France, Alternative Libertaire AL #230 - Read: Theo Rival, "Unionists and libertarians" (fr)

There are too few books analyzing collective and routes militants project, giving voice to 
those who were the actresses and actors are privileged, while confronting critically 
available sources. Unionists and libertarian Theo Rival Alternative libertarian activist 
who is interested in the political project of the Union of Libertarian Communists (UTCL), 
is one of them. ---- Centered on union activism and political intervention in business of 
this organization, this book helps identify policy options being debated in the extreme 
left after 1968, especially in the libertarian and revolutionary syndicalists. ---- 
Libertarian communists then tried to hold its own political space between the supporters 
of building the revolutionary party as the main outlet for political struggles, and those 
who have made the choice of a range of less working and more weakly bound to the mass 
protest that his Italian counterpart.

The UTCL the heart of the debates of the post-1968

If UTCL fails during its years of existence (1974-1991), to reach the critical threshold 
for him to weigh in the political field, it manages to develop a strategy, in contrast to 
the 'Revolutionary Anarchist Organization (ORA main libertarian organization of the first 
half of the 1970s which resulted in the UTCL) which is carried by the left protest 
bubbling 1970s. The experience of UTCL first allowed to reconnect with the working 
practices had contributed to a ground anchor to libertarians from the late nineteenth 
century in the CGT ideas.

The choice of intervention to the working heart of his practice does not make fetish but 
is a response to the rise of post-68 working insubordination. It results including 
adherence to the CFDT so combative and self-management. The reflux of the struggles and 
the refocusing of the union in 1978 bring activists of UTCL to prioritize the construction 
of an opposition that represents a union alternative while being independent of the parties.

A carrier of history lessons

This activism demonstrates its utility by playing a role in triggering the railway strikes 
in 1986 and school teachers in 1987, as well as the establishment of a direct democracy 
assembl?iste who was far from being the norm during a strike.

When the CFDT decided to end with the most radical opposition sides, the UTCL is the only 
policy to support the creation of South Union organization, and made his activists played 
a key role in this process.

If values ??the strengths UTCL, this book does not mask all deficiencies (frenzied 
activism, a certain elitism, organizational weakness). It also strives to highlight other 
aspects of the libertarian communist combat (militarism, feminism, racism, international 
solidarity ...). For all these reasons it will date.

Esquerre Laurent (Paris AL East)

Theo Rival Unionists and libertarian, A History of the Union of Libertarian Communist 
Workers (1974-1991) , the Libertarian Alternative Publishing, 2013, 12 euros. ordered the 
AL online store .