The Birth of French Trotskyism

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In France, possibly even more than elsewhere, the 'bolshevism' of the Communist Party was the most doubtful.

The PCF was born out of the relatively late conversion of the old Socialist Party which, almost in its totality, revelled in the 'sacred union' and national chauvinism in 1914.

Marcel Cachin symbolises fairly well this relationship, which did not fail to worry Lenin himself.

A mere handful of militants around Rosmer and Monatte, together with Souvarine, defended proletarian internationalism to the bitter end.

Apart from Monatte, ' who did not join until 1923, they were all involved in the creation of the PCF,_ but. very soon opposed the Stalinist line and were expelled.

Souvarine published in 1924 part of Trotsky's 'New Course' During the years 1925-29 several opposition groups were set up around a number of publications:

The 'Zinovievist' Treint with Girault and Barre published 'L'Unite Leniniste' Monatte and Martinet published "La Revolution proletarienne' Maurice Paz expressed himself in "Contre le Courant"

Naville and Fourier published 'Luttes des classes' and Barbusse the review 'Clarte' Trotsky had hoped for a unification of these groups but these hopes came to nothing. Souvarine split from Trotsky in 1929.

La Verite _ September 1929 the first Trotskyist weekly 'La Verite' appeared, around which the Ligue Communiste was set up. The main leaders of the LC in the early years were Naville, Rosmer, Molinier and Frank. They were joined later by younger militants such as Rous, Craipeau and Roussel.

At the same time the 'Unified Opposition' was set up in the CGT (the PCF controlled union federation). Oppositionists such as Cornette, Engler and Collinet had some successes in leading particular unions and branches.

However, in 1930 theUnified Opposition split with the 'syndicalists' seeking to distance themselves from the militants of the Ligue Communiste, whom they accused of wanting to take over the trade union movement.

In 1931 Collinet and Rosmer founded the group Gauche Communiste' In April 1933 a unification congress was held among the Trotskyist groups. The Bordigists refused to take part. The congress ended (in October that year!) in new splits.

The Ligue Communiste continued under Naville and Molinier. The Union Communiste was born, led by Collinet and Fourier.

Treint remained isolated. Souvarine stayed outside the congress, publishing 'La Critique Sociale' , in collaboration with Simone Weil and others.

Trotsky recognised only the Ligue Communiste. It included only a few workers, and these had to undergo persecution in the factories at the hands of the Lacked means The great mass of workers did not understand much of these 'quarrels: the PCF still carried the glory of the October revolution and workers in or sympathetic to the PCF could not bring themselves, to believe what the Trotskyists were saying.

Further more, the opposition lacked the means and the militants to publicise its positions and to implant them in the workplaces. With only a few dozen members they struggled:

To reform the PCF and the Comintern. Until 1933 they continued to regard themselves as members of the Comintern, despite expulsions.

In the face of the fascist menace they proposed workers' united front to struggle physically against the organisations of the extreme right.

During this period the PCF was following the Third Period line, believing that the situation was revolutionary and denounced the social democracy as the twin brother of fascism.

In Germany this same policy led the proletariat to suicide and allowed Hitler to come to power. The German CP kept most of its strength for attacking the Socialist Party, going so far as to vote with the Nazis against them.

Criminal policy

Moreover, according to Thaelmann, secretary of the CP, the fascist trees should not blind workers to the social fascist forest. In his view a seizure of power by the Nazis would in any case be short lived and could only accelerate the arrival of the revolution! In vain did Trotsky attack this criminal policy.

From 1933 onwards, when Hitler came to power, the Trotskyists had to modify their perspectives. The German workers' movement was destroyed and war was already inevitable.

It was necessary to focus on new tasks, the construction of new parties and a Fourth International.

In France, the fascist menace and the workers' response (February 1934) opened feverish period which was to lead to the popular front in 1936.

Drawing out the lessons of the German and Austrian events, the Trotskyists analysed the collapse of bourgeois democracy and the political polarisation between the extreme right and the extreme left.

They proposed a workers' united front, the formulation of workers' militias, put forward the slogan of arming the workers, and elaborated a transitional programme.

The Trotskyists and the SFIO: Entry and exit.

But time was pressing. The Ligue Communiste was far too weak to implant its programme among the working masses. At this point (August 1934) they entered the SFIO.

Why the SFIO and not 'the PCF? Firstly, because it was possible there to develop their ideas openly, which the structures of the PCF would not permit.

Moreover the Stalinists were conducting a ferocious witchhunt against them.

Secondly, because the SFIO was then the most important workers' party.

The ranks of the PCF had been depleted in the couse of the notorious Third Period, when its adventurist policies had isolated it from the masses: it hardly comprised more than 30,000 members at this time.

(Officially it claimed much larger figures, However, it is certainly the case that the PCF had to await the turns of 1934, towards a policy of 'unity' and more so of 1936 to become a mass party).

The Bolshevik Leninists (as the Trotskyists called themselves) campaigned for their ideas within the SFIO. They met a favourable response from the left wing of the party (Pivert's Gauche Revolutionnaire) and won the leadership of the Seine federation of the Jeunesses Socialistes (Craipeau, Rous).

But this activity earned them the hostility of the SFIO bureaucracy. During this period the SFIO and the PCF were achieving a degree of cooperation.

United front

The Trotskyists had long been alone in arguing for such cooperation, in the perspective for a workers' united front, and the workers' struggle for power.

The reformists and the Stalinists however had quite different preoccupations; the turn that they had just executed was with the aim of, at best a "popular front' with a fraction of the bourgeoisie (the Radical Party) which excluded any revolutionary perspective, and even a sort of ''national front' sanctioned by the Laval-Stalin pact.

Stalin had turned the page on the Third Period and opened the page on alliance with the bourgeois democracies.

The PCF held out its hand not only to the SFIO but also to the Radical Party.

It voted for military credits to the Chamber of Deputies. Everything was heading towards a phase of social-patriotism (see Solidarity grouping.

Trotsky's Whither France?' and •Letter to the workers of France' dated 10 June 1935).

In August 1937 the SFIO expelled the leaders of the JS of the Seine. Next it was the turn of the Bolshevik-Leninists.

The crisis of the Trotskyists: 1935-36.

The departure from the SFIO caused a crisis among the Trotskyists, which brewed for several months.

There were three groups, which in reality were two:

1. The Bolshevik-Leninists, led by Naville and supported by Trotsky. They published 'La Verite' 2. The young socialist revolutionaries, led by Craipeau, Rous and Zeller, originating in the JS fo the "Revolutions' Thee published "R evo lTon. and were allied to the BolshevikLeninists.

Commune , and opposed the other 2 groups.

The political conflict was based on Trotsky's accusations that Frank and Molinier held "centrist' positions which were those of the left wing of the SFIO led by Pivert.

There was also a conflict on the question of the paper. The Frank-Molinier group published a paper of its own, on a factional basis and financed directly by Molinier on the basis of dubious financial operations.

In addition, the group had organised the Groupes d'Action Revolutionaire' (GAR) which had escaped from party control. Trotsky intervened in a decisive fashion, expelling Frank, Molinier and some others in December 1935.

They set up their own group and continued to publish 'La Commune' They seemed to have a relatively proletarian base as a result of their earlier work in the GAR.

Their group took the name Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI).

A few months later there was an attempt at reunitication of the two groups.

Out of the short lived fusion Parti Ouvrier Internationaliste (POI) was born. and 'La Commune' . The POI was barely formed before it encountered repression by the Popular Front government.

It was accused of having fermented the massive factory occupation movement. Some week's later Thorez (CP leader) having explained to the workers that "One must know how to end a strike" , in his turn denounced the "Trotskyist agitators and provocateurs" who pushed the workers to continue the strikes in the hope that the strike movement would break down, in an adventure harmful to the working class.

Unfortunately for them and for the working class the Trotskyists had no such influence. Certainly their analyses and slogans were clear and correct, being derived from Trotsky's Whither France?' and related documents.

But the weakness of their efforts, and their lack of implantation in the class, combined with the widespread illusions in Blum and Thorez which the workers harboured, reduced them to, in Deutscher's phrase 'Prophets disarmed'. … All their efforts were to no avail, the miscarriage of the revolution was inevitable.

Witch-hunts by the government and the lies and persecutions of the Stalinists had failed to weld together the factions composing the POI.

The same arguments which led to the earlier split continued to rage.

The Molinier Affiar' continued to give rise to mistrust and polemics.

The internal life of the POI was composed of vicious disputes, factional cabals and bureaucratic procedures. Molinier was regarded as a dangerous crook by Trotsky and the majority of the POI leadership, and he was expelled.

Frank followed close behind him. The former PCI was reconstituted and 'La Commune' reappeared. The split was complete.

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= HAMISI PRESS. medresiar 23 October 1980 Page y A similar policy of maintaining union membership should be adopted for retired members wherever possible. Branches of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association should be encouraged to attend the trades

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3. The group led by Molinier and Frank, which published La

new journal, Lutte Ouvriere' replaced 'La Verite'