Abstract

The events of May in France have been the climax of the revolutionary activity of the French students; and, within their national context, they have experimented with the feasibility of an alliance between the working class and the students, independently of established institutions and accepted patterns. This poses once again the problem of revolution in Continental Europe. The upshot of these events, however, has neither been properly evaluated nor theoretically elaborated by the various European student movements. The counter-revolutionary role of the French Communist Party (P.C.F.), the subsequent move to the Right in the June elections and internal disintegration of the revolutionary agencies, etc., have been events that can neither be predicted nor accounted for in terms of existing theoretical schemes, notwithstanding the flood of literature on the subject that has subsequently appeared: revolutionary literature sells and makes profits; although it is « bothersome » to make revolutions, it pays to write about them!