French Communist Party
Parti Communiste français (PCF)
1920-1934 - Early Years
Communism is the theory which teaches that property should be held in common - a theory which Plato advocates in his "Republic," and which was probably practised before his time by the followers of Pythagoras. The first French Revolution brought forward a number of communistic theories, but none survived long. In later times, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Cabet, and Considerant were representative French communists. The cause of communism was espoused by Melanchthon, who anticipated making it a part of the reformatory doctrine. It was present, also, in the Zwinglian and the Calvinistic reformation, in the form of the Communism of Zolicone, and other Swiss sects.
It followed the French revolution, in the conspiracy of Baboeuf; the revolution of 1830, in the schemes of the St. Simonians and Fourier ; the revolution of 1848, in those of Gäbet and his followers ; the revolution of 1870, in those of the Commune of Paris ; Karl Marx had been one of the French communists of 1847. On July 3d 1880 the Senate adopted a measure granting amnesty to all participants in the Communist revolt of 1871, except incendiaries and assassins, by a vote of 143 to 138. On July 10th (1880), the Chamber of Deputies adopted the Amnesty bill as passed by the Senate.
The woman question had generally a place in the social systems, of whatever kind. Communists would introduce community of women. The French Communists least of all cared about this question. One observer suggested that they did not want a community of women or plurality of wives, because, as Frenchmen, they already lived loosely enough with women, and because their relish of life in this respect consisted in intrigues with other men's wives. Nor were they strongly for female suffrage or female rule, because the women were too much under the priests, and would subject the State to clerical rule.
After the revolution in Russia and the birth of Bolshevism, it was the dream of Lenin to impose his creed on the world. Many Socialist envoys returned from the Soviet Union disillusioned - how, instead of blessing Communism as it was practised in Russia, they spoke of the tyranny and the stark misery and black despair it bred. But not all the Socialist leaders saw Communism in this sombre light. There were at least two who imagined that they had found the earthly Paradise. And they were Frenchmen - MM. Cachin and Frossard, the one the political director of the Communist organ, L'Humanité, the other the secretary of the party. They helped kill the Unified Socialist Party at the Socialist Congress at Tours in 1920 and converted the majority of its members to Bolshevism. But by 1922 it was becoming split up into factions, into shades and tendencies.
The Communists were hard hit at the elections of 1919. Of the 70 odd Socialists in the Chamber to-day about a dozen only were Communists. Certainly the movement has made progress since then. It has, in fact, progressed up to a point at which divisions of opinion are clearly manifest, and there are signs that history will repeat itself, that what occurred in the Unified Socialist Party will inevitably take place in the Communist organisation.
The struggle began on May Day, 1920, when the Bolshevik leaders of the extreme section of railwaymen called a general strike. The General Confederation of Labor, to which all the trade unions in France were affiliated, could have put down the strike as it could have done, since it was launched without its consent. Its authority had been scouted, defied; and anxious to regain its power of direction it took charge of the strike which had been started under the pretext of bringing about the nationalisation of the railways. Its real purpose, however, was purely revolutionary. The General Confederation called out one trade after another in the hope of bringing about a national stoppage and consequent anarchy in France. It was the first attempt in any country at direct action on a national scale, and it ended in a miserable failure.
The decision of the French courts dissolving the General Confederation of Labor, and condemning to fine and imprisonment the principal leaders involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Government in May 1920, was received by the French trade unions with loud cries of protest. The judgment was appealed against, and the confederation continued its activities meanwhile, on the assumption that the organization would continue to live. No effort has been made by the judicial authorities to give effect to this judgment, for the apparent reason that enforcement is not necessary, since the Confederation is in process of dissolution through the defection and the exclusion of the trade unions, the result of Communist propaganda. A membership of 2,600,000 immediately after the war has now shrunk to a few hundred thousand. French workmen, anxious to keep their trade unions independent, would not bend the knee to Moscow. Rather than be embroiled in the fight between Communists and trade unionists, a very large number were leaving the unions.
So by 1922 there were in France two General Confederations of Labor - the original body which stands for trade union autonomy and freedom from dictation from Moscow, and the new organisation called the Confederation Generale du Travail Unitaire. They were fighting each other tooth and nail. The French Communists gave evidence of a desire to kick over the traces, to resent domination from Moscow. They obtained their faith from Moscow, but many of them had their own ideas as to how it should be practised. At bottom, Frenchmen, however widely they may be separated by political faiths, had a habit of thinking nationally. In all circumstances the national comes before the international spirit, and therefore it was not to be wondered at if there was talk of a national Communism as distinct from the brand which Lenin, the dreamer of vain dreams, would like the world to adopt.
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