Debray to act as Mitterand's calling-card in South America

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One of the most interesting of the political appointments made by Francois Mitterand has been that of Regis Debray as the chief of his secretariat for foreign affairs.

The appointment has generated a storm of criticism and calumny in the capitalist press around the world, with accusations flyagainst Mitterand of having brought in a 'revolutionary' Debray's revolutionary' credentials, such as they are, are based on his period with Che Guevara among the Bolivian guerrillas in 1967, and before that in the Venezuelan Castroite movement.

In this sense, Debray embodies a great deal of the experience of the petit bourgeois revolutionists in the period since the Cuban revolution and the containment of that revolutionary impulse by Stalinism.

Debray was one of tens of thousands of revolutionaries who was led by the Cuban revolution to believe in the possibility of the guerrilla method as a means of overthrowing capitalism.

For a long period this view was predominant, especially in Latin America.

Its long term effects have been nothing but disastrous for the workers and peasants of Latin America.

All the energies of the revolutionaries came to be channelled into military activities and the problems of building the revolutionary party in the towns and cities were neglected.

The wave of guerrillaism eventually broke against the rock of US military support and technique.

Debray himself was captured and suffered three years' imprisonment in the notorious Camiri prison, despite an enormous international campaign for his release.

" In 1970 he was released and took refuge in Allende's Chile. There he became a friend and adviser of Allende and saw collapse regime.

On his return to France he wrote a 'self criticism' rejecting his earlier views on armed struggle, and after i period of sympathy for the Althusserian current in the French Communist Party, eventually joined the Parti Socialiste in 1974.

By Ernie Stubbins Mitterand was quick to make use of Debray's intellectual abilities in various party commissions, and also as his 'calling card' in tours of Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela and Costa Rica.

In 1977 Debray was awarded the literary prize Prix Femina for his novel 'La neige brule' , (The Snow Burns) and donated the money to the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire; the French section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth By July 1979 his revolutionary' credentials still seemed to hold good, as he was one of the first visitors to the victorious Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

A .. taste of Debray's present politics can be obtained from his most recent published interview, just two weeks before his appointment to Mitterand's secretariat, given to the Danish journal, Information' In his view, the election of Mitterand is an event of global significance, because:

«The election of Francois Mitterand could promote the development of many decision making centres The question rer rains the same: who can govern Italy?

But the answer last week became more elusive around the world, putting an end to the present bipolarity of international politics and giving a new weight to the nations taking their positions between Washington and Moscow."

This of course is no more than the Old • style 'third worldism' of the 1960s dressed • ир. in modern clothes. However, Debray thinks that things are actually even better than that:

"The election of a socialist president of France is undeniably going to contribute to preventing a drift to cold war which has been visible in recent years, but a Soviet military adventure in Poland would bring an end to detente."

He is of course careful to add that he thinks such an hypothesis 'improbable'.

There are indications of a slide towards anti-communism in Debray's interview. He believes that the French Communist Party cannot play any important part in French political life because of the desertion of the party by its intellectuals. This is a tlimsy excuse indeed for denying ministerial positions to communists while granting them the Jobert.

There is no doubt that Debray will be of enormous value to Mitterand in Latin America, where there exist enormous markets for French high technology exports-particularly in telecommunications and nuclear power.

As a representative of the 'revolutionary' generation of the 1960s, Debray will have an automatic entree with any new left wing government of any complexion in Latin America, and will give French exports a massive competitive lead over the It is also likely that he will be put to work reconstructing relations with the states of francophone Africa. Mitterand's support for de Gaulle in the Algerian war is still vividly recalled, and stands as a barrier to his present "socialist" credibility.

Some such figure as Debray is therefore urgently needed if France is to take full advantage of the growing fear of Gaddaffi's interventions in other North African states.