History of the Left in France
Encyclopedia
The Left in France at the beginning of the 20th century was represented by two main political parties
, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of various Marxist parties. But in 1914, after the assassination of the leader of the SFIO, Jean Jaurès
, who had upheld an internationalist
and anti-militarist line, the SFIO accepted to join the Union Sacrée national front. In the aftermaths of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Spartacist
insurrection in Germany
, the French Left divided itself in reformists and revolutionaries during the 1920 Tours Congress
, which saw the majority of the SFIO spin-out to form the French Section of the Communist International
(SFIC).
The distinction between left and right wings in politics derives from the seating arrangements which began during the Assemblee Nationale in 1789 (The more radical Jacobin or Montagnard deputies sat on the upper left benches). Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right in France
was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy. On the right, the Legitimists held counter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while the Orleanist
s hoped to create a constitutional monarchy
, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830 July Revolution
. The Republic itself, or, as it was called by Radical Republicans
, the Democratic and Social Republic (la République démocratique et sociale), was the objective of the French workers' movement, and the lowest common denominator
of the French Left. The June Days Uprising
during the Second Republic
was the attempt by the left to assert itself after the 1848 Revolution, that foundered on its own divided radicalism which too few of the (still predominantly rural) population shared.
Following Napoleon III's 1851 coup
and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire
, the Left was excluded from the political arena and focused on organising the workers. The growing French workers movement consisted of diverse strands; Marxism
began to rival Radical Republicanism and the "utopian socialism
" of Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier with whom Karl Marx
had become disillusioned. Socialism fused with the jacobin ideals of Radical Republicanism leading to a unique political posture embracing nationalism, socialist measures, democracy and anti-clericalism
(opposition to the role of the church in controlling French social and cultural life) all of which remain distinctive features of the French Left. Most practicing Catholics continue to vote conservative while areas which were receptive to the revolution in 1789 continue to vote socialist.
was throughout the 19th century the permanent theater of insurrectionary movements and headquarters of European revolutionaries. Following the French Revolution
of 1789 and the First French Empire
, the former royal family returned to power in the Bourbon Restoration
. The Restoration was dominated by the Counter-revolutionaries who refused all inheritance of the Revolution and aimed at re-establishing the divine right of kings
. The White Terror
struck the Left, while the ultra-royalist
s tried to bypass their king on his right. This intransigeance of the Legitimist monarchists, however, finally led to Charles X's downfall during the Three Glorious Days, or July Revolution
of 1830. The House of Orléans
, cadet branch of the Bourbon, then came to power with Louis-Philippe, marking the new influence of the second, important right-wing tradition of France (according to the historian René Rémond
's famous classification), the Orleanist
s. More liberal
than the aristocratic supporters of the Bourbon, the Orleanists aimed at achieving a form of national reconciliation, symbolized by Louis-Philippe's famous statement in January 1831: "We will attempt to remain in a juste milieu (the just middle), in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power."
and of census suffrage, the right-wing opposition to the regime (the Legitimists) and the left-wing opposition (the Republicans
and Socialists). The loyalists were divided into two parties, the conservative, center-right, Parti de la résistance (Party of the Resistance), and the reformist center-left Parti du mouvement (Party of the Movement). Republicans and Socialists, who requested social and political reforms, including universal suffrage
and the "right to work
" (droit du travail), were then at the far-left of the political board. The Parti du mouvement supported the "nationalities
" in Europe, which were trying, all over of Europe, to shake the grip of the various Empires in order to create nation-states. Its mouthpiece was Le National. The center-right was conservative and supported peace with European monarchs, and had as mouthpiece Le Journal des débats.
The only social law of the bourgeois July Monarchy was been to outlaw, in 1841, labor to children
under eight years of age, and night labor for those of less than 13 years. The law, however, was almost never implemented. Christians imagined a "charitable economy", while the ideas of Socialism, in particular Utopian Socialism
(Saint-Simon
, Charles Fourier
, etc.) diffused themselves. Blanqui
theorized Socialist coup d'états, the socialist and anarchist
thinker Proudhon theorized mutualism, while Karl Marx
arrived in Paris in 1843, and met there Friedrich Engels
.
Marx had come to Paris to work with Arnold Ruge
, another revolutionary from Germany, on the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, while Engels had come especially to meet Marx. There, he showed him his work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
. Marx wrote for the Vorwärts
revolutionary newspaper, established and run by the secret society called League of the Just, founded by German workers in Paris in 1836 and inspired by the revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf and his ideal of social equality
. The League of the Just was a splinter group from the League of Outlaws (Bund der Geaechteten) created in Paris two years before by Theodore Schuster
, Wilhelm Weitling
and others German emigrants, mostly journeymen. Schusterr was inspired by the works of Philippe Buonarroti
. The latter league had a pyramidal structure inspired by the secret society
of the Republican Carbonari
, and shared ideas with Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier
's utopian socialism. Their aim was to establish a "Social Republic" in the German states which would respect "freedom", "equality" and "civic virtue".
The League of the Just participated in the Blanquist
uprising of May 1839 in Paris. Hereafter expelled from France, the League of the Just moved to London, where they would transform themselves into the Communist League
.
In his spare time, Marx studied Proudhon, whom he would later criticize in The Poverty of Philosophy
(1847). He developed his theory of alienation
in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
, published posthumously, as well as his theory of ideology
in The German Ideology
(1845), in which he criticized the Young Hegelians
: "It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy
with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.". For the first time, Marx related history of ideas with economic history, linking the "ideological superstructure" with the "economical infrastructure", and thus tying together philosophy and economics. Inspired both by Friedrich Hegel and Adam Smith
, he imagined an original theory based on the key Marxist notion of class struggle
, which appeared to him self-evident in the Parisian context of insurrection and permanent turmoil. "The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class," did he conclude in his essay, setting up the program for the years to come, a program which would be further explicated in The Communist Manifesto
, published on 21 February 1848, as the manifesto of the Communist League, three days before the proclamation of the Second Republic. Arrested and expelled to Belgium, Marx was then invited by the new regime back to Paris, where he was able to witness the June Days Uprising
first hand.
(1848–1852), while the June Days Uprising
(or June 1848 Revolution) gave a lethal blow to the hopes of a "Social
and Democratic
Republic
" ("la République sociale et démocratique", or "La Sociale"). On 2 December 1851, Louis Napoleon
ended the Republic by a coup d'état
proclaiming the Second Empire (1852–1870) the next year. The Second Republic, however, is best remembered for having first established male universal suffrage
and for Victor Schoelcher
's abolition
of slavery
on 27 April 1848. The February Revolution also established the principle of the "right to work
" (droit au travail – or "right to have a work"), and decided to establish "National Workshops
" for the unemployed
. At the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace
, under the presidency of Louis Blanc
, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour. These tensions between right-wing, liberal
Orleanists, and left-wing, Radical
Republicans and Socialists caused the second, June Revolution. In December, presidential elections
were held, for the first time in France. Democracy seemed at first to triumph, as universal suffrage
was implemented also for the first time. The left was divided however into three candidacies, Lamartine and Cavaignac, the repressor of the June Days Uprising, on the center-left, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin as representant of the Republican Left, and Raspail as far-left, Socialist, candidate. Both Raspail and Lamartine obtained less than 1%, Cavaignac reached almost 20%, while the prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
surprisingly won the election with almost 75% of the votes, marking an important defeat of the Republican and Socialist camp.
, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte took power during the 1851 coup, and proclaimed himself Emperor, establishing the Second Empire. This was a blow to the Left's hopes during the Republic, which had already been crushed after the June Days Uprising
during which the bourgeoisie took the upper hand. Napoleon III followed at first authoritarian policies, before attempting a liberal shift in the end of his reign. Many left-wing activists exiled themselves to London, where the First International was founded in 1864.
Ather killing the crown prince they manage to escape in year in 1848
After the Paris Commune
of 1871, the French Left was decimated for ten years. Until the 1880s general amnesty, this harsh repression, directed by Adolphe Thiers
, would heavily disorganize the French labour movement
during the early years of the French Third Republic
(1871–1940). According to historian Benedict Anderson
...
The February 1871 legislative elections
had been won by the monarchists Orleanist
s and Legitimists, and it was not until the 1876 elections
that the Republicans
won a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Henceforth, the first task for the center-left was to firmly establish the Third Republic, proclaimed in September 1870. Rivalry between the Legitimists and the Orleanist
s prevented a new Bourbon Restoration
, and the Third Republic became firmly established with the 1875 Constitutional Laws. However, anti-Republican agitation continued, with various crisis, including the Boulangisme crisis or the Dreyfus Affair
. The main political forces in the Left at this time were the Opportunist Republicans
, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, and the emergent Socialist parties who won several municipal elections in the 1880s, establishing what has been dubbed "municipal socialism." At the turn of the 20th century, the Radicals replaced the Opportunists as the main center-left forces, although the latter, who slowly became social conservatives, continued to claim their place as members of the Left a political phenomenon known as "sinistrisme
".
Furthermore, in 1894 the government of Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate Republican, legalized trade-unions, enabling the creation of the Confédération générale du travail
(General Confederation of Labour, CGT) the following year, issued from a merger of Fernand Pelloutier
's Bourses du travail and other, local workers' associations. Dominated by anarcho-syndicalists, the unification of the CGT culminated in 1902, attracting figures such as Victor Griffuelhes
or Émile Pouget
, and then boasting 100,000 members.
, whom considered that the Republican regime could only be consolidated by successive phases. Those dominated French politics from 1876 to the 1890s. The "Opportunists" included figures such as Léon Gambetta
, leader of the Republican Union
who had participated to the Commune, Jules Ferry
, leader of the Republican Left who passed the Jules Ferry laws
on public, mandatory and secular education, Charles de Freycinet
, who directed several governments in this period, Jules Favre
, Jules Grévy
or Jules Simon
. While Gambetta opposed colonialism
as he considered it a diversion from the "blue line of the Vosges
", that is of the possibility of a revenge
against the newly founded German Empire
, Ferry was part of the "colonial lobby" who took part in the Scramble for Africa
.
The Opportunists broke away with the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party which aimed at deep transformations of society, leading to strong disagreements in the Chamber of Deputies, in particular with Georges Clemenceau
. At the end of the 19th century, the Opportunists were replaced by the Radicals as the primary force in French politics.
In 1879, Paul Brousse
founded the first Socialist party of France, dubbed Federation of the Socialist Workers of France
(Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France, FTSF). It was characterised as "possibilist
" because it promoted gradual reforms. In the same time, Édouard Vaillant
and the heirs of Louis Auguste Blanqui
founded the Central Revolutionary Committee
(Comité révolutionnaire central or CRC), which represented the French revolutionary tradition. However, three years later, Jules Guesde
and Paul Lafargue
(the son-in-law of Karl Marx
, famous for having written The Right to Be Lazy, which criticized labour
's alienation
) left the federation, which they considered too moderate, and founded the French Workers' Party
(Parti ouvrier français, POF) in 1880, which was the first Marxist party in France
.
, based in Switzerland, started theorizing propaganda of the deed
. Bakunin and other federalists had been excluded by Karl Marx
from the First International (or International Workingmen's Association, founded in London in 1864) during the Hague Congress
of 1872. The Socialist tradition had split between the anarchists, or "anti-authoritarian Socialists", and the Communists. A year after their exclusion, the Bakuninists created the Jura Federation
, which called for the creation of a new, anti-authoritarian International, dubbed Anarchist St. Imier International
(1872–1877). The latter was made up of several groups, mainly the Italian
, Spanish
, Belgian, American
, French and Swiss sections, who opposed Marx's control of the Central Council and favoured the autonomy of national sections free from centralized control.
In December 1893, the anarchist Auguste Vaillant
threw a bomb in the National Assembly, injuring one. The Opportunist Republicans swiftly reacted, voting two days later the "lois scélérates
", severely restricting freedom of expression. The first one condemned apology of any felony or crime as a felony itself, permitting widespread censorship of the press. The second one allowed to condemn any person directly or indirectly involved in a propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was effectively carried on. The last one condemned any person or newspaper using anarchist propaganda
(and, by extension, socialist libertarians present or former members of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA)). Thus, free speech and encouraging propaganda of the deed or antimilitarism
was severely restricted. Some people were condemned to prison for rejoicing themselves of the 1894 assassination of French president Sadi Carnot
by the Italian anarchist Caserio.
Following these events, the United Kingdom once again became the last haven for political refugees, in particular anarchists, who were all conflated with the few who had engaged in bombings. Henceforth, the UK became a nest for anarchist colonies expelled from the continent, in particular between 1892 and 1895, which marked the height of the repression. Louise Michel
, aka "the Red Virgin", Émile Pouget
or Charles Matato were the most famous of the many, anonymous anarchists, deserters
or simple criminals who had fled France and other European countries. These exilees would only return to France after President Félix Faure
's amnesty
in February 1895. A few hundreds persons related to the anarchist movement would however remain in the UK between 1880 and 1914. In reaction, the British restricted right of asylum
, a national tradition since the Reformation
in the 16th century. Several hate campaigns were issued in the British press in the 1890s against these French exilees, relayed by riots and a "restrictionist" party which advocated the end of liberality concerning freedom of movement, and hostility towards French and international activists
In the meanwhile, important figures in the anarchist movement began to distance themselves with this understanding of "propaganda of the deed", in part because of the state repression against the whole labor movement provoked by such individual acts. In 1887, Peter Kropotkin
thus wrote in Le Révolté
that "it is an illusion to believe that a few kilos of dynamite
will be enough to win against the coalition of exploiters". A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favor of collective revolutionary action, for example through the trade union
movement. The anarcho-syndicalist
, Fernand Pelloutier
, leader of the Bourses du travail from 1895 until his death in 1901, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labor movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter."
(CGT) trade-union, dominated by anarcho-syndicalists until the First World War. In 1894, the government of Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate Republican, had legalized workers' and employers' trade-unions (Waldeck-Rousseau Act), thus allowing such a legal form of association. The CGT's most important sections were then workers in railway companies and in the printing industry (cheminots and ouvriers du livre). For decades, the CGT would dominate the labor movement, keeping away from the political field and the parliamentary system (See below: Creation of the SFIO and Charter of Amiens
.).
divided again France into two rival camps, the Right (Charles Maurras
) supporting the Army and the Nation, while the Left (Emile Zola
, Georges Clemenceau
) supported human rights
and Justice. The Dreyfus Affair witnessed the birth of the modern intellectual
engaging himself in politics, while nationalism, which had been previously, under the form of liberal nationalism, a characteristic of the Republican Left, became a right-wing trait, mutating into a form of ethnic nationalism
. The Left itself was divided among Radical Republicans
and the new, emerging forces advocating Socialism, whether in its Marxist interpretation or revolutionary syndicalism tradition.
(POF) merged with others socialist parties to form the Socialist Party of France
(Parti socialiste de France, PSF), and finally merged in 1905 with Jean Jaurès
' Parti socialiste français to form the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Marcel Cachin
, who would lead the split in 1920 which led to the creation of the French Communist Party
(first SFIC, then PCF) and edited L'Humanité
newspaper, became a member of the POF in 1891.
In the 1880s, the Socialists knew their first electoral success, conquering some municipalities. Jean Allemane
and some FTSF members criticized the focus on electoral goals. In 1890, they created the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (Parti ouvrier socialiste révolutionnaire or POSR), which advocated the revolutionary "general strike
". Additionally, some deputies took the name Socialist without adhering to any party. These mostly advocated moderation and reform
.
In 1899, a debate raged among Socialist groups about the participation of Alexandre Millerand
in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet (Bloc des gauches
, Left-Wing Block), which included the Marquis de Gallifet, best known for having directed the bloody repression during the Paris Commune, alongside Radicals. Furthemore, the participation in a "bourgeois government" sparked a controversy opposing Jules Guesde to Jean Jaurès
. In 1902, Guesde and Vaillant founded the Socialist Party of France, while Jaurès, Allemane and the possibilists formed the French Socialist Party. In 1905, during the Globe Congress, under the pressure of the Second International
, the two groups merged in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
The party remained hemmed in between the Radical Party
and the revolutionary syndicalists who dominated the trade unions. Indeed, the General Confederation of Labour
, created in 1895 from the fusion of the various Bourses du travail (Fernand Pelloutier
), the unions and the industries' federations, claimed its independence and the non-distinction between political and workplace activism. This was formalized by the Charter of Amiens
in 1906, a year after the unification of the other socialist tendencies in the SFIO party. The Charte d'Amiens, a cornerstone of the history of the French labor movement, asserted the autonomy of the workers' movement from the political sphere, preventing any direct link between a trade-union and a political party. It also proclaimed a revolutionary syndicalist perspective of transformation of society, through the means of the general strike
. This was also one of the founding piece of George Sorel's anarcho-syndicalist theory.
were deeply renewed, with an increasing urban population, including many workers, and more immigrants to replace the deceased manpower. These demographic changes were important for the left, providing it important electoral supports. Furthermore, the slaughter during the war lead to renewed pacifism
feelings, incarnated by Henri Barbusse
's Under Fire
(1916). Many veterans, such as Vaillant Couturier, then became famous communists. Finally, the Russian Revolution lifted great hopes in the workers' movement (Jules Romains
hailed this "grande lueur venue de l'Est" – "great light coming from the East"). On the opposite side of the political board, the conservatives played on the "red scare
" and won a massive victory during the 1919 election
, forming the "Blue Horizon Chamber".
The new context issued of the Russian Revolution brought a new split in the French Left, realized during the 1920 Tours Congress
when the majority of the SFIO (including Boris Souvarine
, Fernand Loriot, etc.) decided to join the Third International, thus creating the SFIC (future French Communist Party
, PCF), while Léon Blum
and others remained in the reformist camp, in order to "keep the old house" (Blum). Marcel Cachin
and Oscar Frossard travelled to Moscow, invited by Lenin.
Opposed to collaboration with the bourgeois parties, the SFIC criticized the first Cartel des gauches
(Left-Wing Cartel) which had won the 1924 elections, refusing to choose between Socialists (SFIO) and Radicals (or, as they put it, between "the plague and cholera"). After Lenin's death in 1924, the SFIC radicalized itself, following the Komintern's directions. Founders of the party were expelled, such as Boris Souvarine, the revolutionary syndicalist Pierre Monate, or Trotskyist intellectual
s such as Alfred Rosmer
or Pierre Naville
. The SFIC thus lost members, decreasing from 110,000 in 1920 to 30,000 in 1933.
In the same time, the SFIC organized the anti-colonialist struggle, encouraging Abd el-Krim's insurgees during the Rif War (1920)
or organizing an alternative exhibition during the 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition. The Communist Party was then admired by intellectuals such as the surrealists (André Breton
, Louis Aragon
, Paul Éluard
...). Young philosophers such as Paul Nizan
also joined it. The poet Aragon traveled to the United States, and maintained indirect relations through his wife Elsa Triolet
with the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky
.
On the other hand, the SFIO opposed the revolutionary strategy of the SFIC, although maintaining a Marxist language, and prepared itself to seize power through the elections. It allied itself with the Radical-Socialist Party in the Cartel des gauches
, enabling it to win the 1924 election. The Radicals Édouard Herriot
or Édouard Daladier
then incarnated the Radicals' opening to both Marxist parties, the SFIO and the SFIC. However, despite their alliance, the SFIO and the Radicals diverge on their views on the role of the state or on their attitude towards Capitalism and the middle classes.
in 1931, debates arose inside the SFIO concerning the role of the state. Marcel Déat
and Adrien Maquet created a Neo-Socialist tendency and were expelled from the SFIO in November 1933. Others, responding to the debates lifted in the right-wing by the Non-Conformist Movement, theorized planism to answer the ideological and political crisis lifted by the inefficiency of classical liberalism
and refusal of state interventionism in the economy. In the left-wing of the SFIO, the tendencies named Bataille socialiste (Socialist Struggle) and Marceau Pivert
's Gauche révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Left) engaged themselves in favor of a Proletarian Revolution.
In 1932 a second Cartel des gauches
won the election, but this time the SFIO did not associate themselves in the government. The leader of the Cartel, Daladier, was forced to resign following the 6 February 1934 riots organized by far-right leagues, which were immediately interpreted by the French Left as a Fascist coup d'état attempt. This led to the creation of an anti-fascist movement in France, unifying Socialists and Communists together against the fascist threat in an United Front
. The Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes
(CVIA) was henceforth created, while the French Communist Party
(PCF) signed a pact of unity of action with the SFIO in July 1935. The Comintern had then adopted the Popular front
strategy against fascism. The leader of the PCF, Maurice Thorez
, then initiated a patriotic
turn opposed to previous internationalism.
On the other hand, on June 1934 Leon Trotsky
initiated the French Turn
, a strategy of entrism in the SFIO, supported by Raymond Molinier
but opposed by Pierre Naville
.
The same year, the CGTU trade-union, which had split from the CGT after the Tours Congress, was reintegrated to the CGT. This alliance between Socialists and Communists paved the way for the victory of the Popular Front
during the 1936 election
, leading Léon Blum
to become Prime minister. Opposed to the alliance with bourgeois parties, the Trotskyists divided themselves, about 600 of them leaving the SFIO.
This new alliance between the two rival Marxist parties (the reformist SFIO and the revolutionary PCF) was an important experience mainly at the level of the party leaders. The base was already used to work together, from Social-Democrats to anarchists
, against the rise of fascism.
, the Popular Front won the
3 May 1936 election
, leading to a government composed of Radical and Socialist ministers. Just as the SFIO had supported the Cartel des gauches
without participating to it, the PCF supported the Popular Front without entering government. At the beginning of June 1936, massive strikes acclaimed the victory of the union of the Lefts, with more than 1,5 million workers on strike. On 8 June 1936, the Matignon Accords granted the 40 hours workweek to the workers, as well as right of collective bargaining
, right of strike action
, and dismantled all laws preventing organization of trade-unions. After having won these new rights, Maurice Thorez
, the leader of the PCF, pushed workers to stop the strikes, preventing an over-radicalization of the situation.
The Popular Front saw harsh opposition from the conservatives and the French far-right. Fearing the action of the extra-parliamentary right-wing leagues, Blum had prohibited them, leading François de La Rocque
to transform the Croix-de-Feu
league into a new, mass party, dubbed Parti Social Français (PSF). Charles Maurras
, the leader of the monarchist Action française
(AF) movement, threatened Blum to death, alluding to his Jewish origins. On the other hand, the Minister Roger Salengro
was pushed to suicide after attacks by a right-wing newspaper. Finally, the Cagoule
terrorist group attempted several attacks.
In 1938, Marceau Pivert's Revolutionary Left tendency was expelled from the SFIO, and he created the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
(PSOP) along with Luxemburgists such as René Lefeuvre
.
(1946–1969), definitively adopted a social-democrat, reformist stance, and most of its members supported the colonial war
s, in turn opposed by the PCF. The Communist Party enjoyed high popularity due to its active role in the Resistance
, and was then dubbed "parti des 85 000 fusillés" ("party of the 85,000 executed people"). On the other hand, the labor movement, which had been re-unified in the CGT
during the Popular Front, split again. In 1946, the anarcho-syndicalists
created the Confédération nationale du travail
(CNT) trade-union, while other anarchists had already created, in 1945, the Fédération anarchiste (FA).
The Provisional Government of the French Republic
(GPRF) twice had as President of the Councils figures of the SFIO (Félix Gouin
and Léon Blum
). Although the GPRF was active only from 1944 to 1946, it had a lasting influence, in particular regarding the enacting of labour law
s, which were envisioned by the National Council of the Resistance
, the umbrella organisation which united all Resistant movements, in particular the Communist Front National, political front of the Franc-tireurs et partisans
(FTP) Resistance movement. Beside de Gaulle's ordinances granting, for the first time in France, right of vote to women
, the GPRF passed various labour laws, including the 11 October 1946 act establishing occupational medicine.
Paul Ramadier
's Socialist government then crushed the Malagasy Uprising of 1947, killing up to 40,000 people. Ramadier also accepted the terms of the Marshall Plan
and excluded the five Communist ministers (among whom the vice-Premier, Maurice Thorez
, head of the PCF) during the May 1947 crisis
an event which simultaneously occurred in Italy
. This exclusion put an end to the Three-parties
alliance between the PCF, the SFIO and the Christian-Democrat Popular Republican Movement
(MRP), which had been initiated after Charles de Gaulle
's resignation in 1946.
Jules Moch
(SFIO), Interior Minister of Robert Schuman
's cabinet, re-organized in December 1947 the Groupes mobiles de réserve (GMR) anti-riot police (created during Vichy
), renamed Compagnies républicaines de sécurité
(CRS), in order to crush the insurrectionary strikes started at the Renault
factory in Boulogne-Billancourt
by anarchists and Trotskyists. This repression split the CGT, leading to the formation in April 1948 of the spin-off Force Ouvrière
(FO), headed by Léon Jouhaux
and subsided by the American Federation of Labor
(AFL), and assisted by the AFL sole representant in Europe, Irving Brown
, who worked with Jay Lovestone
.
The Three-Parties alliance was succeeded by the Third Force
(1947–1951), a coalition gathering the SFIO, the United States center-right party, the Radicals, the MRP and other centrist politicians, opposed both to the Communist and the Gaullist movement. The Third Force was also supported by the conservative National Centre of Independents and Peasants
(CNIP), which succeeded in having its most popular figure, Antoine Pinay
, named president of the Council in 1952, a year after the dissolving of the Third Force coalition.
's government with a coup in May 1958
, leading to the recall of Charles de Gaulle
to power in the turmoil of the Algerian War (1954–62), the Radicals and the SFIO supported his return and the establishment of the semi-presidential regime of the Fifth Republic
. On the left, however, various personalities opposed de Gaulle's come-back, seen as an authoritarian threat. Those included François Mitterrand
, who was minister of Guy Mollet
's Socialist government, Pierre Mendès France (a Young Turk and former Prime Minister), Alain Savary
(also a member of the SFIO party), the Communist Party, etc. Mendès-France and Savary, opposed to their respective parties' support to de Gaulle, would form together, in 1960, the Parti socialiste autonome (PSA, Socialist Autonomous Party), ancestor of the Parti socialiste unifié
(PSU, Unified Socialist Party).
Although Guy Mollet's government had enacted repressive policies against the National Liberation Front
(FLN), most of the left, including the personalist movement which expressed itself in Esprit
, opposed the systematic use of torture by the French Army. Anti-colonialists and anti-militarists signed the Manifesto of the 121
, published in L'Express
in 1960. Although the use of torture quickly became well-known and was opposed by the left-wing opposition, the French state repeatedly denied its employment, censoring
more than 250 books, newspapers and films (in metropolitan France
alone) which dealt with the subject (and 586 in Algeria). Henri Alleg
's 1958 book, La Question, Boris Vian
's The Deserter, Jean-Luc Godard
's 1960 film Le Petit Soldat
(released in 1963) and Gillo Pontecorvo
's The Battle of Algiers
(1966) were famous examples of such censorship. A confidential report of the International Committee of the Red Cross
leaked to Le Monde
newspaper confirmed the allegations of torture made by the opposition to the war, represented in particular by the French Communist Party
(PCF) and other anti-militarist circles. Although many left-wing activists, including famous existentialist
s writers Jean-Paul Sartre
and Albert Camus
, and historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet
, denounced without exception the use of torture, the French government was itself headed in 1957 by the general secretary of the SFIO, Guy Mollet
. In general, the SFIO supported the colonial wars during the Fourth Republic
(1947–54), starting with the crushing of the Madagascar revolt
in 1947 by the socialist government of Paul Ramadier
.
, the editor-in-chief of Polish Gazeta Wyborcza
, wrote an essay on the French Left and its views on Katyn massacre
, and linked it to perceptions of Polish anti-Semitism. He wrote:
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of various Marxist parties. But in 1914, after the assassination of the leader of the SFIO, Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
, who had upheld an internationalist
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
and anti-militarist line, the SFIO accepted to join the Union Sacrée national front. In the aftermaths of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Spartacist
Spartacist League
The Spartacus League was a left-wing Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. The League was named after Spartacus, leader of the largest slave rebellion of the Roman Republic...
insurrection in Germany
German Revolution
The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...
, the French Left divided itself in reformists and revolutionaries during the 1920 Tours Congress
Tours Congress
The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in Tours on 25—30 December 1920...
, which saw the majority of the SFIO spin-out to form the French Section of the Communist International
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(SFIC).
Left and Right in France
Politics of France
France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is...
was between supporters of the Republic and those of the Monarchy. On the right, the Legitimists held counter-revolutionary views and rejected any compromise with modern ideologies while the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
s hoped to create a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
, under their preferred branch of the royal family, a brief reality after the 1830 July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
. The Republic itself, or, as it was called by Radical Republicans
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
, the Democratic and Social Republic (la République démocratique et sociale), was the objective of the French workers' movement, and the lowest common denominator
Lowest common denominator
In mathematics, the lowest common denominator or least common denominator is the least common multiple of the denominators of a set of vulgar fractions...
of the French Left. The June Days Uprising
June Days Uprising
The June Days Uprising was a revolution staged by the citizens of France, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 26 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only...
during the Second Republic
French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
was the attempt by the left to assert itself after the 1848 Revolution, that foundered on its own divided radicalism which too few of the (still predominantly rural) population shared.
Following Napoleon III's 1851 coup
French coup of 1851
The French coup d'état on 2 December 1851, staged by Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , ended in the successful dissolution of the French National Assembly, as well as the subsequent re-establishment of the French Empire the next year...
and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
, the Left was excluded from the political arena and focused on organising the workers. The growing French workers movement consisted of diverse strands; Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
began to rival Radical Republicanism and the "utopian socialism
Utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen which inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists and were looked on favorably...
" of Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier with whom Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
had become disillusioned. Socialism fused with the jacobin ideals of Radical Republicanism leading to a unique political posture embracing nationalism, socialist measures, democracy and anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
(opposition to the role of the church in controlling French social and cultural life) all of which remain distinctive features of the French Left. Most practicing Catholics continue to vote conservative while areas which were receptive to the revolution in 1789 continue to vote socialist.
19th century
ParisHistory of Paris
The history of Paris, France, spans over 2,000 years, during which time the city grew from a small Gallic settlement to the multicultural capital of a modern European state, and one of the world's major global cities.-Ancient place:...
was throughout the 19th century the permanent theater of insurrectionary movements and headquarters of European revolutionaries. Following the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
of 1789 and the First French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
, the former royal family returned to power in the Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
. The Restoration was dominated by the Counter-revolutionaries who refused all inheritance of the Revolution and aimed at re-establishing the divine right of kings
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
. The White Terror
White Terror
White Terror is the violence carried out by reactionary groups as part of a counter-revolution. In particular, during the 20th century, in several countries the term White Terror was applied to acts of violence against real or suspected socialists and communists.-Historical origin: the French...
struck the Left, while the ultra-royalist
Ultra-royalist
Ultra-Royalists or simply Ultras were a reactionary faction which sat in the French parliament from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration...
s tried to bypass their king on his right. This intransigeance of the Legitimist monarchists, however, finally led to Charles X's downfall during the Three Glorious Days, or July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
of 1830. The House of Orléans
House of Orleans
Orléans is the name used by several branches of the Royal House of France, all descended in the legitimate male line from the dynasty's founder, Hugh Capet. It became a tradition during France's ancien régime for the duchy of Orléans to be granted as an appanage to a younger son of the king...
, cadet branch of the Bourbon, then came to power with Louis-Philippe, marking the new influence of the second, important right-wing tradition of France (according to the historian René Rémond
René Rémond
-Biography:Born in Lons-le-Saunier, Rémond was the Secretary General of Jeunesses étudiantes Catholiques and a member of the International YCS Center of Documentation and Information in Paris, presently the International Secretariat of International Young Catholic Students The author of books on...
's famous classification), the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
s. More liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
than the aristocratic supporters of the Bourbon, the Orleanists aimed at achieving a form of national reconciliation, symbolized by Louis-Philippe's famous statement in January 1831: "We will attempt to remain in a juste milieu (the just middle), in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power."
The July Monarchy
The July Monarchy was thus divided into the supporters of the "Citizen King", of the constitutional monarchyConstitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
and of census suffrage, the right-wing opposition to the regime (the Legitimists) and the left-wing opposition (the Republicans
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and Socialists). The loyalists were divided into two parties, the conservative, center-right, Parti de la résistance (Party of the Resistance), and the reformist center-left Parti du mouvement (Party of the Movement). Republicans and Socialists, who requested social and political reforms, including universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
and the "right to work
Right to work
The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and may not be prevented from doing so...
" (droit du travail), were then at the far-left of the political board. The Parti du mouvement supported the "nationalities
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
" in Europe, which were trying, all over of Europe, to shake the grip of the various Empires in order to create nation-states. Its mouthpiece was Le National. The center-right was conservative and supported peace with European monarchs, and had as mouthpiece Le Journal des débats.
The only social law of the bourgeois July Monarchy was been to outlaw, in 1841, labor to children
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
under eight years of age, and night labor for those of less than 13 years. The law, however, was almost never implemented. Christians imagined a "charitable economy", while the ideas of Socialism, in particular Utopian Socialism
Utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen which inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists and were looked on favorably...
(Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism, positivism and the discipline of sociology...
, Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
, etc.) diffused themselves. Blanqui
Blanqui
Blanqui is a surname, and may refer to:*Louis Auguste Blanqui , a French revolutionary, after whom Blanquism is named.*Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui , a noted French economist....
theorized Socialist coup d'états, the socialist and anarchist
Anarchism in France
Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
thinker Proudhon theorized mutualism, while Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
arrived in Paris in 1843, and met there Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
.
Marx had come to Paris to work with Arnold Ruge
Arnold Ruge
Arnold Ruge was a German philosopher and political writer.-Studies in university and prison:Born in Bergen auf Rügen, he studied in Halle, Jena and Heidelberg. As an advocate of a free and united Germany he was jailed for five years in 1825 in the fortress of Kolberg, where he studied Plato and...
, another revolutionary from Germany, on the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, while Engels had come especially to meet Marx. There, he showed him his work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels.Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in...
. Marx wrote for the Vorwärts
Vorwärts
Vorwärts was the central organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany published daily in Berlin from 1891 to 1933 by decision of the party's Halle Congress, as the successor of Berliner Volksblatt, founded in 1884....
revolutionary newspaper, established and run by the secret society called League of the Just, founded by German workers in Paris in 1836 and inspired by the revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf and his ideal of social equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
. The League of the Just was a splinter group from the League of Outlaws (Bund der Geaechteten) created in Paris two years before by Theodore Schuster
Theodore Schuster
Theodor Schuster was born in Germany. He became a socialist and a follower of the Swiss-born liberal economistJean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Schuster joined the League of Outlaws in the 1830s and became one of the League's leaders. He gave financial aid to the German refugees in the 1840s....
, Wilhelm Weitling
Wilhelm Weitling
Wilhelm Weitling was an important 19th-century European radical.Both praised and critiqued by disciples of the growing Marxist philosophy during the 19th century, Weitling was characterized as a "utopian socialist" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, although Engels also referred to Weitling as the...
and others German emigrants, mostly journeymen. Schusterr was inspired by the works of Philippe Buonarroti
Philippe Buonarroti
Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti more usually referred to under the French version Philippe Buonarroti was an Italian egalitarian and utopian socialist, revolutionary, journalist, writer, agitator, and freemason; he was mainly active in France.-Early activism:Buonarroti was born in Pisa...
. The latter league had a pyramidal structure inspired by the secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
of the Republican Carbonari
Carbonari
The Carbonari were groups of secret revolutionary societies founded in early 19th-century Italy. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in Spain, France, Portugal and possibly Russia. Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal focus, they lacked a...
, and shared ideas with Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
's utopian socialism. Their aim was to establish a "Social Republic" in the German states which would respect "freedom", "equality" and "civic virtue".
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
uprising of May 1839 in Paris. Hereafter expelled from France, the League of the Just moved to London, where they would transform themselves into the Communist League
Communist League
The Communist League was the first Marxist international organization. It was founded originally as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris in 1834. This was initially a utopian socialist and Christian communist group devoted to the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf...
.
In his spare time, Marx studied Proudhon, whom he would later criticize in The Poverty of Philosophy
The Poverty of Philosophy
Misère de la philosophie, German title Das Elend der Philosophie, English title The Poverty of Philosophy, is a book by Karl Marx published in Paris and Brussels in 1847, where he lived in exile in 1843-1849...
(1847). He developed his theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. Not published by Marx during his lifetime, they were first released in 1927 by researchers in the Soviet Union.The notebooks are an early expression of Marx's analysis of...
, published posthumously, as well as his theory of ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
in The German Ideology
The German Ideology
The German Ideology is a book written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a publisher. However, the work was later retrieved and published for the first time in 1932 by David Riazanov through the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow...
(1845), in which he criticized the Young Hegelians
Young Hegelians
The Young Hegelians, or Left Hegelians, were a group of Prussian intellectuals who in the decade or so after the death of Hegel in 1831, wrote and responded to his ambiguous legacy...
: "It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy
German philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either philosophy in the German language or philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Leibniz through Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger...
with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.". For the first time, Marx related history of ideas with economic history, linking the "ideological superstructure" with the "economical infrastructure", and thus tying together philosophy and economics. Inspired both by Friedrich Hegel and Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, he imagined an original theory based on the key Marxist notion of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
, which appeared to him self-evident in the Parisian context of insurrection and permanent turmoil. "The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class," did he conclude in his essay, setting up the program for the years to come, a program which would be further explicated in The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
, published on 21 February 1848, as the manifesto of the Communist League, three days before the proclamation of the Second Republic. Arrested and expelled to Belgium, Marx was then invited by the new regime back to Paris, where he was able to witness the June Days Uprising
June Days Uprising
The June Days Uprising was a revolution staged by the citizens of France, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 26 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only...
first hand.
The 1848 Revolution and the Second Republic
The February 1848 Revolution toppled the July Monarchy, replaced by the Second RepublicFrench Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
(1848–1852), while the June Days Uprising
June Days Uprising
The June Days Uprising was a revolution staged by the citizens of France, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 26 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only...
(or June 1848 Revolution) gave a lethal blow to the hopes of a "Social
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and Democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
Republic
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
" ("la République sociale et démocratique", or "La Sociale"). On 2 December 1851, Louis Napoleon
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
ended the Republic by a coup d'état
French coup of 1851
The French coup d'état on 2 December 1851, staged by Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , ended in the successful dissolution of the French National Assembly, as well as the subsequent re-establishment of the French Empire the next year...
proclaiming the Second Empire (1852–1870) the next year. The Second Republic, however, is best remembered for having first established male universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
and for Victor Schoelcher
Victor Schoelcher
Victor Schoelcher was a French abolitionist writer in the 19th century and the main spokesman for a group from Paris who worked for the abolition of slavery, and formed an abolition society in 1834...
's abolition
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
on 27 April 1848. The February Revolution also established the principle of the "right to work
Right to work
The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and may not be prevented from doing so...
" (droit au travail – or "right to have a work"), and decided to establish "National Workshops
National Workshops
National Workshops refer to areas of work provided for the unemployed by the French Second Republic after the Revolution of 1848. The political crisis which resulted in the abdication of Louis Philippe caused an acute industrial crisis adding to the general agricultural and commercial distress...
" for the unemployed
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
. At the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace
Luxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, north of the Luxembourg Garden , is the seat of the French Senate.The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model...
, under the presidency of Louis Blanc
Louis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....
, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour. These tensions between right-wing, liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Orleanists, and left-wing, Radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
Republicans and Socialists caused the second, June Revolution. In December, presidential elections
French presidential election, 1848
The first-ever French presidential election of 1848 elected the first—and only—President of the Second Republic. The election was held on 10 December 1848 and led to the surprise victory of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte with 74% of the vote.-Election:...
were held, for the first time in France. Democracy seemed at first to triumph, as universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
was implemented also for the first time. The left was divided however into three candidacies, Lamartine and Cavaignac, the repressor of the June Days Uprising, on the center-left, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin as representant of the Republican Left, and Raspail as far-left, Socialist, candidate. Both Raspail and Lamartine obtained less than 1%, Cavaignac reached almost 20%, while the prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
Louis Napoleon may refer to:* Louis Bonaparte or Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, , King Louis I of Holland, brother of Napoleon I* Napoléon Louis Bonaparte , King Louis II of Holland, second son of Louis Bonaparte...
surprisingly won the election with almost 75% of the votes, marking an important defeat of the Republican and Socialist camp.
Second Empire
After having been elected by universal suffrage President of the Republic in December 1848French presidential election, 1848
The first-ever French presidential election of 1848 elected the first—and only—President of the Second Republic. The election was held on 10 December 1848 and led to the surprise victory of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte with 74% of the vote.-Election:...
, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte took power during the 1851 coup, and proclaimed himself Emperor, establishing the Second Empire. This was a blow to the Left's hopes during the Republic, which had already been crushed after the June Days Uprising
June Days Uprising
The June Days Uprising was a revolution staged by the citizens of France, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 26 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only...
during which the bourgeoisie took the upper hand. Napoleon III followed at first authoritarian policies, before attempting a liberal shift in the end of his reign. Many left-wing activists exiled themselves to London, where the First International was founded in 1864.
Ather killing the crown prince they manage to escape in year in 1848
From the Commune to World War I
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
of 1871, the French Left was decimated for ten years. Until the 1880s general amnesty, this harsh repression, directed by Adolphe Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
, would heavily disorganize the French labour movement
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
during the early years of the French Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
(1871–1940). According to historian Benedict Anderson
Benedict Anderson
Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson is Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government & Asian Studies at Cornell University, and is best known for his celebrated book Imagined Communities, first published in 1983...
...
"roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers [were executed during the Bloody Week], a number higher than those killed in the recent war or during Robespierre's ‘TerrorReign of TerrorThe Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
’ of 1793–94. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New CaledoniaNew CaledoniaNew Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meantime, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforce Louis Napoleon's imperialist expansion—in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France's leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (CourbetGustave CourbetJean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
was its quasi-minister of culture, RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
and Pissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and after was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad."
The February 1871 legislative elections
French legislative election, February 1871
French legislative elections to elect the first legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 8 February 1871.This election was held during an explosive situation in the country: following the Franco-Prussian War, 43 departments were occupied. Thus, all public meetings were outlawed...
had been won by the monarchists Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
s and Legitimists, and it was not until the 1876 elections
French legislative election, 1876
The 1876 general election held to elect the second legislature of the French Third Republic was held on 20 February and 5 March 1876. 75.90% of eligible voters voted.-Parliamentary Groups:- Sources :*...
that the Republicans
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
won a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Henceforth, the first task for the center-left was to firmly establish the Third Republic, proclaimed in September 1870. Rivalry between the Legitimists and the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
s prevented a new Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
, and the Third Republic became firmly established with the 1875 Constitutional Laws. However, anti-Republican agitation continued, with various crisis, including the Boulangisme crisis or the Dreyfus Affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
. The main political forces in the Left at this time were the Opportunist Republicans
Opportunist Republicans
The Opportunist Republicans , also known as the Moderates , were a faction of French Republicans who believed, after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870, that the regime could only be consolidated by successive phases...
, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, and the emergent Socialist parties who won several municipal elections in the 1880s, establishing what has been dubbed "municipal socialism." At the turn of the 20th century, the Radicals replaced the Opportunists as the main center-left forces, although the latter, who slowly became social conservatives, continued to claim their place as members of the Left a political phenomenon known as "sinistrisme
Sinistrisme
Sinistrisme is a neologism invented by Albert Thibaudet in Les idées politiques de la France . He referred to the progressive substitution of left wing parties by new, more radical parties, which in turn pushed each party towards the center Sinistrisme is a neologism invented by Albert Thibaudet in...
".
Furthermore, in 1894 the government of Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate Republican, legalized trade-unions, enabling the creation of the Confédération générale du travail
Confédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
(General Confederation of Labour, CGT) the following year, issued from a merger of Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier was a French anarchist .He was the leader of the Bourses du Travail, a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. He was succeeded by Yvetot...
's Bourses du travail and other, local workers' associations. Dominated by anarcho-syndicalists, the unification of the CGT culminated in 1902, attracting figures such as Victor Griffuelhes
Victor Griffuelhes
Victor Griffuelhes was a French socialist and leader of the General Confederation of Labour in France. He was drawn to anarcho-syndicalism and advocated the establishment of socialism through independent trade union action....
or Émile Pouget
Émile Pouget
Émile Pouget was a French anarcho-communist, who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism...
, and then boasting 100,000 members.
The Opportunist Republicans
Thus, until the turn of the 20th century, the dominant forces of the French Left were composed of the Opportunist RepublicansOpportunist Republicans
The Opportunist Republicans , also known as the Moderates , were a faction of French Republicans who believed, after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870, that the regime could only be consolidated by successive phases...
, whom considered that the Republican regime could only be consolidated by successive phases. Those dominated French politics from 1876 to the 1890s. The "Opportunists" included figures such as Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
, leader of the Republican Union
Republican Union (France)
The Republican Union was a French parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies of France during the French Third Republic founded on March 25, 1911 which united the left-wing of the Progressive Republicans, the most conservative group in the Chamber...
who had participated to the Commune, Jules Ferry
Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
, leader of the Republican Left who passed the Jules Ferry laws
Jules Ferry laws
The Jules Ferry Laws are a set of French Laws which established free education , then mandatory and laic education . Jules Ferry, a lawyer holding the office of Minister of Public Instruction in the 1880s, is widely credited for creating the modern Republican School...
on public, mandatory and secular education, Charles de Freycinet
Charles de Freycinet
Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet was a French statesman and Prime Minister during the Third Republic; he belonged to the Opportunist Republicans faction. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1890, the fourteen member to occupy seat the Académie française.-Early years:He...
, who directed several governments in this period, Jules Favre
Jules Favre
Jules Claude Gabriel Favre was a French statesman. After the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870, he became one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction.- Early life :...
, Jules Grévy
Jules Grévy
François Paul Jules Grévy was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of...
or Jules Simon
Jules Simon
Jules François Simon was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leader of the Opportunist Republicans faction.-Biography:Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-draper from Lorraine, who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic Breton. Jules Simon...
. While Gambetta opposed colonialism
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
as he considered it a diversion from the "blue line of the Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
", that is of the possibility of a revenge
Revanchism
Revanchism is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country, often following a war or social movement. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or...
against the newly founded German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, Ferry was part of the "colonial lobby" who took part in the Scramble for Africa
Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa or Partition of Africa was a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914...
.
The Opportunists broke away with the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party which aimed at deep transformations of society, leading to strong disagreements in the Chamber of Deputies, in particular with Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
. At the end of the 19th century, the Opportunists were replaced by the Radicals as the primary force in French politics.
In 1879, Paul Brousse
Paul Brousse
Paul Brousse was a French socialist, leader of the possibilistes group. He was active in the Jura Federation, a section of the International Working Men's Association , from the northwestern part of Switzerland and the Alsace. He helped edit the Bulletin de la Fédération Jurassienne, along with...
founded the first Socialist party of France, dubbed Federation of the Socialist Workers of France
Federation of the Socialist Workers of France
France's first socialist party, the Federation of the Socialist Workers of France , was founded in 1879. It was characterised as "possibilist" because it promoted gradual reforms.-Formation:...
(Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France, FTSF). It was characterised as "possibilist
Possibilism (French Socialist)
The Possibilists was a trend in the French socialist movement led by Paul Brousse, Benoît Malon and others who brought about a split in the French Workers' Party in 1882...
" because it promoted gradual reforms. In the same time, Édouard Vaillant
Édouard Vaillant
Marie Édouard Vaillant was a French politician.Born in Vierzon, Cher, son of a lawyer, Édouard Vaillant studied engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, graduating in 1862, and then law at the Sorbonne. In Paris he knew Charles Longuet, Louis-Auguste Rogeard, and Jules Vallès...
and the heirs of Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
founded the Central Revolutionary Committee
Central Revolutionary Committee
The Central Revolutionary Committee was a French Blanquist political party founded in 1881 and dissolved in 1898.The CRC was founded by Édouard Vaillant to continue the political struggle of Auguste Blanqui...
(Comité révolutionnaire central or CRC), which represented the French revolutionary tradition. However, three years later, Jules Guesde
Jules Guesde
Jules Basile Guesde was a French socialist journalist and politician.Guesde was the inspiration for a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter to Guesde and Paul Lafargue, both of whom already claimed to represent "Marxist" principles...
and Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue was a French revolutionary Marxist socialist journalist, literary critic, political writer and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law, having married his second daughter Laura. His best known work is The Right to Be Lazy...
(the son-in-law of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, famous for having written The Right to Be Lazy, which criticized labour
Workforce
The workforce is the labour pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, country, state, etc. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and implies those involved in...
's alienation
Marx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
) left the federation, which they considered too moderate, and founded the French Workers' Party
French Workers' Party
The Parti Ouvrier Français was the first Marxist party in France, created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law...
(Parti ouvrier français, POF) in 1880, which was the first Marxist party in France
France in the nineteenth century
The History of France from 1789 to 1914 extends from the French Revolution to World War I and includes:*French Revolution *French First Republic *First French Empire under Napoleon...
.
Propaganda of the deed and exile to Great Britain
A few years later, parts of the anarchist movementAnarchism in France
Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
, based in Switzerland, started theorizing propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
. Bakunin and other federalists had been excluded by Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
from the First International (or International Workingmen's Association, founded in London in 1864) during the Hague Congress
Hague Congress
There have been two events called as the Hague Congress:* Hague Congress * Hague Congress...
of 1872. The Socialist tradition had split between the anarchists, or "anti-authoritarian Socialists", and the Communists. A year after their exclusion, the Bakuninists created the Jura Federation
Jura federation
The Jura Federation was the federalist and anarchist section of the International Workingmen's Association , based largely among watch-makers in the Jura mountain range in Switzerland. The Jura federation was founded on October 9, 1870 at a meeting in Saint-Imier of local sections of the IWA...
, which called for the creation of a new, anti-authoritarian International, dubbed Anarchist St. Imier International
Anarchist St. Imier International
The Anarchist St. Imier International was an international anarchist organization formed in 1872 when the anarchist sections were expelled from the First International after the Hague Congress .The St...
(1872–1877). The latter was made up of several groups, mainly the Italian
Anarchism in Italy
Italian anarchism as a movement began primarily from the influence of Mikhail Bakunin, Giuseppe Fanelli, and Errico Malatesta. From there it expanded to include illegalist individualist anarchism, and anarcho-syndicalism. It participated in the biennio rosso and survived fascism...
, Spanish
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism has historically gained more support and influence in Spain than anywhere else, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939....
, Belgian, American
Anarchism in the United States
Anarchism in the United States spans a wide range of anarchist philosophy, from individualist anarchism to anarchist communism and other less known forms. America has two main traditions, native and immigrant, with the native tradition being strongly individualist and the immigrant tradition being...
, French and Swiss sections, who opposed Marx's control of the Central Council and favoured the autonomy of national sections free from centralized control.
In December 1893, the anarchist Auguste Vaillant
Auguste Vaillant
Auguste Vaillant was a French anarchist, most famous for his bomb attack on the French Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893. The government's reaction to this attack was the passing of the infamous repressive Lois scélérates.He threw the home-made device from the public gallery and was...
threw a bomb in the National Assembly, injuring one. The Opportunist Republicans swiftly reacted, voting two days later the "lois scélérates
Lois scélérates
The lois scélérates — a pejorative name — are a set of French laws restricting the 1881 freedom of the press laws passed under the Third Republic , after several bombings and assassination attempts carried out by anarchist proponents of "propaganda of the deed".The first law was passed on December...
", severely restricting freedom of expression. The first one condemned apology of any felony or crime as a felony itself, permitting widespread censorship of the press. The second one allowed to condemn any person directly or indirectly involved in a propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was effectively carried on. The last one condemned any person or newspaper using anarchist propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
(and, by extension, socialist libertarians present or former members of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA)). Thus, free speech and encouraging propaganda of the deed or antimilitarism
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
was severely restricted. Some people were condemned to prison for rejoicing themselves of the 1894 assassination of French president Sadi Carnot
Marie François Sadi Carnot
Marie François Sadi Carnot was a French statesman and the fourth president of the Third French Republic. He served as the President of France from 1887 until his assassination in 1894.-Early life:...
by the Italian anarchist Caserio.
Following these events, the United Kingdom once again became the last haven for political refugees, in particular anarchists, who were all conflated with the few who had engaged in bombings. Henceforth, the UK became a nest for anarchist colonies expelled from the continent, in particular between 1892 and 1895, which marked the height of the repression. Louise Michel
Louise Michel
Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre...
, aka "the Red Virgin", Émile Pouget
Émile Pouget
Émile Pouget was a French anarcho-communist, who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism...
or Charles Matato were the most famous of the many, anonymous anarchists, deserters
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
or simple criminals who had fled France and other European countries. These exilees would only return to France after President Félix Faure
Félix Faure
Félix François Faure was President of France from 1895 until his death.-Biography:Félix François Faure was born in Paris, the son of a small furniture maker...
's amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
in February 1895. A few hundreds persons related to the anarchist movement would however remain in the UK between 1880 and 1914. In reaction, the British restricted right of asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
, a national tradition since the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
in the 16th century. Several hate campaigns were issued in the British press in the 1890s against these French exilees, relayed by riots and a "restrictionist" party which advocated the end of liberality concerning freedom of movement, and hostility towards French and international activists
In the meanwhile, important figures in the anarchist movement began to distance themselves with this understanding of "propaganda of the deed", in part because of the state repression against the whole labor movement provoked by such individual acts. In 1887, Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
thus wrote in Le Révolté
Le Révolté
Le Révolté was an anarcho-communist journal started by Peter Kropotkin, along with François Dumartheray and Georg Herzig, in February 1879. The journal was partially funded by Elisée Reclus, Kropotkin's mentor. At the time of the journal's founding, Reclus and Kropotkin were living in the village...
that "it is an illusion to believe that a few kilos of dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
will be enough to win against the coalition of exploiters". A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favor of collective revolutionary action, for example through the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement. The anarcho-syndicalist
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
, Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier was a French anarchist .He was the leader of the Bourses du Travail, a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. He was succeeded by Yvetot...
, leader of the Bourses du travail from 1895 until his death in 1901, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labor movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter."
The anarcho-syndicalist movement
The Fédération des Bourses du Travail was created in 1892, on a decentralized basis, federating each city workers' organization. Three years later, they merged in the Confédération générale du travailConfédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
(CGT) trade-union, dominated by anarcho-syndicalists until the First World War. In 1894, the government of Waldeck-Rousseau, a moderate Republican, had legalized workers' and employers' trade-unions (Waldeck-Rousseau Act), thus allowing such a legal form of association. The CGT's most important sections were then workers in railway companies and in the printing industry (cheminots and ouvriers du livre). For decades, the CGT would dominate the labor movement, keeping away from the political field and the parliamentary system (See below: Creation of the SFIO and Charter of Amiens
Charter of Amiens
The Charter of Amiens was adopted at the 9th Congress of the Confédération générale du travail French trade-union, which took place in Amiens in October 1906. Its main proposal was the separation between the union movement and the political parties...
.).
The Dreyfus Affair
Furthermore, the Dreyfus AffairDreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
divided again France into two rival camps, the Right (Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
) supporting the Army and the Nation, while the Left (Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
) supported human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and Justice. The Dreyfus Affair witnessed the birth of the modern intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
engaging himself in politics, while nationalism, which had been previously, under the form of liberal nationalism, a characteristic of the Republican Left, became a right-wing trait, mutating into a form of ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
. The Left itself was divided among Radical Republicans
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
and the new, emerging forces advocating Socialism, whether in its Marxist interpretation or revolutionary syndicalism tradition.
The growth of socialist councils
By 1896, French socialists had acquired control of 157 town councils. They provided public baths, washing troughs, parks, strike funds, legal aid, meals at school, and crèchesCreation of the SFIO
In 1902, Jules Guesde's French Workers' PartyFrench Workers' Party
The Parti Ouvrier Français was the first Marxist party in France, created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law...
(POF) merged with others socialist parties to form the Socialist Party of France
Socialist Party of France (1902)
The Socialist Party of France was founded in 1902, during a congress in Commentry, by the merger of the Marxist French Workers' Party led by Jules Guesde and the Blanquist Central Revolutionary Committee of Édouard Vaillant....
(Parti socialiste de France, PSF), and finally merged in 1905 with Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
' Parti socialiste français to form the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Marcel Cachin
Marcel Cachin
Marcel Cachin was a French politician.In 1891, Cachin joined Jules Guesde French Workers' Party . In 1905, he joined the new French Section of the Workers' International and won election to the Chamber of Deputies representing the Seine in 1914...
, who would lead the split in 1920 which led to the creation of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(first SFIC, then PCF) and edited L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
newspaper, became a member of the POF in 1891.
In the 1880s, the Socialists knew their first electoral success, conquering some municipalities. Jean Allemane
Jean Allemane
Jean Allemane was a French socialist politician, veteran of the Paris Commune of 1871, pioneer of syndicalism, leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Workers' Party and co-founder of the unified French Section of the Workers' International in 1905...
and some FTSF members criticized the focus on electoral goals. In 1890, they created the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (Parti ouvrier socialiste révolutionnaire or POSR), which advocated the revolutionary "general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
". Additionally, some deputies took the name Socialist without adhering to any party. These mostly advocated moderation and reform
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
.
In 1899, a debate raged among Socialist groups about the participation of Alexandre Millerand
Alexandre Millerand
Alexandre Millerand was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920...
in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet (Bloc des gauches
Bloc des gauches
The Bloc des gauches , aka Bloc républicain was a coalition of Republican political forces created during the French Third Republic in 1899 to contest the 1902 legislative elections...
, Left-Wing Block), which included the Marquis de Gallifet, best known for having directed the bloody repression during the Paris Commune, alongside Radicals. Furthemore, the participation in a "bourgeois government" sparked a controversy opposing Jules Guesde to Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
. In 1902, Guesde and Vaillant founded the Socialist Party of France, while Jaurès, Allemane and the possibilists formed the French Socialist Party. In 1905, during the Globe Congress, under the pressure of the Second International
Second International
The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...
, the two groups merged in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).
The party remained hemmed in between the Radical Party
Radical-Socialist Party (France)
The Radical Party , is a liberal and centrist political party in France. The Radicals are currently the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly, with 21 seats...
and the revolutionary syndicalists who dominated the trade unions. Indeed, the General Confederation of Labour
Confédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
, created in 1895 from the fusion of the various Bourses du travail (Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier
Fernand Pelloutier was a French anarchist .He was the leader of the Bourses du Travail, a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. He was succeeded by Yvetot...
), the unions and the industries' federations, claimed its independence and the non-distinction between political and workplace activism. This was formalized by the Charter of Amiens
Charter of Amiens
The Charter of Amiens was adopted at the 9th Congress of the Confédération générale du travail French trade-union, which took place in Amiens in October 1906. Its main proposal was the separation between the union movement and the political parties...
in 1906, a year after the unification of the other socialist tendencies in the SFIO party. The Charte d'Amiens, a cornerstone of the history of the French labor movement, asserted the autonomy of the workers' movement from the political sphere, preventing any direct link between a trade-union and a political party. It also proclaimed a revolutionary syndicalist perspective of transformation of society, through the means of the general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
. This was also one of the founding piece of George Sorel's anarcho-syndicalist theory.
After World War I
Following World War I, the demographics of FranceDemographics of France
This article is about the demographic features of the population of France, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects....
were deeply renewed, with an increasing urban population, including many workers, and more immigrants to replace the deceased manpower. These demographic changes were important for the left, providing it important electoral supports. Furthermore, the slaughter during the war lead to renewed pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
feelings, incarnated by Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
's Under Fire
Under Fire (novel)
Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse , was one of the first novels about World War I to be published...
(1916). Many veterans, such as Vaillant Couturier, then became famous communists. Finally, the Russian Revolution lifted great hopes in the workers' movement (Jules Romains
Jules Romains
Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule , was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement...
hailed this "grande lueur venue de l'Est" – "great light coming from the East"). On the opposite side of the political board, the conservatives played on the "red scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
" and won a massive victory during the 1919 election
French legislative election, 1919
The 1919 legislative election, the first election held after World War I, was held on 16 and 30 November 1919.Proportional representation by department replaced the Two-round system by arrondissements in use since 1889...
, forming the "Blue Horizon Chamber".
The split between the reformists and the revolutionaries
Tours Congress
The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in Tours on 25—30 December 1920...
when the majority of the SFIO (including Boris Souvarine
Boris Souvarine
Boris Souvarine was an Imperial Russian-born French socialist, communist activist, essayist, and journalist.-Early years:...
, Fernand Loriot, etc.) decided to join the Third International, thus creating the SFIC (future French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
, PCF), while Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
and others remained in the reformist camp, in order to "keep the old house" (Blum). Marcel Cachin
Marcel Cachin
Marcel Cachin was a French politician.In 1891, Cachin joined Jules Guesde French Workers' Party . In 1905, he joined the new French Section of the Workers' International and won election to the Chamber of Deputies representing the Seine in 1914...
and Oscar Frossard travelled to Moscow, invited by Lenin.
Opposed to collaboration with the bourgeois parties, the SFIC criticized the first Cartel des gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
(Left-Wing Cartel) which had won the 1924 elections, refusing to choose between Socialists (SFIO) and Radicals (or, as they put it, between "the plague and cholera"). After Lenin's death in 1924, the SFIC radicalized itself, following the Komintern's directions. Founders of the party were expelled, such as Boris Souvarine, the revolutionary syndicalist Pierre Monate, or Trotskyist intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s such as Alfred Rosmer
Alfred Rosmer
Alfred Rosmer was a syndicalist leader before World War I and one of the few leaders of that movement to oppose the war from a revolutionary internationalist position....
or Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville was a French Surrealist writer and sociologist. He was a prominent member of the 'Investigating Sex' group of Surrealist thinkers.In politics, he was a Communist and then a Trotskyist, before joining the PSU...
. The SFIC thus lost members, decreasing from 110,000 in 1920 to 30,000 in 1933.
In the same time, the SFIC organized the anti-colonialist struggle, encouraging Abd el-Krim's insurgees during the Rif War (1920)
Rif War (1920)
The Rif War, also called the Second Moroccan War, was fought between Spain and the Moroccan Rif Berbers.-Rifian forces:...
or organizing an alternative exhibition during the 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition. The Communist Party was then admired by intellectuals such as the surrealists (André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
, Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
...). Young philosophers such as Paul Nizan
Paul Nizan
Paul Nizan was a French philosopher and writer.-Biography:He was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire and studied in Paris where he befriended fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV...
also joined it. The poet Aragon traveled to the United States, and maintained indirect relations through his wife Elsa Triolet
Elsa Triolet
Elsa Yur'evna Triolet was a French writer.-Biography:Born Ella Kagan into a Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher in Moscow, she and her sister, Lilya Brik received excellent educations; they were able to speak fluent German and French and play the piano...
with the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
.
On the other hand, the SFIO opposed the revolutionary strategy of the SFIC, although maintaining a Marxist language, and prepared itself to seize power through the elections. It allied itself with the Radical-Socialist Party in the Cartel des gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
, enabling it to win the 1924 election. The Radicals Édouard Herriot
Édouard Herriot
Édouard Marie Herriot was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies....
or Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
then incarnated the Radicals' opening to both Marxist parties, the SFIO and the SFIC. However, despite their alliance, the SFIO and the Radicals diverge on their views on the role of the state or on their attitude towards Capitalism and the middle classes.
Early 1930s
Following the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression in FranceGreat Depression in France
The Great Depression affected France from about 1931 through the remainder of the decade. The depression had drastic effects on the local economy, which can partly explain the 6 February 1934 crisis and even more the formation of the Popular Front, led by SFIO socialist leader Léon Blum, who won...
in 1931, debates arose inside the SFIO concerning the role of the state. Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...
and Adrien Maquet created a Neo-Socialist tendency and were expelled from the SFIO in November 1933. Others, responding to the debates lifted in the right-wing by the Non-Conformist Movement, theorized planism to answer the ideological and political crisis lifted by the inefficiency of classical liberalism
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
and refusal of state interventionism in the economy. In the left-wing of the SFIO, the tendencies named Bataille socialiste (Socialist Struggle) and Marceau Pivert
Marceau Pivert
Marceau Pivert was a French schoolteacher, trade unionist, Socialist militant and journalist. He was an alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud.-In the Socialist Party:...
's Gauche révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Left) engaged themselves in favor of a Proletarian Revolution.
In 1932 a second Cartel des gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
won the election, but this time the SFIO did not associate themselves in the government. The leader of the Cartel, Daladier, was forced to resign following the 6 February 1934 riots organized by far-right leagues, which were immediately interpreted by the French Left as a Fascist coup d'état attempt. This led to the creation of an anti-fascist movement in France, unifying Socialists and Communists together against the fascist threat in an United Front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
. The Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes
Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes
The Watchfulness Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals was a French political organization created in March 1934, in the wake of the February 6, 1934 riots organized by far right leagues, which had led to the fall of the second Cartel des gauches government...
(CVIA) was henceforth created, while the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) signed a pact of unity of action with the SFIO in July 1935. The Comintern had then adopted the Popular front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
strategy against fascism. The leader of the PCF, Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez
thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
, then initiated a patriotic
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
turn opposed to previous internationalism.
On the other hand, on June 1934 Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
initiated the French Turn
French Turn
The French Turn was the name given to the entry between 1934 and 1936 of the French Trotskyists into the Section Française de l'International Ouvrière...
, a strategy of entrism in the SFIO, supported by Raymond Molinier
Raymond Molinier
Raymond Molinier was a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France and a pioneer of the Fourth International. In 1929 he founded the journal La Vérité, and in March 1936 he and Pierre Frank co-founded the Parti communiste internationaliste, which merged with two other groups to form the Parti...
but opposed by Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville was a French Surrealist writer and sociologist. He was a prominent member of the 'Investigating Sex' group of Surrealist thinkers.In politics, he was a Communist and then a Trotskyist, before joining the PSU...
.
The same year, the CGTU trade-union, which had split from the CGT after the Tours Congress, was reintegrated to the CGT. This alliance between Socialists and Communists paved the way for the victory of the Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
during the 1936 election
French legislative election, 1936
French legislative elections to elect the 16th legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 26 April and 3 May 1936. This was the last legislature of the Third Republic and the last election before the Second World War. The number of candidates set a record, with 4,807 people vying for 618...
, leading Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
to become Prime minister. Opposed to the alliance with bourgeois parties, the Trotskyists divided themselves, about 600 of them leaving the SFIO.
This new alliance between the two rival Marxist parties (the reformist SFIO and the revolutionary PCF) was an important experience mainly at the level of the party leaders. The base was already used to work together, from Social-Democrats to anarchists
Anarchism in France
Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
, against the rise of fascism.
The Popular Front (1936)
Headed by Léon BlumLéon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
, the Popular Front won the
3 May 1936 election
French legislative election, 1936
French legislative elections to elect the 16th legislature of the French Third Republic were held on 26 April and 3 May 1936. This was the last legislature of the Third Republic and the last election before the Second World War. The number of candidates set a record, with 4,807 people vying for 618...
, leading to a government composed of Radical and Socialist ministers. Just as the SFIO had supported the Cartel des gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
without participating to it, the PCF supported the Popular Front without entering government. At the beginning of June 1936, massive strikes acclaimed the victory of the union of the Lefts, with more than 1,5 million workers on strike. On 8 June 1936, the Matignon Accords granted the 40 hours workweek to the workers, as well as right of collective bargaining
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions...
, right of strike action
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
, and dismantled all laws preventing organization of trade-unions. After having won these new rights, Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez
thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
, the leader of the PCF, pushed workers to stop the strikes, preventing an over-radicalization of the situation.
The Popular Front saw harsh opposition from the conservatives and the French far-right. Fearing the action of the extra-parliamentary right-wing leagues, Blum had prohibited them, leading François de La Rocque
François de la Rocque
François de La Rocque was leader of the French right-wing league named the Croix de Feu from 1930–1936, before forming the more moderate Parti Social Français , seen as a precursor of Gaullism.- Early life :François de La Rocque was born on 6 October 1885 in Lorient, Brittany, the third son to a...
to transform the Croix-de-Feu
Croix-de-Feu
Croix-de-Feu was a French far right league of the Interwar period, led by Colonel François de la Rocque . After it was dissolved, as were all other far right leagues during the Popular Front period , de la Rocque replaced it with the Parti social français .- Beginnings :The Croix-de-Feu were...
league into a new, mass party, dubbed Parti Social Français (PSF). Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
, the leader of the monarchist Action française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
(AF) movement, threatened Blum to death, alluding to his Jewish origins. On the other hand, the Minister Roger Salengro
Roger Salengro
Roger Henri Charles Salengro was a French politician. He achieved fame as Minister of the Interior during the Popular Front government in 1936...
was pushed to suicide after attacks by a right-wing newspaper. Finally, the Cagoule
Cagoule
A cagoule, cagoul, kagoule or kagool is the British English term for a lightweight , weatherproof raincoat or anorak with a hood, which often comes in knee-length....
terrorist group attempted several attacks.
In 1938, Marceau Pivert's Revolutionary Left tendency was expelled from the SFIO, and he created the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
The Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party was an ephemeral socialist organisation in France, formed on June 8, 1938 by Marceau Pivert...
(PSOP) along with Luxemburgists such as René Lefeuvre
René Lefeuvre
René Lefeuvre was a French Luxemburgist.As an anti-Stalinist Marxist influenced by Rosa Luxemburg, he joined the Democratic Communist Circle led by Boris Souvarine. He later joined the "Revolutionary Left" tendency within the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière...
.
Post-war
After the Liberation, the SFIO, under the leadership of Guy MolletGuy Mollet
Guy Mollet was a French Socialist politician. He led the French Section of the Workers' International party from 1946 to 1969 and was Prime Minister in 1956–1957.-Early life and World War II:...
(1946–1969), definitively adopted a social-democrat, reformist stance, and most of its members supported the colonial war
Colonial war
Colonial war is a blanket term relating to the various conflicts that arose as the result of overseas territories being settled by foreignpowers creating a colony...
s, in turn opposed by the PCF. The Communist Party enjoyed high popularity due to its active role in the Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
, and was then dubbed "parti des 85 000 fusillés" ("party of the 85,000 executed people"). On the other hand, the labor movement, which had been re-unified in the CGT
Confédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
during the Popular Front, split again. In 1946, the anarcho-syndicalists
Anarchism in France
Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
created the Confédération nationale du travail
Confédération nationale du travail
- History :The CNT-F or National Confederation of Labour is a French anarcho-syndicalist union.It was founded in 1946 by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in exile, and former members of Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire , its name is derived from the Spanish CNT, the...
(CNT) trade-union, while other anarchists had already created, in 1945, the Fédération anarchiste (FA).
The Provisional Government of the French Republic
Provisional Government of the French Republic
The Provisional Government of the French Republic was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic....
(GPRF) twice had as President of the Councils figures of the SFIO (Félix Gouin
Félix Gouin
Félix Gouin was a French Socialist politician, member of the French Section of the Workers' International .-Personal life:Félix Gouin was born in Peypin, Bouches-du-Rhône, the son of school teachers...
and Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
). Although the GPRF was active only from 1944 to 1946, it had a lasting influence, in particular regarding the enacting of labour law
Labour law
Labour law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees...
s, which were envisioned by the National Council of the Resistance
Conseil National de la Résistance
The Conseil National de la Résistance or the National Council of the Resistance is the body that directed and coordinated the different movements of the French Resistance - the press, trade unions, and members of political parties hostile to the Vichy regime, starting from...
, the umbrella organisation which united all Resistant movements, in particular the Communist Front National, political front of the Franc-tireurs et partisans
Francs-tireurs
Francs-tireurs – literally "free shooters" – was used to describe irregular military formations deployed by France during the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War...
(FTP) Resistance movement. Beside de Gaulle's ordinances granting, for the first time in France, right of vote to women
Feminism in France
Feminism in France has its origins in the French Revolution. A few famous figures emerged during the 1871 Paris Commune, including Louise Michel, Russian-born Elisabeth Dmitrieff, Nathalie Lemel, and Renée Vivien .-French Revolution:...
, the GPRF passed various labour laws, including the 11 October 1946 act establishing occupational medicine.
Paul Ramadier
Paul Ramadier
Paul Ramadier was a prominent French politician of the Third and Fourth Republics. Mayor of Decazeville starting in 1919, he served as the first Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic in 1947. On 10 July 1940, he voted against the granting of the full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who...
's Socialist government then crushed the Malagasy Uprising of 1947, killing up to 40,000 people. Ramadier also accepted the terms of the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
and excluded the five Communist ministers (among whom the vice-Premier, Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez
thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
, head of the PCF) during the May 1947 crisis
May 1947 crisis
The May 1947 Crisis of Italy was when the Communist Party of Italy was thrown out of government. The Christian Democrats led by Alcide De Gasperi were becoming increasingly unpopular, and were afraid that the Left Coalition would take power....
an event which simultaneously occurred in Italy
History of Italy
Italy, united in 1861, has significantly contributed to the political, cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean region. Many cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times....
. This exclusion put an end to the Three-parties
Three-parties
The Three-Parties Alliance was a coalition which governed in France from 1944 to 1947, and was composed of the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Christian Democrat Popular Republican Movement , which to begin with contained the regrouped Gaullists...
alliance between the PCF, the SFIO and the Christian-Democrat Popular Republican Movement
Popular Republican Movement
The Popular Republican Movement was a French Christian democratic party of the Fourth Republic...
(MRP), which had been initiated after Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's resignation in 1946.
Jules Moch
Jules Moch
Jules Salvador Moch was a French politician.-Biography:...
(SFIO), Interior Minister of Robert Schuman
Robert Schuman
Robert Schuman was a noted Luxembourgish-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat and an independent political thinker and activist...
's cabinet, re-organized in December 1947 the Groupes mobiles de réserve (GMR) anti-riot police (created during Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
), renamed Compagnies républicaines de sécurité
Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité
The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité are the riot control forces and general reserve of the French National Police. The CRS were created on 8 December 1944 and the first units were organised by 31 January 1945. The CRS were reorganized in 1948...
(CRS), in order to crush the insurrectionary strikes started at the Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
factory in Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Boulogne-Billancourt is a sub-prefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and the seat of the Arrondissement of Boulogne-Billancourt....
by anarchists and Trotskyists. This repression split the CGT, leading to the formation in April 1948 of the spin-off Force Ouvrière
Force Ouvrière
The General Confederation of Labor - Workers' Force is one of the five major union federations in France. In terms of following, it is the third behind the CGT and the CFDT....
(FO), headed by Léon Jouhaux
Léon Jouhaux
Léon Jouhaux was a French trade union leader who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951.Jouhaux's father worked in a match factory in Aubervilliers. His secondary schooling ended when his father's earnings were stopped by a strike. He gained employment at the factory at age sixteen and immediately...
and subsided by the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL), and assisted by the AFL sole representant in Europe, Irving Brown
Irving Brown
Irving Brown was an American trade-unionist, member of the American Federation of Labor and then of the AFL-CIO, who played an important role in Western Europe and in Africa, during the Cold War, in supporting splits among trade-unions in order to counter Communist influence...
, who worked with Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
.
The Three-Parties alliance was succeeded by the Third Force
Third Force (France)
The Third Force was a French coalition during the Fourth Republic which gathered the French Section of the Workers' International party, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance centre-right party, the Radicals, the Christian democrat Popular Republican Movement and other centrist...
(1947–1951), a coalition gathering the SFIO, the United States center-right party, the Radicals, the MRP and other centrist politicians, opposed both to the Communist and the Gaullist movement. The Third Force was also supported by the conservative National Centre of Independents and Peasants
National Centre of Independents and Peasants
The National Centre of Independents and Peasants is a liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal political party in France, founded in 1949 by the merger of the National Centre of Independents with the...
(CNIP), which succeeded in having its most popular figure, Antoine Pinay
Antoine Pinay
Antoine Pinay |Rhône]], France – 13 December 1994) was a French conservative politician. He served as Prime Minister of France in 1952.-Life:As a young man, Pinay fought in World War I and injured his arm so that it was paralyzed for the rest of his life....
, named president of the Council in 1952, a year after the dissolving of the Third Force coalition.
The Algerian War
When French Generals threatened Pierre PflimlinPierre Pflimlin
Pierre Eugène Jean Pflimlin was a French Christian democratic politician who served as the penultimate Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic for a few weeks in 1958, before being replaced by Charles de Gaulle during the crisis of that year.-Life:...
's government with a coup in May 1958
May 1958 crisis
The May 1958 crisis was a political crisis in France during the turmoil of the Algerian War of Independence which led to the return of Charles de Gaulle to political responsibilities after a ten year absence...
, leading to the recall of Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
to power in the turmoil of the Algerian War (1954–62), the Radicals and the SFIO supported his return and the establishment of the semi-presidential regime of the Fifth Republic
French Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, introduced on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing the prior parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system...
. On the left, however, various personalities opposed de Gaulle's come-back, seen as an authoritarian threat. Those included François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
, who was minister of Guy Mollet
Guy Mollet
Guy Mollet was a French Socialist politician. He led the French Section of the Workers' International party from 1946 to 1969 and was Prime Minister in 1956–1957.-Early life and World War II:...
's Socialist government, Pierre Mendès France (a Young Turk and former Prime Minister), Alain Savary
Alain Savary
Alain Savary was a French Socialist politician, deputy to the National Assembly of France during the Fourth and Fifth Republic, chairman of the Socialist Party and a government minister in the 1950s and in 1981, when he was nominated by President François Mitterrand as Minister of National...
(also a member of the SFIO party), the Communist Party, etc. Mendès-France and Savary, opposed to their respective parties' support to de Gaulle, would form together, in 1960, the Parti socialiste autonome (PSA, Socialist Autonomous Party), ancestor of the Parti socialiste unifié
Parti Socialiste Unifié
Parti Socialiste Unifié can refer to:* Unified Socialist Party * Unified Socialist Party...
(PSU, Unified Socialist Party).
Although Guy Mollet's government had enacted repressive policies against the National Liberation Front
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...
(FLN), most of the left, including the personalist movement which expressed itself in Esprit
Esprit (magazine)
Esprit is a French literary magazine. Founded in October 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier, it was the principal review of personalist intellectuals of the time. From 1957 to 1976, it was directed by Jean-Marie Domenach. Paul Thibaud directed it from 1977 to 1989. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur often...
, opposed the systematic use of torture by the French Army. Anti-colonialists and anti-militarists signed the Manifesto of the 121
Manifesto of the 121
The Manifesto of the 121 was an open letter signed by 121 intellectuals and published on 6 September 1960 in the magazine Vérité-Liberté. It called on the French government, then headed by the Gaullist Michel Debré, and public opinion to recognise the Algerian War as a legitimate struggle for...
, published in L'Express
L'Express (France)
L'Express is a French weekly news magazine. When founded in 1953 during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine TIME.-History:...
in 1960. Although the use of torture quickly became well-known and was opposed by the left-wing opposition, the French state repeatedly denied its employment, censoring
Censorship in France
France has a long history of governmental censorship, particularly in the 16th to 18th centuries, but today freedom of press is guaranteed by the French Constitution and instances of governmental censorship are relatively limited and isolated....
more than 250 books, newspapers and films (in metropolitan France
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France is the part of France located in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica...
alone) which dealt with the subject (and 586 in Algeria). Henri Alleg
Henri Alleg
Henri Alleg , born Henri Salem, is a French-Algerian journalist, director of the "Alger républicain" newspaper, and a member of the French Communist Party...
's 1958 book, La Question, Boris Vian
Boris Vian
Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their...
's The Deserter, Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's 1960 film Le Petit Soldat
Le Petit Soldat
The Little Soldier is a 1960 French film, written and directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, but not released until 1963. It was Godard's first film with Anna Karina, who starred as Véronica Dreyer alongside Michel Subor ....
(released in 1963) and Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He worked as a film director for more than a decade before his best known film La battaglia di Algeri was released...
's The Battle of Algiers
The Battle of Algiers (film)
The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 war film based on occurrences during the Algerian War against French colonial occupation in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo...
(1966) were famous examples of such censorship. A confidential report of the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
leaked to Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
newspaper confirmed the allegations of torture made by the opposition to the war, represented in particular by the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) and other anti-militarist circles. Although many left-wing activists, including famous existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
s writers Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, and historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet was a French historian who began teaching at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in 1969....
, denounced without exception the use of torture, the French government was itself headed in 1957 by the general secretary of the SFIO, Guy Mollet
Guy Mollet
Guy Mollet was a French Socialist politician. He led the French Section of the Workers' International party from 1946 to 1969 and was Prime Minister in 1956–1957.-Early life and World War II:...
. In general, the SFIO supported the colonial wars during the Fourth Republic
French Fourth Republic
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II, and suffered many of the same problems...
(1947–54), starting with the crushing of the Madagascar revolt
Madagascar Revolt
The Malagasy Uprising was a rebellion against the colonial rule of France by nationalists on the island of Madagascar in 1947 and 1948. It was crushed by the French government, then headed by Socialist Paul Ramadier. 80,000 to 90,000 people were killed, according to certain sources...
in 1947 by the socialist government of Paul Ramadier
Paul Ramadier
Paul Ramadier was a prominent French politician of the Third and Fourth Republics. Mayor of Decazeville starting in 1919, he served as the first Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic in 1947. On 10 July 1940, he voted against the granting of the full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who...
.
Fifth Republic
Today
On 24 April 2009, Adam MichnikAdam Michnik
Adam Michnik is the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, where he sometimes writes under the pen-names of Andrzej Zagozda or Andrzej Jagodziński. In 1966–1989 he was one of the leading organizers of the illegal, democratic opposition in Poland...
, the editor-in-chief of Polish Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...
, wrote an essay on the French Left and its views on Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
, and linked it to perceptions of Polish anti-Semitism. He wrote:
"Katyn" is the first film about the Soviet crimes and its aggression against Poland, committed in alliance with Hitler. This issue has been a taboo for the French Left. For years they were silent about the Soviet aggression against Poland and about Soviet atrocities; they were also silent about Katyn. This massacre is still the skeleton in the cupboard of the French Left that has shown such understanding for Stalin, the Great Linguist. This is not the only dogma of left-wing hypocrisy. The other one is the conviction that all Poles have soaked up anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk and that Jews were the only victims of the German occupation. I learned from "Le MondeLe MondeLe Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
" that "Wajda presents a strange confusion of the Katyn crime with the extermination of the Jews". And by contrast, the film "includes scenes of hunting and persecution of Polish officers presenting them as if they were deportations of Jews to death camps".
- Red-green-brown allianceRed-green-brown allianceThe term Red-Green-Brown alliance, originating in France, refers to the alleged alliance of Communists , anti-globalist Environmentalists and/or Islamists , and Ultranationalists...
See also
- Anarchism in FranceAnarchism in FranceThinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
- Feminism in FranceFeminism in FranceFeminism in France has its origins in the French Revolution. A few famous figures emerged during the 1871 Paris Commune, including Louise Michel, Russian-born Elisabeth Dmitrieff, Nathalie Lemel, and Renée Vivien .-French Revolution:...
- History of SocialismHistory of socialismThe history of socialism has its origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848 just before the Revolutions...
- Politics of FrancePolitics of FranceFrance is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is...