The Fate Of France As De Gaulle Comes To Power
Howe, Irving
For months, it is now clear, there had been a conspiracy to overthrow the French republic. Organized by extreme rightists and semi-fascists in France and Algeria, this conspiracy soon entangled...
...and since he wished to preserve his independence from the Algerian colons, who had been necessary for grasping power but who hardly share the nationalist goals (or fantasies) 203 that are his prime motivation—because of all this, de Gaulle achieved his triumph over the republic by basing himself on the very parties that, till yesterday, had been its main support and his main impediment...
...June 8, 1958 208...
...II At the moment it may be more profitable to examine the causes of the defeat of the republic than to speculate about de Gaulle's future...
...That has always meant a common ideological platform, a lasting political bloc, an electoral agreement...
...The main cause was the continuity of policy from cabinet to cabinet in regard to Algeria and the domestic policies that accompanied the colonial war...
...Even at the moment of his greatest triumph, de Gaulle elicited no marked enthusiasm from the National Assembly or the French people...
...Above all, however, had the Socialist deputies stood firm in their attachment to republican norms and allied themselves as a bloc with Mendes-France, the majority for de Gaulle would have been so slight as to make ridiculous his claim to be speaking for the entire nation...
...Partly this condition has to do with the decline of France as a world power and the frustration of its imperialistic appetites...
...It is all very well for de Gaulle to congratulate himself on his generosity toward the Moslems and, in honesty, one must admit that de Gaulle has already taken a more liberal stance toward Algeria than Mollet and Lacoste ever did...
...This fact helps explain the curiously "moderate" character of de Gaulle's first cabinet...
...The struggle of social forces and political outlooks that was reflected within the Assembly will now be reflected—to be sure, with an even greater distortion—in the cramped milieu of de Gaulle's cabinet and immediate entourage...
...But this, it should be stressed, was a contributing factor, not the main cause of the crisis...
...A foreign national party, a mass party that was neither revolutionary nor reformist, neither committed to a quick overthrow of the status quo nor to functioning loyally within it, the CP has effectively demob ilized the working class...
...We reject both views...
...What should be considered are: a) the basis upon which he has taken power...
...And meanwhile, if only because de Gaulle has finally taken office and thereby public sanction has been given to the idea of entrusting the destiny of the nation to a military savior, the political drift in France seems at present toward rightist authoritarianism...
...Organized by extreme rightists and semi-fascists in France and Algeria, this conspiracy soon entangled a good many army officers and drew upon the skills of Robert Lacoste, the infamous Socialist who had been Resident Minister of Algeria and an organizer of brutal repressions against the Moslem population...
...And once these factors are considered, there is every reason for grave apprehension...
...it stinks of the plebes, than which there is nothing de Gaulle despises more...
...Meanwhile, the Socialists, partly because they increasingly identified themselves with conservative domestic policies 206 which followed from the Algerian war, were unable to break the hold of the Stalinist apparatus upon the unions...
...After Czechoslovakia and Hungary it takes wilful blindness, or defeatist cynicism, to favor a lasting political coalition with the Communists...
...Yet emergency situations may arise in which it becomes necessary, with all due caution, to permit Communists to participate in certain common, limited actions, provided the decisive leadership is in the hands of democratic elements...
...If tomorrow the French working class aligns itself behind the Communist Party even more thoroughly and forcefully than in the past, and if the minority of French workers that had still supported the Socialists turns from them in disgust, it will be Mollet and his chauvinist colleagues, Lacoste and Lejeune, who will bear the responsibility...
...A parade of governments not consequently different from each other yet creating an impression of instability and unseriousness, had a demoralizing effect...
...How pitiful: that the Socialist should do the dirty work of the colons and the authoritarian general then come bearing phrases of liberal reconciliation...
...III What had happened in France which permitted the army, for years confined to a relatively modest political role, suddenly to become a decisive force...
...IV It would be a serious mistake to assess the meaning of de Gaulle's victory solely by the centrist composition of his cabinet and the relative moderation, thus far, of his policy and tone...
...Can a working arrangement be made between the Mendesists, who represent what is healthiest in French liberalism today and perhaps even in French politics, and the majority of Socialist deputies who, in defiance of Mollet, voted against de Gaulle...
...The clumsy structure of the Fourth Republic has unquestionably also had something—though not as much as newspaper observers suggest— to do with the recent crisis...
...the inability of the parties to achieve stable government...
...The bolder and stronger the democratic left, the less likelihood is there that the Communists can appropriate its traditions...
...Since he wanted the pomp of legality to cover the insurrectionary basis of his power...
...Speaking in Algeria, de Gaulle proposed for the Moslems that they should be given full French citizenship with representation in the National Assembly...
...But in regard to Algeria a fundamental decision must be made, and it was the failure of the republican parties to see that the only way out was to negotiate with the Algerians—which meant to grant them the right to self-determination and to require from them protection for the French minority—that brought the collapse of the parliamentary regime...
...This is in the best tradition of French farce: infamous conduct with exalted rhetoric...
...Nor can Gaullist prose provide answers to the increasingly severe financial crisis, which, particularly as long 207 as the Algerian war continues, drags France to the edge of bankruptcy...
...but who else will or so much needs to say them as do socialists...
...The Communists are digging in...
...The idea of a dictator raises for him a series of vulgar associations, images of hysterical mobs and inflamed orators...
...It merely confirms the familiar idea that reactionaries tend to be short-sighted...
...Already, in the few days that he has been in office, de Gaulle has begun to encounter some of the realities of political life—realities that cannot quite be dissolved by his uniquely pompous rhetoric...
...But anyone who troubles to look into his background, his writings, his supporters, his oratorical style should be able to see that he is a man of authoritarian impulses...
...205 bert Luethy's) on modern France, but here let us risk a summary remark: the power of the army grew not because of any inherent social resources, but because there had been a collapse of the normal political institutions...
...For the super-arbiter to conquer, there had first to be a paralysis of political life, a prolonged stalemate of the contending social classes and parties...
...Probably, in his Pilate-like fashion, he held aloof, merely intimating that he was "available...
...Ten days of hesitation and indecision by the republic helped embolden its enemies...
...In recent years France has suffered from a kind of social sickness that cannot be easily or automatically related to economic crisis...
...The problems of modern France are as numerous as they are familiar: the difficulty of completing the modernization of its economy in the face of stubborn resistance from a large group of petty businessmen and shopkeepers...
...Yet this does not mean that de Gaulle will necessarily content himself with keeping the center parties as the foundation of his power, or that his close supporters will indefinitely accept such an arrangement...
...Had such actions been undertaken effectively in France, there would have been no need for a Popular Front...
...There are other factors, but they are all secondary to the problem of Algeria...
...In regard to all other problems—perhaps even the severe financial crisis which has its roots not so much in an economic dislocation as in the enormous cost of the Algerian war—it might be possible to work out short-range improvisations that would pass for solutions...
...These men have shown themselves to be enemies of socialism and of freedom.* Bitter words...
...One of them is that for some years now major sections of the French working class have largely been cut off from the political life of the nation, partly because of their support for the Communists...
...But what de Gaulle and the rest do not face is that the Algerians should have the right and may still choose to break all ties from France...
...One way of avoiding in November the mistakes and weaknesses of May is to reflect upon them in July...
...Can the Socialist Party rid itself of the Mollet-Lacoste pestilence and resume its place as the spokesman for liberty...
...Even at the 11th hour, when the army had become emboldened by de Gaulle's implicit approval and by the evident timidity of the republican leaders, there were still possibilities for stopping de Gaulle...
...When de Gaulle says that he does not wish to be a dictator, there is every reason to believe him...
...they did not want Lejeune to show himself...
...The struggle that has been momentarily avoided may break out again at the end of his six months' rule...
...Mollet bears the most fundamental responsibility because it was during his premiership that the criminal policy of harsh repressions in Algeria reached its fulfillment—a policy that gave new heart to the frightened colons and enabled them to build up the confidence they needed for their recent coup...
...the Communists and the workers they influence would have had no choice but to follow their lead, yet would have been unable to take control...
...but it has already met with the stiff hostility of the colons and has been rejected by the Algerians who lead the guerrilla resistance...
...The Assembly grumbled, cowered, bickered: it did not know what to do...
...But the republican left...
...When Lejeune accompanied de Gaulle to Algeria, the general's friends locked him in a room during the time de Gaulle made his speech to the crowd...
...After such buffoonery, what could the National Assembly do but commit suicide...
...The only alternative would have been an all-out war, which would have involved enormous expenditures of money and manpower, might not have succeeded in any case, and actually found little response among the French people...
...Whether de Gaulle was an active participant, we do not know...
...At the very moment that Mend@s-France, a "mere" liberal, was trying to save the parliamentary regime, Mollet was negotiating with de Gaulle and announcing to the Socialist deputies that he had found de Gaulle to be "a great man...
...Can the fervor and determination of the French people, who remain overwhelmingly republican in their loyalty, be kindled once again...
...partly with the severe moral and ideological crisis which the more articulate elements of its population have been suffering for some decades...
...since he must have realized that the people remained notably lukewarm...
...That word did not come...
...If many Frenchmen resigned themselves to accepting de Gaulle as an evil more bearable than civil war—(perhaps without reflecting, and perhaps even after acknowledging, that they might thereby increase the possibility of de Gaulle first and civil war later)—they hardly shared the fatuous assumption of the N.Y...
...Beneath these problems, however, lies a deeper one, less easy to specify but more pervasive in its effects...
...That the colons and their friends in Paris, panting for an open dictatorship, are frustrated for the moment, does not controvert this analysis...
...But the Popular Front...
...c) the social and political forces that are likely to be strengthened by his victory...
...In any case, our preliminary assessment of de Gaulle need not rest upon speculations about his intentions or his motives...
...Nothing, not even Gaullist prose, can get around that...
...on the contrary, there has been a considerable growth in the French economy...
...In our opinion this is impermissible: the Communists do not constitute a democratic party or a party of the left, and there is no reason why they should be allowed to pose as one...
...Had the massive demonstration of the republican left taken place the very day after the Algerian rising instead of a fatal ten days later, and had it assumed the character of combativeness rather than of mourning, its impact might have been very different...
...The quasi-fascists are clearly preparing for the next steps...
...Except for the Parisians of republican sympathies who came out into the streets, marching with discipline and sorrow in a gesture for the republic, the people were strangely quiet...
...Only after a sizable minority of Socialist deputies followed their party Secretary, Guy Mollet, in supporting de Gaulle, did the defeat of the Fourth Republic become certain.* * Would a militant defense of the republic have meant a revival of the Popular Front, in which the Communists might come to play a dominant role and from which they might profit most...
...They stayed at home, sick of political deceit and momentarily drained of social initiative...
...Whether he has thought out the implications of this scheme, one does not know...
...De Gaulle came to power as the resultant of several simultaneous pressures...
...Had such demonstrations been held repeatedly in order to dramatize the sentiments of the French people, the impact might again have been different...
...Had the republic shown that it possessed the will to fight for its survival and perhaps threatened to cut off supplies from the insurrectionists, the colons and the generals might have retreated without a show of force...
...Some observers have argued that only a Popular Front could have stopped de Gaulle, others that the dangers involved in a Popular Front made even de Gaulle preferable...
...This coming fall, as de Gaulle's six month rule-by-decree comes to an end, there is certain to be a new and perhaps still more severe crisis in France...
...For the moment, then, de Gaulle rules as the super-arbiter leaning upon the political parties, though by his very presence helping to strengthen the trend toward authoritarianism...
...Can anyone offer assurances there will not be a second...
...but Gaullism as a movement in its own right or as a nascent ideology lacked and still lacks mass support among the French people...
...Nor do these remarks constitute a mere postmortem...
...This social sickness might be described as ressentiment, an unfocused malaise arising out of feelings of envy and deprivation...
...Had the parties of the republican left fought firmly, 204 The heaviest responsibility for the collapse of the republic rests upon Mollet, a man who in recent years has brought nothing but shame to the banner of socialism...
...It was this which led to de Gaulle...
...the failure of the state to enforce a modern and equable system of taxation...
...In the two weeks between the Algerian rising and his investiture as Premier, one word of reproval from de Gaulle would have dealt a severe, perhaps fatal, blow to the colons and the generals...
...b) the style of politics he embodies...
...It is a troublesome sign that de Gaulle's Finance Minister—Antoine Pinay, leader of the conservatives—announces a program of "austerity...
...Times that he "incarnated in himself the soul and authority of the French nation...
...A thorough-going analysis would require a volume (such as Her * And they have already begun to receive their just reward...
...In any case, this ressentiment came to an irrational boil over the Algerian issue (there are also, of course, very concrete interests involved in Algeria) and the consequence has been a wracked and feverish country...
Vol. 5 • July 1958 • No. 3
