Love and Revolution

The progressive revival of the 1960s, which in Belgium began with the general strike of 1960-61, brought with it a renewal of the connection between struggle and theoretical debate, a connection that had been lost during the interwar 'darkness at noon' of Stalinism.

Although Marxist critical thought had not been entirely silenced, as shown by the works of Cornelius Castoriadis and Paul Sweezy, Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and Karl Korsch's later work, in academia it had been marginalized; confined to the domains of aesthetics and philosophy.² In the 1960s such publishers as Maspero in France and Feltrinelli in Italy rediscovered the heterodox political literature that had long been on Stalin's index. Creative Marxist thought emerged from the shadow of the universities and stimulated in addition to the debates about neo-capitalism and the role of the proletariat - thinking about decolonization, revolution and post-capitalist society, the Soviet Union and China, Algeria and Cuba.

In Marxist Economic Theory Mandel had examined the economics of transitional societies.³ The sociologist Pierre Naville encouraged him to pursue the subject further. Naville was preparing to republish New Economics (first published in 1923), an analysis of the Soviet economy by Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, who had been killed by Stalin in 1937.⁴ He asked Mandel to write a foreword^s Central to the book was the question of what dynamic would arise in an agricultural society in transition from capitalism to socialism and what sources of socialist accumulation would be available. Mandel wrote that Preobrazhensky had made possible an economic policy free of pragmatism and empiricism.^° This book's publication contributed to the economic debate in Cuba.

Ernesto `Che' Guevara, who with Fidel Castro was the face of the Cuban revolution, took a leading role in this debate. In 1958-59 guerrillas had ended the oppressive, US-backed Batista regime. In doing so they broke with the prevailing understanding of revolution that had held sway since

1935. The dominant conception dated back to the stages theory held by.

Stalin's Comintern, which had limited revolutionary ambitions to formation of a national democratic government with the task of achieving agricultural reform, industrialization and democratic renewal. The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie would only take place in a more-or-less distant future phase of socialist revolution. The Cuban revolutionaries discovered that in practice such a revolution was impossible and looked for a model that would put a definitive end to capitalism in Cuba. In the process they risked an American invasion, a threat made clear during the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron) incident and the October 1962 missile crisis. They also earned anathemas from Moscow, which saw Cuba's support for revolutionary movements in Latin America, Asia and Africa as undermining a foreign policy aimed at peaceful coexistence with the West.

From 1962 to 1964 Che Guevara headed the Cuban ministry of industry..

He opposed the growing influence of Moscow-oriented Communists and the state's increasing bureaucratic tendencies. His ideas about the economy were formed in the debates of 1963-4, which were not only about economic development but also about the essence of socialism: a central budget structure versus financial independence of companies, moral versus material incentives, the law of value versus planning, and the role of consciousness.

Che considered an economy without a humanistic perspective, without communist ethics, unthinkable.^? 'We fight against poverty but also against alienation ... If Communism were to bypass consciousness . . . then the spirit of the revolution would die.'⁸ In a famous 1965 essay, 'Socialism and Man in Cuba', Che warned against 'the pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dull instruments left to us by capitalism', like making value and profitability the absolute economic measure or using material incentives. Che held that fully realized communism would require changing not only the economic structure but also human beings.'

Impressed by the wave of nationalizations there, Mandel concluded in the fall of 1960 that Cuba had developed into a post-capitalist state.¹⁰ 'Reality has shown that to consolidate power the revolutionary leaders have unconsciously resorted to Trotskyism.'¹¹ Shortly after the publication of Marxist Economic Theory Mandel had a copy sent to Che and Castro via their embassy in Brussels.¹² He had informal contacts with the Cuban regime through Nelson Zayas Pazos,¹³ a Cuban Trotskyist and French teacher working in the foreign ministry, and Hilde Gadea, Che's ex-wife, a Peruvian economist of Indian and Chinese descent who lived in Havana.¹⁴ Gadea was sympathetic to Trotskyist ideas, and through her and Zayas documents of the Fourth International were regularly forwarded to Che.¹⁵

In October 1963 Zayas told Mandel about the debate raging between what he called the Stalino-Khrushchevists and the circle around Che.¹⁵ While the former were arguing for financial independence for companies and for material incentives to increase productivity,¹⁷ Che called for centralizing finances and strengthening moral incentives.¹⁸ Zayas encouraged Mandel to intervene in the debate: 'It seems to me that the entire Castro leadership would welcome such a contribution . . . Fidel, Che, Aragores, Hart, Faure ChomOn and many others are favourably disposed to us.'¹⁹ A month later Zayas distributed a stencilled contribution from Mandel to those taking part in the debate.²⁰ Mandel supported Che's resistance to financial autonomy, not because he was opposed to decentralization but because centralized financing for small-scale industry seemed at that time the optimal solution. He shared Che's fears of the growth of bureaucracy, all the more so because Che's opponents wanted to make decentralized financial administration efficient by using material incentives. Mandel was not against material incentives as such, on two conditions: that they were not individual but collective incentives in order to ensure solidarity, and that their use was restrained in order to curb the selfishness that a system of enrichment produces.

To combat bureaucratization Mandel argued for democratic and centralized self-management, 'a management by the workers at the workplace, subject to strict discipline on the part of a central authority that is directly chosen by workers' councils'.²¹ Mandel and Che differed on this last point. Che did support management of the enterprises by the trade unions, but only if they were representative and not controlled by Communists, who, he said, were very unpopular. The results of decentralized self-management in Yugoslavia, where companies acted like slaves of the market, had also made Che cautious. Mandel warned him against throwing the baby out with the bath water. Self-management by workers was entirely compatible with a central plan democratically decided by the direct producers.²²

In early 1964 Mandel was invited to visit Havana. There were prospects of meetings with Che and Castro.²³ Che had read Marxist Economic Theory enthusiastically and had large parts of it translated.²⁴ Mandel confided to Livio Maitan: 'I think that I can raise many issues openly and frankly',²⁵ and

wrote again a few days later, 'And in any case I can resolve the question of training our Bolivian friends.'²⁶

Maitan had visited South America for the first time in 1962. He had made contact with insurrectionary movements in Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay and Argentina and had urged them to work with the Cubans.²⁷ Buenos Aires he met such left-wing Peronistas as the poet Alicia Eguren and her partner John William Cooke, who had been in contact with Che since 1959.²⁸ In Peru Maitan's contacts were with the United Left and its peasant leader Hugo Blanco. In Bolivia he met with the mine workers in Huanum, Catavi and Siglo XX. Trotskyists had strong influence there and hoped to he trained in Cuba for armed struggle.

Mandel stayed in Havana for almost seven weeks. It was a visit without official duties, an occasion for exchanging ideas, and these exchanges convinced him completely that Cuba 'constitutes . the most advanced bastion in the liberation of labour and of humanity'.²⁹ The Marxist classics were widely studied in cadre schools, in ministries and beyond. MandeI wrote a friend, 'The class I took part in had just finished volume one of Capital, with a minister and three deputy ministers present . . . And it was serious study, even Talmudic, studying page by page . . .'^3a Mandel's own works, including Marxist Economic Theory, were discussed; translated, stencilled excerpts circulated among the leadership.³¹ He addressed hundreds of auditors at the University of Havana, speaking in Spanish — with a sprinkling of Italian when a word escaped him. There was even an announcement of his visit in Hoy, the paper of the Communist Blas Roca. Revolucicin, the largest and most influential daily paper, published an interview.

`I was literally kidnapped by the finance ministry and the ministry of industry [Che's ministry] to write a long article about the problem of the law of value in the economy of a transitional society.'³² Speaking French, Mandel met for four hours with Che, who received him dressed in olive green fatigues, his famous black beret with its red star within reach. Totally enchanted, Mandel wrote a friend, 'Confidentially, he is extremely close to your friend Germain [the pseudonym Mandel used most], whom you know well.'³³

Cuba's level of development meant that the various units of production needed a sufficient measure of autonomy, that they be integrated into the market so that they could buy and sell their products at prices reflecting the costs of production. I also found that the low level of productive forces required the principle: to each according to his work. The more one worked, the higher the pay. This was the core of our divergence, because Che found differences acceptable only when they arose from what each contributed to the best of his ability.³⁵

The research director of the Paris Ecole des Names Etudes en Sciences Sociales still did not agree with Che's thinking.

Luis Alvarez Rom, Cuba's finance minister, spent ten hours correcting the Spanish translation of Mandel's article. It appeared in June 1964 under the title 'Las categorias mercantiles en el period() de transition' (Mercantile Categories in the Period of Transition); 20,000 copies were published in

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periodicals of the ministries of industry and of finance.³⁹ It included:4: flattering biography of the author.^4° Mandel wondered if this was :!to::_:! neutralize in advance certain ill-intentioned criticisms of my spiritual

[the Fourth International]?'⁴¹ He treasured in his wallet a banknote

sonally signed by Che: more than a currency note, it was a proof of trust:,::

Mandel admired Che's courage in inviting him to Cuba for a debate that the'::: Soviets and orthodox Communists had to accept, however grudgingly_: He praised Che as a theoretician, a leader in the tradition of Marx, Lenin and:::: Tro tsky . ⁴²

Looking back in 1977, Mandel considered Cuba's open debate on the;:: economy 'the big turning point' in the Cuban revolution.⁴³ Behind that:::::: debate had raged another, not held in public. This debate concerned revolution's sociopolitical orientation, the role of the,workers and the

of power. That is, along with the question of the law of value came the iSsiie : of how much freedom the proletariat would have to make its own decisions:::::, As Mandel saw it, though Che triumphed in the public debate, he was defeated in the hidden one. Guaranteeing freedom was a political problem:_: it required the creation of workers' councils and popular assemblies. Such:::

organs were never developed.

When Che left Cuba in 1965, he was the most popular leader on the island. If the voice of the people had been heard, Che would have won the: political as well as the economic round. But, as Mandel said, `Che did not want to appeal to the people. He did not want to split the party openly. This::_: is why he left after his defeat.'⁴⁴ In his 1964 correspondence Mandel had_::_:: acknowledged that he did not dare put sonic of his impressions on paper.⁴5: Did he already suspect that the debate would have a tragic outcome?

On Mandel's departure Luis Alvarez Rom assured him that he was always_: welcome; a request would be sufficient to assure an invitation.⁴⁶ There was a : rumour that within a few months Castro would officially invite him 'so I can deal a bit with his affairs'.⁴⁷ He returned to Brussels in a hopeful mood:

He had also been assured that `the group around Che was noticeably stronger' and that 'workers' assemblies would soon be started'.⁴⁹ Was this the beginning of workers' self-management, however modest? The promise did not amount to much, but Mandel closed his eyes to its limits. He reacted negatively to Nelson Zayas's advice to pressure Che 'and to convince him

that he'll lose the battle if it's only fought in the government and bureaucratic arena'.⁵⁰ The people's support for the government must not be _underestimated.⁵¹ The die was not yet cast: 'Nothing was definitely decided vet in the economic discussion.'⁵² Mandel did not want to hamper Che and Fidel in their conflicts with the pro-Soviet currents. This would not have been appreciated, either, by the swelling multitude of radical youth in France and elsewhere, for whom Che was nearing the status of hero. Mandel's reaction disappointed Zayas and hastened his decision to turn his back on Cuba and complete his study of French in Paris. He asked Mandel to use his influence with Che to secure the necessary exit visa.⁵³

Mandel's thoughts about Cuba changed only slowly. The Latin American revolution came to a halt: Salvador Allende lost the Chilean election in September 1964, there were military coups in Brazil and Bolivia, and leftist guerrillas in Peru and Venezuela were defeated. Cuba paid for these failures with its growing dependence on the Soviet Union. This was an arid climate in which social democracy could not thrive. As Mandel frankly admitted to ex-Trotskyist Jesus Vazquez Mendez,

I subscribe to your opinion that participation by the people is essential .. I had heard that management of the enterprises would come into the hands of the trade unions after their leadership was replaced; but the latest news is that nothing has happened. I'm sorry about it, and like you I'm afraid that if things are left to take their course, the result will be an economic impasse. Maybe I'll go to Cuba again in 1965 and can give the debate new impetus.⁵⁴

But he didn't visit in 1965, and he never saw Che again, not even when Che was in Algiers to address an Afro-Asian conference at the end of a trip through Africa in February that year. Never before had Che come out so strongly against the Soviet Union. He declared that 'the socialist countries are, in a way, accomplices of imperialist exploitation'. Before all else oppressed peoples had to be helped with weapons, 'without any charge at all, and in quantities. determined by the need'.⁵⁵ Che's words took root in the fertile soil of Latin American campuses and the radical milieu in Paris, where his speech was duplicated and distributed,⁵⁶ and the Union of Communist Students (UEC) invited Che to Paris for a debate on Stalinism.⁵⁷ The initiative came from the UEC left wing, in which Mandel's fellow-thinkers played a prominent role. Six months earlier they had been received by a deputy minister of industry, a close colleague of Che's.⁵⁸ One of the group's spokespeople, twenty-sevenyear-old Janette Pienkny (Janette Habel after 1966), travelled regularly between Paris and Havana. She contacted the Cuban ambassador, who

relayed the invitation to Che by phone. Meanwhile Mandel was attempting to get a visa for Algeria. After Che's speech, Mandel had phoned him his congratulations. Che had immediately agreed to a meeting but it had to be the following day, a Monday, because he was about to leave.⁵⁹ But that Sunday Mandel sought vainly to make contact — at home and at the embassy — with the ambassador and the consul. Without a visa, 'they wouldn't even have let me telephone from the airport ... I finally decided, heartbroken, to miss the meeting that meant so much to me.'^6°

The debate in Paris never took place. The Communist Party put a stop to it.⁶¹ Che was now viewed as a heretic, not only in Moscow but also within the Communist parties. Algiers was his last public appearance. He went to the Congo and Bolivia to help break the isolation of their revolutions, a solidarity that he summed up in his testamentary message with the call; `Make two, three, many Vietnamsr⁶² That slogan became the catchphrase for the generation of '68.

Love

Mandel's letters were always filled with facts, judgements and fragmentary analyses; he seldom let his emotions show. As he wrote to an Argentinian friend, the Peronista Alicia Eguren:

Did those rewards compensate him for the absence of a love life? He was not looking for love; he could not forget his relationship with Micky Traks. As he confided to Ernest Federn, 'Like Papageno I still say "I'll stay single" until I find Papagena.'⁶⁴

Mandel was forty-two when he met Gisela Scholtz. In the spring of 1965 he took part in a London conference with African Trotskyists. As usual he was run ragged in the days immediately preceding and following this event. He gave lectures at the London School of Economics, met with the editorial boards of New Left Review and the Socialist Register, and lectured to a group of Ceylonese students. It was there he met the mercurial thirty-year-old student. She was in the British capital studying Hindi and preparing for a stay in India and Ceylon.

Gisela Scholtz was slender and energetic, with short dark hair and engaging eyes. She was a bit shorter than Mandel. She came originally

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Early on Dutschke threw his pullover into a corner. As he boxed his trotskyite opponent in, he rolled up his sleeves. He's never at a loss for an answer. He kneads his arguments into the multitude like a baker raisins in the dough."

:putschke's diary gave a different picture. Mandel's critique of his admirati4 for Mao had not missed its mark. 'Mao does not permit real self-organizati( by the people, a damned crucial remark', according to Dutschke, wl recognized Mandel as his superior. 'I have a lot to learn from him.' :Dutschke showed himself to be thoughtful and self-critical, far fro iinpervious to argument. He wasn't a man who had to win every debar

Though a trip to Cuba had proved impossible in 1965-6, Mandel's thinkii about the Latin American revolution continued to develop. He praised ti young philosopher Regis Debray, a student of Althusser's. In a January 19( essay in Les Temps Modernes Debray had characterized Castroism as the Lat American version of Leninism.¹⁰¹ Mandel described it as 'an excellent piece though he dismissed out of hand Debray's ideas about spontaneous par

formation.¹⁰² Mandel expressed himself more cautiously about Cuba's : relationship with Moscow: 'politically they continue to have their own life . . . What is bad, however, is that [Castro] made a series of unprincipled moves to satisfy the Russians (like his attacks against the Chinese and against the "counter-revolutionary trotskyists").'" At the final sitting of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana's Chaplin Theatre, Castro had spoken of 'the stupidities, the discredit, and the repugnant thing which Trotskyism. today is in the field of politics'.¹⁰⁴

Mandel thought that must be a genuflection towards Moscow, camou- " flage for the call to armed struggle that Moscow might interpret as a' concession to Trotskyism. In a confidential meeting with Victor Rico Galan, Castro's representative in Mexico, Mandel later learned that Castro regretted his statement. Galan had pointed out to Castro that the attack on : Trotskyism was unfounded. Admitting his mistake, Castro had asked Galan to give him 'a month or two to make public con-ections of this at the proper: time'.¹⁰⁵ At the end of May Mandel unexpectedly got an invitation to visit Havana. The Cuban ambassador spoke of a personal invitation from Castro and promised a meeting with President Osvaldo Dorticós.¹⁰⁶

A beautiful English-speaking guide took care of all the formalities, including credit cards and a shabby Cadillac with chauffeur. Gisela immediately fell in love with the impoverished country. She sent Meschkat enthusiastic reports about their wanderings and the encounters in tobacco and sugar factories, on plantations and in prisons and schools. 'Everything is exquisite and for us so encouraging and hopeful.' ^1°8

Their programme was overloaded. Ernest often returned only at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning from a debate or lecture at the university or a party school. The atmosphere was frank and candid, as were the meetings with the host of Latin Americans attending the first conference of the Organization in Solidarity with Latin America (OLAS), held in Havana at the beginning of August." Ernest and Gisela were furious when the Czechoslovakian paper Rude PMvo published three pages slandering Che on the day that Soviet premier Kosygin arrived. Gisela wrote, 'You should just hear how they talk about the Russians in all circles here, from the highest to the lowest. I've never heard such talk, from socialists yet.'"^° Typically, Castro charged the

Venezuelan Communists with failing the guerrilla movement.¹¹¹ Though Cuba was dependent on the Russians, Castro continued to provoke them.¹¹² Mandel spoke with functionaries high and low, but Castro and Dorticds _avoided him. Every time he announced his departure, he received overnight a request to stay 'because the President and the Prime Minister both wanted to see me .¹¹³ Fed up with waiting, he finally left, three weeks later than planned and without meeting them. Perhaps a meeting would have seemed too clear a provocation to the Russians. Castro had nothing to gain, as he had demonstrated his independence sufficiently at the OLAS conference.

On 9 October 1967, the world learned of the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara. Convinced that guerrilla warfare was the only way to victory, he had gone to join the Bolivian struggle. His body was found mutilated in a remote village. This was the death of a revolutionary, a modem-day warrior chief. The left was in mourning; poets wrote elegies, laments that ended with calls to rebellion. In an interview with Gerhard Horst (pseudonym Andre Gorz), an editor of Les Temps Modernes, Mandel spoke of 'a severe shock, all the more as I regarded him as a personal friend'.¹" In La Gauche he mourned 'a great friend, an exemplary comrade, a heroic militant'.¹¹⁵ On the Boulevard St-Michel in Paris and Berlin's Kurffirstendamm, in London and Milan people shouted: `Che, Che, Gue-va-ra!' The chopped syllables formed a battle cry against the established order. Neither Moscow nor Beijing had expressed even the most grudging sympathy.¹¹⁶ In openly showing their regret the Italian and French Conununist parties proved they still possessed a little autonomy.

Mandel's sympathizers in the French Revolutionary Communist YOuth (JCR), a radical group founded in 1966 in a split from the Union of Communist Students, refused to accept his death. `Che was our best antidote.. to the Maoist mystique', Daniel Bensaid recalled.<sup>117</sup> In the Latin Quarter of Paris, the Mutualite, temple of the French workers' movement, was full to overflowing. Mandel spoke alongside Maurice Nadeau, just back. from: Havana, and Janette 'The Cuban' Habel. He portrayed Che as he had cOnie to know him in 1964.<sup>118</sup> Emotion crested as those present softly hummed `The Song of the Martyrs', the mourning march from the 1905 Paissian Revolution, before launching into, 'You have fallen for all those who hunger' and belting out the chorus, 'But the hour will sound, and the people:

conquer .. .'¹¹⁹

In Berlin too people were deeply moved. The SDS called for intensifying actions. Che had been Dutschke's inspiration. With Gaston Salvatore, :a Chilean comrade and friend in the SDS,^12° Dutschke had translated Che's last public statement, with its famous appeal for 'two, three, many Viet"t"= nams', from Spanish into German. Like Che, Dutschke lived the conviction

that there 'is no life outside the revolution'.¹²¹ He named his recently born son Hosea Che. Latin America would not let Dutschke go. In 1 968 he wrote a foreword to The Long March: The Course of the Revolution in Latin America, a collection of articles by such figures as Regis Debray, Castro and K.S. Karo1.¹²² Meschkat was surprised to see letters from Gisela, which she had sent him from Havana in the summer of 1967, printed in the book. As far as he had known, Dutschke had asked only for permission to read them.¹²³

In the summer of 1967 Mandel and Dutschke grew closer. Dutschke noted in his diary: 'Discussion with Gisela and Ernest, [Adorno's student HansFirgen] Krahl, etc. about organizational questions and preliminary theoretical discussions for a conference in Berlin.'¹²⁴ Shortly before, Dutschke and Krahl had presented a so-called organization report to an SDS conference in the old refectory of the University of Frankfurt.¹²⁵ Krahl was for Frankfurt what Dutschke was for Berlin — the undisputed chief ideologue. The SDS was growing dramatically, with 2,000 members and easily several times that many sympathizers, including not only university students but also high school students and young workers. They were for reform of the universities and against the Vietnam War, against the Greek dictatorship, against the emergency decrees and against the 'emperor of torture', Shah Reza Pahlevi of Iran. Participating in their actions cost Benno Ohnesorg, a twenty-sixyear-old student, his life. On 2 June 1967 he was shot dead by the police in Berlin, setting off a month-long rebellion.

Once the students' slogan had been 'No theory without praxis.' Suddenly that time seemed long past. Now the question was what strategy the SDS should choose and what type of organization was suited to it. Mandel discussed this in the summer of 1967 with Dutschke, Krahl, Meschkat, Altvater, Semler, Rabehl and other student leaders.¹²⁶ Their task was to `select the best comrades to create an organization within the SDS . . . to form a cadre ... and to build a vanguard from inside the social-democratic union, .127

Dutschke held on to his position because of his flexibility. As Meschkat confided to Mandel, this 'is surely a big danger for continuity but also an opportunity to reach agreement step-by-step after thorough discussion.¹²⁸ Mandel set out to persuade Dutschke to transform the Marxist wing of the SDS into a revolutionary socialist youth organization,¹²⁹ following the example of the French JCR. The JCR was a hybrid formation of Guevaraists and Trotskyists, anti-Stalinists with considerable influence among rebellious youth.^13° The two or at most three hundred dissidents included Catherine

9

Hope and Despair

— Ernst Bloch to Ernest Mandel (1974)¹

'::Every revolutionary success was felt around the world — and every defeat. The Warsaw Pact troops that overran Czechoslovakia in August 1968 .:_:proved this once again. Deploying their own tanks, the Kremlin helped i:egitimate the misdeeds of imperialist countries in Vietnam, Latin America, -Africa and the Middle East and hindered any attempts by Cuba or Vietnam to take an independent path.

Not "capitalist restoration" but socialist democracy was the [Kremlin's] ...enemy,' Mandel said.² Moscow was afraid of the influence of the Prague ::Spring, in the first place on the Soviet people but also on Poland, Hungary and the other countries within its sphere of influence.

Cuba acquiesced in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Hanging over an economic 'abyss, Castro saw Russia as his only hope. At least 98 per cent of ' Cuba's oil came from the Soviet Union. Not long before, Castro had boasted that he did not fear at all that the Soviets would decrease their • support as punishment for his independent course.³

La Gauche reacted hesitantly: 'Castro confuses day with night . . He is sowing confusion among a great many young people who have always regarded Cuba as an anti-Stalinist altema.tive.'⁴ At first it was all seen as a mistake;⁵ disillusionment came later.^° Mandel looked for rays of hope, but there was no comment even from Hilda Gadea, Che's first life partner. Ralph Schoenman, an observer of Regis Dcbray's 1967 Bolivia trial.,⁷ wrote to Mandel, 'She has no opportunity to fight from the left. She is tolerated as a necessary nuisance by the authorities.'8

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Dutschke's diary gave a different picture. Mandel's critique of his admiration for Mao had not missed its mark. 'Mao does not permit real self-organization by the people, a damned crucial remark', according to Dutschke, who

Dutschke showed himself to be thoughtful and self-critical, fir from impervious to argument. He wasn't a man who had to win every debate.

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Faithful to Leninist orthodoxy, Mandel pointed to the absence of a vanguard with influence in. key factories comparable to its influence in the universities. Even had there been such, he added, he did not think that France would have been a mere twenty-four hours away from socialism, nor that a French `October' would have been just around the corner. But he did think there might have been a French `February', a breakthrough to a situation of dual power. Had this taken place, Mandel considered that a decisive page in French and European history would have been turned.