French Turn
Encyclopedia
The French Turn was the name given to the entry
between 1934 and 1936 of the French Trotskyists
into the Section Française de l'International Ouvrière
(SFIO, the contemporary name of the French Socialist Party). The French Turn was repeated by Trotskyists in other countries during the 1930s.
in 1934, which led to the downfall of the Daladier
government. Fearing that fascists
would seize power as they had in Germany
and Italy
, the Socialist Party (SFIO) and French Communist Party
(PCF) formed a "United Front
."
The Communist League, the French section of the International Left Opposition
, remained at this time a small and predominantly middle-class
organization. Leon Trotsky
saw a great opportunity in the United Front for an expansion of the Trotskyists' ranks. While he saw no possibility of re-entering the Communist Party because of its lack of internal democracy, he believed that the Trotskyists could build a base in the SFIO, which had moved to the left
under the leadership of Léon Blum
. Trotsky formally proposed the "French Turn" into the SFIO in June 1934.
The Communist League's leaders were divided over the issue of entering the SFIO. While Raymond Molinier
was the most supportive of Trotsky's proposal, Pierre Naville
vocally opposed the motion, and Pierre Frank
remained ambivalent. After two months of formal discussion, the League voted to dissolve into the SFIO in August 1934. In the Socialist Party, they formed the Bolshevik-Leninist Group (Groupe Bolchevik-Leniniste, GBL). Naville split from the group.
Upon entering the SFIO, the GBL began to build a base among the party's left wing. The Trotskyists' influence was strongest in the youth affiliate, Young Socialists, and the Parisian party branches. At the Mulhouse
party congress
of June 1935, the Trotskyists led a campaign to prevent the United Front from expanding into a "Popular Front
", which would include the middle-class Radical Party. Jean Rous of the GBL was elected to the SFIO's National Administrative Committee.
After the adoption of the Popular Front, Trotsky advised the GBL to break with the SFIO and begin forming a new revolutionary party. This created fresh divisions within the GBL's leadership. While Naville supported a split, Molinier hoped to develop connections with Marceau Pivert
, one of the primary leaders of the SFIO's left wing. This led to a confused and awkward departure by the Trotskyists from the Socialist Party in early 1936, which drew only about six hundred people from the party. Molinier and Naville formed two separate parties, and their divisions were reinforced over how to relate to Pivert's new party, the Workers and Peasants Socialist Party (PSOP).
The French Trotskyists were dispersed when World War II began, but in 1944 they re-unified into the Internationalist Communist Party
(PCI).
should be continued. The main advocates of this view in the 1950s and 1960s were Michel Pablo
, secretary of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, and Gerry Healy
, secretary of the International Committee of the Fourth International
, which both supported entrism. Pablo developed a special type of the turn which involved working underground in the Communist Parties: this was strongly opposed by the ICFI.
Others in the Trotskyist movement have who believed the French Turn to be either a failure or unprincipled and advocated the independence of Trotskyists from social-democratic
and communist parties: Hugo Oehler
developed this view at the time of the French Turn. The issue of entryism remains a point of contention among Trotskyists to this day.
Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
between 1934 and 1936 of the French Trotskyists
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
into the Section Française de l'International Ouvrière
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...
(SFIO, the contemporary name of the French Socialist Party). The French Turn was repeated by Trotskyists in other countries during the 1930s.
In France
The idea of the French Turn originated after the 6 February 1934 riots around the Stavisky AffairStavisky Affair
The Stavisky Affair was a 1934 financial scandal generated by the actions of embezzler Alexandre Stavisky. It had political ramifications for the French Radical Socialist moderate government of the day...
in 1934, which led to the downfall of the Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
government. Fearing that fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
would seize power as they had in Germany
Article 48 (Weimar Constitution)
Article 48 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic of Germany allowed the President, under certain circumstances, to take emergency measures without the prior consent of the Reichstag...
and Italy
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
, the Socialist Party (SFIO) and French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) formed a "United Front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
."
The Communist League, the French section of the International Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
, remained at this time a small and predominantly middle-class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
organization. Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
saw a great opportunity in the United Front for an expansion of the Trotskyists' ranks. While he saw no possibility of re-entering the Communist Party because of its lack of internal democracy, he believed that the Trotskyists could build a base in the SFIO, which had moved to the left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
under the leadership of Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
. Trotsky formally proposed the "French Turn" into the SFIO in June 1934.
The Communist League's leaders were divided over the issue of entering the SFIO. While Raymond Molinier
Raymond Molinier
Raymond Molinier was a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France and a pioneer of the Fourth International. In 1929 he founded the journal La Vérité, and in March 1936 he and Pierre Frank co-founded the Parti communiste internationaliste, which merged with two other groups to form the Parti...
was the most supportive of Trotsky's proposal, Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville
Pierre Naville was a French Surrealist writer and sociologist. He was a prominent member of the 'Investigating Sex' group of Surrealist thinkers.In politics, he was a Communist and then a Trotskyist, before joining the PSU...
vocally opposed the motion, and Pierre Frank
Pierre Frank
Pierre Frank was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979....
remained ambivalent. After two months of formal discussion, the League voted to dissolve into the SFIO in August 1934. In the Socialist Party, they formed the Bolshevik-Leninist Group (Groupe Bolchevik-Leniniste, GBL). Naville split from the group.
Upon entering the SFIO, the GBL began to build a base among the party's left wing. The Trotskyists' influence was strongest in the youth affiliate, Young Socialists, and the Parisian party branches. At the Mulhouse
Mulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...
party congress
Party Congress
A party congress is a general conference of a political party. The congress is attended by delegates who represent the party membership. In most parties the party congress is the highest decision making body of the organisation and elects the party's leadership bodies such as the National Executive...
of June 1935, the Trotskyists led a campaign to prevent the United Front from expanding into a "Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
", which would include the middle-class Radical Party. Jean Rous of the GBL was elected to the SFIO's National Administrative Committee.
After the adoption of the Popular Front, Trotsky advised the GBL to break with the SFIO and begin forming a new revolutionary party. This created fresh divisions within the GBL's leadership. While Naville supported a split, Molinier hoped to develop connections with Marceau Pivert
Marceau Pivert
Marceau Pivert was a French schoolteacher, trade unionist, Socialist militant and journalist. He was an alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud.-In the Socialist Party:...
, one of the primary leaders of the SFIO's left wing. This led to a confused and awkward departure by the Trotskyists from the Socialist Party in early 1936, which drew only about six hundred people from the party. Molinier and Naville formed two separate parties, and their divisions were reinforced over how to relate to Pivert's new party, the Workers and Peasants Socialist Party (PSOP).
The French Trotskyists were dispersed when World War II began, but in 1944 they re-unified into the Internationalist Communist Party
Internationalist Communist Party
The Internationalist Communist Party was a Trotskyist political party in France. It was the name taken by the French Section of the Fourth International from its foundation until a name change in the late 1960s....
(PCI).
In other countries
In other countries, the French Turn was repeated by Trotsky's other followers:- In the United States, the Workers Party of the United StatesWorkers Party of the United StatesThe Workers Party of the United States was established in December 1934 by a merger of the American Workers Party led by A.J. Muste and the Trotskyist Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. The party was dissolved in 1936 when its members entered the Socialist Party of America en...
entered the Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of AmericaThe Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
in 1936. They formed a faction around the newspaper Socialist Appeal. They drew their strongest support among members of the Young People's Socialist LeagueYoung People's Socialist LeagueThe Young People's Socialist League , founded in 1989, is the official youth arm of the Socialist Party USA. The group's membership consists of those democratic socialists under the age of 30, and its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic...
, the SP's youth affiliate. The Trotskyists and their supporters were expelled from the SP in 1937 and in 1938 formed a new party, the Socialist Workers PartySocialist Workers Party (United States)The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
.
- Factions of Trotsky's followers in Great Britain, who were organized as the Communist LeagueCommunist League (UK, 1932)The Communist League was the first Trotskyist group in Britain. It was formed in 1932 by former members of the Communist Party of Great Britain from Balham and Tooting in South London, including Harry Wicks. They had been expelled after forming a loose grouping inside the CPGB, known as the...
in 1932, entered the Independent Labour PartyIndependent Labour PartyThe Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
and the Labour PartyLabour Party (UK)The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
in subsequent years. They emerged from these parties in 1944 to form the Revolutionary Communist PartyRevolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944)The Revolutionary Communist Party was a British Trotskyist group, formed in 1944 and active until 1949, which published the newspaper Socialist Appeal, a theoretical journal Workers International News and an entrist paper for its Labour Party work The Militant .- Collapse of the RSL and founding of...
.
Consequences
The French Turn remained a lasting issue of debate between Trotsky's often-divided followers after World War II. Some believed that the French Turn was a success, and they promoted the idea that entryismEntryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
should be continued. The main advocates of this view in the 1950s and 1960s were Michel Pablo
Michel Pablo
Michel Pablo was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis , a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin.- Early activism :...
, secretary of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, and Gerry Healy
Gerry Healy
Thomas Gerard Healy, known as Gerry Healy , was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and, according to former prominent U.S. supporter David North, the leader of the Trotskyist movement in Great Britain between 1950 – 1985...
, secretary of the International Committee of the Fourth International
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...
, which both supported entrism. Pablo developed a special type of the turn which involved working underground in the Communist Parties: this was strongly opposed by the ICFI.
Others in the Trotskyist movement have who believed the French Turn to be either a failure or unprincipled and advocated the independence of Trotskyists from social-democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
and communist parties: Hugo Oehler
Hugo Oehler
-Biography:An active trade unionist, Oehler joined the Communist Party USA in its early days, and by 1927 was a district organizer for the party in Kansas...
developed this view at the time of the French Turn. The issue of entryism remains a point of contention among Trotskyists to this day.
Further reading
- Robert J. Alexander, International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), 340-355. ISBN 0-8223-0975-0
- Isaac DeutscherIsaac DeutscherIsaac Deutscher was a Polish-born Jewish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs...
, The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940. - Albert GlotzerAlbert GlotzerAlbert Glotzer , also known as Albert Gates was a professional stenographer and founder of the Trotskyist movement in the United States...
, Trotsky: Memoir and Critique Prometheus Books, 1990.