General Strike France 1968
A factory-by-factory account
Hoyles, Andree
http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-france-1968-factory-factory-account
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/sojournertruth/gsif.html
Publisher: Insurgent Worker, Chicago, USA
Year Published: 1969
Pages: 44pp Resource Type: Book
Cx Number: CX7435
Andre Hoyles analyses the development, organisation and end of the mass strike in France, 1968, with reference to case studies of particular factories.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
In May of 1968, France was shaken by the boldest, most widespread and most promising wave of mass struggle that Western Europe had witnessed in several decades. The struggles reached into every corner of French life, and set in motion a train of events which led to the toppling of President De Gaulle. To many people, the French events demonstrated for the first time the real possibility of revolution in advanced industrial countries.
In the U.S. the commercial newspaper reports of the French events focused on the activities of the students, which were often quite daring and dramatic. They paid very little attention to what was going on in the factories, mills and offices where the largest part of the French population carried out the chores of daily life.
The left-wing press was, if anything, less informative than the commercial press. Every little radical group seized upon the French upheaval as an occasion to produce long analytical articles advancing its particular "line' on how to make a revolution.
To our knowledge, no one has yet published, in this country, any real account of what the French workers were doing during the great days of May '68. To fill this void, we are publishing this pamphlet.
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