SITUATIONISTS AND THE 1£CH MAY 1968

"The blokes liked the leaflet. They are sceptical
about the 12%. They say prices will go up and
that we'll lose it all in a few months. Some say
let's push all together now and take on the lot".
"The leaflet certainly started· the lads talking.
They've never had so much to say. The officials
had to wait their turn to speak. .. "
I vividly remember a young printing worker
who said one night that these meetings were the
most exciting thing that had ever happened to
him. All his life he had dreamed of meeting peo
pie who thought and spoke like this. But every
time he thought he had met one all they were
· interested in was what they could get out of him.
This was the first time he had been offered disinterested
help.
I don't know what has happened at Censier
since the end of May. When I left, sundry Trots
were beginning to move in, "to politicise the
leaflets·" (by which I presume they meant that
the leaflets should now talk about "the need to
build the revolutionary Party"). If they succeed ­
which I doubt, knowing the calibre of the Censier
comrades - it will be a tragedy.
The leaflets were in fact political. During the
whole of my short stay in France I saw nothing
more intensely and relevantly political (in the
best sense of the term) than the sustained campaign
emanating from Censier, a campaign for
constant control of the struggle from below, for
self-defence, for worl