The original essays included here were first written between 1969 and 1972 by people involved in the most radical aspects of the French general strike and circulated among left communist and worker circles. Over the years these three essays have been published separately in various languages and printed as books in both the U.S. and the UK with few changes. This third English edition is updated to take into account the contemporary political situation; half of the present volume is new material. The book argues that doing away with wage-labor, class, the State, and private property is necessary, possible, and can only be achieved by a historical break, one that would certainly differ from October 1917, yet it would not be a peaceful, gradual, piecemeal evolution either. Like their historical predecessors, the authors still believe in revolution.

Gilles Dauvé has worked as a translator and teacher. He is the author of essays and books on the Russian, German, and Spanish revolutions; and his texts What Is Situationism? and Fascism/Anti-Fascism (written as Jean Barrot) have led a legendary existence in the samizdat pamphlet underground. François Martin was a member of the local section of the Trotskyist Fourth International. He was involved in the worker radical minority in the 1968 general strike and later active in communist circles.