Proletarian left

The proletarian Gauche (GP) is an organization Maoist created just after May 1968.

It gathers militants nanterriens “Mouvement of 22-March” and the young intellectuals of the circle Marxist-Leninist of the National university of the street of Ulm, in Paris, resulting from the UJCML (Union of Communist youths Marxist-Leninists) founded under the influence of the Marxist philosopher (member of the PCF) Louis Althusser.

Seeing in the revolt coed of May and her connections with the critical labor movements opposed to the CGT and PCF a harbinger of the revolution to come, the Marxist-Leninists develop initially, in accordance with the teaching of Lénine, a work of fraction within the large working power stations. This policy is a failure and obliges the Maoists of the proletarian left to work out a new political analysis. Starting from 1969 - 1970 the gepists develop a point of view “spontaneist”: they invite to exceed the organized labor (qualified “revisionists”) to build an authentic working Communist party starting from the fights of the people, from where the character spontaneist, this party being supposed to appear spontaneously during the actions. This is why at this period the Maoists of the GP intervene in many social movements in France (strikes of the new galleries with Lyon, popular courts with Lens, fights of OS with the Flins-on-Seine, movement of the Arab workers, etc), interpreted like harbingers of the imminent revolution.

The GP, with others, launched the movement of the “benches”: it was a question of sending the militants, for the majority resulting from the studied medium, of working as unskilled workers in the factories in order to exceed the supposed prejudices being inherent in their condition of “intellectuals middle-class man”. In the working medium, its speech finds especially an echo near in particular foreign little qualified workmen, often forsaken by the large working power stations of the time.

The GP, because of the recruitment of its founding members, oscillated between a great “intellectuality” (bonds, for example, with Althusser, Sartre, Foucault, great interest for Lacan), a contempt of the intellectuals (populist aspect “of left” in the report/ratio with the workmen in particular) and a certain fascination for the violent speech. These is also the social trajectories which partly explain the formation of a hesitation on the form between organization of a Leninist type (left clandestine limited to some members, largely autocratic) and a very libertarian design of the policy. This point of view is apparent in their newspaper the Cause of the people .

The GP was directed by Benny Levy (alias Pierre Victor) and Alain Geismar. Among its militants, some became famous for their university, media activities or policies after the end of the organization: Serge July, Olivier Rolin, Frederic H. Fajardie, Gerard Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, Marine Karmitz, Andre Glucksmann, Gilles Susong, more tragic etc Of manner, the working militant Pierre Overney did the one of the topicality when it was killed the February 25th 1972 by a watchman of Renault during an action of the GP.

Officially prohibited in 1970 by the laws Marcellin, the GP continues his action around the newspaper I show to it Cause of the people which gather a circle of media intellectuals and young journalists. The revolutionary Groups (GR) appear within the proletarian Left in 1973.

Proletarian Left autodissout in 1973 after having formed New popular resistance (NRP) and having planned to pass to the armed struggle. Some militants still continue the GP a few years, evolving for example to the autonomous Mouvement. The experiment of the Cause of the people gives birth, inter alia, with the newspaper Libération .

In 1974, the base of the proletarian Left refuses the autodissolution pronounced by the direction of the organization. Certain militants thus will continue to publish the Cause of the People until in 1976. Two other groups appear at the same time in the wake of dissolution: the international Brigades (BI) and To overcome and live . In 1977, the last militants of the Cause of the People will create the collective Offensive and Autonomy .

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