is required, are in the line of the sight of the capitalist restructuring in every country. They are actually and continuously subject to social movement shakes. Along with the implications they lead to due to the modifications of teh status of the labourers (resulting, on the whole, from the fact that State capital companies are being sold to private capital), these restructuring operations and the pertaining consequences on the back of the popular users are becoming an essential stake not only for union struggle but also for political struggle. The way this struggle is being waged, the way the demands and their contents are foreheld, the way the defence of the workers and popular users' interests spring up, all of these constitute a field of everyday confrontation with the reformists in so far as the capitalist state is at the heart of the rising debate. On the other side, these sectors are strategically handy for all the economic activity; and whatever disturbance they witness lead to heavy consequences in the life of the country, and indeed at the international level, considering that the tendency underlying these restructuring operations is meant toward the constitution of integrated world-wide and particularly European networks. Whereas the struggles waged inside these sectors may very rapidly acquire a political quality, they can also acquire an international feature that could favour the elevation of class consciousness, as well as in its international frame.

The trade union task

Our party attributes much importance to trade union work and more precisely to developing its line of class struggle unionism. If the overall principles of class struggle are the same everywhere, setting them in action depends on the real situation of the trade union and the political situation in each country. Home, the union movement, regardless of union organisations, reaches but around 10 per cent of the workers and less than 10 per cent of the working class itself. Surely, the influence of reformist union organisations is much larger than 10 per cent. However, they lack in control abilities such as, for example, the DGB in Germany has. The front battles between the reformist conception and class struggle conception takes place inside the labour movement itself, in the field of the struggle; it is not limited to the sole union movement. Only the positions gained in the field, in the midst of class confrontations, enable the class union current that we impulse to reach its expression in union apparatus. On the other hand, winning over some appointments is not a goal en sol.
The economic crisis (that makes that "the crumbs" the reformists and revisionists accept from the hands of imperialism go thinner, henceforth less numerous the sinecures), but also the ideological and political crisis that are shaking the ranks of the reformists and the revisionists, enlighten their proper troops and provokes profound divisions. Also, we do not lose sight of the fact that, if the reformist and revisionist leaders who control the apparatus have no more systematic opposition that activists known for their revolutionary positions be in charge of high rank responsibilities inside their union organisations, they do so because they need them to enliven the apparatus under sclerosys. Lastly, we equally know that the reformist and revisionist leaders hope to contain the struggle waged by class struggle unionists inside the apparatus themselves such as to avoid that it does not "overflow" and be brought about among the masses.
Many of the honest activists wasted their energy in these endless inner battles to progressively end up being cut off the masses. In other words, the positions we are gaining in the midst of these apparatus are above all aimed at making easier the tasks for developing the class union line, which intended for the workers as a whole, be they organised or not on the union level. We want to win them over along the class based trade unionism and, on this basis, to organise them inside the existing unions, inside the union sections that we lead and influence. We do not first define our party's union line with respect to what the union apparatus, the reformists and the revisionists do or do not. The party's union line depends primarily on what the workers involved in the class union current, think about what is just regard to their interests and to the possibility to move forward on the way to revolution. Seen from this angle, the practice proves that our organ plays an unquestionable role in the union movement for further building and popularising the political and ideological positions of the union current that stands on the class struggle line.

"All together against capital"

For the current period the union line of class struggle is summarised in the slogan "All together against capital". National as well as international solidarity constitutes its driving force. Our party works hand in hand with the most advanced elements of the working class to make it come true and, accordingly, to deepen the break-away form the imperialist capitalist system. As a matter of fact, one of its instruments today is precisely to encourage competition among the workers. The international meetings of union activists are thus powerful tools, much at the level of their proper happening as that of the preparatory work and their extensions. They have, in one way or another, enabled all of those who had attended them to confront their experiences, and to acquire a richer approach to union and political work through the existing diversity in the situations of each country. Also, they have led the participants to take collective decisions and hence, to take them up in their daily activities. These meetings have become "theirs", they are initiatives the success of which depends, above all, on their commitment and their implication. One of the credits that the party has been able to win among them is the fight it is waging such that these meetings be always "their" business, a "business" concerning a growing number of union activists and workers. For our party, this is a tremendous field of learning to lead politically and so, through the practical activity and the work of convincing.