What would a successful May 1968 look like?

[Christian]

I apologize for my extremely surface understanding of the events, I’m not very privy to the details of what happened.

As far as I know, the protests were led by students, which eventually spiraled into a nation-wide strike. De Gaulle apparently had to flee, and when elections came around, the Gaullist party triumphed with 70% of the vote.

Is there any way things could have gone better? If not electorally but in other ways? Could the protests and strikes have evolved into a revolution or is that just impossible?

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Revolutions only succeed when the ruling class can no longer rule the country, and are forced from power.

Les évènements was never going to achieve this.

 

[Hendryk]

Could the protests and strikes have evolved into a revolution or is that just impossible?

One of my favorite standalone stories from the Jour J series is about such a WI: De Gaulle dies in a helicopter crash on his way to Baden-Baden and the sudden power vacuum causes the unrest to escalate into full-fledged civil war. When the dust settles, France is under the shaky rule of a countercultural leftist coalition nominally headed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit. It's pretty soft AH so one could poke plenty of holes into it, but it's an amusing thought experiment. See this thread for more details.

 

[Oppo]

I would highly recommend reading this Jstor article How Civil War Was Avoided in France, which details how the actions and inactions of De Gaulle, the PCF, the student left, military, and police (among others) contributed to De Gaulle’s survival.

These two paragraphs citing opinion polling are particularly noteworthy.

If a general insurrectional strike had been launched, 71% of Frenchmen would have condemned it, 19% would have approved of it, and 10% were undecided abouttheirprobable attitude. If a popular uprising had occurred, 20% of Frenchmen would have supported it, 23% would have resisted it, and 57% would have done nothing (including 17% who were undecided). This does not mean that the absolute majority would have remained neutral or indifferent; they would simply have chosen not to take part physically in the conflict.

Only 5% of the French would have supported military intervention, 33% would have fought against it, and the absolute majority would have done nothing at all.

De Gaulle succeeded by neither resigning or violently suppressing protests and instead calling a snap election, which allowed a passive “silent majority” to consent to De Gaulle’s continued rule.

The author speculates on a couple counterfactuals, such as an incident on 13 May where hundreds of Trots and anarchists were close to attempting to storm the Elysée, which would have triggered a bloodbath and potential military intervention.

Additionally, on 30 May 1968, Pompidou informed Gaullist parliamentarians that “the situation was really revolutionary and that the Communist Party had changed its tune.” While this was untrue, if the French government began acting as if the PCF was fermenting an insurrection, it may have forced the PCF in such a direction.

This is unmentioned in Doggan’s article, but noted Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon stepped down Paris’ police chief in January 1967. While his successor Maurice Grimaud’s cautious actions prevented an escalation, Papon’s history was anything but deescalatory. Under Papon’s direction, 200-300 Algerian demonstrations were murdered and thrown into the River Siene (in addition to 11,000 arrests). Four months later, the French police killed 9 CGT members protesting the OAS.

It’s genuinely grimacing to speculate how Papon would have handled a much larger series of protests.

 

[Catalunya]

If a general insurrectional strike had been launched, 71% of Frenchmen would have condemned it, 19% would have approved of it, and 10% were undecided abouttheirprobable attitude. If apopular uprising had occurred, 20% of Frenchmen would have supported it, 23% would have resisted it, and 57% would have done nothing (including 17% who were undecided). This does not mean that the absolute majority would have remained neutral or indifferent; they would simply have chosen not to take part physically in the conflict.

Only 5% of the French would have supported military intervention, 33% would have fought against it, and the absolute majority would have done nothing at all.

I like how most French people would just sit and do nothing while their country turns into either a fascist junta, or the most revolutionary state in human history.

 

[TheIO]

I like how most French people would just sit and do nothing while their country turns into either a fascist junta, or the most revolutionary state in human history.

Either way the majority of them clearly didn't want either, but also didn't want to have to do anything about either.

 

[OHC]

I did a List with this premise pretty recently. Although keep in mind I'm not French and haven't studied the topic deeply I got the sense that neither the revolutionary groupuscules in the universities, nor the rank and file strike committees, nor the PCF were at all prepared to take power. (There are a couple interesting postmortems by the Situationists and the Trots analyzing why they think the movement fizzled.)

I figured a reasonably plausible successful Mai 68 could go something like this. More violent repression (Papon replacing Grimaud being a potential POD, as above) leads to outrage and an expansion of the uprising, de Gaulle goes ahead with his resignation, and suddenly there's a power vacuum and the confused heads of the parliamentary left step in to rally the occupied zones against the remainder of the military. Without any major organization to speak for the young radicals and the strike committees, these old-left folks (like Mitterrand) set up basically "the Fourth Republic but with workplace democracy," which is politically unstable but not enough to totally collapse. The future might hold Soviet domination or full anarchist revolution, who knows?

I don't think it's the most likely scenario though - a coup or civil war seems a lot more plausible unless you've got mass desertions.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I did a List with this premise pretty recently. Although keep in mind I'm not French and haven't studied the topic deeply I got the sense that neither the revolutionary groupuscules in the universities, nor the rank and file strike committees, nor the PCF were at all prepared to take power. (There are a couple interesting postmortems by the Situationists and the Trots analyzing why they think the movement fizzled.)

I figured a reasonably plausible successful Mai 68 could go something like this. More violent repression (Papon replacing Grimaud being a potential POD, as above) leads to outrage and an expansion of the uprising, de Gaulle goes ahead with his resignation, and suddenly there's a power vacuum and the confused heads of the parliamentary left step in to rally the occupied zones against the remainder of the military. Without any major organization to speak for the young radicals and the strike committees, these old-left folks (like Mitterrand) set up basically "the Fourth Republic but with workplace democracy," which is politically unstable but not enough to totally collapse. The future might hold Soviet domination or full anarchist revolution, who knows?

I don't think it's the most likely scenario though - a coup or civil war seems a lot more plausible unless you've got mass desertions.

That link's not working, so you know.

 

[Catalunya]

I did a List with this premise pretty recently. Although keep in mind I'm not French and haven't studied the topic deeply I got the sense that neither the revolutionary groupuscules in the universities, nor the rank and file strike committees, nor the PCF were at all prepared to take power. (There are a couple interesting postmortems by the Situationists and the Trots analyzing why they think the movement fizzled.)

I figured a reasonably plausible successful Mai 68 could go something like this. More violent repression (Papon replacing Grimaud being a potential POD, as above) leads to outrage and an expansion of the uprising, de Gaulle goes ahead with his resignation, and suddenly there's a power vacuum and the confused heads of the parliamentary left step in to rally the occupied zones against the remainder of the military. Without any major organization to speak for the young radicals and the strike committees, these old-left folks (like Mitterrand) set up basically "the Fourth Republic but with workplace democracy," which is politically unstable but not enough to totally collapse. The future might hold Soviet domination or full anarchist revolution, who knows?

I don't think it's the most likely scenario though - a coup or civil war seems a lot more plausible unless you've got mass desertions.

I should really check out the list challenges more often!

One of my favorite PODs is Jean Bastien-Thiry assassinating de Gaulle in 1962. It not only leaves France in the hand of a more ‘mainstream’ centre-right government, but also likely butterflies away the Kennedy assassination, two developments that imo only further galvanize support for a revolution in France down the road. It also opens the road to what is in my opinion the most interesting possible development; American tanks in Paris.

I also have a question about your list. Why do you think someone like Nixon, with Kissinger likely still being his ally, would support the pro-USSR party in France, when supporting the anarchists and Trots aligns more with Kissinger’s understanding of realpolitik?

 

[frustrated progressive]

I should really check out the list challenges more often!

One of my favorite PODs is Jean Bastien-Thiry assassinating de Gaulle in 1962. It not only leaves France in the hand of a more ‘mainstream’ centre-right government, but also likely butterflies away the Kennedy assassination, two developments that imo only further galvanize support for a revolution in France down the road. It also opens the road to what is in my opinion the most interesting possible development; American tanks in Paris.

 

[OHC]

I should really check out the list challenges more often!

One of my favorite PODs is Jean Bastien-Thiry assassinating de Gaulle in 1962. It not only leaves France in the hand of a more ‘mainstream’ centre-right government, but also likely butterflies away the Kennedy assassination, two developments that imo only further galvanize support for a revolution in France down the road. It also opens the road to what is in my opinion the most interesting possible development; American tanks in Paris.

That is quite an idea!

I also have a question about your list. Why do you think someone like Nixon, with Kissinger likely still being his ally, would support the pro-USSR party in France, when supporting the anarchists and Trots aligns more with Kissinger’s understanding of realpolitik?

I figured that the French revolution would have some ripple effects - it'd probably make the rest of the Western bloc very, very scared of the New Left. I hinted at it a little with the Spanish invasion of Portugal (presumably in response to an earlier Carnation Revolution inspired by the French example), and I'd imagine that street politics in Italy, Germany, the US, etc is heating up. Under those circumstances I could see Nixon and Kissinger being wary of backing heterodox left movements and putting more emphasis on alignment with the Soviets, who share their desire for stability in Europe. Just a list, so not super heavy on the plausibility, but I think it kind of follows.

 

[Catalunya]

I figured that the French revolution would have some ripple effects - it'd probably make the rest of the Western bloc very, very scared of the New Left. I hinted at it a little with the Spanish invasion of Portugal (presumably in response to an earlier Carnation Revolution inspired by the French example), and I'd imagine that street politics in Italy, Germany, the US, etc is heating up. Under those circumstances I could see Nixon and Kissinger being wary of backing heterodox left movements and putting more emphasis on alignment with the Soviets, who share their desire for stability in Europe. Just a list, so not super heavy on the plausibility, but I think it kind of follows.

To be honest, that’s a great argument. It would be kind of funny to see the CPUSA become aligned with the established parties though.

 

[Hendryk]

I like how most French people would just sit and do nothing while their country turns into either a fascist junta, or the most revolutionary state in human history.

[French people who were around in 1940] "First time?"

I figured that the French revolution would have some ripple effects

In the aforementioned Jour J story, one of the butterflies is that US Navy veteran Bob Woodward goes into intelligence instead of journalism, and ends up with a field assignment in Paris as a CIA agent. Which means that the Watergate scandal won't happen and Nixon will complete his second term, causing further divergences to American politics down the line.

 

[Charles EP M.]

So what it sounds like is that while most French people wanted everything to go away, if the government/army panics (without the protestors going further first) then there'd be quite a big backlash- those 33% - and that might be enough to collapse the existing government? Not the same as the May 68 Republic being born but "we crashed De Gaulle" is a pretty big scalp for the left

 

[OHC]

So what it sounds like is that while most French people wanted everything to go away, if the government/army panics (without the protestors going further first) then there'd be quite a big backlash- those 33% - and that might be enough to collapse the existing government? Not the same as the May 68 Republic being born but "we crashed De Gaulle" is a pretty big scalp for the left

Yeah basically, although I think they'd probably formally start a Sixth or People's Republic because part of the French left's whole schtick at that point was opposing the Fifth Republic as too presidentialist and dictatorial.

 

[Christian]

I remember reading in a discussion about a proposed constitution that was mainly pushed by the left in 1946.

"The constitution elaborated by the Assembly under the inspiration of two men of keen intelligence, Andre Philip and Pierre Cot, [Phillip was a Socialist, Cot was elected as a republican but was known by everyone to be close to the Communists--in fact, the Venona documents make it clear that he was a KGB agent--DT] was a bold departure from the Orleanist compromise of 1875. It reverted to the tradition of the old Radicals, so different from the trimmers and time-servers who had later adopted the name. The Senate was abolished outright. The President became an even more shadowy figure than under the Third Republic. The single and omnipotent Assembly elected and could remove the prime minister. It was a Jacobin constitution and paved the way for the autocracy of a majority party. It was passed by a coalition of the Communists and Socialists over the opposition of the M.R.P.'s. General de Gaulle, now a private citizen, pronounced against it. When on May 5, 1946, it was submitted to a referendum, it was rejected by 10,583,724 votes to 9,453,675.

Could it be possible that a more successful protest lead to something like the original idea for the 1946 constitution? Seems like most people here are sure that a radical socialist kind of government would not be possible, so maybe a return to something still radical, but not too much.

 

[Lilitou]

Something I wanted to mention, since it doesn't seem to have come up; looking back, you can argue the revolution was successful. Not as a change in political power or a transfer of leadership, but in terms of cultural and social impact. That's what some of the student leaders themselves argued, anyway, though I suppose you can agree or disagree with their take.

I did cover something similar in terms of May 68 being "unsuccessful but successful" in IVC, as well. Essentially, Messmer - not the calm presence of Pompidou - bungles the bag, and it saps the authority of an already weakened Gaullist government allowing for an earlier Mitterand victory. So, a revolution without a revolution.

 

[Redolegna]

Yeah basically, although I think they'd probably formally start a Sixth or People's Republic because part of the French left's whole schtick at that point was opposing the Fifth Republic as too presidentialist and dictatorial.

See February-March 2023 for further elaboration of this point.

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

Something I wanted to mention, since it doesn't seem to have come up; looking back, you can argue the revolution was successful. Not as a change in political power or a transfer of leadership, but in terms of cultural and social impact. That's what some of the student leaders themselves argued, anyway, though I suppose you can agree or disagree with their take.

Every failure's a success by that metric.

 

[Roger II]

also likely butterflies away the Kennedy assassination, two developments that imo only further galvanize support for a revolution in France down the road. It also opens the road to what is in my opinion the most interesting possible development; American tanks in Paris.

Wait how does butterflying the Kennedy assassination galvanize support for a revolution in France?