Workers and Communists in France: From Popular Front to Eurocommunism

378 Pages·1982·7.593 MB·English

by  George Ross

WORKERS AND COMMUNISTS
IN FRANCE

Workers and Communists
in France
From Popular Front
to Eurocommunism
GEORGE ROSS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY . LOS ANGELES . LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ross, George, 1940-
Workers and Communists in France. From Popular Front to Eurocommunism.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Parti communiste fran ais — History.
2. Confederation generale du travail— History.
I. Title.
JN3007.C6R67 324.244075 80-26532
ISBN 0-520-04075-9
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd. London, England
Copyright © 1982 by The Regents of the University of California
Printed in the United States of America
123456789
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION ix
PART ONE:—THE PCF AND FRENCH LABOR
FROM THE POPULAR FRONT TO THE COLD WAR
1 . Origins 1
The Painful Childhood of French Leninism 3
Adolescence and Its Trials —the Popular Front
and After 8
Barriers to Maturity —the Onset of World War II 11
The Legacy of Two Decades 14
2. Transmission Belt for a United Front: the CGT from
Resistance to 1947 19
Resistance, Liberation, and the Return of United
Frontism 19
Governmental Communism: 1944-1945 21
The Limits of Governmental Communism: to May 1947 36
Conclusion: the Contradictions Come Together 44
3. The Cold War Years: the Mass Organization
as Transmission Belt 49
The CGT to the Front Lines 5 1
The Crisis of the Cold War: towards a Redefinition
of Party-Union Relations? 67
PART TWO:— RELATIVE AUTONOMY OR “LIBERTE
SURVEILLEE”?
4. The World Out of Joint —the End of the Fourth Republic? 85
Futile United Frontism: 1955-1958 87
v
vi Contents
The Fall of the Fourth Republic and the Failure of
Crisis United Frontism 100
5. An Introduction to the Fifth Republic: the Algerian
Interlude and Beyond 1 1 3
PCF and CGT and the End of the Algerian War 11 6
Relative Autonomy in a Wartime Labor Market 123
The Payoffs of Peace 126
6. Strategies and Counter-Strategies under Gaullism:
Relative Autonomy and the Beginnings of French
Eurocommunism 13 5
Unravelling Contradictions? towards a New
Popular Front 136
Towards Unity-in-Action: the CGT 144
Gaullist Modernism: the Regime’s Strategies 152
Conclusions: the Roots of May- June 1968 160
7. The Events of May-June 1968 168
Students and Communists 171
From Students to Workers: the Great Strike of 1968 179
Grenelle and Its Sequels 196
Conclusions: the General’s Last Return 206
PART THREE:—THE CGT AND THE RISE AND FALL OF FRENCH
EUROCOMMUNISM
8. After May 215
Strategies: the “New Society” and Left Union 216
The CGT: 1968-1972, the Aftermath of May 223
9. The Brief Lifetime of Union de la Gauche, 1972-1977 243
The PCF and Union de la Gauche 244
The CGT: towards Trade-Union Success? 254
Things as They Were? 266
10. The Reckoning: 1978 280
The Election of 1978 280
Crisis in the Party 290
Self-Criticism in the CGT 298
CONCLUSIONS 311
Relative Autonomy and Eurocommunization 3 14
Replacing Relative Autonomy? 3 19
Crisis and the Future 325
Bibliography: Books and Documents 337
Index 349
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The most important source of inspiration for this study came from its sub-
jects themselves —the workers and Communists of France. At three partic-
ular moments —during May- June 1968, during the “Eurocommunization”
of the mid-1970s, and during the strange events surrounding the French
elections of 1978 — French workers and Communists led me to think that
there existed a story worth telling, and that I might be able to tell it. The
dedication, intelligence and probity of my friends in France, especially
those in and around the CGT and PCF, continue to teach me more than ar-
chives and libraries ever could. Because they are presently working with all
of their energy to change things, I will not risk their efforts, even in a minor
way, by thanking them by name. My heart and my hopes, in addition to my
deep gratitude, go out to them.
Two great teachers —and friends — also inspired me and provided im-
mense encouragement, in addition to unattainable role models, for this
work. Ralph Miliband and Barrington Moore, Jr., each in his own way,
prodded me onwards while demonstrating what the vocation of an intellec-
tual could be. The Harvard University Center for European Studies provid-
ed me with a precious milieu, marked by intellectual energy, tolerance and
unselfish comradeship, in which to think and work. Stanley Hoffman (who
read an earlier draft of this study) and Abby Collins, along with other
friends make Harvard, CES happen. I join a very large chorus in express-
ing my gratitude to them. Jane Jenson has been a collaborator in all ways,
intellectually, first of all, in the mechanical tasks of producing a book, and,
finally, in making life rich and coherent enough to do the work which we
both believe important. Friends and colleagues of the Brandeis University
Sociology Department have, over the years, granted me the rare gift of
complete intellectual liberty and allowed me to live and work in an atmo-
sphere of generosity and civility.
Material support has come from a number of places. Without a Fellow-
ship in 1978-1979 from the German Marshall Fund of the United States,
which allowed me to work in France relieved of teaching responsibilities,
vii
viii A cknowledgmen ts
this project would never have been completed. The GMF’s help gave me
space to write and do research, to be sure, but also to reflect and explore.
This book is only the first result of such generosity. The Sachar Fund at
Brandeis and the Dean of Social Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa,
Canada, also helped out financially as did, earlier, the Center for Inter-
national Affairs at Harvard University.
Errors of fact and interpretation, along with any other forms of general
wrong-headedness, are my own doing.
INTRODUCTION
It is characteristic of modern trade-union movements —those which emerged
from the twin crucibles of the Great Depression and the immediate post-
World War II periods —that they face in two directions. Unions exist to
defend the material interests of all or part of the wage-labor force in their so-
cieties. But however differently unions have defined these tasks in different
places, rarely, in the modern period, have they been content with self-defi-
nitions which restricted their activities to the market place alone. The ad-
vanced capitalism of “post-war settlements” —a term which refers to the
socioeconomic equilibria struck in the immediate post-1 945 period — has
not allowed this. Complex networks of representative democracy, highly
developed patterns of coordination between major social actors (producer
groups in particular), plus state interventions in the accumulation process
itself have made strictly market-centered trade unionism little more than a
myth from the golden past. Everywhere unions have explicit programs for
shaping and changing national economic and social processes which dictate
the mobilization of political resources for implementation. Everywhere
unions are involved in attempting to influence the electoral behavior of
their rank and file. Everywhere unions define the aggregation and specifi-
cation of their memberships’ political interests as part of their tasks. In
short, union involvement in politics, over and above union activities in the
labor market, is a universal fact of social life.
There are very great variations between different union movements in the
ways in which they do participate in their national political processes,
however. Some unions, primarily but not exclusively the “business un-
ionism” of North American, attempt to intervene politically as pressure
groups and voting blocs without open affiliation with a political party.
Most other unions focus much of their political attention through affilia-
tion with political parties. If direct union-party affiliation is very common,
however, the nature of such affiliation also varies greatly. Two general
types of affiliation predominate. First, there is the social democratic type,
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