Leon
Trotsky: A Necessary Supplement
January
9, 1930
[Writing
of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 2, 1930, New York 1975, p. 69 f.]
L'Humanité
of January 7 published statistics of strikes in France from 1919 to
1928, based on official data more recent than we had. We reproduce
the table in full:
|
Year
|
Number
of Strikes
|
Number
on Strike
|
|
1919
|
2,111
|
1,211,242
|
|
1920
|
1,911
|
1,462,228
|
|
1921
|
570
|
451,854
|
|
1922
|
694
|
300,59
|
|
1923
|
1,114
|
365,868
|
|
1924
|
1,083
|
274,865
|
|
1925
|
931
|
249,198
|
|
1926
|
1,060
|
349,309
|
|
1927
|
443
|
120,551
|
|
1928
|
943
|
222,606
|
This
table introduces some changes into our study of the strikes of the
last three years. But it is not difficult to show that these changes
don't weaken but strengthen our conclusions. The year 1927 is the
lowest point for the whole decade in the strike movement in France.
In 1928 there is a certain rise. From the data in the Communist press
we had estimated the approximate number on strike in 1928 to be
between 400 and 450 thousand. For 1929, l'Humanité
gives a figure of half a million on strike, a figure not justified by
its own data, and from that it draws the conclusion of a rapid growth
in strikes for 1929 compared with the preceding year. That doesn't
prevent the paper saying that the official figures for 1928 are an
underestimate. So from the same figures, two diametrically opposite
conclusions are drawn. Meantime, if we take l'Humanité's
own figures for the last two years, we find not a rise but rather a
certain decline in the strike movement for 1929. This unexpected
result is to be explained apparently by the simple fact that
l'Humanité's
exaggerations for 1928 were more generous than for 1929. We don't
have the government's or worldwide figures for 1929. Therefore, the
conclusion that the number on strike in the year that has passed has
doubled in comparison with the preceding year is reached on the
inadmissible comparison of the figures overestimated by I'Humanité
with the figures underestimated by the government.
From
the official table given above, it clearly emerges that 1928, which
has been proclaimed the first year of the revolutionary upsurge, has
had — 1927 apart — the lowest number on strike in the decade. Yet
the diagnosis of the "third period" which had put France in
what was claimed to be the 'leading position in the revolutionary
upsurge" was based, above all if not exclusively, on the facts
of the strike movement.
The
conclusion remains the same: with such weapons and with such a way of
going about things, one marches only to meet defeats!
|