WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL - Fifth UTCL Congress - Seventeen years of UTCL (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Collective assessment text adopted on June 16, 1991, at the end of the

5th and final congress of the Union of Libertarian Communist Workers, in
Paris. ---- Between the first interventions of a "UTCL" tendency within
the Anarchist Revolutionary Organization, in the fall of 1974, and the
Fifth and last congress of the UTCL in June 1991, seventeen years have
passed. ---- UTCL activists decide today, June 16, 1991, to put an end
to the existence of a structure, an acronym, an organizational
framework; they do this to fully integrate themselves into the
construction of a new organization, formed on the basis of the Appeal
and the collectives for a libertarian alternative (CAL), a process to
which they have very actively contributed from the beginning.

This new organization, convergence between numerous unorganized
activists and those of the Young Libertarian Collective (CJL) and the
UTCL, opens the possibility of a quantitative and qualitative leap for
the libertarian fight "class struggle", revolutionary  unionism  ,
libertarian communism.

The struggle that we have been waging for seventeen years will continue
in a renewed form, better adapted to the times, and alongside new
comrades, on bases decided democratically by all the members of the
Libertarian Alternative.

Far from writing an end to our past, we are aware of providing
significant practical and theoretical experience, training, and social
implantation.

The Libertarian Communist Project adopted during the IVth Congress of
the UTCL expresses in particular this collective contribution.

At the time of an assessment of which we have nothing to be ashamed of,
we will indicate here some of our experiences and our advances, but
without masking what appear to us to be the errors and defects, thus
drawing out some lessons which can be be useful in building the new
organization.

* * *

TLPAT n°1 (April 1976)
UTCL's initial beliefs were roughly these:

We must give the revolutionary and libertarian fight a base among the
workers, which will determine the very nature of this fight ;
it is necessary to articulate the revolutionary discourse with a mass
practice, at the base, which takes into account the necessarily limited
daily realities of the class struggle ; consequently we must participate
very actively in protest struggles and trade unionism, while publicly
disseminating our specific ideas to workers ;
the anti-capitalist fight is global, that is to say it is waged inside
and outside companies, on questions relating to production, and on all
questions of daily life, of the city, of society ;
we must rebuild a revolutionary strategy different from the beliefs of
post-68 ("  the imminence of the revolution  ") and capable of standing
up to social democracy: a coherent and credible strategy which offers a
political extension to social struggles ;
it is necessary to develop a revolutionary project which draws
critically on all the achievements of the libertarian working-class
current, and on that of all revolutionary currents and contributions,
including those of Marx and non-dogmatic "  Marxists  " ;
we must build a libertarian organization that experiments with the
self-managing and federalist forms and content of the socialism that we
propose ; an efficient, listened to organization that turns its back on
the "  party  " model ;
a revolutionary alternative calls for the unity of forces, well beyond a
single organization or a single libertarian current.
These beliefs are still ours.

But, in seventeen years, we have experimented with several avenues, we
have evolved, broadened our thinking, modified certain answers, opened
up other questions.

Establishment among workers
The UTCL was launched by a core of very young workers confronted with
the major strikes of 1974 in the banks, the PTT and the railways.
Re-examining in the light of their practical experiences the discourse
of the extreme left and that of the ORA (at the time the quantitatively
most important organization of the libertarian movement) they spoke out
against the political preponderance of activists outside the condition
of workers, and against its consequences:

a mythical image of the proletariat, which shielded the much more
contradictory realities and the limited daily struggles carried out in
companies ;
an ultra-left and anti-unionist deviance quite general in the extreme
left and very noticeable in the libertarian communist currents of the
1970s: MCL then 1st OCL , ORA ;
the predominance of the Leninist project on the far left, which de facto
attributed the leading role to the intellectual layers.

TLPAT n°20 (February 1979)
In this fight we had a tendency, in the first years, to lapse into a
certain workerism. We will return later to the question of the workers'
leadership of the organization. Let us specify, however, that the
proletariat we were talking about responded to a broad definition
(workers, employees, technicians, teachers) ; that by workers we already
meant also workers deprived of employment ; and that we do not spit on
the other "  fronts  " of the struggle.

Our initial composition and our desire to intervene and establish
ourselves in companies has allowed us to accumulate experience. Most of
the rallying to the UTCL was that of worker and union activists, or in
all cases comrades polarized by these issues. Activists have
participated in leading several hundred strikes and major protest
movements. They acquired their union presence on the basis of field
work. They experimented with the validity of self-organization,
constantly demanding the sovereignty of general assemblies. They
progressed, through practice, in their understanding of the dialectical
contradictions that cross every base and every social movement. And it
is indeed from this that we designed our orientations,


Le Postier franchi n°10 (October 1978)
UTCL bulletin to PTT.
Alongside direct intervention in social movements and trade unionism, we
attempted a specific libertarian communist expression in companies where
it was possible. At the PTT (Le Postier franchi), at the SNCF, in the
air sector in particular, there were experiments with branch bulletins
and local box bulletins. Several issues of an intersectoral business
newsletter have been distributed in recent years in tens of thousands of
copies. No component of the contemporary libertarian movement has made
such an effort to popularize the libertarian struggle among workers.

It remains to mark the limits and the shortcomings, while noting that
the seventeen years of the UTCL were also those of a formidable ebb of
workers' struggles which was not without consequences.

Limit in the active social base of UTCL: rather employees and workers
from the public and similar sectors, to which are added a few
technicians, a few teachers, a few young people in school. So there are
significant shortages: industrial workers ; private sector workers in
greater numbers ; unemployed and precarious ; rural workers.

Limitations in the specific appearance in business: too "  dotted  " ;
nowhere have we managed to last the duration, with a regular and
prolonged appearance.

Limits in the collectivization of information and reflection. There was
a deficiency in centralization (see the chapter on organization later)
which is also due to the fact that the UTCL, an organization in
principle of "workers  "  , but acting on all fronts as a global
organization, does not has never had a stable, permanent structure
coordinating its activities and debates in companies.

In conclusion, if we have broadened our areas of concern, in relation to
the workerism of the first years, we nevertheless continue to think that
a revolutionary struggle must be conceived first of all from the
proletariat (in the broad sense ), that it is first but not exclusively
among the layers that compose it that we must act and express ourselves,
and that establishment in business is indeed one (not the only) of the
essential priorities of an organization claiming to be socialist
self-management.

A unionism of action
An important part of our working experience has been played out in trade
unionism. Breaking with ultra-leftism, the UTCL was built on a
dialectical understanding of social movements in general and of union
action in particular: on what we called the contradiction between a pole
of rupture and a pole of integration, which runs through all the
struggles carried out under capitalism, and on the need for
revolutionaries to take it head on, if they want to participate in real
class struggles, to be animators and not a kind of the elite cut off
from realities and people ; if they precisely want to influence the
direction of rupture while being aware that we cannot completely escape
each of the two poles of the contradiction.

Choosing to be active in real trade unionism, UTCL activists led a
fierce fight for a combative, uncompromising, democratic orientation.
Defending grassroots, grassroots unionism, it is through this practice
that comrades have won the trust of workers and union members, and that
they have entrusted them with responsibilities going as far as
participation in the management of national federations. .

  After the first steps, where we were young workers in a very minority
in their local sections, we thus accumulated and broadened our
experiences, the organization counting " grassroots " activists, leaders
of local sections, unions, interprofessional  structures , national
structures. Thus confronted with all the union problems, the comrades
played a significant role in the activities of the left and the union
oppositions.


Fight ! n°14 (February 1987)
Carried out especially at the CFDT, where we rather found ourselves (but
also with comrades in the CGT and the FEN) without this being the result
of a deliberate "instruction  "  , but, undoubtedly, due to the
self-management orientation of this in the 1970s and the pluralism it
offered, these oppositional practices were just even though they were
not always victorious.

We nonetheless draw a critical analysis from some of the opposition,
which is too timid and confined to corridor battles, far from the
grassroots militant teams.

The essential thing was and remains for us that trade unionism can be,
at least where revolutionary militants are present, a tool for struggles
and for self-organization. This is our initial postulate, and it is in
the light of the results that we must judge the validity or otherwise of
our trade unionist orientation. But experience has proven us right on
this point.

The last great wave of struggles, which began at the end of 1986,
allowed us to confirm this: part of the union opposition, and among them
activists also affiliated with the UTCL, contributed decisively to the
emergence struggles, to their self-organization from the strikers'
general meetings, to the multiplication of coordinations.

UTCL activists played a decisive role, among the first triggering
elements, in the major movements of the SNCF or teachers, acting both
from grassroots activist situations and from departmental and national
responsibilities, thus demonstrating that we can act on different levels
for self-organization. Our orientation was confirmed by the facts,
consolidating our refusal of ultra-leftism and narrow basism, on the one
hand, and on the other our refusal of managerial unionism.


Lutter ! n°26-27 (May 1989)
The growing crisis in trade unionism has led us to evolve on the choice
of membership. Initially, this could only be conceived for us at the CGT
or the CFDT (it was even one of our ten "  basic principles  ",
certainly cautiously accompanied by a "  today  "), possibly to the
National Education Federation (FEN). But our "  compass  " being
practice on the ground, we anticipated the fragmentation of the union
landscape, for which the bureaucracies bear responsibility, and comrades
played an important role in the constitution of autonomous unions of
struggle (SNPIT at Air-Inter, SUD to the PTT...), which certainly could
not have seen the light of day without the prior work in the CFDT.

We are therefore open today to the practice of mass unionism in all
structures that allow it, including in the CNT-F, which we had refused
for a long time for the latter, although it no longer suffers , from our
part a priori, it is clear that the comrades who carried out an
experiment there were, at best, disappointed.

Beyond a positive experience and one to continue - it has also
contributed largely to modifying the content of our fight, pushing back,
we will come back to it, certain too narrowly "organizational" aspects
of  the beginnings of the UTCL, and allowing us to integrate on a
practical basis the revolutionary syndicalist and anarcho-syndicalist
tradition - beyond that, a more critical point of view is necessary,
aside from the errors which naturally punctuate any intervention.

Much of our energy has been absorbed by trade unionism. The work devoted
in the first years to a libertarian communist expression was reinvested
for the benefit of an action unionism which, it is true, takes up a good
part of the orientations formerly formulated by the extreme left (AG,
self-organization etc.).

This raises two questions:

that of the content of our specific libertarian communist interventions,
too narrowly focused on the natural areas of class unionism, and not
sufficiently carrying an ideological, "  societal  " and, in a certain
way, "  utopian  " message ;
that of balancing priorities, between the construction and appearance of
a revolutionary current, and active participation in mass and union
struggles. Balancing is all the more difficult to ensure when we are
numerically weak, and when the ebb of struggles generates militant
desertification around us. But all the more necessary as trade unionism
needs activists who are politically trained and driven by an ideal that
goes beyond the horizon of just protest struggles.

Fight ! n°7 (March 1984)
Finally, at the very heart of our union intervention, we can put our
finger on significant inadequacies: have the libertarian trade unionist
comrades, and more broadly combative self-managers, including us, had
sufficient influence in the affirmation of a trade union left ? Have we
given ourselves all the means to stand up to currents influenced by
Leninism, or by timid opposition ? Have we collectively reflected
sufficiently on our union experiences, in order to arm ourselves, while
refusing, it is quite clear to us, to act as a "  fraction  " ? Finally,
have we looked sufficiently into the specific conditions of activism in
the CGT ?

Very positive on the other hand, the results of the conference "
Revolutionary syndicalism  " organized by the magazine Lutter ! in 1986
and which saw more than 400 people pass through, including many trade
unionists, and where many combative sensibilities were able to express
themselves in real pluralism.

A global fight against the system
Contrary to a certain image, the UTCL has never voluntarily minimized
the themes of non-union struggle. In the early years we distinguished
two concepts: "  place of intervention  " and "  front of intervention
". For example, the women's "  front  " struggle crossed all "  places
": the company, the home, daily life... The company was the priority
place where we had to open the fight on all fronts . On the other hand,
we have always explained that priority does not mean exclusivity.

UTCL activists have also been involved in numerous battles outside the
realm of business or trade unionism:

The anti-militarist struggle

It was one of the major themes of UTCL. The Libertarian Communist Group
of Nancy - one of the most dynamic components of the constitution of the
UTCL (constitutive congress of 1978) - was previously the first
structure of the extreme left to support the soldiers' committees. At
the Second Congress of the UTCL a uniformed and masked conscript
intervened on behalf of the libertarian communist conscripts: a
clandestine liaison and support structure had been set up. Most of the
militants participated in the antimilitarist struggles of the time, and
comrades like Daniel Guérin were particularly at the forefront.

The antimilitarist orientation of the UTCL was open: support for all
forms of protest against the army, insubordination, objection, struggle
inside the barracks. These unfortunately declined quite quickly, an
indication of the more general decline in struggles and the
politicization of youth. We continued the work of supporting objectors
and rebels, and denouncing the condition of those called up. Our
intervention in the fight against the Gulf War also drew its motivations
from our antimilitarism.

We must, however, note that our collective intervention on this front
has largely declined year after year, certainly accompanying the decline
and minoritization of antimilitarism in general, but placing us below
the critical and including ideological intervention which should be the
one of a libertarian organization.

Anti-racism. The fight for equality


Fight ! n°6 (December 1983)
During the March for Equality
If the anti-racist fight is one of the classics of the intervention of
revolutionaries, it is under the push of young people from immigrant
backgrounds that the problem was really posed to the population. The "
steps» were also the harbingers of the struggles of youth and workers at
the end of the 1980s. Supporting the first march (1983) we actively
participated in the second (Convergence 84). Through this support, UTCL
set milestones among young people (convergence riders, Nanterre
students, etc.) who would form the initiating core of the CJL. Since
then, the work of several comrades in the provinces and in Paris has
broadened our interventions in the associative sector and in the place
of residence: new problems seized us, whether global (the theme of the
"new citizenship" carried  by  Convergence 84) or field.

The struggle of women

It was first the active participation of the women of the Collective for
a UTCL then of the UTCL in the women's movement of the 1970s (with the
formation of a specific commission). Then gradually a reinvestment in
the women's commissions of the unions. Finally, in recent years, very
little participation in initiatives by feminist activists, reflecting
the significant decline in women's struggle, and the less specific
feminist motivations of the new generation of activists.

However, we can see that the specific intervention of UTCL was
insufficient on this front, while the fight against patriarchy should be
one of the essential themes of an anti-authoritarian movement. We cannot
say that there was a "  macho  " type of resistance ; several other
reasons seem to combine. Different sensitivities among the activists did
not help with active intervention: criticism of the excesses of
feminists, economist points of view downplaying the specificity of this
front, even reactions to the predominance of the intellectual strata
over workers...


UTCL at the feminist demonstration of October 23, 1982.
For reimbursement of abortion by Social Security.
The anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist fight

Support for the struggle of the Kanak people was one of the major fronts
of the UTCL. All groups in the organization were involved in it.
Prioritizing work at the grassroots, in the cities, in businesses, in
the youth, to central participation in the AISDPK (with nevertheless a
presence in its national bodies and in the union commission), many
comrades have made it practically their "  priority front  " alongside
trade unionism for several years.

The UTCL thus took up, in a different context, the torch of the
Libertarian Communist Federation (FCL) throwing itself into support for
the Algerian people, and like it we met libertarian activists (an
anti-imperialist coordination was able to see the light of day with
comrades from the OCL, the FA and the unorganized), and we opposed
others (mainly traditional anarchists, from the FA or not, refusing to
support the Kanaks in the name of principled anti-nationalism ).


Fight ! n°9 (February 1985)
At the end of the support we must still identify some deficiencies. We
have not been able to find the way to a sustained debate with Kanak
activists on the question of the project for the transformation of
society - even though it is at the heart of the move towards
independence. Not having succeeded in supporting the emergence of a
self-managing core on the island (especially not having attempted it)
may raise questions for us, especially since the future of the Kanak
people is not bright, There are significant explosions ahead of us in
the "  Overseas Territories  ", and the perspective therefore remains
relevant.

Second highlight in the anti-imperialist struggle: the fight against the
Gulf War. If here our intervention is confused with that of the CAL, if
we found ourselves alongside all the comrades with an agreement on the
orientation "  neither Bush nor Saddam  ", the UTCL still found the last
opportunity to a public appearance in a major mobilization, and she was
notably among the organizers of the major anti-war demonstration of
January 12, 1991.

Revolutionary internationalism

Let us recall here the work begun with our comrades from the Libertarian
Socialist Organization (OSL, French-speaking Switzerland) in a common
international secretariat and which made it possible to establish and
maintain numerous contacts on the five continents with libertarian
organizations, collectives or magazines and anti-authoritarian. Thanks
to this work, political convergences began to take shape, particularly with

the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), in Uruguay ;
the Federation of Anarchist Communists (FdCA), the Italian Anarchist
Party (PAI), the Libertarian Communist Organization (OCL), the
Libertarian Communist Federation (FCL), in Italy ;
the Anarchist Communist Federation (ACF) and the Anarchist Workers Group
(AWG) in Britain ;
le Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) en Irlande.
Likewise, on the trade union level, we participated in several
international meetings of revolutionary trade unionists and regular
contacts were maintained with, among others, the Swedish SAC and the
Spanish CGT/CNT.

Support for the people and workers of the East


UTCL poster (1980)
For the meeting tour organized with Viktor Fainberg and Vladimir Borissov.
Well in advance of the event, we have carried out ongoing work for years
in support of opponents and in particular trade unionists from Eastern
countries. This was support for the SMOT union in the USSR. Support for
Bulgarian and Romanian opponents. And support for Solidarnosc, then at
the forefront of the fight against bureaucracy, and carrying a
self-management project. These were meetings organized by UTCL in the
provinces and in Paris with the intervention of opponents. These were
special files. And the organization of a major conference in 1981: "
 From Kronstadt to Gdansk, 60 years of resistance to state capitalism»,
a conference both historical and contemporary, where dozens of important
personalities spoke, from Guérin to Castoriadis, from Pliouchtch to
Ciliga and Marcel Body, in front of more than 800 attendees.

Closer to us, after the collapse of bureaucratic regimes, contacts were
made in particular with revolutionary syndicalists and anarchists from
the East.

Ecology

UTCL activists participated in the major struggles against nuclear
power. And locally they are present in numerous mobilizations. The
Libertarian Communist Project addresses the ecological dimension at
several points, in its analysis of the crisis, its social project, its
strategic axes. However, even if we are active and if we are aware, it
is clear that our expression has not been commensurate with the issue
and the link that should be made naturally between anti-capitalist,
libertarian and environmentalist fights. Without opportunism (our
commitments largely predate the appearance of the "  green  " party), we
are admitting an incontestable weakness.

The youth


Liêm-Khê Tran-Nu, one of the founders of the CJL, during the anti-racist
march of 1984
The "  rollers for equality  " of Convergence 84.
 From issue 1 of All Power to the Workers, the collective for a UTCL
expressed itself on the student struggle, reflecting the presence of
high school and student comrades. The antimilitarist struggle was an
extension of the struggle in the youth. But the priority in business was
not accompanied by specific work with schooled youth. It was from 1984
(Convergence 84) that a new generation of activists joined the UTCL.
They were very active in the great strike of 1986 (where UTCL unionists
were also among the architects of student-worker rapprochements). This
new generation brought within the organization a questioning of the
overly "  union-syndicalist" aspect» of UTCL, where the integration of
young people had become difficult.

The relaunch of struggles in colleges and high schools made new
political commitments credible. The creation of the Young Libertarian
Collective in the wake of the 1986 strike responded to a need: a
specific structure for libertarian communist intervention in youth ; but
it also highlighted UTCL's difficulties in meeting this need.

Created by UTCL activists, supported by it, and situated on the same
political trajectory, the CJL has experienced significant development ;
it constitutes in fact an autonomous organization in all its
decision-making, and nine-tenths of its members are not affiliated with
UTCL.

The CJL therefore acted as a revealer of the qualities and defects of
the UTCL, both capable of generating a new wave of activists, and
unsuitable for organizing most of it, due to its progressive tightening
around issues not exclusively but still very primarily "  trade
unionists  ".

He was thus one of the driving forces behind a questioning that led us
to the current breakthrough.

* * *
Our interventions "  outside companies  " or "  outside unionism  " have
therefore not been negligible. But we note a gradual abandonment of a
part of them, which must be put in relation to the general ebb of
struggles on all fronts: the retreat into worker and union action is
explainable, and we can even to say that it was he who allowed us to "
hold the road  " during a difficult time for revolutionaries. We also
note important fronts where we have little presence. And an organization
that has difficulty integrating young people and active activists
outside the company.

The renewal of struggles since 1986 - and therefore that of commitments
- made it necessary to abandon the structure, the UTCL acronym, and the
image attached to it. A new and global organization must better
articulate struggles in companies and struggles on all fronts, and offer
a framework where young activists can rub shoulders with workers,
associative or cultural activists, those who act in the unions.

However, it would be illusory to imagine being able to "  cover  " " all
  " subjects. For this it would be necessary to constitute a very
significant force. What we can hope for in the future - and this would
already be a qualitative leap compared to UTCL - is a current which does
not hesitate to express itself more on all questions of society, which
participate more actively in struggles over life, housing, the city,
ecology.  And which, without losing the achievements of mass
interventions, nourishes its specific intervention with a more "
ideological ", subversive content  , carrying an alternative project of
society and life.

Revolutionary new strategy and content
The counter-power strategy

By seeking to reconstruct the revolutionary struggle on the basis of
real (not mythologized) social struggles, UTCL opposed from its very
first steps both the strategy of the common program and the Socialist
Party (the transformation carried out by managers from the institutions
) than the unreal visions of the majority of the extreme left, focused
by the belief in a very imminent revolution (the majority of the
libertarian communist current in particular was then blinded and
incapable of formulating a revolutionary strategy adapted to a
non-revolutionary period) .


TLPAT n°11 (January 1978)
This research, which was one of the constants of the UTCL, found a first
formalization around the slogan "  unify, harden, self-manage the
struggles, towards the general strike  ". The project of a general
strike carried out by a self-organized movement (we spoke of the "
General Estates of Workers  ") and opening the way to a possible
revolutionary shift was adapted to the period of social ferment of the
1970s. It allowed both an anchor in demands struggles and a political
extension/overcoming. But he gradually became unsuitable: the ebb of the
struggles emptied him of his credibility.

As we progressed in our critical reflection we also measured its limits:
it remained within the logic of one-upmanship which was that of the
extreme left ; in fact, for a self-management project to advance among
workers, a simple mechanical accumulation of struggles and a simple
raising of demands is insufficient: the logic, the content, the
qualitative dimension are essential.

This is how we have moved forward in the development of an alternative
strategy of counter-power, which the Libertarian Communist Project is
widely developing. This strategic option positions a specific fight. It
marks a divide with the absence of strategic issues in traditional
anarchism ; also a divide with the ultra-leftism of the libertarian
communists of the 1970s, who also ignored the need for a stage, perhaps
a long one, of maturation and awareness among workers. We found some of
the qualities of revolutionary syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism
which, through protest struggles and the development of workers'
self-organization, posed the problem of counter-power; but, unlike in
any case "  pure trade unionists  ", we have built our political project
on the assemblies of workers, unionized and non-unionized, and not on
the union structure... This option also positions a libertarian fight by
giving it credibility. in the face of Leninist and social-democratic
strategies.

The development is obviously not complete. In The Libertarian Communist
Project, it still bears the mark of the limits of the UTCL: it relies
essentially (even if it opens to all fronts) on counter-power in
companies.  An important part is missing, or is only mentioned: it
remains for the " class struggle " libertarians  to specify and
experiment with a strategy of counter-power in the city, the commune,
the regions, etc.

The programmatic bases of a new revolutionary current

The work of synthesizing the positive contributions of the " libertarian
worker current  ", of Marx, of the non-dogmatic Marxists, of the
self-managers, did not remain a simple wish.

We have laid part of the programmatic foundations of this synthesis,
even if it is only in draft form, with enormous theoretical work still
remaining to be carried out.


Fight ! n°5 (May-August 1983)
Some of these bases can be recalled, which mark an overcoming of
anarchism, and at the same time a return to its best sources: federalism
understood as a dialectic between autonomy and centralization, and
therefore a certain positive, necessary conception, of this
centralization ; the revolutionary process and the counter-powers,
opposed to the myth of the "  Grand Soir  " ; a conception of history
and a method that is both dialectical and materialist ; the refusal of
abstentionism in principle, and a reflection that is both very critical
and nuanced, on parliamentarism and the State; a social project
constructed, which does not hesitate, on several sensitive issues, to
refuse the taboos of anarchists but also of classic revolutionary lefts:
the existence of a law, a justice, a currency, a market, the recognition
of specializations and at the same time the requirement for their control.

On the method of analysis our current has worked and evolved to a high
level of requirements for an organization made up essentially of field
activists. The first research in the Collective for a UTCL, the debates
on the occasion of the merger with the OCA, a brochure, a special issue
on the occasion of the centenary of Marx, a chapter of the Libertarian
Communist Project, marked out this work . With several postulates from
the start: the method (and the conception of history) is a tool, not a
system of beliefs ; we must recharge our batteries in the original
debates of the workers' movement (Marx, Bakunin, James Guillaume, etc.)
; we must both integrate and go beyond Marx, and therefore question the
narrowly deterministic and economistic and even metaphysical aspects of
his thought.

Thus we placed ourselves in the same trajectory as our comrade Daniel
Guérin, without using the formula "  libertarian Marxism  ", a source of
confusion as he himself had also agreed. Our desire for a method going
beyond that of Marx made us for a long time put forward a formula a
little different from that usually in use: "  historical dialectical
materialism  ". Since then, as our thinking has progressed, we have
increasingly freed ourselves from the somewhat "  rigid  " patterns that
we had inherited from a certain classic Marxism.

What is to be remembered is that the method was not for us a cosmetic
element, but on the contrary it was, particularly in its dialectical
dimension (and therefore in that it was opposed to mechanism and to
determinism), the matrix where most of the concepts and orientations
that make UTCL specific were formed, in close connection with our practices.

The experience of the organization
Seventeen years of experience have allowed us to evolve in our
conception of organization, while validating the need to organize
ourselves to think and act concretely.

Organization: a necessary tool

For us, the organization is not a chapel where we submit to a "  truth "
beyond the determination of its members ; nor is it a disciplined army
where activists obey the authority of even democratically elected
leaders: it is a collective tool, with the elements of self-discipline
essential to any active association, and a logic of internal democracy
of the type self-managed.


The UTCL premises, rue de Lappe, in Paris 11th .
The banner in Chinese had been offered by a former Red Guard who had
taken refuge in France and become anti-Stalinist.
The fact of being organized has undeniably played a role in our
practices, in their successes sometimes, or in their progress. A
collective framework for debate and development allowed us to acquire
training and coherence that we would have lacked. The fact of sharing
the same project and the same ethics of action comforted and stimulated
us. And we have verified on multiple occasions how valuable a
circulation of information, an organized network, can be in militant action.

Also, at the end of these seventeen years, we are still convinced of the
necessity of organization, and this conviction marks a clear divide with
a part of the libertarians, who still harbor fantastical fears on the
subject, or who camp on ineffective schemes (such as the refusal of any
vote), proof of a break with reality, or who are prey to endless
hesitations and desires. We are just as much at odds with the model of
the revolutionary party, its form (hierarchical), its vocation (the
exercise of power). We have demonstrated that the self-management of an
organization is not a utopia, and this over time.

Overcoming platformism

UTCL was very "  platformist  " in its very first years. Suffering from
the domination of Leninism over revolutionary currents, and above all
breaking with the distressing disorganization (political as well as
structural) of libertarian circles (ORA included), we thus initially
operated on a fairly rigid model (but with, from the origins, a spirit
of tolerance in debates and concern for the rights of minorities).

A questioning took place in step with our growing worker and union
experience. Progressively, UTCL no longer played the mythical role of
the place where we would give ourselves collectively, democratically of
course, the "  instructions  " guiding everyone's mass practices. On the
contrary, these came to nourish our reflection, in a bottom-up process
where we became aware of the complexities of the areas in which we
operated, and of the inadequacies of the slogan logic of the first
moments of our organization.


Book The Libertarian Communist Project
Published by UTCL in 1986 at the end of its IVth congress .
The specificities of the UTCL (and in particular the self-management of
the line, which is neither centralism nor an overly localist federalism)
have allowed a "  positive basis  " with in particular provincial groups
keen to make diversity heard situations encountered without falling back
on them. Hence a conception of strategy as open and not denying
specificities: a move beyond the platformist concept of "  tactical
unity  " towards what we could call a posteriori a "  strategic unity  ".

The Libertarian Communist Project of 1986 is clear on this subject.
Without denying the undeniable progress made by the Platform of 1926 and
the necessary struggles of Archinov or Makhno. This is one of the
advances which made it necessary to abandon a UTCL structure whose
content had evolved considerably, but whose acronym remained attached to
the initial orientations.

If we are very attached to these open conceptions, one might wonder if
we have not tended to bend the stick in the opposite direction of
platformism, during the last years of the UTCL. We must find a point of
balance, where everyone is free to act in mass movements, but where
information circulates and the current develops and can propose
collective orientations ; otherwise, subject to the centrifugal forces
of localism and individualism, a current may no longer have any grip or
link with realities.

Labor organization

We would no longer adopt certain formulas from the text "  A workers'
organization for libertarian communism  " adopted at the constitutive
congress of 1978, such as: "  it is clear that the entry of these
activists (schooled youth, intellectuals, middle classes) in the
organization must be very selective  " or again: "  ...in the
organization today, as tomorrow, during the revolutionary period, power
will be held by the workers  ".


TLPAT n°31 special (April 1980)
We have never accompanied this political will with the start of
structural measures (such as "  double vote for workers  "), as we had
discussed at one point, at the beginning of the UTCL. But there is an
incontestable workerism there, with which we have broken.

Our questioning of the specific organization of libertarian communist
workers, the corollary of which was ultimately a specific organization
of young people - the CJL - led us to formulate the concept of "  global
organization  ". Obviously contradictory with the very acronym of UTCL.

But our still intact concern for a libertarian current which is
establishing itself in the proletariat and for a worker and union
practice determined in complete autonomy by the workers of the
organization push us not to throw away the baby of worker autonomy with
the dirty water of workerism.

Political parties in general, far-left organizations, often libertarian
groups, and gradually unions are led or run by leaders mainly from the
wealthy or middle classes. We therefore have nothing to be ashamed of
having formed an organization whose leaders were mainly workers immersed
in working-class practices.

The exclusion of workers and employees from the definition of political
issues is one of the major facts of today, and one of the most
questionable. Now, how can we not continue to take into account what we
said in 1978: "  a comrade located outside the company does not have the
main element necessary for understanding worker struggles: their
practices  "...

There is a real question here, which will not find a formal answer as we
initially thought, but which must be asked constantly, if we place
ourselves in the field of class struggle.

An insufficient appearance

The appearance of UTCL remained very checkered:

a press uneven in its form and content, but overall rich and
diversified, and open to the outside world (numerous interviews,
interventions from other currents, etc.) with a weekly Letter then a
fortnightly newspaper running almost continuously for several years, and
which is one of the positive points of our balance sheet. But this press
remained very confidential, little known, little read ;
massive but episodic national leaflets ;
rare poster campaigns (but sometimes noticed, like that of the
bicentenary of the French Revolution) ;
brochures, booklets, sometimes quality books, but in insufficient number ;
some campaigns of meetings and public meetings, but again without
regularity. But with three important political events: the "
Kronstadt/Gdansk  " conference in 1981, that on revolutionary trade
unionism in 1986, and a tribute to Daniel Guérin in the form of a
revolutionary and pluralist meeting.

"  Kronstadt 1921-Gdansk 1981, sixty years of resistance to state
capitalism  "
Conference organized at Ageca, in Paris, by UTCL, on April 4 and 5, 1981.
The UTCL ensured a continued presence in national and local
mobilizations, demonstrations (sometimes with rather large and dynamic
processions, behind our banners and those of the CJL), support for the
struggles. This affirmation of a libertarian current (often and for a
long time alone in participating in unitary actions) has contributed to
making our organization a known reference in certain activist circles.

But beyond restricted circles, our organization remained ignored. And
even towards activists from other organizations, unions, associations,
etc., we have never had a communication policy. Overall, the UTCL
remained a network organization, a kind of involuntary "  Bakunin
alliance ", structuring political and union " executives ", influential
in social movements, but without succeeding in bringing to life a real
current of opinion.

Staff stagnation

UTCL remained below the critical digital threshold which would have
allowed it to acquire sufficient resources to gain a massive response.

There are several reasons for this:

the context was extraordinarily unfavorable. The UTCL was born when the
first signs of ebbing of the struggles were appearing. We have gone
through a dark period and the fact of having "  held on  " despite this
and despite our initial weakness is already a feat ;
the libertarian communist current did not offer organizational
experience and material assets to the (very young) founders of the UTCL.
We had to start from scratch, make and redo many mistakes ;
we favored the social movement, the struggles, the unionism, over the
organization. Most of the comrades embarked on the practices and they
were right ; many have gained the esteem of workers and accepted union
responsibilities... and they have not been able to devote themselves to
building the organization.
Was it possible to act differently, due to our social composition but
also the times ? Still, UTCL has largely suffered from this
prioritization, in its local and national activities.

We have underestimated the importance of centralization in building the
organization. Or because we have always favored political content over
structure, or by basism, or blinded by a model of unbridled activism
that could only last for a while, we did not understand early enough
that an organization needs an efficient technical infrastructure, and a
team of national officials trained enough to carry out the political
tasks from which an organization cannot escape. Providing resources,
releasing comrades in sufficient numbers for these tasks, training them,
does not harm democracy: on the contrary, it needs a coordination system
that functions well.


"  No to all imperialisms  "
On June 5, 1982, UTCL in the demonstration against the coming of Ronald
Reagan in Paris.
This weakness in the central organization (in contradiction with the
image that has often been given of us) has had ripple effects. Little
contact management, and therefore no development. Many projects adopted
with enthusiasm... but ultimately not implemented due to lack of human
resources. And, generally speaking, a real organizational and political
capacity for short-term "  hits " (with the notable exception of the
weekly letter) but an impossibility of sustaining the length.

We have not been able to find the terms and forms of public political
intervention. How can we say anything other than the radical union and
associative sectors ? How to convey an "  ideological  " message about
society, life, etc.? If we have been able to formulate the programmatic
content of our identity, we have failed to give it an attractive form
capable of meeting and politicizing the latent revolts among workers and
young people. And for this reason we have not succeeded in winning over
active activists in their field who are in agreement with our practices,
but who do not find in our real political activities elements motivating
commitment.

A unitary current
The UTCL immediately asserted itself as a unitary movement which did not
see itself as the sole embryo of tomorrow's alternative.

 From the worker and union left to the "  great anti-capitalist and
self-management movement  "


Fight ! n°16 (summer 1986)
As early as No. 1 of All Power to the Workers (May 1976), the Collective
for a UTCL developed in a central article the perspective of a "
Revolutionary Alternative  " based on the organization of what we called
"  the workers' left and union  ", the cores of unionized and
non-unionized workers who opposed the PCF and the PS on the basis of
workers' democracy. We thus continued the problem of the ORA "  So that
a force assembles  ", by expanding it.

At the same time (but also in the spirit of contributing to the
Revolutionary Alternative) our active participation in the mobilizations
of the extreme left - which earned us a reputation as "  frontists  "
(?) notably carried by the OCL, before that - in recent years, we have
not come to sign the joint appeals.

Little by little (and the decline of the struggles helping) we
reinvested the "  worker and union left  " orientation in the opposition
struggles of a union left. Here again, but in a different framework, it
is unity between political activists of various sensibilities, and with
many unorganized people. Without neglecting parallel experiences with
non-union or non-union members, when possible (cf. railway workers in
Rouen...).

Aware of the limits of this activity, we then broadened our conception
again, tracing the perspective of a "  broad anti-capitalist and
self-managing movement  " (The Libertarian Communist Project).

While leading local experiments with alternative collectives (Orléans,
Tours, Toulouse, Caen, Laval, etc.) and participating very critically in
the Juquin campaign. On these occasions we met some of the unorganized
libertarians with whom the CALs would be built.

Unitary practices, debates (episodic meetings with the Federation of the
Alternative Left (FGA) then the Red and Green Alternative (Arev), the
LCR, the Revolutionary Marxist Alliance (AMR), etc.), central
perspective of the Alternative revolutionary: a continuous line for the
UTCL, marking its refusal to form a sect.

Libertarian currents and us: debates, unities, unifications,
divergences, controversies

The Collective for a UTCL emerged from an exclusion from the ORA,
consummating the break with ultra-left libertarian communism.


Leaflet supporting the Barcelona pump attendants' strike (October 1978)
Common Tract OCL, UTCL, CNT-F, TAC, OCA
As of No. 2 of All Power to the Workers, however, we are publishing an
open letter to all libertarians to open the debate. We then found
interlocutors: Syndicalist Alliance, Communist Anarchist Tribune (TAC),
Anarchist Combat Organization (OCA).

With the Syndicalist Alliance the debates went far ; the UTCL Collective
and the AS leaders were ready for the merger ; it failed during the
National Conference of Libertarian Workers of 1977, which was
nevertheless one of the rare occasions for a real debate between
libertarian communists and anarcho-syndicalists, with nearly 200
participants. Was a synthesis between the two currents possible then?? A
good part of the anarcho-syndicalists present were in fact very
reluctant to organize (their experience, which followed the Conference,
was short-lived) and we were not ideologically ready either. In the
following years, the AS disappeared, and some of its activists joined
the FA. For our part we gradually achieved the synthesis missed in 1977,
integrating the aspects that we judged positive of anarcho-syndicalism,
and becoming a current as revolutionary syndicalist as libertarian
communist, interlocutor of the Spanish CNT/CGT, or participant in the
Conference international organized in Stockholm in 1990.

With Communist Anarchist Tribune, we experienced several interrupted
phases of debate, the comrades alternating sincere unified impulses and
ruptures full of acrimony. A foundation of common references exists, and
the same desire to build a broad alternative. But there are also
divergences: on the content of this Alternative, which the comrades seem
to reduce too much to a cartel of self-managing currents and defectors
from the PCF, by favoring alliances at the top over unity in the
grassroots collectives, and by favoring a strictly "  political "
activity  over articulation with social struggles; divergence on the
conduct of debates in large or unitary structures, where comrades
practice too much erasure followed by successive departures ; divergence
on the question of the organization of a libertarian communist current,
which the comrades alternately criticize, approve, and reject ; finally,
divergences on the libertarian content, the comrades seeming more
attached to traditional positions. The statement of these differences
takes nothing away from the esteem we have for our comrades, they can be
accepted or even overcome, and our wish remains that of finding
ourselves together one day.

The UTCL was not only an interlocutor provoking or responding to the
call for debates. It was the product of convergences between several
libertarian components.

At its founding congress in 1978, it saw the junction between the
Collective for a UTCL formed in 1976 and several independent libertarian
communist groups.


TLPAT n°27 (December 1979)
The Second Congress allowed a merger with the Anarchist Combat
Organization (OCA), itself the result of a clarification within
autonomous anarchist groups after 68 (Anarchist Coordination). The OCA
journal, Lutter !, would become the theoretical journal and then the
UTCL journal. The debates for the merger made it possible to advance in
the definition of the method of analysis, in particular, and the OCA
brought active activists and several important points of establishment
to the UTCL.

At the same time, the UTCL was joined by comrades from the 2nd OCL (like
Daniel Guérin), and from the FCL then the 1st OCL (like Georges Fontenis).

The fight to finally open a debate with the Anarchist Federation and the
Libertarian Communist Organization was relaunched from 1984. These two
organizations have experienced activists, and they do not lack
knowledge, which could be useful to a movement at least partially
reunified, if it was on solid foundations, which the refusal or
reluctance to debate did not allow us to appreciate. The differences are
no less real.

With the FA there is a divergence in the conception of the organization
which is profound. The absence of any vote can only lead - this is our
opinion - to the establishment of occult and uncontrollable directions,
to theoretical stagnation, and to a mode of debate where the essential
is not at stake in the public and democratic arena. If the FA has indeed
progressed (we cannot underestimate its recognition of the class
struggle) it still carries a rather fixed and confused, even dogmatic
and sectarian, "  anarchist doctrine  ". This should not necessarily
prevent exchanges with UTCL. But the FA was not only hostile. We will
remember that she has always refused to put the UTCL press on sale in
her bookstore, which is worth all the demonstrations.

Relations with the OCL are more complex. Obviously conflicting at the
start (although we quickly proposed the debate) ; further aggravated
when it actively shifted towards ultra-leftism and "  autonomy  ". Then
marked by dodges and missed meetings, alternating with sometimes fierce
bouts of controversy (as during the railway conflict of 1986). We regret
this all the more since the book produced by the OCL (State of the
scene) as well as Courant alternativa are of quality, and there are
common bases. The climate has thawed a little in recent years.


Fight ! n°157-158 (April 1990)
But differences remain. They seem to revolve around a certain refusal to
appreciate social movements in their contradictions and their limits
(hence the successive mythification of coordinations, squats,
alternative rock...), and difficulties in accepting those of mass
intervention ; this for the benefit of the affirmation of "  radical
cores  ", unfortunately today largely ghettoized, with the search for a
"  rupturism» which undoubtedly draws its references more from post-68
leftism than from contemporary data. Between our search for a link
between mass movements and radical expression and a problem of minority
rupture, the gap is still large. But nothing a priori stands in the way
of debating it. This has only been the case in recent years, at the
instigation of Libertarian Alternative or the magazine Noir et Rouge.

If the UTCL had some difficulties in overcoming sectarianism and the
refusal to debate, it should be noted that Libertarian Alternative,
running both new and counting many unorganized people, scored a few
points. We welcome this, while recalling that all this reluctance to
debate reveals profound political shortcomings, and that the necessary
renewal of the libertarian fight must not be lost and drowned in
endless, cautious and diplomatic steps. protocols, where the substantive
debate and social practices would ultimately be forgotten.

 From UTCL to Libertarian Alternative

At the 4th Congress , the UTCL clearly indicated the perspective it
proposed, under the title "  building a new current  ".

UTCL, by progressing over the years, has set the terms for its
overcoming. The new historical era in which we are engaged accelerated
the pressure: we had to abandon a structure marked by the previous
historical era, a structure already largely called into question from
within, and which could not allow the development necessary to give us
the means of our ambitions.


Libertarian Alternative No. 3 (June 1991)
The journal of collectives for a libertarian alternative (CAL).
Finally, the existence of comrades going in the same direction as us
made a process combining equal convergence and, for our part, going
beyond the UTCL credible. The stages of the process are known:
constitution of a libertarian communist Coordination at the initiative
of the TAC in 1988 ; "  Call for a libertarian alternative  " in early
1989 ; constitution of collectives for a libertarian alternative (CAL) ;
their coordination ; the holding of three national AGMs.

Throughout, UTCL has very clearly expressed its intentions, as evidenced
by the various debate bulletins in which it has expressed itself. And
the activists resolutely committed themselves to the Call and then to
the CALs, respecting the rules of the game: individual participation,
refusal to constitute a "  fraction  ", and therefore the possibility
for everyone to position themselves freely, as the debates demonstrated.
where UTCL comrades diverged.

Also the relationships between the UTCL and the process of constituting
a new organization were unambiguous, it was indeed a deliberate
convergence, and Alternative Libertaire was each time in control of its
choice without seeing itself subject to any subjection. Political
agreement was reached on the content, with a debate around a preliminary
draft identity text which allowed everyone to express themselves. And
this document, if it does not deny the achievements accumulated over the
years, also clearly marks the differences and progressions between the
new organization and UTCL: it expresses a real common approach, where
UTCL does not did not impose anything, but we did not make any
concessions on the merits either.

Finally, the fact that the CJL and the UTCL were ultimately the only two
organizations represented does not fall under our responsibility ;
without elaborating here on the FA, let us note that the OCL had already
refused to associate itself with the Libertarian Communist Coordination
; and that TAC left the CALs without leading a substantive debate,
leaving everyone perplexed. For our part, we have always respected the
legitimate concern for debates with all libertarian currents expressed
by the signatories. AG after AG, new initiatives have been taken in this
direction.

* * *
The Vth Congress of the UTCL meeting on June 16, 1991 noted with
satisfaction the progress of the CALs.

The Manifesto for a Libertarian Alternative, adopted during the
constitutive general assembly of the new organization, on May 18, 19 and
20, 1991, expresses ideological, theoretical, strategic and practical
convergences in a amply sufficient manner.

The CALs have multiplied, the initiative continues to gain comrades, and
the prospect of an organization with at least twice as many members as
the current UTCL and undoubtedly significantly more is entirely credible.


Fight ! n°176 (July 1991)
Final issue of the UTCL journal.
Also the Fifth Congress decided on the self-dissolution of the UTCL, its
members having joined the new organization and now working on its
construction.

We bring our training, our locations, our contacts, our material
infrastructure. Determined to resolutely respect the democracy of the
new organization, we refuse to form any kind of network, tendency or
fraction. Each activist, each activist formerly a member of UTCL, is
freely and personally involved in the new organization.

The UTCL structure is no more.

The bonds of friendship remain and expand.

And we in no way deny seventeen years of fighting for libertarian
communism and revolutionary unionism, committing ourselves without
ulterior motives but not without memory to the project of a libertarian
Alternative.

For another testimony, read the interview conducted fourteen years later
with twelve veterans: "  UTCL, workerism with a human face ! »

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Les-dix-sept-annees-de-l-UTCL
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