WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL - History, Interview with twelve veterans: "UTCL, workerism with a human face!» (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The AL premises in Paris 19th, an afternoon in front of you, a country

buffet, and the pleasure of meeting up with some comrades that we
sometimes haven't seen for several years... On September 18, 2005,
twelve alumni took takes part in a cross-interview on the history of the
Union of Libertarian Communist Workers. In a relaxed atmosphere, without
dodging disturbing questions, the participants offered a nuanced image
of what their organization had been like.
---------------------------------------------
Marco Candore (alias Marco Sazzetti), OCA from 1976 to 1979, then UTCL
Paris (Education sector) from 1979 to 1991 ;
Henri Célié (known as Riton), UTCL Paris (Rail sector) from 1976 to 1991 ;
Jean-Michel Dauvel, UTCL Rouen (Rail sector) from 1986 to 1991 ;
Jean-Luc Dupriez (aka Jacques Dubart), UTCL Paris (Metallurgy sector)
from 1979 to 1991 ;
Daniel Goude, UTCL Paris (Metallurgy/Aerial sector) from 1978 to 1991 ;
Charles Huard (known as Charlie), OCA in 1978, then UTCL Orléans
(Building, then Textiles) from 1979 to 1991 ;
Clotilde Maillard , UTCL Paris (Education sector) from 1981 to 1991 ;
Jean-Marc Izrine (known as Biquet), UTCL Paris then Toulouse (Building)
from 1976 to 1991 ;
Christian Mortreuil, UCTL Paris (Metallurgy sector) from 1976 to 1991 ;
Thierry Renard , UCTL Paris (PTT sector) from 1976 to 1991 ;
Olivier Sagette (known as Seznec) , UTCL Paris (Banking sector) from
1976 to 1978 ;
Patrice Spadoni , UCTL Paris (PTT sector) from 1976 to 1991.
In April 1976, the day after the Orléans congress of the Anarchist
Revolutionary Organization (ORA), the UTCL tendency - a handful of
activists - found itself excluded. How do you see your political future ?


TLPAT n°1 (April 1976)
Jean-Marc Izrine: It's very simple: at the start there were only
fourteen of us. Fourteen, completely unaware, hyperoptimistic. We were
going to rebuild the "  Great Organization  ", there was no doubt about
it. For us the number meant nothing, because we were convinced that we
had a boulevard in front of us. And above all, that the revolution was
for tomorrow, at worst the day after tomorrow. So we went all out.

Patrice Spadoni: I remember being questioned, by a comrade from another
organization, about our plans after the exclusion of the ORA. And I can
still see myself responding to him, with the greatest seriousness: " Our
objective is to become a revolutionary organization of reference, even
the main revolutionary organization in the country. » We wanted to be a
decisive group in the class struggle, not so much through numbers as
through influence. We then thought that revolution was possible in the
short or medium term.

Marco Candore: We were very young, coming from the post-68 high school
movements. We've all been there. Which largely explains our exaltation -
or our blindness, as you wish. The 1970s were a period teeming with
ideas, movements... a period of creation, elaboration, and
deconstruction to use Derrida's term. It was Lip, self-management,
counterculture, women's struggles, the heritage of the "  situ "
spirit», the university of Vincennes, Deleuze and Foucault... in short,
an irruption of desire in all areas of life. We were formed by this
period, including in what it implied in confrontation with other
militant currents, both in the differences and in the aspiration for the
emergence of new political forms. And then we were deeply convinced that
we were in a revolutionary period, that it was within reach...
Personally it took me time to understand when and why this parenthesis
("the movement of the  1960s  " of Castoriadis, which he defines by
autonomy) has closed... at least temporarily...

Patrice Spadoni: There was a form of megalomania in our approach, but
hey, dreams and utopia are necessary to move forward. Our youth played a
role for sure. At the time of our exclusion, I was the dean of UTCL, at
22 years old !


Jean-Marc Izrine (2005)
Jean-Marc Izrine: There were three phases in the construction of the
organization.
- A first phase was the founding moment: the exclusion of the ORA, the
Collective for a UTCL, the publication of No. 1 of All the power to the
workers for May 1 ,  1976.
- During a second phase, the Collective for a UTCL has expanded, notably
by negotiating a merger with the Syndicalist Alliance (AS), by gaining
the support of activists leaving the OCL, the libertarian communist
group of Nancy and others...
- The third phase, once the real constitutional congress of the UTCL had
passed in 1978, was that of the debate with the OCA and the construction
in the provinces, with the establishment of groups in Lille, Toulouse,
Angers, The membership of Daniel Guérin and Georges Fontenis ...
At that time I was unemployed and it was I who traveled to meet the new
sections of the UTCL. I remember being in Tours to meet Georges Fontenis
for example.

Christian Mortreuil: I have an outside point of view on the birth of the
organization, because I was not at the ORA. When UTCL appeared, it was a
small event in the anar movement. We said to ourselves: "  Finally ! An
anti-authoritarian workers' movement ! » The UTCL in fact had worker
legitimacy, which it derived from the Paris-Brune sorting center, where
the Postman franchi team was based. But there was also the bank, the
railway workers...


Fight #1 (1st quarter 1977)
The journal of the Anarchist Combat Organization.
Marco Candor:The anarchist context at the time was really bad... In the
early 1970s I was in the Anarchist Federation for a while. There was a
huge programmatic and organizational gap between the FA and youth. It
was dusty, it was anti-class struggle, in short there was a complete
generation gap. The ORA was an attempted anarchist response to the
revolutionary aspirations of youth. When UTCL appeared, I was an
activist in the Anarchist Combat Organization (OCA). We were not exactly
from the same culture as UTCL, because we came, after a few detours,
from a split in the FA. But we felt that something was happening around
UTCL. This organization posed interesting questions that until then had
been taboo in the anarchist movement.

Between the exclusion of the ORA and the constitutive congress of the
new organization, in 1978, there was a period of two years of gestation,
within the Collective for a UTCL. You then began merger negotiations
with the Syndicalist Alliance [1]. These negotiations were unsuccessful.
What happened ?


Thierry Renard (2008)
Thierry Renard: The Syndicalist Alliance, we saw them a bit as a union
of union leaders. There was an animating core around Jacky Toublet and
René Berthier , and then a whole network that we did not feel was
extremely dynamic, not very united, whose only common activity was the
publication of the monthly Solidarité Ouvrière.

In reality, many of their activists had been sucked into their union
responsibilities, and had only a tenuous link with the AS, almost an
emotional link, towards the person of Toublet. Some had made compromises
with the union bureaucracies, to stay in their positions... In short, we
were quite critical of this aspect of the AS. As young activists, we did
not appreciate that in truth, absorption into trade unionism is a danger
that threatens any revolutionary organization active in the trade union
movement.

However, the UTCL and the AS had in common the desire to include the
libertarian struggle in the workers' movement, and this is what brought
us together. It was 1977 ; The Collective for a UTCL attempted to bring
together militant forces who were in a similar approach. This was the
case with AS. With it, we hoped to form a reference organization: by
merging, the UTCL would have brought its political dynamism, and the AS
its union presence.


Workers Solidarity No. 75 (October 1977)
The journal of the Syndicalist Alliance.
Unfortunately that didn't happen. And yet it's not for lack of trying !
I spent fifty hours of negotiations ! But nothing to do. A minority
there - Le Havre, Bordeaux - did not want the merger. As a result, the
AS leaders did not want to take the risk of losing these comrades along
the way, and they backed out at the last moment.

After this attempt failed, the AS continued to unravel. And in 1982, the
remaining group decided to disband and enter the FA. It was a
calculation on their part. They perceived the FA as a politically
inconsistent organization, but equipped with correct logistics that the
UTCL did not possess. They thought they could easily play a leading
role, which was certainly the case. Former members of AS therefore
formed the Pierre-Besnard group, in Paris, and occupied a prominent
place in the FA. This "  taking charge  " hardly paid off, however,
since they never succeeded in transforming the FA into a real political
organization. This depressed Jacky Toublet quite a bitwho, at the end of
his life, bitterly regretted the failure of the merger with UTCL.

Logistically, how did the organization work ?


Patrice Spadoni (2005)
Patrice Spadoni: In great precariousness. The coffers were regularly
empty, we were not managers at all... Once excluded from the ORA, our
group settled in a small apartment at 109, rue d'Aboukir, in Paris 2nd .
I had set up a boat for the owner, an old lady, by making her believe
that we were a circle of poets. Touched, she gave us a small rent. The
premises did not have a name, but it was commonly said that we were
going to "  Lucie's  ", because the name of the UTCL internal bulletin,
since the time when we were underground at the ORA, was It was Lucie's
Misfortunes.It worked for a few months, until the owner discovered the
pot of roses, arriving one day unexpectedly in the premises, covered
with leftist posters, newspapers with unequivocal titles, etc. We had to
move fissa.

At the beginning of 1977 we therefore set up UTCL at 51, rue de Lappe,
near the Bastille, where we stayed for quite a long time, until 1986.
Then we had to leave the premises and move to Impasse Delépine. And
finally, to finish, at 77, rue des Haies, in Paris 20th . It was the
premises of Zéro de conduit  [2], but the magazine was then on the verge
of disappearing, and we took over the lease. 77, rue des Haies will
subsequently be the first premises of Alternative Libertaire.


  " Fight ! " balloons » on  May 1 , 1982
Clotilde Maillard: We were always short of money, and we were sometimes
looking for schemes to make money and get appearances at a reduced
price. There was the story of balloons like that, in the 1980s. We had a
whole batch of silver balloons at knockdown prices because their tips
were not up to professional standards. We stencilled them, in the cellar
of the premises, with the name of the newspaper: Struggle ! We had them
for 10 centimes, which we sold for a franc. Since it was a fifth of the
usual selling price, everyone was snapping them up and there was a May 1
demonstration  . We were also given a stock of unsold black balloons -
and for good reason! We hung them en masse on the van alternating with
red ones. At the end of the demonstration, there were only reds... all
the blacks had exploded one after the other because of the sun ! At that
time UTCL paraded with a big red balloon inflated with helium to which
we hung a red and black flag. We first inquired whether a single person
could wear it without taking off, anyway. We inflated it with air at the
local so we could bomb on it "  Fight !  ". Then we deflated it and
reinflated it with helium at the start of the demonstration. Moral of
the story (today it's a bit shameful to say that but hey...): it was the
UTCL which invented the inflatable balloon during a demonstration...
Except that we, in the end, let go of the ball !

Thierry Renard: When UTCL left rue de Lappe in 1986, we sold the lease
to a Trotskyist group, the Revolutionary Workers' League (LOR), of the
Assouline brothers. At that time UTCL no longer had any money. By
selling them the lease, we thought we had made a huge deal ! You're
talking... When you imagine the price they had to resell it for a few
years later, when the neighborhood became chic and trendy ! The former
UTCL premises are today a fashionable bar...

What was the identity of UTCL in the very early years ?

Olivier Sagette: To fully understand what our group was, you have to
understand its genesis. Our matrix is the ORA. The ORA is the generation
of May 68. We arrive just after. We didn't do May 68 because we were too
young. The people who made May 68, and who led the ORA, from a
generational point of view, were our "  big brothers  ". We learned to
campaign with them. And what happened was that we had the feeling of
being "  betrayed  " by these big brothers, when the ORA abandoned the
political line that we wanted to apply.

Thierry Renard: This line abandoned by the ORA was that of the "
workers' left  ", which it was a question of bringing together  [3].
This is the line that we applied in the strikes of 1974. From the ORA,
the UTCL also inherited a movement culture. Movementism means putting "
class before party  ". It is the idea that, systematically, we must
favor the movement, the social struggles, because that is what is
decisive, that is what "  makes politics  ". This is a different logic
from the Leninist sects which only think about building the Party,
militant by militant.


TLPAT n°4 (April 1977)
This is for the positive legacy of the ORA at UTCL. Because for the
rest, the UTCL trend was built "  against  ": against disorganization,
against the increasingly heavy anti-unionism within the ORA. In contrast
to this environment, we tended to be workerist and outrageously
pro-organizational. But contrary to what we have been criticized for, I
think that we had no fascination with Leninism. Simply, we observed a
terrible inability of the anarchist movement to have political
influence. This observation raised a lot of questions. And by the force
of circumstances, we could not help but question the current which then
dominated the workers' movement, and which was Leninism.

Jean-Marc Izrine: In terms of organization, we saw the Archinov Platform
[4]as a tool. On the one hand, Leninism was annoying us... But at the
same time we had to live with it. And we were forced to ask ourselves
questions: "  How do they manage to be so numerous... when they are
wrong ?!" » (laughs)


Marco Candore (2006)
Marco Candore: Leninism: influence or fascination ? It's a bit of that
and at the same time more complex. Already the Platform of 1926 was
totally imbued with this problem. It was largely its very expression:
the difficulty of intervention for libertarians, faced with the hegemony
of Bolshevism, of the Third International  , in the workers' movement.
And as a result, a certain fascination for this model, which we
disapprove of but which at the same time seems more "  effective  ":
hadn't the Russian Revolution "  won  "?? Let us not forget that the
1920s were marked by the hope of world revolution. A good part of the
far left of the 1960s and 1970s replayed this optical illusion.


TLPAT n°11 (January 1978)
Thus, history often stutters, and the UTCL asked itself the same
questions as the platformists of the 1920s. I even think that at its
very beginnings a part of the UTCL was tempted by a "  rupture » with
the libertarian movement.

Within the OCA, however, I fought for the merger, despite my fear of
possible drifts towards Leninism. But ultimately, the UCTL preferred to
critically reappropriate its own historical heritage - that of worker
anarchism. The presence of Daniel Guérin and Georges Fontenis at UTCL
was undoubtedly very important from this point of view: we spent time
with them, and we did not mythologize their characters or their
experience, about which they themselves were quite critical. .

Patrice Spadoni: In fact, we were looking for our roots, in a broad way,
in the history of the workers' movement: the Spanish Revolution,
councilism, the CGT before 1914... We were aware of the impossibility of
reproducing the Spanish CNT experience in France. A new model had to be
invented. In the early years, we therefore carried out significant
theoretical research. And between us there were differences. For
example, I have never been seduced by the Platform, which undoubtedly
represented a necessary historical step, but certain aspects of which
are not very libertarian. Same observation for the Libertarian Communist
Federation (FCL) in 1953.

During the first three years, there were strong differences within the
group on the identity to give to UTCL. Some, it is clear, were on the
road to a break with the libertarian movement, and we saw some of them
leave for the LCR or the Federation of the Alternative Left (FGA). This
is why the question of the merger with the OCA was not at all anecdotal.
For me, merging with the OCA meant bringing UTCL's center of gravity
back towards libertarian ideas and practices, it was the way to restore
balance.


OCA-UTCL poster (February 1980)
Marco Candore: For us it was both that... and the opposite: merging with
the UTCL led the OCA to pursue the break with a "  traditional  " and
rather infra-political anarchism.

Charles Huard: It is clear that, even if the OCA-UTCL merger was not
significant on a numerical level, the two years that the process lasted
were a real boiling point on a theoretical level. I remember epic
debates, which can make us laugh now, like the debate on the circled A !
The UTCL absolutely wanted us to abandon it, because it was emblematic
of a certain juvenile Anarchist folklore... Basically, we didn't care a
bit about the circled A, but we didn't give in completely. following. We
bothered them with that for quite a long time, because this UTCL which
we found a little rigid, we precisely wanted to draw it towards the anar
symbolism ! [5]

Patrice Spadoni: Ultimately, beyond political differences, I would say
that what made UTCL strong was that we were "  humanly coherent  ". We
had strong cohesion, which was a strength and at the same time a
weakness, because we formed such a close-knit group that it certainly
harmed the expansion of UTCL. When it came to forming sections in the
provinces, we first had a written report with the people who wanted to
create a group. So far, no problem, we could verify our theoretical
agreement. Then we met them physically.


TLPAT n°5 (May 1977)
Sometimes, wonderfully, they were our "  cousins  ", completely on the
same wavelength. Sometimes, on the contrary, the mayonnaise did not
take, as happened with groups from Lyon and Marseille. When we met them,
we realized that there was a misunderstanding: they were authentic
rigids obsessed with building the organization, while we... we simply
did not speak the same language ! In fact, we weren't structural freaks,
we were movement freaks.

Thierry Renard: When I think about it, ouch ouch ouch... we must have
been unbearable ! We had such a degree of complicity... It was becoming
exclusive ! You know, sometimes, between us, all it took was a look, a
knowing smile, and everything was said. You had to hold back so as not
to burst out laughing !

Jean-Marc Izrine: There was a gap between the Bolshevist image which was
attached to the UTCL, and the reality of the organization. The anars
plums called us Trotskyists or Stalinists, while within the UTCL, the
atmosphere was rather messy, with a lot of humor and second degree, and
funny nicknames... There was Riton, Biquet (that it was me),
Tronche-de-Mort...

Clotilde Maillard: It was not uncommon for people to ignore the real
names of activists...

Jean-Luc Dupriez: Behind a fairly "  picturesque  " phraseology
inherited from the ORA - like "  anti-authoritarian dictatorship of the
proletariat  " - there was a fairly relaxed mode of relations within the
UTCL. Lots of respect between the activists, even when we disagreed.
While there may have been power struggles within the organization, in my
memory it was always at a... let's say secondary, non-essential level.

Jean-Marc Izrine: In any case, there was a real culture of exchange and
self-training. Patrice wrote a lot, and UTCL owes a lot to his ability
to write, transcribe and synthesize. The debates never stopped within
the organization, but it was Patrice's pen that brought out the
synthesis, the programmatic consensus. And that allowed us to move
forward. We thus had great political coherence, even if we did not
always have great organizational coherence.

Workerism is an image that "  sticks to the skin  " of UTCL. What was it
really ?


Jean-Luc Dupriez (2007)
Jean-Luc Dupriez: Workerism was decisive in the identity of the UTCL.
This shaped a whole mode of relationships. I take my example. I wanted
to join. It was in 1979, I was in Poitiers, I had seen an issue of
TLPAT, and I immediately said to myself: "  That's where I want to go !"
» So I contacted them. But how hard it was to get me to accept !
Because, as a young computer engineer, a conscientious objector while
the organization advocated fighting in the soldiers' committees... I
didn't really have the expected profile ! Plus I had a young child,
while in this organization there were only guys, no kids.! So before
they formally registered my membership, I had to stay "  intern  " for a
much longer period than normal, like six months or a year ! But despite
everything, it is on this basis that I joined UTCL, the only libertarian
organization whose project was to be established in the heart of the
proletariat.

Christian Mortreuil: We weren't going to throw you away anyway, you were
the only one to win rounds ! (laughs)

Clotilde Maillard: Workerism led the UTCL to be a fairly macho
organization, moreover.

Patrice Spadoni: "  Machiste  " is perhaps not the exact term...


TLPAT n°20 (February 1979)
Clotilde Maillard: Yes, macho, in the sense that it was still difficult
for a young girl to find a place in an organization which, through
workerism, maintained a uniform image of the proletariat. The TLPAT
headlines speak for themselves . After a while, the youngest in the
group shouted, " They're tired of always having guys with mustaches and
overalls on the front page!"» (laughs) We had to wait until the
beginning of the 1980s to notice a change in the iconography. I still
remember a meeting where myself, a teacher, and a fellow nurse, were
told that well, we were "on the outskirts of the proletariat "!!

Jean-Luc Dupriez: And me, almost enemy of the proletariat ! (laughs)

Clotilde Maillard: This polarization of UTCL on businesses left little
space for societal struggles. We didn't talk about the issues of
housing, squats, women, the legalization of soft drugs... Besides, I
remember that we smoked very little during the courses... But that was
also due to a certain paranoia by relation to repression.

Jean-Marc Izrine: There was a sociological self-limitation of
recruitment, that's clear. And subjects that we didn't discuss, even
though everyone was talking about them. But repression is a reality. In
my high school, I had seen Mao militants fall for shit stories. This is
why Libertarian Front, the ORA newspaper, wrote: "  Drugs are a weapon
of the bourgeoisie. » As a result, we were more in the alcoholic culture
- which is not necessarily better...

Thierry Renard: Ah, we at Paris-Brune smoked. The stalls were drinking,
and we were smoking !


TLPAT n°23 (May 1979)
Marco Candore: We were politically schizophrenic, like many others !
Culturally, we were completely products of our time - and we produced it
too ! Whether through music, clothes, "  sexual liberation ", etc. But
on the other hand we tried to maintain a workerist imagery. It's very
Oedipal... Gradually, the UTCL managed to break away from this
monomania, which led us to be a restricted, monotyped group - a bit like
the Syndicalist Alliance - and incapable of going beyond this pattern.
But hey, we must recognize one positive thing about this workerist
obsession: it allowed us to hold a course and build coherence, unlike
the ORA which, having become OCL, went in all directions and exploded. .
With hindsight, however, I think that the other side of the coin of this
"  coherence  " was its confining side: its intellectual and political
closure... but that's another matter.

Christian Mortreuil: It wasn't just the OCL that suffered from this ;
organizations like VLR  [6]or the OCT  [7]have ceased to be workerist,
to refocus almost exclusively on societal issues. They lost what
constituted their class base, and ended up falling apart.

Jean-Michel Dauvel: I was an activist in the OCT and, in my memory, it
was a little more complicated than that, but hey...

Patrice Spadoni: I don't remember UTCL saying "  no  " to a debate on
these issues linked to drugs, sexuality... It was more like avoidance.
The doors were open...but we didn't always use them, that's true. It was
also a way of protecting oneself from the somewhat tragic excesses of a
time when it was necessary to "  say everything, discuss everything,
question everything  ", where there was no longer any separation between
private life and life of the person. 'organization. We talk about VLR,
but I was personally marked by an episode that I experienced as a young
activist at the ORA where, during a summer internship, I saw a girl
crying because she didn't want to go swimming naked "  like everyone
else», and that therefore she had been accused of being blocked, not
emancipated, etc. At UTCL, the refusal to engage on this slippery slope
was also the refusal to decree: "  If you do not have this way of life,
then you are not revolutionary. »

Clotilde Maillard: In this aspect, it is not false. In the end, I must
say that this distance is, among other things, what made me stay at
UTCL. Because in this organization, people were not singled out for
their lifestyle, their clothes, their choice to have children or not, etc.


The UTCL stand at a PSU party.
Undated.
Jean-Marc Izrine: To understand our relationship to "  societal  "
questions, we must imagine that UTCL was born in 1976, at a time when
the themes of feminism or homosexual liberation, to name but a few, were
already assimilated by a part of the extreme left. Organizations
existing before 1968, such as the PCF or certain Maoist and Trotskyist
organizations, were hit by the emergence of these questions. And when
they wanted to deny them, they could suffer violent internal crises.

UTCL was "  spared  " from this type of crisis. I'm not saying that
there was no tension but overall, for the young activists, these
questions were part of the acquired knowledge, they were not really
debated. What was debated was corporate activism, because that was not
part of the libertarian movement. And that's what UTCL was focused on.

 From this point of view we can completely recognize that, even if it
was not written, there was a state of mind in the organization which
distinguished the "priority  front  ", which was the company, and the "
secondary fronts  ", such as feminism among others.

Charlie once told me that at UTCL we used to say: "  There is no
"priority front", but there is a "priority place" to talk about it, and
this place is is the business  ."


TLPAT n°9 (November 1977)
Patrice Spadoni: I think we made a theoretical error by downplaying the
role that women's struggle plays in social transformation. But on the
other hand, saying as UTCL did that feminist activism had to be part of
the company was not completely absurd either.

Even if the end of the workers' bastions has made the UTCL's strategy
obsolete, for my part I continue to believe that, on workerism, we were
not fundamentally wrong, because we registered in reverse. of the
dominant ideology, which seeks to "  invisibilize  " the proletariat. In
1976-1977, society was already affected by an operation of discrediting,
denigrating and negating the proletariat as such. It is an ideology
which had penetrated even into the ORA, and which we had to endure
before founding the UTCL. Even today, our current, of which Libertarian
Alternative is the continuation, must not abandon this common thread,
which is to prioritize the words of the "  voiceless  ", in a society
which denies their social being.

Thierry Renard: To pass a judgment on the workerism of UTCL: firstly, I
think that it was not a sterile posture. Second, that it was honest on
our part, because it corresponded to our reality. Today certain far-left
organizations hide their sociological reality behind a workerist
mythology. In our case, it wasn't all fun, we were working. We must not
forget that !

Jean-Marc Izrine: And then, when we say workerism... When you read Le
Postier franchi, frankly, it doesn't correspond to the image you have of
workerism ! It's full of comics and humor ! When you read that you can
say to yourself: "  No, the worker is not gray and sad ! Yes, the worker
can laugh ! » This is joyful workerism.

Marco Candore: Workerism with a human face ! (laughs)


The Freed Postman n°11 (1979)
UTCL bulletin to the PTT.
Patrice Spadoni: One last thing on the identity of UTCL. We found
ourselves at the heart of a contradiction specific to libertarian
activism. On the one hand we want direct democracy, self-management,
self-organization in the struggle. On the other hand, by acting for
this, we often find ourselves in the position of organizers of the
struggle, of "  leaders  ", of "  leaders  ". UTCL has been at the heart
of this contradiction, and I think it has been difficult but rewarding.

The limit is that the organization asked its activists to be "
self-managing leaders of the struggle  ", which led it, in a certain
way, to remain an elite militant organization. We operated on a "
profile  " of relationships, of listening, of complicity between us, and
as a result we had great difficulty capturing anything other than "
elite activists  ". Let's take the example of the Freed Postman. In
fifteen years there are perhaps hundreds of people who have passed
through Le Postier franchi, without us being able to transmit and
perpetuate the activity that we had at Paris-Brune. This unacknowledged
elitism constitutes an important limit to what UTCL was.

Let's get into the details of corporate activism. How were the " sectors
  " organized ? How was the pooling of activities done ?

Marco Candore: It was not a pyramid structure that was in charge. Each
sector was autonomous and "  master of its own home  ", following the
principle of federalism. Afterwards, the other side of the coin of
federalism is that we sometimes wonder about the work carried out in the
next sector. It was logical: our federalism was very different from that
practiced in the FA, which basically adds up "  everything and its
opposite  ". The UTCL was looking for programmatic and practical
coherence: it was even this which had made the identity of the
organization, what the activists came to seek there. There were
sometimes tensions, lively discussions... like "  But what are you doing
in your sector ?» Because of this, for a moment, I was tempted by
fractional functioning in trade unionism... which fortunately we never did !

The sharing of experiences was done via the Internal Bulletin  or at the
national council but also through direct, " horizontal " connections
between groups, it was at least possible - even if ultimately it was not
as frequent as it could have been. or should have been. Ultimately what
prevailed was a form of flexible centralization of information.

Let's take an example: the Metallurgy sector. What was his reality ?


Christian Mortreuil (2005)
Christian Mortreuil: In the metallurgy industry, we suffered from the
defection, in the very beginnings of UTCL, of a few friends who
structured the sector. Subsequently, we were always split into different
companies, particularly SMEs. It induced a somewhat clandestine form of
activism. Friends from other sectors came to differ on the companies
where we were located, and we, for our part, went to lend a hand to the
PTT. I also remember broadcasts on Air France, at 5 a.m.

Jean-Marc Izrine: We also had activists at the EDF in Asnières, I was
going to work there on Monday morning.

Charles Huard: It was a common practice. In Orléans we regularly went to
differ at the entrances to certain factories, or postal checks, at La
Source.

Jean-Luc Dupriez: The metallurgy sector at UTCL was a bit of a
catch-all. Without caricaturing too much, we can say that we put people
there who we didn't really know what to do with. Daniel Guérin, for
example, was in the metallurgy sector !


Le Court-circuit
Bulletin of UTCL to EDF.
Christian Mortreuil: In this sector we have only produced ephemeral
newsletters. I remember one called The Toolbox ; at Air France it was
L'Éclateur ; at EDF, Le Court-Circuit. We had activists at Michelin in
Clermont-Ferrand too.

UTCL's prose had a certain originality. The idea of a general strike
structured our expression, which is quite classic, but we also developed
specifically libertarian demands, on hierarchy, grading... We talked
about the sliding salary scale...  [8]

And in Education ?


Clotilde Maillard (2005)
Clotilde Maillard: In the Education sector we were also quite dispersed.
What made the connection was that almost all of us were at Sgen-CFDT.
And, apart from the classic protest aspect, we were very connected to
educational innovation  [9]. The UTCL Education sector has not produced
a newsletter, but a small team of teachers from the organization has
launched an educational alternative magazine, Zéro de conduct . The
magazine had a good reputation and, although it had the reputation of
being an appendage of the UTCL, it was distributed in the FA bookstore,
which nevertheless always refused to distribute All Power to the Workers
and Struggle !Jean-Marc Raynaud, from the FA, told us: "  Ah ! Zero
driving is the best of the genre ! » It created links, which made it
possible to reduce sectarianism a little.


Fight ! n°16 (summer 1986)
Otherwise, I would like to come back to what Marco said, on the "
autonomy  " of each UTCL sector, taking the example of Education. In
1987, for example, we launched a strike against the reform of master
directors. We said to ourselves: "  Come on, let's give it a try." » It
was a fairly proactive thing, where we overwhelmed the union apparatus.
15 of us went on strike ; out of the 15 there were three from UTCL...
And it worked ! A few weeks later, all the schools had walked out !

Patrice Spadoni: I remember that, at the time, at the national
secretariat of the UTCL, you had mentioned your plan to overwhelm the
union apparatus and launch a strike movement. Thierry and I, frankly,
were doubtful. Cautiously, we didn't try to dissuade you, but honestly,
we didn't believe it !

For the PTT, Patrice and Thierry have already mentioned the activity of
the Free Postman team during the ORA era. Was there any continuity with
UTCL ?


The Freed Postman n°11 (1979)
UTCL bulletin to the PTT.
Thierry Renard: At the PTT, there was the Paris-Brune sorting center, in
the 14th arrondissement  , which was our main location. We campaigned
day and night, it was frenzied activism. Our audience was not negligible
there, both there and in other sorting centers. In Rouen for example, I
remember there were guys who talked to tons of franked postmen in their
jail.

Our strategy was to outflank the union bureaucrats. This is very
different from the posture of sterile denunciation that other leftist
groups took. Let's take the example of a stupid twenty-four hour strike.
What did the LO guys do about that ? A leaflet against the twenty-four
hour strike. Good. But in AG, they were non-existent ! UTCL, and
firstly, we were on a twenty-four hour strike. And two, we argued at the
AGM to renew it ! And that's the only way it could work.

The idea was that we had to prioritize the ability to influence the
struggles. This was what should polarize our energy. Our major concern
was to be "  mass entertainers  " ; not a leftist group giving lessons.
This was our strength, and also our weakness, because we spent all our
energy in instigating struggles, and during this time we neglected
building the political organization.

In the airline sector ?


Daniel Goude (2005)
Daniel Goude: As for the airline sector, we had a presence among the
workers of Air France, in Orly, with in particular Pierre Contesenne ,
Julie Corbeau and myself. Here again our group had its own strategy of
struggle within the company, which was part of UTCL's overall strategy.
This is what we called "  strategic unity  ": UTCL had a global
strategy, which was broken down into a strategy in each sector, which
was further broken down into a strategy by company. And then everyone
was autonomous. We had UTCL behind, providing logistical support.

So in Orly, we campaigned for the CFDT, which was more to the left than
the CGT, which was completely Stalinist. Moreover, one of the Stalinists
who led the CGT at Orly was one of the sons of Léandre Valéro , a former
member of the North African Libertarian Movement. It was the son who had
"  gone bad  ". But hey, I wouldn't learn that until years later ! (laughs)


L'Eclateur , summer 1981
UTCL bulletin at Air France.
During the strikes, the CFDT spurred the CGT, which therefore hesitated
to call for a return to work, so as not to be overtaken on its left. But
the workers always ended up stopping the strike first, saying that they
had to be reasonable. At that point the configuration was changing. The
leaders of the CFDT section rubbed their hands because they could in
turn call for a recovery, on the theme "  the CGT has betrayed, it's
scandalous, but at the same time without them we can do nothing  ". UTCL
activists were trying at that time to outflank the CFDT leadership by
arguing for the continuation of the struggle.

And there Thierry, it's funny that you talk about LO  [10], because at
Air France, we were entitled to the same cinema. As much as the UTCL
activists were super reactive and proactive in the general assemblies,
the LO activists were permanently out of step with the atmosphere of the
struggle, because they always had to wait for directives from their
leaders. A climate of struggle is something very fluid, it can change in
a day, even in half a day, you have to have your nose, anticipate, sense
the twists and turns in the situation to adapt your action, etc. At LO
they were forced to wait for their management to give them the line. So
it took days to go back up, and then go back down all the levels...
(laughs)So they were always one train late !

They systematically began by intervening in the AGM to say that it was
necessary to form a "  strike committee  ", their monomania. But that
hardly aroused any reaction from the audience. So they hammered out
their slogan, which had the effect of infuriating people ; there were
strikers who ended up booing them: "  But you're annoying us with your
strike committee ! » So they didn't bring her back much anymore. Then
the situation evolved, for example coordination was put in place, and LO
continued to demand its "  strike committee  ". And then after a while,
the fight ran out of steam, coordination began to falter... and that's
when the LO guys burst into AG with their new slogan: " We need to
coordinate ! » (laughs)

Charles Huard: This desire to be in phase with the struggles has
produced a militant culture characteristic of our movement. It is the
desire to be a driving force, and not to be satisfied with the position
of the ideological minority.

And at the SNCF, how was it going ?


Henri Célié (2006)
Henri Célié: At the SNCF, the ORA had a good presence, and there was a
railway workers' bulletin, Le Rail chainé, which was mainly produced by
myself and by Serge Torrano , a friend who did not followed UTCL and who
went to OCL. At UTCL subsequently, the bulletin became Cheminots en
struggle. But the ORA railway workers, like UTCL afterwards, did not
form a very close-knit sector, it was more of a network. On the occasion
of a union congress, or a struggle, we "  discovered  " that we were
relatively numerous. It was unionism that catalyzed our energies. We
were quite influential in the CFDT of Val-de-Marne, whose departmental
union was of an anarcho-syndicalist orientation  [11].


Railway worker in struggle
UTCL bulletin in rail.
Jean-Michel Dauvel: We were very unionist, even too much so. That did
not prevent us from being very comfortable in the coordinations of 1986,
but the axis of our activism was still to articulate union work with
radical expression. And I think that, from there, the UTCL railway
workers had a lack of reflection on the question of worker autonomy,
when it fell outside the union framework.

Henri Célié: It is certain that the main part of our activism has been
union action. But this is also what made us sense the big strikes of
1986 coming. At that time, the CFDT-Cheminots was influenced by the
extreme left. The UTCL current was to weigh a third of the leadership of
the FGTE  [12]. I myself had been elected to federal office two months
before the movement... And we can almost say that we launched this strike.

Christian Mortreuil: The strikes of 1986 are very important, because it
was the emergence of coordination of strikers . This is the first time
where an overflow of the union bureaucracies has been possible.


Jean-Michel Dauvel (2005)
Jean-Michel Dauvel: A National Coordination of Driving Agents (CNAC),
emanating from the general assemblies in a majority of depots, served as
an information and mobilization tool throughout the strike. The first
meeting of this coordination was organized by the rolling strikers of
Paris-Nord at the suggestion of those of Sotteville-lès-Rouen.


Fight ! n°14 (February 1987)
Henri Célié: But alongside this coordination, a National Intercategory
Coordination (CNI) appeared, resulting from the Paris-Sud-West
assemblies led by LO. If the platform and the leaflets of this CNI were
correct, its representativeness was more than questionable. Thus,
workers from Paris Saint-Lazare or Paris-Est may have been surprised to
learn that their centers were represented there even though this had not
been discussed at the AGM ! It was in fact a manipulation by LO, who had
wanted to create "  his» own coordination, at his orders. And in fact,
nine-tenths of the activists in the CNI office came from LO. Obviously,
it looked as big as a house... The irruption of this artificial CNI
ultimately harmed a real inter-category broadening of the struggle.

At the federal office of the CFDT-Cheminots, there was an LO activist,
Daniel Vitry, who constantly promoted the CNI. He wanted the CFDT
federation to provide him with its guarantee. At the beginning we
authorized him to represent the federation there. Then, when the
manipulative nature of this CNI was proven, we asked him to stop.
However, he preferred to follow the orders of LO management, against the
decision of his union, and he was, as a result, dismissed from his
federal mandate. This did not fail to trigger violent polemics from LO
against the UTCL and the LCR. But there was no question of maintaining
confusion in the name of who knows what far-left cronyism. The comrade
in question had to choose between his union responsibilities and his
obedience to LO management, and he chose.

Are there other sectors that have not been mentioned ?


Olivier Sagette (2005)
Olivier Sagette: Employed at BNP, I was part of the Banking sector,
which existed from 1974-1975 within the ORA, with a hard core of four or
five comrades, one of whom is today at the direction of the CGT
federation of Banks and Insurance after having been CFDT federal
secretary. I was in the UTCL trend at the ORA, then at the Collective
for a UTCL in 1976-1978 - I was even publishing director of All the
power to the workers - but I did not take the step of joining UTCL at
the constitutive congress of 1978. And the Banking sector ultimately did
not join the organization either. This is the "  style» UTCL activist
who dissuaded me. Because we have to say what is: it was crazy activism
- relatively elitist as people said - and I didn't feel ready for that.
I subsequently joined Alternative Libertaire in 1992.

With the year 1981 and the coming to power of a PS-PCF government, a new
period will begin. What was UTCL's positioning during the presidential
campaign ?

Charles Huard: The UTCL's analysis was condensed into a slogan: "  Vote
or abstain, the important thing is the struggles !" » The UTCL did not
call for abstention in the presidential election, because it did not
want to cut itself off from people who hoped for change, without
maintaining illusions.


TLPAT n°41 (June 1981)
The fight continues... despite the collusion of Edmond Maire (CFDT,
left) with the PS-PC power of Mitterrand (right).
Marco Candore: There was a debate, because we wanted to approach this
event in a political and not ideological way. The discussion did not
focus on the possibilities that the left in power would change anything
in society - no one had any doubt on the question - but on the
repercussions that success or failure would have in social movements.
electoral failure of the left. And depending on this, what should be the
intervention of the revolutionaries.

Obviously, when we think in strategic terms, we always want to bet that
something is possible, that popular enthusiasm will overwhelm the
government, that we can repeat June 36... In this case we were fooled by
our own speech. We had not appreciated to what extent we had changed
periods, the strength of the neoliberal discourse which came straight
from the Reagan-Thatcher model and the formidable relay that the PS was
going to give it... What possibility was there, in these conditions, of
an "  overflow to the left  ", while we have been in full ebb of the
struggles for several years ? While the very structure of the social
fabric was going to experience deep tears (never denied or reversed
since, moreover) ?

Thierry Renard: Before 1981, the workers' movement had suffered defeat
after defeat - restructuring, the steel industry... It was truly
despair, it was enough to keep morale low ! It is for this reason that
we expected nothing from an electoral victory, which in no case could
compensate for the absence of mass struggles.

I can still see Daniel Guérin on the evening of May 10, 1981 who - after
uncorking the champagne - predicted: "  You'll see, it's ruined in
advance. As in 1936, the government will want to reassure the
bourgeoisie by loyally managing capitalism, and it will be a catastrophe
! » So obviously, we expected it, but we did not suspect the speed with
which the socialists were going to betray the people who had elected
them ! We have to take stock of what it was, the speed with which they
turned around ! When I think that at the leadership of the CFDT-PTT, we
bumped into guys from Ceres  [13]who were talking about anti-capitalism !


UTCL poster (November 1981)
Patrice Spadoni: For my part, in 1981, because of this series of defeats
that the labor movement had recorded at the end of the 1970s, I had
questions about our "  All about struggles  " posture. I thought that
completely disregarding institutional changes, acting as if they had no
political consequences, was not necessarily effective. The UTCL did not
call for abstention, but personally, I was in favor of going further,
that the UTCL "  participates  " in some way in the defeat of the right...

Henri Célié: Unlike Patrice, for me 1981 was a fairly secondary event,
because the real debate took place in 1978. The year 1978 was the
breakup of the Union of the Left. The PS and the PCF went to the
legislative elections divided, and everyone was talking about nothing
else. Everyone blamed each other, etc. The UTCL had, for its part, led
an abstentionist campaign  [14]... In 1981, none of that, no passion !
At the time of the election I had gone on vacation to Larzac ; when I
came back Mitterrand was elected, and frankly it didn't bother me !

Clotilde Maillard: I agree with Riton: the free-for-all was in 1978. In
1981, there was nothing, no breath, no debate...

Henri Célié: But it is certain that the position of the UTCL in 1981 was
a step aside compared to the strict abstentionism of 1978.

Patrice Spadoni: Once Giscard was beaten in any case, we said to
ourselves: "  Okay, while we're at it, let's go franco  ", and the UTCL
called for voting to the left in the legislative elections. (Re-reading
the TLPAT article explaining UTCL's position): ouch ouch ouch, indeed
it's a peak of "  dialectics  " !! (laughs) : " The situation created by
Giscard's defeat is a new situation. A complex situation, which can just
as easily lead to a remobilization of workers as to a social
democratization of society. After the few years of social torpor that we
have just gone through, the possibility of a remobilization of social
struggles therefore exists. This is why we say that the defeat of the
right must be confirmed in the legislative elections and therefore vote
left. But with no illusions about her. Simply for the remobilization of
workers. Above all, we say that there is no question of being, in the
new situation, simple spectators. »  [15]

Christian Mortreuil: Ah, we recognize your writing ! (laughs)

And after Mitterrand's victory ?

Thierry Renard: There was the small pleasure of seeing the faces of the
chefs at work the next day. But hey, it amused us for ten minutes, and
then curtain.


TLPAT n°42 (October 1981)
Marco Candore: Since the end of the 1970s, we have suffered the ebb of
struggles. But from 1981 onwards, it was a real journey through the
desert ! A devastating social apathy, a formidable intellectual laziness
seemed to have spread throughout society, with a sort of regressive and
decadent delight, carried by the left, the media, and a certain number
of ex-sixty-eighters or so-called such. These were the "  money years  "
or "  how sweet it is to finally be bourgeois-glitter and no longer have
to hide it  "! This invalidated our illusions about the desire for
revolution, at least as, for the most part, it had been understood until
then. We had underestimated the internalization of the delegation of
power, and how a dominant ideology is, precisely, dominant.

On the positive side, we can say that the period opened by 1981 would
gradually have a clarifying effect. As the PCF and the CGT stifled any
dissent in companies so as not to hinder the action of "  comrade
ministers  ", the CFDT left - and therefore the extreme left - would
gradually find itself in a situation of responsibility in the animation
struggles. This is how a path begins, quite underground, which will lead
from 1981 to the strike of winter 1986 and the eruption of coordination.


Fight ! #2 (summer 1982)
On the strike of Talbot skilled workers.
As for the revolutionaries, the points of reference will thus have been
upset. Before 1981, the PS and the PCF appeared to be the essential
driving forces for overcoming capitalism. As devices, of course, but
also as a diagram. Because to "  overflow to the left  ", there must
still be something to overflow! The 1980s were deeply marked by the
suicide of the historical ideological categories of the left. Voluptuous
suicide for social democracy - or shipwreck for the PCF. Hence the slow
emergence, and which accelerated after 1986, of new structures
(coordinations, struggle associations, then SUD unions, etc.) directly
in contact with the leadership of the struggles, and no longer through
internal protest. to traditional union apparatuses.

At that moment, the ground seemed to be clearing for the
revolutionaries. And paradoxically, it destabilizes us a little. It is,
in a way, the problem of the "  obstacle model  " which disappears. By
force of circumstances, you criticize it, you oppose it: you position
yourself in relation to it. And when he disappears, it destabilizes you.

Christian Mortreuil: This "  disappearance  " of the left bothered the
UTCL, but it did not cause the dismay that the Trotskyists experienced.
For UTCL, 1981 was a turning point. But for the Trotskyists, apart from
LO, the victory of a left-wing unity government was a strategic
achievement ! Just that ! And beyond that, there was a void... It was at
this time that the term "  alternative  " appeared: "  now that we have
seen what alternation gives, we want the alternative !" »


"  No to all imperialisms  "
On June 5, 1982, UTCL in the demonstration against the coming of Ronald
Reagan in Paris.
In 1988, Pierre Juquin, a PCF dissident "  renovator  ," presented an "
alternative  " candidacy for the presidential election. It was one of
the first phenomena in the emergence of a "  left of the left  ", which
would subsequently experience multiple transformations without ever
managing to lead to a real force. A certain number of organizations such
as the LCR or the PSU and even post-Maoists  [16], supported the Juquin
candidacy. UTCL as well. Why this choice ?

Clotilde Maillard: (sigh) This Juquin story, I was against it ! I told
my friends: Go for it if you want, but I'm not interested. At the time I
withdrew a bit from UTCL because of that...


Fight ! n°23 (April 1988)
Charles Huard: What interested UTCL was of course not Juquin's candidacy
in itself, it was what was happening around it. Juquin was just a
pretext. After seven years of liberal government, there was a desire for
change, and to a certain extent it was expressed through this campaign,
which was structured by a flowering of "initiative and support
committees"  (  CIS ), which were commonly called the "  Juquin
committees  ". After these desert years that were the 1980s, the success
of the CIS was the symptom that something was moving! They were attended
by a lot of people, quite a few activists who had given up and were
coming back for a walk... We filled the rooms... And we didn't want to
be outside of the movement. UTCL went there because it felt that there
were things happening there, and that we had to be a part of it.

Thierry Renard: At the time, politically, we were floundering. Then this
phenomenon of CIS presented itself and gained momentum. And we said to
ourselves: "  Well, while we're at it, let's experiment." » The idea was
that, perhaps, it could create a dynamic.

Daniel Goude: There was a CIS at Orly. At the beginning, with Pierrot,
we were a little cautious, while the LCR was fully into it. And indeed
we could see that it was catching on with young workers. There was
something like a spark... So we said, "  Let's do it." » And we
participated in the company's CIS. And then when the committee
disintegrated...we didn't mourn it. But if we had stayed away from it, I
think that UTCL would have lost its credibility, and that would have
handicapped us in subsequent strikes.


Fight ! n°157-158 (April 1990)
Marco Candore: This might make you laugh, but Juquin really touched me.
I was touched by the "  tragedy  " side of his journey. Initially
Stalinist under orders, responsible for bringing the Union of Communist
Students back into line before May 68, he distanced himself in 1985 from
the leadership of the PCF - which denotes a certain political courage,
because he did not did not wait for the fall of the Berlin Wall to do
so. He was expelled from the Party in 1987 and put himself in a position
to become a possible standard-bearer of the alternative left.
Electorally, it was a failure: only 2% of the votes in the 1988
presidential election. Then he joined the Greens, who only accepted his
membership on the strict condition of... his public silence! Honestly, I
find it quite dramatic: you see that in the theater, you cry ! (laughs)

But the Juquin campaign, if it is a small step towards neo-reformism, it
is also a small step which makes visible and audible the possibility of
an alternative after all these desert years. And it's true that it
motivated a lot of people. In Toulouse, there were up to 1,500 people in
the AGM... That explains why part of the UTCL tried to play something
there. Personally, I would have liked more collective and political
support for the organization in this matter, because I did not
dissociate it - and I still do not dissociate it - from the social
movement and the struggles: all of this came from a same movement. And
then I considered that there was the possibility of verifying and
implementing one of the potentialities of a "  broad movement»
anti-capitalist. With all the contradictions of real movement, as Marx
would say...

Henri Célié: In fact, within UTCL, I think that the desire to
participate in the CIS was not in the majority. But it was fought only
weakly. There were comrades who wanted to go... and ultimately the
majority let them.

Christian Mortreuil: The real problem is that we haven't had any real
in-depth reflection. UTCL went to the CIS without a strategy.


Fight ! n°28 (October 1989)
During the big Peugeot strike in Sochaux.
Marco Candore: All this ended in a rather lamentable way... political
staffs of all kinds and other "  Mexican generals  " once again
demonstrated their brilliant deadly abilities. In the end, nothing new
will have emerged from the Juquin campaign, while relevant questions
were asked, the desire for an alternative project, certainly crossed by
the reformism/radicality contradiction... but after all it is a constant
of class struggles.

Charles Huard: At that time, in Orléans, we were a UTCL group of 6 or 7
activists. And then the OCL group, which brought together around fifteen
activists, moved en bloc to UTCL. We all participated together in the
CIS of Orléans... and we lost a lot of people in this story... Militants
sucked into neo-reformist things, like the Greens. After the Juquin
campaign, the UTCL group was reduced to 3 or 4 activists... In short, a
fairly execrable result.

Patrice Spadoni: Obviously, if we take it objectively, the Juquin
campaign was only an epiphenomenon, one of the first attempts to bring
about a neosocial democracy. But in fact it stirred up a lot of people
whose total rejection, for UTCL, was impossible. Because they were
research activists. Because many of them came from these union lefts
which were the founders of the identity of the UTCL. And we had to seek
a dialogue with them even if, obviously, we refused the political path
that the Juquin campaign was charting.

  Let's take a step back and talk about " outside the business "
struggles  . Let's talk about UTCL's antimilitarism. In 1963, the state
had granted status to conscientious objectors, following a hunger strike
by Louis Lecoin , a former leader of the Anarchist Union in the interwar
period. But UTCL, at first, did not promote conscientious objection. On
the contrary, its activists participated in the soldiers' committee
movement. What were the debates within the organization, and how were
they translated into action ?


Charles Huard (2008)
Charles Huard: Like any political position, that of the UTCL on
conscientious objection and soldiers' committees must be placed in the
context of its time. The movement of soldiers' committees peaked in the
years 1975-1976, and the official position of the Collective for a UTCL
is given in a 1977 brochure co-edited with the Libertarian Communist
Group of Nancy: Soldiers' Movement, Antimilitarism and Class Struggle .
Conscientious objection is considered "  historically outdated  ",
stemming from an individual refusal, while struggles in the army are
highlighted as "  acts of solidarity in a collective struggle  ".There
was also in this positioning of the UTCL a reaction against the
aclassist drift of a good part of the libertarian movement of the time,
which referred to conscientious objection. However, the struggle of
conscientious objectors paled in comparison at the time to that of the
soldiers' committees, which was really much more interesting, from a
revolutionary point of view, "class struggle  "  .


TLPAT n°28 (January 1980)
Nevertheless, it would undoubtedly have been more appropriate not to
oppose one to the other, it is moreover on this position that the UTCL
will subsequently evolve, in particular under the impetus of young
objecting comrades of awareness. But hey, at that time, in view of the
militant means, it was considered that it was necessary to go to the
essentials. And from my point of view, the worst would have been not to
be in the soldiers' committees, like most of those who advocated
conscientious objection.

The participation in soldiers' committees of UTCL activists differs from
that of the LCR or the PSU, which were also active in this field. First
on the nature of the struggle of the soldiers' committees. The UTCL was
not content with demanding democratic rights, such as freedom of
association, and improved living conditions in the barracks. It
positioned itself on a clearly antimilitarist ground, and refused to
propagate illusions about the possibility of reforming the army. The
other notable distinction concerns the conduct of the movement. The LCR
sought to direct the struggle from outside the barracks, while the UTCL,
here as elsewhere, defended the principle of the autonomy of struggles
and soldiers' committees.

For my part, at the time when I was active in a soldiers' committee, I
was not yet a member of the UTCL. I was in the process of cutting ties
with the OCI, after having campaigned there for two or three years. In
April 1976 I left for the army with instructions to be a good soldier
who would learn to be a military leader to organize the armed struggle
against the bourgeoisie. I also did my classes in the platoon of senior
students. But obviously, the reality of military life and the general
excitement in the barracks at that time made me change my mind.

I participated, masked, in the demonstration of soldiers in uniform on
May 1, 1976  in Paris. After my classes, I campaigned on the soldiers'
committee of my local barracks. Our committee only lasted a few months.
After that I was spotted, along with two other comrades (one from the
LCR and the other from the JC). We will receive fifteen days of rigorous
arrest and will be changed units. Obviously I was never commissioned at
the end of the cadet platoon and I only left as a private 1st class  .

When I left the army I joined the libertarian movement and the Orléans
group of the OCA. This shows the importance of this period of soldiers'
committees in my political development. Probably if UTCL had not had
this unique positioning, I would not have known libertarians at that
time with the same practice as me.


TLPAT n°26 (November 1979)
Jean-Luc Dupriez: The description that Charlie gives of the objector
movement is undoubtedly the one that was popular within the UTCL, but it
did not entirely correspond to reality. Since the Brégançon decrees and
the authoritarian assignments of objectors to the National Forestry
Office (ONF) in 1972, the objector movement had become strongly
radicalized. The creation of the Objector Struggle Committees (CLO)
resulted in a very strong politicization of the antimilitarist movement.
A majority of the CLOs intended to fight against the army "  support of
all dictatorships  ",against the army of anti-worker repression. The
class struggle was implicit in the positions of the CLOs. Furthermore,
it was a truncated vision to reduce the objector movement to an
individual refusal, while stable and active antimilitarist groups were
developing around the objection and, in increasing numbers, objectors
participated in a collective approach like the OP20  [17]. So, when I
returned to UTCL, the reality was that there was a collective movement
of more than 5,000 objectors rebellious to civil service, and that this
movement, at the end of the 1970s, had ideological influence in French
society.

The real differences between the soldiers' movement and the objectors'
movement lay elsewhere. On the one hand, in my opinion, a significant
part of the soldiers' movement was not on an antimilitarist basis, but
on a "  democratic  " basis, neglecting any antimilitarist analysis of
the military institution. On the other hand, the strategic question was
posed of the place of action most suited to the anti-militarist fight:
within the contingent, where the young proletarians were the most
numerous ? Or within the objector movement, which was supposed, in a
caricatured way, not to be accessible to young proletarians ?

The workerism of the UTCL was translated, initially, by an exclusive
intervention within the soldiers' committees. At the beginning of the
1980s, the rapid ebb of this movement forced the UTCL to review its
position, and to support all struggles capable of raising protest
against the army.

Daniel Goude: Daniel Guérin pushed in this direction.

Jean-Luc Dupriez: But the ebb of the objectors' movement came there too,
a little later, after the amnesty pronounced by Mitterrand in 1982 to
get rid of thousands of rebels. And finally, when Charlie talks about
the importance that his participation in the soldiers' movement had in
his political evolution, I must say that for my part, it is within the
CLO, as a rebel, that I started to really politicize myself. And it is
from this experience that I chose to campaign at UTCL.


TLPAT n°31 special (April 1980)
The UTCL stood out in its support for free unions in Eastern countries
since 1978, that is to say even before the strikes in Gdansk in August
1980 and the emergence of Solidarnosc. Generally, dissidences in Eastern
countries have been seen as right-wing, liberal and pro-Western
dissidences. It is a presentation of things that suited both the
bourgeoisie and the Communist Party. The UTCL, for its part, strove to
make known and support left-wing and working-class dissidence. Can you
tell a little about this ?


UTCL poster (November 1980)
With two Soviet trade unionists persecuted by the regime.
Daniel Goude: It all started thanks to Nicolas Trifon , a former OCA
activist, who hosted Iztok  [18]. He passed on to the UTCL confidential
information on the clandestine unions which could exist in the East,
such as the SMOT in the USSR.

Thierry Renard: Thanks to Iztok, we were able to get in touch with quite
a few dissidents in exile, such as Leonid Plioutch  [19], Viktor
Fainberg [20]and Vladimir Borissov [21], from SMOT. They were often
declassed intellectuals whom the regime had sent to the factory, and who
had initiated small union groups there. There was also Kiril Yanatchkov,
a former member of the Yugoslav Communist Youth, who had gone through
Trotskyism before becoming a libertarian communist.

Once we organized a small party at Riton in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,
with all these dissidents. I had cooked, and made a Russian-style meal,
with cabbage soup. I remember Leonid Plioutch, with his little voice: "
Hmm, it's better than the gulag !" » (laughs) A few years later, we
learned, from a PCF guy, that on the evening of the meeting, the house
had been placed under surveillance by the DST on the one hand, and on
the other hand by the central SO of the CGT !


Daniel Goude: Then in 1981, UTCL participated in the committees
supporting Solidarnosc. On several occasions I went to Poland with teams
of activists who smuggled reprographic equipment, such as mimeograph
machines for example.


TLPAT n°36 (November 1980)
Comrade Brezhnev splits his mouth.
I had proposed to the CFDT of Air France in Orly to do a twinning with
the Solidarnosc section of the airline, but I also made trips with
libertarian activists from the CGT proofreaders' union. It got us out of
trouble, by the way ! Once, in East Germany, our vehicle was searched by
soldiers, and they discovered the mimeograph ! The Correctors' friend
then showed them the union leaflets she had taken with her. They made a
few calls and then came back to tell us that everything was in order !
The simple acronym CGT was enough to reassure their hierarchy of our
good intentions !

We also did quite a few trips with double bottom trucks. And then at one
point we had to find another solution, because the customs officers
ended up getting suspicious. They checked that the length on the outside
matched the length on the inside of the truck.

Once past the East German police and Polish customs, there was one more
ordeal. In Warsaw, we had to get our material to the right people within
Solidarnosc, and prevent it from falling into the hands of the priests !
Because Solidarnosc was also that ! It was monks who were the welcoming
committee for us in Warsaw. They knew what we were coming for, and they
were supposed to play middleman. In reality they were hoping to scrounge
up some gear for themselves. They had to be kept busy and ensured that
the mimeographs reached the worker groups.

Christian Mortreuil: After Daniel's return, we were entitled to vodka in
the UTCL meetings !


TLPAT n°44 (January 1982)
Daniel Goude: I also happened to transport secret messages on behalf of
Solidarnosc. They wrote tiny texts, in fly's paws, on Bible paper. Then
the text was rolled very tightly and sewn into the collar lining of my
coat. Once, on a bus, a soldier approached from behind and brutally
called out to me, putting his hand on my shoulder... I thought I would
die, for fear that the paper would crunch and everything would be
discovered.

Thierry Renard: These links that we forged very early on with the worker
oppositions in the East allowed UTCL to have in-depth knowledge of this
reality, and of the ambivalence which characterized the dissidence. It
is thanks to this that, unlike the LCR for example, we have never
praised or mythologized people like Jacek Kuron  [22]or Bronislaw
Geremek  [23].

Charles Huard: All this experience accumulated by UTCL on the issue
resulted in the organization of the conference "  Kronstadt 21-Gdansk
81, sixty years of resistance to state capitalism  ", with veterans of
the opposition of 1920s, and representatives of free unions. We were
entitled to an article in Le Monde, and UTCL has built up quite a bit of
credibility in this field.


"  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.
Another front on which UTCL is strongly committed: anticolonialism. In
August 1984, the Kanak independence movements unified within the Kanak
and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS). On January 11, 1985,
Éloi Machoro was assassinated by the GIGN. Riots ensue. A state of
emergency is declared. However, between 1985 and 1988, one of the French
organizations on which the FLNKS relied was the UTCL. Why ?


Fight ! n°9 (February 1985)
Clotilde Maillard: The links that the UTCL was able to maintain with the
Kanak independence left came, among others, through Zéro de conduct. At
the beginning of the 1980s, we were contacted by Kanak independence
activists on behalf of structures such as, from memory, the Kanak Study
and Planning Association (AKEP) of Kanala, or the reflection committee
of the Kanak popular school (EPK) of Lifou. After the call to boycott
public schools - described as colonial schools - launched by the FLNKS
in February 1985, the EPKs had to ensure their development and the
training of their leaders. The separatists asked Zero to conduct,after
numerous meetings, to concoct for them a minimal training course in the
form of an easy-to-find bibliography, both in the field of pedagogy and
techniques but also in that of philosophy and politics.

Christian Mortreuil: We also had contacts through Pierre Morain and
Suzanne Morain , veterans of the FCL, activists in Larzac-Solidarité,
who had fairly strong links with Kanaky.

Daniel Goude: We must also mention Daniel Guerrier, a former member of
the ORA who had lived in New Caledonia and had made contacts there, and
then also Daniel Guérin, who personally knew Jean-Marie Tjibaou  [24].

Marco Candore: It also happened through unions, with the Trade Union of
Kanak and Exploited Workers (USTKE), even if a cold quickly set in when
the USTKE affiliated with the FSM  [25].


Fight ! n°14 (December 1985)
Clotilde Maillard: In 1985, in France, the Association for Information
and Support for the Rights of the Kanak People (AISDPK) was created, the
majority of whose components were libertarian. There we will find
activists from the UTCL - notably Alain Crosnier , a comrade now
deceased, who played a fairly important role - as well as from the OCL,
and people like Daniel Guerrier.

When Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the president of the FLNKS, came to France to
hold meetings, the AISDPK ensured coordination. And it was always UTCL
which was responsible for the SO close to Tjibaou. Why us ? On the one
hand because the FLNKS trusted us. On the other hand, because the UTCL
was a small, not very well-known organization, and this allowed the
FLNKS to avoid a "  recovery  " effect that could have occurred with
another organization.

I particularly remember a FLNKS meeting at Place Balard, in Paris. It
was a little strange: in the room, there was a mainly black audience,
and the UTCL activists, white, who were acting in front of the stage.
Meanwhile the other orgas had to go outside, for the outside SO ! Same
with Mutuality.

Jean-Michel Dauvel: At the AISDPK in Rouen, we also had links with
Caldoches, USTKE activists. This is also the importance of the "  E  "
in the acronym: the desire to organize white people, to underline the
importance of anti-racist values. Which is no small feat for an
anti-colonialist movement.

Daniel Goude: The Kanaks spoke to us about the influence that Louise
Michel may have had on the island, when she was deported there after the
Paris Commune. It's one of the little things that gave credit to
libertarians. However, there was not particularly sentimentalism in our
relations. We had strong political ties, but they weakened very quickly
after the Matignon agreements.

Clolilde Maillard: The Matignon agreements allowed the emergence of a
Kanak microbourgeoisie. The question of independence and social
transformation no longer arose with such urgency. And there, the UTCL
dropped the matter, because we were no longer too concerned... Besides,
when you wander today on the Kanak Internet forums, you can observe to
what extent the debate has refocused: they debate among themselves (a
lot in fact), but stay to themselves. They don't care about having a
link with the organizations of the metropolis.

We discussed the history of UTCL, its identity, its construction, work
in companies, its role in the union left, its anti-colonial and
anti-militarist commitments, its sometimes risky positions (Juquin,
etc.). It is time to conclude, and draw a political assessment of this
organization.


Fight ! n°5 (May-August 1983)
Marco Candore: What we missed the most is, in my opinion, the real
pursuit of collective and in-depth theoretical reflection, put in
tension with our practices, as it emerged from 1982 to 1986-1988 ,
certainly in a period of ebb, but which required reflection... After the
adoption of the Libertarian Communist Project in 1986, this momentum was
gradually diluted, for various reasons. Absorption by trade unionism
undoubtedly played a role, but more certainly and no doubt more or less
consciously, there was a fear of dilution of the libertarian communist
identity in the "  alternative  ", sometimes with good reasons. Too bad
though.

It is also the weight of a period which encourages ideological
withdrawal as a reflex of self-defense in the face of the ideological
strike force of an ever more predatory, cannibalistic and suicidal
capitalism. I don't think anyone has completely escaped it, and I don't
see how that would be possible. Moreover, with hindsight, we have been
so caught up in anti-capitalism that anti-state thinking has disappeared
from our concerns, I mean as a specific theoretical object. With this
paradox therefore: a movement which combines a "  return to the sources
" towards worker anarchism, and a great weakness on what nevertheless
bases its major identity, distinguishes it a priori from other
revolutionary currents: the question of the State...

More positively, UTCL participated in overcoming stereotypical activism,
with an openness to experimentation, as well as lasting changes for the
libertarian movement as a whole. It's not so bad.


Fight ! n°26 (March 1989)
Thierry Renard: What conclusions can be drawn from UTCL ? We can
undoubtedly regret what has always been our great weakness: our
organizational deficiencies. After the initial launch phase, we did very
little to try to build the organization. There are several explanatory
factors for this. Firstly, the movement culture inherited from the ORA,
where what counts is the immediate movement, the nose to the wheel,
without long-term construction. Libertarian alternative, today, assumes
this aspect better than UTCL ever did.

Then we were in no way "  carried  " by the rise of post-68 struggles,
on the contrary. UTCL was born and built in a terrible period of
decline, which brought the far left into crisis. The fact that despite
everything we "  survived  " beyond the 1980s is already remarkable.

Finally, there is this simple reality: the lack of time to build the
organization. Wanting to create a workers' organization, led by its
workers, while being shock unionists, animate union lefts, etc. And all
this, starting at fifteen ! As long as an organization has not reached a
certain critical mass, which allows work to be distributed, it is almost
impossible to succeed in such a bet. Even for the best activists, the
days only have twenty-four hours ! Activism has exhausted many comrades.
A certain number left us because of this. UTCL has thus experienced ups
and downs, and even very lows in certain years !

Despite everything, we survived, and we can learn some lessons from it.
The main thing is that what has always allowed us to bounce back is a
political law: we only exist in a dynamic that surpasses us and carries
us along. This is what some sectarian far-left groups are incapable of
understanding. For the UTCL, this "  dynamic which goes beyond us and
carries us along  " was that of the union lefts. It has nourished our
action and our thinking. The other side of the coin is that we have
sometimes lacked perspective on this. During certain periods, the
expression of the UTCL took a more "  left trade unionist  " than
revolutionary tone...


Fight ! n°176 (July 1991)
Final issue of the UTCL journal.
But despite everything, this is where, undeniably, UTCL had its
influence. This is its main positive contribution. Because we fought to
bring a unionism of struggle to life, while the leadership of the CFDT,
after 1978 - we must still keep this in mind - had begun a devastating
enterprise of "normalization" of unionism in  France  , by purifying the
"  leftists  ", by excluding the combative unions.

And if this operation failed, if this unionism of struggle was able to
continue to exist, it is partly thanks to the libertarian communists.
This is, today, for example, the existence of SUD unionism. This
perspective of a union, self-managing alternative pole was opposed, in
its beginnings, by socialists, communists and Trotskyists. We are the
only political movement that pushed in this direction, before events
proved us right and the rest of the extreme left resigned itself to the
existence of the SUD. And this SOUTH unionism - whatever apprehensions
we may have about its future evolution, because nothing is ever
completed - I want to say: perhaps it would not have existed if it had
it not been for the activists of the UTCL, then the AL.

Comments collected on September 18, 2005 by Guillaume Davranche

On the Anarchist Revolutionary Organization, read also
the interview with Rolf Dupuy and Guy Malouvier: "  Each of these words
mattered: organization ; revolutionary ; anarchist  " , Libertarian
Alternative, May 2008.
the interview with Patrice Spadoni and Thierry Renard: "  There was a
whole mythology surrounding the ORA  "

To validate

[1] On the Syndicalist Alliance, we can read "  A profession in
struggles, interview with Jacques Toublet  " , interview with Franck
Poupeau for the magazine Agone n°26-27, 2002.

[2] Zero conduct : review of educational alternatives led among others
by UTCL teachers from November 1983 to the fall of 1991.

[3] This was the "  Assembling a Force  " orientation adopted by the ORA
in 1973.

[4] The Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists: programmatic
text published in 1926 by Russian anarchists in exile in France, and who
wanted to "  straighten  " the anarchist movement. Find out here .

[5] Finally, the OCA will be convinced to give up the circled A.

[6] Long live the revolution (VLR), a spontaneous Maoist group that
appeared after May 68 and self-dissolved in April 1971. Unlike the
Stalinist Maoists, VLR was distinguished by its "  festive  " side.

[7] The Communist Organization of Workers (OCT) was formed in 1976 from
the merger of Revolution ! (a leftist tendency coming from the LCR) and
the Workers and Peasants Left (GOP, a Maoist tendency of the PSU).
Depending on the location, its sections were therefore rather Maoist, or
rather Trotskyist, sometimes even anarchist, all in a fairly significant
ideological confusion, the common denominator being a form of ultra-left
spontaneism. The OCT would collapse in the early 1980s.

[8] As part of a "  sliding salary scale  ", collective agreements or
the law would index salaries to rising prices.

[9] In the 1980s, Clotilde Maillard participated in an experiment in new
pedagogy in a nursery school, rue des Bois in Paris 19th .

[10] Daniel himself was an activist in Lutte Ouvrière for seven years
before joining UTCL in 1978.

[11] Under the influence of the Syndicalist Alliance.

[12] General Federation of Transport and Equipment, which brings
together railway and truck workers in particular at the CFDT.

[13] The Center for Socialist Studies, Research and Education (Ceres),
founded by Georges Sarre and Jean-Pierre Chevènement in 1966, will
become one of the main currents of the left of the PS from the Epinay
congress ( June 1971) ; it will be dissolved in April 1986.

[14] On the occasion of the legislative elections of 1978, the UTCL led
an abstention campaign "  For the revolutionary alternative  ", with the
Communist Combat Organization (OCC, of those excluded from Lutte
Ouvrière) and the Organization anarchist combat (OCA)

[15] Extract from the supplement to All Power to the Workers , dated
June 10, 1981: "  Transform the failure of the right into a victory for
the workers  ".

[16] The Party for a Communist Alternative (PAC), new name in 1985 for
the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of France (PCMLF), the main
pro-Chinese formation after 1968. The PAC finally disintegrated at the
end of 1988.

[17] Operation 20 (OP20) in 1980-1982 consisted of rehabilitating
conscientious objection by giving it a collective and political
dimension, and no longer just personal, motivated by philosophical and
religious reasons. Christian Mahieux - not yet a member of UTCL -
participated, with several dozen other objectors.

[18] Iztok, a libertarian review on Eastern countries, was published by
a Franco-Bulgarian collective from September 1979 to June 1991.

[19] Leonid Pliouchtch (1939-2015), Ukrainian mathematician and
dissident Marxist, was interned in a psychiatric hospital by the Soviet
regime from 1972 to 1976. Following an international campaign of
support, he was expelled from the USSR and took refuge in France .

[20] Viktor Fainberg (1931-2023) participated in a public protest in
August 1968, on Red Square in Moscow, against the crushing of the Prague
Spring by the USSR. For this, he was beaten and spent five years in a
psychiatric hospital. Expelled from the USSR, he took refuge in France,
where he became the foreign spokesperson for SMOT.

[21] Vladimir Borissov (1943-2012), electrician, was the founder of SMOT
in the USSR. After nine years of internment in a psychiatric hospital,
he was expelled from the USSR in 1980 and took refuge in France, where
Le Monde published a long interview with him .

[22] Jacek Kuron (1934-2004), member of the Workers' Defense Committee
(KOR) and advisor to Solidarnosc, participated in the Round Table talks
between the government and the opposition in February-March 1989, before
becoming a minister of Labor between 1989 and 1993. It then accompanied
an ultraliberal policy unrelated to the "  defense of workers  ".

[23] Bronislaw Geremek (1932-2008), communist intellectual, who became a
dissident after 1968, became an advisor to Solidarnosc after August
1980. He participated in the Round Table talks in February-March 1989,
and passed without transition to the ultraliberalism. Minister of
Foreign Affairs between 1997 and 2000.

[24] Jean-Marie Tjibaou (1936-1989), leader of the FLNKS, assassinated
in 1989 in Ouvéa by a Kanak separatist opposed to the Matignon agreement.

[25] World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU): International trade union
linked to the USSR, and which the CGT left in 1995.

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