France, Alternative Libertaire AL #246 - 1975: They live, committees of soldiers (fr, it, pt)

 France, Alternative Libertaire AL #246 - 1975: They live,
committees of soldiers (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]

On January 7, 1975 opens before the Permanent Court of the armed forces Marseille trial 
"three of Draguignan," called three accused of "insubordination" and "military revolt". 
With this trial, the Army hopes to make an example and bring a halt to the development of 
soldiers' committees within it. It will only make them more legitimacy. ---- In the 
beginning of the year 1975 protest of the military is not in his debut. Mainly driven by 
far-left activists in the immediate post-May 68, it tends to grow and reach more broadly 
young conscripts who establish a form of autonomous and clandestine organization: Soldiers 
of the committees. ---- The context has everything to promote this unique form of 
resistance to the military order. Two symbolic struggles and marked the year 1973: the 
fight against the expansion of the Larzac military camp in the summer taking a national 
figure and the movement of the students against the Debr? bill repealing suspended 
military service for school youth. This youth is massively took to the streets in spring 
1973 set up high school girls and coordination mobilized on orders of antimilitarists 
words. The various far-left organizations actively participated. It is precisely these 
young people who are called up in the 1975-1976 years.

By its very composition, the army can also be a giant echo chamber to the struggles of 
called: on 585,403 men in its ranks, it has called 275,797 in 1975, 47% of military 
personnel[1].

Finally, internationally, two events show that military matters are crucial for anyone who 
then seek to change society, especially in cases of revolutionary process: the military 
coup in Chile in September 1973, which poses starkly the role a "civilian army" and 
mirrored, the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in April 1974, which demonstrates the 
ability to switch on the side of the contingent workers.

Militarism and "grunts fighting"

After May 68, the various far-left organizations are inhabited by the certainty that the 
revolution approaching. By the early 1970s, they invest the military field, seeking to 
develop a new front of struggle. In October 1972, the Communist League (LC) creates the 
Front of soldiers, sailors and airmen revolutionary (FSMAR), to be "a" red fraction ", 
coordination of Communist cells" in the army[2] with a procession symbolic scrolls, 
hidden, May 1, 1973. "civil" side, it impels early 1973, a Defense Committee called (CDA). 
Its competitor, the Communist organization Revolution! (Whose acronym is more commonly 
summary "Revo"[3]), will lead the anti-militarist Committee (CAM) in which are also active 
libertarian communists Anarchist Revolutionary Organization (Ora) and the Libertarian 
Communist Group Nancy. Two years later, in January 1975, former Pabloite Revolutionary 
Marxist militants of the Alliance (AMR)[4], recently passed the Unified Socialist Party 
(PSU), followed suit by creating the Association for Information Rights soldier (IDS).

All these structures are fixed aim to popularize and support the struggles in the barracks 
and naval and air bases. For it is here that plays the essential. In spring 1973 the first 
committees of soldiers are. Partly spontaneous, partly driven by activists (far left but 
also Communists or Christian current worker), they reflect a workers and university 
students sensitive to the insubordination of the post May 68. The committees are where 
expresses "the collective resistance to regimentation, demoralization; conditions 
necessary for the formation of the soldier ", where one gathers "to fight against 
individual d?merde, the" grunt spirit, "not to be fooled by the paternalistic demagoguery 
organize to refuse dangerous exercises"[5]. These are the conditions in which the service 
is carried first to make it unbearable called. Especially since the fresh out military 
training colonial wars (Indochina, Algeria) will often see in this generation of the 1970s 
a group of young degenerates need mater and does not hesitate to use and abuse of "hole" 
and various bullying.

Thus, on the night of 23 to 24 January 1974, a group of soldiers of the 51st Infantry 
Regiment, a refugee in a tunnel during a night exercise, was hit by a train in 
Ch?zy-sur-Marne in the Aisne Eight called die instantly. The various anti-militarist 
groups abound on this occasion to campaign on 7% of casualties which would qualify the 
army. The climate in the barracks and in society is conducive to mass agitation. LC, 
probably the best-established organization, will make the choice of a public initiative to 
strong impact.

A specter is haunting the army

May 16, 1974, in the period between the two rounds of presidential elections in 1974, a 
call, "One hundred soldiers speak", is published simultaneously in Red and Liberation . 
Signed by name called by one hundred (eighty are members of the LC), it formalizes a 
number of concrete demands: equal pay at the minimum wage, free transport, weekly leave, 
removal of bullying ... but also goes further when it requires free access to the press in 
the barracks, the total freedom of political expression and the dissolution of the 
military security and the courts of the armed forces[6]. "Call of percent," reveals a 
relevant propaganda support: thousand signatories are called early July and the milestone 
of 2000 is reached in mid-August. In 1976, between 5,000 and 6,000 soldiers have signed. 
Undeniably, the choice of wearing concrete demands guarantees a hearing in the barracks 
going far beyond the ranks of the extreme left. The military hierarchy, in turn persuaded 
of a conspiracy, made the choice of repression: strict arrest and disciplinary mutations 
are reserved for "leaders". This was, not to put out the challenge to home, only the fan.

September 10, 1974 is spectacular, two hundred soldiers, one quarter of the workforce of 
the 19th Artillery Regiment, scrolls demonstration in the streets of Draguignan, on the 
basis of claims of Appeal percent. There are also many Caribbean called to show to protest 
against racist insults and bullying they suffer from coaching. Three soldiers of 
Draguignan are designated by the military as the organizers of the event: Robert Pelletier 
(activist LC, CDA and signatory of the Call of the hundred, he had already been 
transferred because of his commitment), Serge Ravet and Alex Taurus.

The trial before the Permanent Tribunal of the Armed Forces of Marseille on 7 and 8 
January 1975 turns to farce for the army and the three of Draguignan stand free. PCF, PS, 
CGT and CFDT have testified in favor of the accused[7]. The latter organization does not 
hesitate to curry army "confiscated by the ruling class" in a statement of 13 January 
1975: "School packaging workers strike breaker, haunted by the so-called" enemy within ", 
that the Army faced soldiers "[8]. The fact that the quota was requisitioned during the 
strikes PTT[9] and sanitation workers in October-November 1974 is indeed contributing to 
the union rally. And we see scroll masked, uniformed soldiers during May 1st 1970.

But beyond the fight against the army "strike breaker" or "civil war," those are the 
claims of the Call of the hundred who continue to mobilize: in Karlsruhe, Germany, three 
hundred soldiers on five hundred that count the 521st and 535th transport groups manifest 
January 13 for better balance, more permissions, and lower rates of railways. The 
committees of soldiers, illegal, multiply: mostly composed of some members (three to ten, 
rarely more, often at the initiative of a far-left activist), they publish more or less 
tinged newsletters anti-militarism, but still face fierce officers and NCOs - nicknamed 
"the crevures" in the press committees. One hundred and fourteen committees are recorded 
between 1974 and 1976, nearly half of them are concentrated in the east of France and 
Germany, where the Army sends precisely the militants "leftists" hoping isolate[10] .

"Under the uniform, you remain a worker"

Although repression and, more simply, the return to civilian life make random reality 
committees, the strategy to give the movement is hotly debated between 1975 and 1976. Two 
lines are drawn in the far left: one that considers Committees should hold national 
conference and decide their structure and their claims, and one that calls for the 
transformation of committees soldiers unions, relying in particular on the positions 
expected more 'open' of the CFDT. CAM is in favor of the first option, IDS actively 
campaigning for a union of soldiers on the model of those existing elsewhere in Europe 
(including the Netherlands)[11]. In between the LCR (formerly LC) and CDA will evolve from 
one to the other, insisting "class" character to a union[soldiers 12]. For libertarian 
communists, union form (if not totally excluded) still likely to face the twin dangers of 
corporatism and link the military hierarchy[13]. But the union question is not 
theoretical: November 4, 1975, the local union CFDT Besan?on holds a press conference 
announcing the creation of a first union section of soldiers in the 19th Engineer 
Regiment. CFDT confederation, which nevertheless had voted for the "freedom of 
association" in the army, in dissociates. This does not prevent one second section CFDT 
called to emerge some time later to 403 artillery regiment of Chaumont.

This time the Army out drastic measures. On November 27, the defense minister appealed to 
the Court of State Security (special court created during the war in Algeria) and filed a 
complaint against X for "Army demoralize". Between late November and mid-December 1975, 56 
activists (called, trade unionists and anti-military) are charged and arrested[14]. The 
CFDT is at the heart of the storm and took over the mobilization in defense of the 
accused. The CGT did not miss the opportunity to publicly lecture him on his 
"opportunistic attitude towards leftism" . The CFDT plant, if it organizes events, 
meetings, eventually warn against "irresponsible groups" and strongly denounce any 
anti-militarism ... There will be other "sections" union soldiers. Taking distance will be 
even more tangible when the CFDT confederation dissolves his UD Gironde in December 1976, 
especially because it supported the committees of soldiers Souge and Merignac.

Remain as the years that followed saw the momentum ebb had been triggered by the Call of 
percent. Soldiers committees are scarce, the question of the union is offside, the 
apparitions at 1 May become hungry. If the beginning of November 1979 to the second 
congress of the Union of the Libertarian Communists Workers (UTCL), a known speaks "in the 
name of the Libertarian Communists soldiers" is to find that "the movement of soldiers can 
not afford to its real autonomy " . However, this movement has succeeded in more than two 
years, to maintain a significant challenge in the ranks of the Great Muette. By publishing 
newsletters, releasing the word of the "grunts", sometimes managing to hold demonstrations 
illegal street activists soldiers' committees were implemented political education for a 
generation. Their revolutionary anti-militarism has not registered ", externally, 
educational and solely ideological"[15] but sought and found ways to approach a popular youth.

Th?o Rival (AL Orl?ans)

[1] CFDT, called Practical Guide, 1976.

[2] Jean-Claude Hall, Revolutionary Communist League (1968-1981). Instrument Prom or place 
of learning?, PUR, 2005).

[3] The OC-Revolution! was born from a split of the LC on bases more "movementist".

[4] On the French Pabloite current, a summary is available on the Institute of Social 
History in Amsterdam site, www.iisg.nl .

[5] SCM Nancy - Collective for a UTCL, The movement of soldiers and anti-militarism class 
struggle, 1977.

[6] Robert Pelletier, Serge Ravet, The movement of soldiers. Committees of soldiers and 
revolutionary anti-militarism, Maspero, 1976.

[7] The trial of Draguignan, Editions du Rocher, 1975.

[8] Archive confederal CFDT.

[9] "There are 40 years: the great strike of PTT" in AL No. 244, November 2014.

[10] Antoine Rauzy, The emergence and expansion of soldiers' committees in France in the 
70 (May 1974 - March 1976), MA in history from memory, Paris 1, 1999.

[11] IDS The struggle for union soldiers, Maspero, 1976.

[12] "What a battle for one of the soldiers class union? " Red No. 324 of 5 December 1975.

[13] "You said Bigeard? " All power to the workers 1, May 1976

[14] A dismissal will be delivered in late August 1978 in the general indifference.

[15] All power to the workers No. 27, December 1979.

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