The Battle for France's Workers:
BROWN, IRVING
The Battle for France's Workers The French Labor Movement. By Val R. Lorwin. Harvard. 346 pp. $6.00. Revieived by Irving Brown European Representative, AFL Free Trade Union Committee FRANCE is...
...On the other hand, many forces are at work trying to rebuild a free, anti-Communist union movement...
...The historical roots of anarchism, syndicalism, socialism and other revolutionary doctrines are discussed, as are the role of the Resistance and the Nazi-Soviet Pact in the rise of the French labor movement and its eventual capture by the Communist party through the General Confederation of Labor (CGT...
...Whether or not she can measure up to this responsibility depends largely on the extent to which the French trade-union movement remains in the hands of the Communists, is neutralized, or becomes anti-Communist...
...The mark left on the French trade-union movement by this control raises grave doubts as to whether it can recover sufficiently to play the kind of powerful independent role that labor does in the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon countries...
...Revieived by Irving Brown European Representative, AFL Free Trade Union Committee FRANCE is today the pivot of the free world's effort to make Western Europe secure both internally and externally...
...While this is a good and useful book, however, there are certain shortcomings...
...This is a serious weakness, for what has happened in France in the ten years since World War II has no parallel in any other country of the free world except Italy...
...Despite these criticisms, Mr...
...In spite of their weaknesses and divisions, the CFTC (Christian unions) and the Force Ouvriere have contributed decisively to weakening Communist domination...
...The FO-led strike of 1953 was a partial success, while the CGT strike of April 1954, which the CFTC supported but the FO opposed, was a failure...
...This demonstrated the growing inability of the CGT to plunge the masses into large-scale strike action, as well as the key role of the Force Ouvriere in the creation of any future anti-Communist movement...
...They could profit from "trying to understand" instead of presenting reform programs designed to turn France overnight into a carbon copy of the "American way of life...
...It is also regrettable that the author did not devote some attention to the colonial problem...
...The author covers its history from its early beginnings up to the recent past and gives an excellent picture of the structure and organization of French trade unions...
...Lorwin has written what can well serve as a manual for many Americans who come to France in either a governmental or a private capacity...
...However, the middle section, which examines the crucial years of the Resistance, the Liberation, and the 1944-to-1947 period, bogs down...
...For one thing, interpretative material is for the most part either weak or non-existent...
...There is no clear, critical picture of what took place, nor is there any sense of the long-time damage done to the non-Communist forces...
...But this is no substitute for an attempt to evaluate Communist control of the French labor movement and its dire consequences for France and all Western Europe...
...The spectacle of totalitarian control of a social and economic mass movement in democratic France is virtually unique...
...Furthermore, part of French Communist strength can be traced directly to the colonial problem...
...For example, relying solely on statistics where French trade unions are concerned is always questionable...
...It certainly helps explain the strength of Communist propaganda in Algeria and in certain areas of France where North Africans are beginning to constitute a large section of the working class...
...I believe there is much to be said both positively and negatively concerning the position of the French trade unions on this highly explosive issue...
...Val Lorwin's book is the first attempt to present a readable account in English of what the French trade-union movement is...
...Lorwin's stated desire "to try to understand" rather than to pass judgment and offer solutions...
...Lorwin is aware of this movement, but his assessment of the value and relative merit of the non-Communist unions leaves much to be desired...
...The first and third sections of the book, dealing with the prewar history of the French trade unions, their structure and organization, and collective bargaining, are well done...
...a qualitative appraisal is more important...
...A clue to these is offered by Mr...
Vol. 38 • March 1955 • No. 10
