[Elections: government of Radicals Right wing coup: Dumergue…]

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Elections: government of Radicals Right wing coup: Dumergue installed.

Socialist Party and Communist Party form a People's Front formed. Youth expelled August 1935: Riots and mutinies in Brest and Toulon;

Molinier announces his paper La Commune. President Laval resigns. Replaced by Sarraut Fascist attack on Blum. Giant demonstration called by Popular Front. Equal numbers of returned. Blum as Socialist President. General strike-broken by Stalinists and Popular Front struggling to assert control over the working class. Fusillade at Clichy; massacre of Tunisian miners. Attempts to Blum resigns in favour of radical Chautemps. Big strike at Renault/Citroen ended by character and he adopted for a combative Popular Front' as his main slogan.

This attitude, one which ignored class lines, was to become a source of deep confusion, not just between the GBL and centrist groups like the Bataille Socialiste, but within the ranks of the GBL itself. It remains a problem for British centrists in the ANL today.

Open letter

The decision of the GBL to leave the SFIO was based on a number of considerations.

One reason was that the further degeneration of Stalinism through the Popular Front gave an even greater urgency to the task of building a new revolutionary international, the Fourth International.

In May 1935 Trotsky published the Open Letter, inviting affiliation and it became essential for Trotskyists to be seen as an independent party under a separate banner from the Second and Third Internationals.

It was also necessary to turn to other sections of workers, those in the Communist Party, in the trade unions and also the unorganised. Trotsky reckoned that social patriotism had caused a significant change in the membership of the SFIO.

He described it as 'not only not a revolutionary party but not even a proletarian party'.

It was petty bourgeois not just in its politics but also in its composition.

By May 1936 he described it as the party of the new middle estate, of functionaries and civil servants.

Now Stalinists the were.

"making common cause with the reformists on the basis of patriotism ... We are the only representatives of the great tradition of revolutionary anti-patriotism of the French proletariat"

To remain in the SFIO meant arresting the development of the many centrist currents on the path of There was now a new danger that militants in the SFIO might become schooled through Stalinism into the ways of the nationalist and conservative Soviet There was also a danger of any longer being associated with Pivert in the SFIO, since he was also rapidly moving rightwards under the pressures of social patriotism.

But the proposal to split from the SPIO met even more resistance than the original entry had done and from this point on the Trotskyist movement was to be severely hampered by internal conflicts.

Thorez Trotsky's writings in Crisis in the French Section deal with this situation from July 1935-July 1936.

Centrist tendencies were already becoming clear in the GBL proposal to launch a "mass paper' entitled La Commune.

Trotsky adamantly opposed any dilution of the political line of. La Verite.

The proposal dominated the September GBL conference and was only narrowly rejected.

Opportunity Centrist tendencies also came out in the respons = by the GBL leadership to the 1930:

Spring June 1935: July 1935:

Nov. 1935:

Jan 1936:

Sept. 193€ 1937:

Aut.

Marc June Dec.

Aug.

June 1932:

1934:

1934: 1936:

1931 1937: h 1938 1938:

1938:

1939:

1940:

Economic crisis sets in.

Huge miners and textile pay.

united front.

Ligue Communiste (Trotskyists)

Big gains in Seine Federation section.

SFIO.

Riots and mutinies

further uprisings.

GBL finally expelled from SFIO.

and then Daladier.

tricolor and red flags.

German occupation of the Ruhr.

Front programme.

Social Democrats.

Hitler overtures to Blum.

introduce 'work statute'.

Pivert leaves SFIO and Franco-German pact.

Hitler-Stalin pact.

France invaded.

expulsion moves.

Trotsky welcomed them:

"By this very act of expulsion the traitors have given us an excellent opportunity", , he wrote.

But instead of seizing this opportunity, the GBL leadership wrote a statement of loyalty which was in any case rejected by the SFIO and which comprised their positions.

To confuse matters more, Pivert now formed a new centrist group called Gauche Revolutionnaire, which would 'dissipate electoral illusions and take the masses towards direct extraparliamentary action' . This severely undercut the fight by the GBL against their expulsion.

Trotsky regarded Pivert the extremely dangerous Centre. Fascist activity developing.

Massive working class demonstrations.

enter SFIO. and youth Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact. Mulhouse conference of the SFIO. CGT and CGTU unite on virtual Elections: Popular Front government Blum refuses to intervene in Spain.

left arm of social patriotism who must be mercilessly exposed.

Pivert, for instance, blamed the expulsion of the youth section on their insistence on calling themselves Bolshevik-Leninists on the grounds that since the Bolshevik party itself denied internal democracy, this provided the SFIO with a weapon against them.

'Unity' This was lust one example of Pivert's idealising of the hypocritical and fraudulent" democracy of the SFIO.

Another was the appeal for 'organisational unity' and his orientation to the reformist apparatus instead of seeing the need tc liquidate that leadership.

By contrast Trotsky called for committees of action as 'the only means ol breaking the anti-revolu tionary opposition of party and trade union apparatus.

These committees whict he also called 'revolutionary parliaments' must be borr in struggle and meet the requirements of the moment.

They would not br formally elected to givr formal democratic represen tation to all and any masse but would give revolution ary representation to thi struggling masses.

Umbilical They must be buil around any and ever possible struggle and shoul have been set up around th sailors' rebellion at Toulo and Brest and. the distu: bances in the barracks ove the extension of militar service.

Only thus could th ground be prepared for th arming of the masse: general strike and worker: militias.

And only thus would th reformist leadership of th workers' movement with it ties to the Radicals be mad to crumble.

But Pivert could not the umbilical cord with leader Leon Blum:

"Pivert clutches Zyromsky, who clutches : Blum, who in turn togeth‹ with Thorez clutches i Herriot, who clutches : Laval"

Pivert substituted 'unit! for programme an neglected the need for a independent party.

• "Committees of actior the revolutionary party an the Fourth International

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Troops on the streets at the time of the right wing coup of February 1934 this is where an adequate programme for the moment must begin ... Workers' militias and revolutionary defeatism does not constitute a programme"

"We must teach workers to hate Blum, Thorez, Jouhaux etc., as the worst enemies in the ranks of the workers, and at the same time we must open up to them the perspective of the new party and the new Unfortunately sections of the GBL itself found Pivert beguiling.

La Verite refused to criticise him and the GBL refused to publish Trotsky's introduction to Fred Zeller's pamphlet because of its attack on Pivert.

But worse was to come. For in November, Molinier, a leading, if maverick, GBL member, announced his decision to publish a mass paper La Commune unilaterally, and to form La Groupe d'Action Revolutionnaire together with Pivert's GR and other left sections in the SFIO.

Expelled

He thus defied the discipline of the party outright and was expelled.

But the weakness in the GBL lay not only in Molinier, but in 'the leadership's inadequate fight with him politically, particularly on his lack of programme, the need to build the revolutionary party and the Fourth International.

The conflicts continued. In January 1936 Molinier applied to sign the Open Letter for affiliation to the Fourth International.

Trotsky was quite willing to accept this-if Molinier would undertake the necessary political reappraisal. In March the two •groups united as the Parti Ouvrier International (POI) although they stood separate candidates in the April-May elections. in July they split again, the old GBL as the POI publishing Lutte Ouvriere (Workers' Fight), the Molinierist groups as the Parti Communiste International (PCI) publishing La Commune.

Divided

Thus over a very critical period in the class struggle in France, the 1936 election period and the ensuing revolutionary' period of general strike the Trotskyist movement was divided and only publishing its newspapers irregularly.

No wonder Trotsky urged them to spend only one tenth of their time on internal politics, nine-tenths on class struggle!

Nevertheless their membership was still five times the size it had been when they entered the SFIO.

The 1936 elections returned the Popular Front to power with Blum as the first Socialist President.

The election results were to unleash the largest strike wave France had ever experienced, lasting throughout the summer and autumn.

The height of it, in June, Trotsky likened to the February revolution in Russia in 1917.

The working class was poised for power, but faced with all sorts of counterrevolutionary dangers and itself lacking experience and leadership of the necessary type.

Many of the events seemed very puzzling. Why, when the Communist Party was promoting such blatantly counter-revolutionary policies did it gain so enormously in support?

Did its increase in support mean approval of its class collaborationist policies, or was the content different?

To what extent were the workers parties really tied by the bourgeois radicals in the Popular Front?

These were some of the questions Trotsky set about answering in his writings of the period.

The build-up to the elections was dramatic.. In February the fascists held an anniversary rally to celebrate the events of the previous year.

Blum At the last minute the CP, after months of demobiising the active fight called for a counter-demonstration and this was massively attended.

In March Blum, leader of the Socialists, was himself attacked by fascists.

The Popular Front alliance called a demonstration, at which the CP agreed to Radical Daladier's demand s that l an equal number of tricolor as red flags be displayed, and 100,000 turned out.

The CP launched • a massive election campaign. Their reformist programme was oriented heavily towards the peasantry and middle classes on the grounds that what was needed to defeat fascism was a defensive alliance between the proletariat and middle classes.

They promised a free, strong and happy France' Their completely reformist programme included a 40 hour week, collective contracts, paid vacations, subsidies for peasants' agriculture, easy, credit terms for small businessmen, and progressive taxation.

The only nationalisation they called for was of the armaments industry.

They again made an agreement with the Socialists and kadicals, as they nad at the municipal elections the previous year, that each party would stand down in the second round for the best placed candidate.

The election results showed the CP doubling their vote to 1.5 million compared with the 1932 election, gaining 15% of the total votes.

The Socialists maintained their position with 9 million and 20% of the vote.

And the Radicals lost 200,000 votes, leaving them with 19.5% of the overall vote.

This may well have been an underestimate of the CP vote.

A by-election in a rural area the previous autumn had shown that half those who voted for the CP in the first round failed to vote for the Radicals, for whom the CP stood down, in the second round.

CP membership had risen dramatically from 45,000 in 1933 to 74,400 in 1936.

It continued to do so over the summer, reaching 187,000 on July 11 and 225,000 by August 6.

That this 'support' was not support for the Popular Front as such was made immediately clear after the elections with the outbreak of strikes.

Ironically these were sparked off by the CP itself, which then found itself in the position of having to 'restabilise' the situation.

• The contradictory position the CP found itself in in 1936 amounted to the following: it was still obliged to maintain quiescence in the working class in order to preserve the Franco-Soviet pact, demanded by the Comintern in a bureaucratic bid to 'defend' the Soviet Union against Hitler's warmongering.

On the other hand the Socialists were gaining ground among the proletariat and also leaning dangerously towards appeasement with Germany.

The CP, therefore, in order to gain the upper hand, decided to strengthen its support among the proletariat by campaigning for economic reforms.

It also refused to take any seats in the government despite its close association with Popular Front ministers, In order to mainlain an image of independence.

So the first strikes were called by the CP in support of limited economic demands in the aircraft and vehicle industry.

Soon 100,000 were on strike, and the demands were quickly met, partly because 1936 was a year of relative upturn and full employment and partly because of the importance of the armaments industry.

The strike quickly spread to Paris with demands for salary increases, union recognition, paid vacations and industry-wide collective contracts.

Now the employers demanded the evacuation of the factories before making agreements and promptly staged a lockout.

Hand in hand

By June 2 more sections of the engineering industry were out, in chemicals, textiles, wholesale foods, mines and warehouses.

Having started the strikes, the Stalinists were now faced with the task of ending them, which they set about doing, hand in hand with President Blum, on behalf of the bourgeoisie.

NEXT WEEK he Spanish Civil War nd he French Popular