The Communist League was formed in the aftermath of the May 1968 General Strike in France, It rapidly developed to become the most important revolutionary organisation in France. During the spring of this year, it was able to lead movements of hundreds of thousands. Its political impact on French society has reached such a point that the French bourgeoisie have been preparing to act against it for some time. The recent clash with Oedre Nouveau merely provided the pretext. The keystone of the Communist League's politics has always been an understanding that the development of the revolutionary movement in any country is only part of an international process, For this reason the League has always been in the fore of all mobilisations on international questions in France. It has led the Indochina Solidarity Front and a whole series of actions on questions such as the Burgos trials of anti-Franco Basque nationalists In Spain. This is in addition to its work in aiding the construction of sections of the Fourth International not only in Europe but also in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. This help was acknowledged at the last Congress of the League when messages of solidarity were received from revolutionary organisations on every continent. Mass Mobilisations Since Alain Krivine's camprign in the 1969 Presidential election, the first revolutionary intervention on a national scale in a European election since the 1930's, the League has led actions against militarism, the police. a revolutionary electoral and propaganda campaign independent of the reformist Communist Party-Socialist party "Union of the Left, and on every other key political question facing the French working class movement. The high point of its activity was the demonstration of 200,000, very largely mobilised due to the work of the League, that took place after the killing of a young revolutionary militant, Pierre Overney, by a Renault Security guard. The size of this action stunned not only the French ruling class, but also the French Communist Party, which had previourly described the revolutionary left as a "small handful of wreckers."
Working Class Base The key task which the Communist League has always set for itself is the construction of a base of support within the working class movement. But it has always understood the need to do this on a political, not just a trade union, foundation, It has centred its activity around the need to set up elected strike committees and workers seif defence during strikes, and around campaigns for union democracy and to mobilise mass support for isolated groups of workers in struggle. In this way it has tried to prepare the ground so that the next big up surge of working class struggle will be able to overcome the principal weakness of May/June *68 - the failure of mass working class elected bodies to appear which could both organise resistance to the state and enable the working class to democratically decide the way forward. It was this weakness which allowed the French Communist Party to head off the movement and divert it into reformist channels.
The successes gained by the League in the trade union field was reflected in the recent trade union conferenoe of the League, attended by 800 militants who assessed the progress of the workers struggle in France and also the enormous developments on a European scale. The leadership of the CFDT, the second biggest trade union federation in France, was forced to devote large parts of its recent conference to discussing the posttions of the League, some of which received as much as 20% of the votes cast.
National Political Impact The national political impact of the Leagu was brought to a new height this spring i the enormous movement against the recently adopted harsh laws on conscription. This represented by far the biggest social movement in France since 1968. On April 2nd there were a total of 216 demonstrations in France, with more than 300,000 demonstra ting in Paris and the provinces. The opening of the new French Parliament was greeted by a demonstration of over 100,000 in Paris alone. The whole movement was organised through democratically elected strike commit: tes - a vast step forward on 1968. This movement was openly acknowledged by all to be under the political leadership of the League. The capitalist press reported the statements of the League every day. Even the Communist leadership of the CGI, the main trade union organisation in France, was foroed to approach the League for a joint meeting on the way forward for the movement. This must represent one of the first occasions in which the leaders of a mass Stalinist organisation have been forced to approach Trotskyists for Joint activity in such an upsurge.
It is these developments which have opened up the possibility that, for the first time in Burope since the 1920s, a real mass revolutionary party with a base in the working class might come into existence. It is this which has led the French capitalist class to open up its attack of the League.