Abstract
The Fifth Republic came to birth as a result of the bitter and terrible conflict over Algeria. While the conflict continued at anything like peak intensity — which it did for another three years — the Left, like the rest of France, was mainly conscious of the sheer fact of crisis and the terrifying possibility of civil war which lurked behind it. This in turn produced a certain ambivalence on the Left towards De Gaulle’s new regime.
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Notes
The fundamental law of revolution … is as follows. It is not enough … that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; it is essential for revolution that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way … It follows that for a revolution it is essential … that the ruling classes should be passing through a governmental crisis … [V. Lenin, Selected Works, vol. III, (Moscow: 1960) pp. 430–1].
Casanova had been brought in as a loyal apparatchik to replace Tillon in 1952. He was Thorez’s only close personal friend on the Politburo. Also disgraced were two editors of Party journals, Jean Prouteau of Economie et Politique and Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont of France Nouvelle.
See J. Fauvet, Histoire du Parti Communiste Français: II: Vingt-Cinq Ans de Drames: 1939–65 (Paris: 1965) pp. 311–16. Servin (though not the rest) ultimately acknowledged his errors in the requisite cringing fashion, speaking of the ‘deserved lesson’ he had been taught. The PCF students and their paper, Clarté, were criticised but not punished. The estrangement of the PCF leadership from Leftist student milieux — the seeds of May 1968 — dates from this period, which witnessed a prodigious growth in Maoist, Trotskyite and other gauchiste groups.
See P. Williams and M. Harrison, De Gaulle’sRepublic (London: 1965) pp. 174–9
and, by the same authors, Politics and Society in De Gaulle’s Republic (London: 1971) pp. 136–8.
P. Williams, French Politicians and Elections: 1951–1969 (London: 1970) p. 103.
Resolution of the PCF Central Committee, 13 December 1962: cited by G. Lavau, ‘Le Parti Communiste dans le Système Politique Français’ in Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Le Communisme en France (Paris: 1969) p. 33, f. 49; emphasis added.
The PCF claimed that 53 out of 64 SFIO deputies had been elected thanks to their support: H. Simmons, French Socialists in Search of a Role: 1956–1967 (London: 1970) p. 121; Williams, French Politicians and Elections, p. 143.
D. Goldey and D. Bell, ‘The French Municipal Election of March 1977’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXX, 4 (autumn 1977) p. 408.
A. Kriegel, ‘The PCF and the Fifth Republic’, in D. Blackmer and S. Tarrow (eds), Communism in Italy and France (Princeton: 1975) p. 76.
See P. Williams, Wars, Plots and Scandals in Post-War France, (London: 1970) pp. 74–7.
There was no doubt that this had been the case in general, but a closer analysis of the two precedents might have provided food for thought. The SFIO had increased its share of the poll in 1936 despite the defection of almost a quarter of its deputies (the Neo-Socialists) with some 450,000 votes at their command. Thus the small gains of the SFIO in 1936 concealed a major real success. The real losers were the Radicals, who lost 360,000 votes despite the addition of the Neo-Socialists to their strength. A not dissimilar pattern was discernible in 1945 — until the ‘special’ factor of De Gaulle’s personal appeal shattered the SFIO. See G. Dupeux, Le Front Populaire et les Elections de 1936 (Paris: 1959) especially pp. 81, 85, 138–9. In the Fifth Republic, too, Left unity led some right-wing Socialists to hive off. These losses too were easily made up; and once again the Radicals were the main losers as Right-Left bipolarisation increased.
A. Kriegel, Les Communistes Français (Paris: 1968) p. 218.
F. Wilson, The French Democratic Left: 1963–1969 (Stanford: 1971) p. 182.
R. Debray, ‘A Modest Contribution to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Tenth Anniversary’, New Left Review, 115 (May–June 1979) p. 55. Debray argues that the Events actually constituted a major psychological watershed via which France passed from authoritarian conservatism of a traditional type to a modem, technocratic and more permissive capitalism — that the whole process was not a revolutionary moment but a necessary catharsis en route to a more sophisticated and subtle form of bourgeois rule.
Poll data here is taken from Institut Français d’Opinion Publique, L’IFOP et le Scrutin Présidentiel du 1er Juin 1969, IFOP communiqué, 3 June 1969.
V. Wright and H. Machin, ‘The French Socialist Party in 1973: Performance and Prospects’, Government and Opposition, vol. 9, no. 2, (spring 1974) pp. 127–8.
At Epinay CERES had 8.5 per cent of the delegates, at the Pau Congress of the PS in February 1975 it had 25.4 per cent: Le Monde, Les Elections Législatives de Mars 1978: La Défaite de la Gauche (Paris: 1978) p. 13.
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© 1981 R. W. Johnson
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Johnson, R.W. (1981). Towards Left Unity, 1958–72. In: The Long March of the French Left. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16491-2_4
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