P. Frank | Trotskyist Writers | ETOL Home Page
Original two-part talk in French by Pierre Frank.
Translated into English by Duncan Chapel.
First published at Red Mole Substack.
Copie with thanks.
Marked up Eindeby Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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[Note by Red Mole Substack: Marxists.org’s audio recordings include a two-part talk by Pierre Frank on the Popular Front. Frank, who was one of Trotsky’s secretaries in the 1930s, was a central leader of the Fourth International in the decades after the Second World War. We used two translation systems, Notto and Descript, to independently translate the talk from French into English. Our consolidated version, below, seems to be the talk’s first transcription in any language]. |
I will not provide a chronological account of the Popular Front, but rather analyze the conditions in which it was created, the reasons for its creation, its constituent elements, and what it accomplished once in power. I’ll conduct this analysis particularly to enable a comparison with today’s Union of the Left, which bears significant similarities to the Popular Front but also has a number of differences.
To begin, I’ll reference a definition of the Popular Front that appeared in an article by Daniel Guérin in Rouge at the beginning of May, where he states there were two Popular Fronts: that of the parties, the party leaderships, and that of the masses – the hopes they placed in it and the illusions they harbored.
But I believe this definition is erroneous, because the same could be said about the Union of the Left. One could say there are two Unions of the Left, that of the party leaderships and that of the popular masses. In my view, this is entirely false. We define things according to what they objectively are, not according to what the masses might project onto them, nor even – from a Marxist perspective – according to what people say about themselves and their actions. Our definition takes into account what objectively exists.
Objectively, the Popular Front, just like today’s Union of the Left, was a political bloc of organizations formed to conduct a reformist policy of class collaboration. This is the fundamental definition of the Popular Front, which equally applies to the Union of the Left. These are specific political forces – political parties – which, for specific objectives and causes, formed an alliance on the electoral level and, to a certain extent, on the governmental level.
Regarding the Popular Front, there is one thing that distinguishes it completely from the Union of the Left: the Popular Front was formed not only by the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, but also by the Radical Party of the time. I will return to this question later, but this party was the main party of the French bourgeoisie, whereas in the Union of the Left, the Movement of Left Radicals is an absolutely minimal entity that represents neither a political force nor any social layer. The Radical Party represented a very important wing of French capitalism.
Why did the Popular Front exist? Because in the Popular Front, there were reasons for a wing of the French bourgeoisie and reasons for the developing workers’ movement. I will therefore begin with the reasons that led a wing of the French bourgeoisie, a wing of French capitalism, to turn toward the Popular Front.
These reasons were of two main types. On one hand, there were economic reasons. France, like the rest of the capitalist world, was emerging around 1932-33-34 from the great economic crisis of 1929, and consequently, there was a need everywhere to stimulate the restart of the economy, which was very weak at the time.
The French bourgeoisie had a very particular characteristic: it had been in a very poor situation since approximately the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. France had lived off its wealth; French capitalism was stagnant. It had not developed, and its investments were very limited. I believe the best way to indicate the state of the French economy is to note that this situation continued even in the late 1930s, through the war and in its aftermath, without even accounting for inevitable wartime losses. I believe that the machinery in France – the equipment – had an average age of about twenty years, while it was five to ten years in the surrounding capitalist countries. Therefore, French capitalism needed change. It felt this need from the beginning of the 1930s – the need to modify this situation, to make investments, to try to renovate itself.
The other point that was also at the foundation of the Popular Front’s constitution was the fact that French imperialism had, after the war, obtained a preponderant, hegemonic position on the European continent through the Treaty of Versailles. This position did not at all correspond to its economic strength; it stemmed from military victory but was not based on genuine economic power.
From the day Hitler came to power in Germany, that is, in 1933, from the day he began to rearm Germany, given Germany’s economic potential, the entire edifice of the Versailles Treaty collapsed, and French capitalism felt the threat. One wing was of course partisan to finding accommodations with German imperialism. This is indeed what happened after the debacle in 1940, but it could not be resolved in a simple manner from the perspective of elections, voting, etc., the appearance of democracy. French capitalism sought to contain the German advance by seeking alliances, notably with the Soviet Union. This was, moreover, an old story of French capitalism – formerly it was the alliance with Tsarist Russia against rising Germany; this time it was with the Soviet Union.
These two issues – economic and concerning international relations – led a wing of French capitalism to seek to restart the French economy by means of a certain number of economic measures that were Keynesian in nature, that is, making state investments, thus priming the pump to subsequently restart the economy, and on the other hand, seeking an agreement with the Soviet Union. For this purpose, the wing of French capitalism that favored such a policy and found its expression in a part of the Radical Party, in the majority of the Radical Party at the time, considered it necessary to find support to implement this policy.
And to counterbalance all the propaganda from other wings of French capitalism, it sought to use for this purpose the working masses, who were indeed in a very deplorable situation following unemployment and who wanted, on one hand, to improve their living standards and, on the other hand, had understood the threat posed by fascism and wanted to prevent fascism from spreading to other countries, especially France, since there had been a terrible attempted right-wing coup d’état in February 1934.
Consequently, from the bourgeoisie’s point of view, there was a wing of French capitalism interested in restarting capitalism and finding allies against rising German capitalism under Hitler’s leadership. And on the other hand, it sought to find a base for this policy among the masses through the two parties that framed the working class, namely the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, which, for their part, naturally wanted to resist the fascist rise.
The Socialist Party was a party that had long been integrated into French capitalism and therefore, from an economic point of view, leaned in the same direction as the left wing of the Radical Party leadership at the time. And as for the Communist Party, it was a party that until shortly before had been a revolutionary party, but was totally directed by Moscow, and began its shift precisely in the early 1930s, becoming a reformist party the day Stalin recognized that he needed French imperialism in the situation, and the Communist Party was subordinated to Soviet policy in this matter.
When Stalin recognized in a famous declaration in May 1935, which he made with the French Prime Minister who was Laval at the time (whether he was Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs), that he, Stalin, believed that France needed to maintain its national defense at the level of the problems it had to solve – from that day, the Communist Party slid into the camp of reformism, pronounced itself for national defense, and consequently lent itself to this Popular Front combination in France.
There was a workers’ upsurge from February 1934, which had been stimulated precisely by this reactionary coup attempt. This upsurge notably translated, during 1935, around July or probably in 1935, into major incidents in Brest and Toulon, veritable days of riot, and the two workers’ parties tried to channel and succeeded in channeling this workers’ upsurge into the perspective of forming the Popular Front with the Radical Party with a view to obtaining a majority in the 1936 elections.
So, regarding the elements of the Popular Front, I have already indicated that there were the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Radical Party. I would add that parallelly to the formation of the Popular Front, and organically tied to this formation, there was a merger of the reformist CGT, led by Jouhaux, and the unitary CGT, the CGT that included unions excluded in 1921 by the reformists. This CGT was under the leadership of a Communist Party militant, and the unification of the CGT and the CGTU took place at the end of 1935, beginning of 1936, in correlation with the formation of the Popular Front.
What is interesting, I want to say a word now about the Popular Front program. The Popular Front was formed as a simple electoral alliance. There was no agreement regarding the formation of the government. It was a program, not of government, but an electoral program without any indication of when, etc., they would be realized. It was simply a declaration by these parties, these organizations. There were, I don’t know, a dozen or ten who formed the National Committee of the Popular Rally – the official name of the Popular Front – and this program appeared at the beginning of January 1936.
So, if one reads this very short program, which is more a declaration of intent than a real governmental program, one notices that there is a whole series of economic measures precisely to restart the French economy: major public works, measures for peasants, a certain number of nationalization measures, especially nationalizing the French railways which belonged at that time to different companies, except for one sector which had been nationalized for several decades. There were measures concerning credit, bank control. In short, a whole series of measures made to help capitalists to invest.
But regarding social measures, they were very limited. There was of course a vague formula such as respect for union rights, but it was a completely vague formula. For example, if one compares this program to the demands that the working class won in June 1936, that is, in the great movement that occurred immediately after the election of the Popular Front, one notices that the main demands, those celebrated as conquests of the Popular Front, namely the recognition of shop stewards, collective bargaining agreements, paid vacations, were not in the Popular Front program, and even the other important demand, the conquest of the 40-hour week, is not explicitly demanded in the Popular Front program. The Popular Front program only contains a general formula of “reduction of the work week without reduction of the weekly wage.”
It must therefore be clearly noted that the demands of June 1936 are in no way a consequence of the Popular Front in its objective. If there had not been June 1936, the Popular Front government would not have granted these demands. They were not in the Popular Front program. I will return to other points of this program as well.
What is interesting to see is what happened in the elections that gave a majority to the Popular Front. I have already said that the Radical Party was the main party of the French bourgeoisie. It had been the dominant party since about the beginning of the century, and it was a party with a very broad spectrum. It extended quite far to the left, touching the Socialists. There were always, as always, people who found themselves between the two, a few small groupings. And then it also extended very far to the right, which allowed it to play a very skillful game for a few decades and to find exactly the point at which, depending on the situation in France and social relations, it could have a whole series of ministers and find just the right government corresponding to the social situation in France.
Consequently, concerning the Popular Front, it had found on its so-called left, Daladier and some others. I recall that in 1935, there were still leaders of the Radical Party like Herriot in the government, which was a sort of center-left government, who only left the government during the course of 1935. And there was still in 1936, on the eve of the elections, the Minister of the Interior in the government of the time, the Sarraut government, that is, center – one cannot say neither right nor left, it straddled both – there was as Minister of the Interior the Radical Paganon.
So it was a party that had a great electoral influence, and its main base was the petty bourgeoisie of France and a part of the working class, that is, in 1936, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party did not have behind them the majority of the working class. They only had a minority, and that is probably where there was an error of calculation by the French bourgeoisie; they thought that the 1936 elections would preserve this situation.
I will give some figures. Regarding, for example, the 1928 election, I don’t have the figure for the Radical Party. The Socialist Party had 1,700,000 votes, the Communist Party 1,000,000 votes. In the 1932 elections, four years later, the Radical Party had 2,300,000 votes. The Socialist Party had slightly gained 300,000 votes. It reached 2,000,000 votes. It was slightly below the Radical Party, and the Communist Party, instead of gaining votes, lost; from a million, it fell to 790,000. It is probably the Socialist Party that picked up the difference.
That is, the Radical Party far exceeded the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, and certainly those among the bourgeois who decided to form the Popular Front hoped to profit from and maintain such a situation. But the 1936 elections gave the Radical Party 1,700,000 votes, that is, a loss of 600,000 compared to 1932. For the Socialist Party, 2,200,000 votes, that is, a gain of 200,000 votes compared to 1932. And the Communist Party from 790,000 to 1,500,000, that is, it almost doubled what it had previously.
In other words, the 1936 elections showed that the working class, after the economic crisis and in the circumstances of fascism’s rise, was polarizing to the left, mostly behind the workers’ parties, and the Radical Party, far from gaining in this operation, had lost. And here we touch upon the very principle, let’s say, of the Radical Party’s participation in the conception of the workers’ parties, the Socialist and Communist parties.
Their explanation hasn’t always been given by their leaders, but it is given by ideologues who gravitate around these parties or within these parties, like, for example, Gilles Martinet today. There were Gilles Martinets back then who explained the following: that one cannot go to socialism without the working class winning over or neutralizing a part of the petty bourgeoisie, but that to win these middle classes, at that time it wasn’t even about going to socialism, it was only about barring the road to fascism, one had to take into account the democratic sentiments of these petty-bourgeois masses, the fact that they had aspirations, that they only wanted to proceed through electoral channels and that they were opposed to violence, and that the only way to achieve this was for the workers’ parties to water down their program. You put water in your wine and gradually teach the middle classes, the petty bourgeoisie, to turn toward the workers’ parties, toward socialism, etc. And it’s the path to conquering the middle classes.
To this, even at that time, Trotsky – you must reread what he wrote, what we published in Where is France Going? – from 1934, as soon as the crisis began in France with the coup of February 6, 1934, he explains that the petty bourgeoisie cannot be won by these means, that the petty bourgeoisie is not specifically either democratic or opposed to violence, that in this period of crisis, the petty bourgeoisie will oscillate. It is feverish, as he puts it; it will turn sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and it will turn toward those who show themselves resolute, who demonstrate to it that they have the strength to solve social problems, but that if, for example, turning to the left, the working-class organizations do not respond to this hope of the middle classes, they will turn brutally to the right, to fascism.
And indeed, Germany had shown this very clearly and had also shown that the middle classes were not fiercely democratic. The middle classes in Germany and the middle classes in France did not have different sociological traits. Because the workers’ parties did not show their strength, did not know how to use it, did not demonstrate vigor, the petty bourgeoisie turned toward the fascists, who knew how to employ social demagogy, using the term “socialist,” since it was even in the very name of the Nazi party – National Socialism – and they did not hesitate to turn to, to resort to force.
From 1934, Trotsky added – you’ll find it, you’ll find it in all his texts of the time, it’s in Where is France Going?, developed very, very extensively – he indicates that to turn toward the petty bourgeoisie, one must not turn toward parties that obtain their votes, like the Radical Party, because, he says, these are parties of big capital, of the big bourgeoisie, which, through a whole series of considerations, have captured the petty-bourgeois clientele.
But he added that precisely, we had entered a period of social crisis, that everything that had constituted the equilibrium of the Radical Party for about thirty years before was now destroyed, and that the Radical Party was beginning its decline, and that to win the petty-bourgeois masses, one must precisely not ally with it, but on the contrary, combat it to detach the petty-bourgeois masses from it.
So, if we look at the election figures, we see that indeed, despite the alliance of the workers’ parties with the Radical Party, the Radical Party began its decline. It still had some strength in 1936, but evidently, by the end of the war, in the aftermath of the war, the Radical Party was already in small pieces.
This is the fundamental question, and it remains valid today: how can the petty bourgeoisie be brought over – because it is necessary for the working class to have won over a part of the petty bourgeoisie and neutralized another – to move toward socialism? And there is the lesson: it cannot be done by putting a lot of water in one’s wine or a little water in one’s wine. The working class must not sell its birthright; it must fight on a socialist program and cannot do this through electoral combinations with the bourgeoisie and by counting on a gradual evolution and the conquest of an electoral majority, even if it obtains it now, which is a situation quite different from 1936.
From this perspective, we arrive at the other thing, that is, what are the possibilities of a majority government on a Popular Front type program? I think it’s important to emphasize the difference in the international context between 1936 and today. In 1936, we found ourselves in an international context marked by the rise of fascism in Europe. Hitler had triumphed in Germany in 1933 and was beginning to rearm Germany. He was beginning to move to seize Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. But on the other hand, the rise of fascism in Germany had given a considerable stimulus to reactionary forces throughout Europe, particularly in Spain, for example. In Spain, the Popular Front was about to take power at roughly the same time as in France, a little before, and the reactionary forces opposed to the Popular Front immediately felt support from Germany and Fascist Italy, and civil war was unleashed by these forces in July 1936 in Spain.
Consequently, there was in the working class, especially not conditions in which it was created, reasons for which it was created, elements that constituted it, and also what it achieved, once in power.
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