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Indeed so he believed calling the May uprising "a revolutionary situation (that) can occur in (any) advanced capitalist country." It began with student revolts in Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, America, France, and elsewhere with the potential for much more.
It was the biggest working class eruption since the 1930s, especially in France when, at its peak, 10 million strong joined students, went on strike, occupied factories, universities, and offices throughout the country, paralyzed it, and nearly ousted the de Gaulle government, for days unable to counter the most profound challenge to capitalism since the 30s and 1917 Russia.
For weeks, direct worker actions in factories and other takeovers continued. "Dual power" was created - the government v. revolutionary action committees, workers wanting "a new form of democracy, including industrial democracy, that does not just rest on an occasional ballot." Their actions "precipitated the biggest general strike in French history, paralyzing the economy and raising, for a brief spell, the question of power in the country."
It could have gone either way under the slogan, "Be realistic, demand the impossible!" Capitalism was on trial, a transition to socialism then possible. Singer believed workers had a chance to take over "a share of the management and then to full management by collective producers." His model embraced two characteristics:
-- students acting before or independently from workers; then
-- workers joining their ranks in support, united against a common enemy, turning rebellion into "potential revolution."
He understood that "workers (couldn't) conquer economic power under capitalism as the bourgeoisie did under feudalism." Their task is harder, but he saw in France the potential for change, working class people acting "in parallel" to achieve it. Years later, he said a better future depends on "structural reforms" or "revolutionary reformism," the kind more than ever needed now with less zeal so far for it, far more in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, than in America.
Despite today's demands, governments remain hardline, unlike in 1968 when political and social concessions were made to retain power. Years later they were lost under Thatcher in Britain, Kohl in Germany and Reagan in America. They began a three decade assault on working class wages, benefits and values, intensified under Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and their European counterparts.
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