Socialist Crisis in France
DEDIJER, VLADIMIR
Colonial issue divides party Socialist Crisis in France By Vladimir Dedijer The crisis in the French Socialist party is being watched anxiously by all friends of France. In the past, the French...
...Paris reacted by waging the bloodiest and most expensive colonial wars in the history of France...
...He says that the many Catholics who have joined the party still adhere to the idea of dogma and the communion of brothers...
...A huge army was recruited and has taken on an important role, exerting pressure on the French nation in a number of ways, until, in the end, the French political parties lost control of the Leviathan they themselves created...
...In recent years, we have been witnessing in France a wave of nationalism of a special kind containing many complex and contradictory elements...
...But much of this former prestige has been lost through the attitude on colonial policy taken up by many French Socialists...
...There is regret for the days of glory and splendor now gone, and there is anger at the grabbing of French colonies and spheres of influence by other more powerful nations, who are sometimes France's allies...
...Now, inside France, the SFIO represents only one part of the working-class movement...
...At the same time, the worldwide movement for self-determination hit the French Empire...
...It is not easy to penetrate the mind of Mollet, but I wonder whether he has subconsciously been envying Maurice Thorez, who has built up in a country of individualists an obedient instrument like the French Communist party...
...French Socialists regarded themselves as part of the international working-class movement and expressed this feeling in the official title of the party, SFIO—Section Francaise de l'Internationale Ouvriere...
...Andre Philip, one of Mollet's keenest critics, explains this trend as a form of clericalism within the SFIO...
...Since the time of Alexandre Millerand, who in 1904 joined the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet, members of the party have been afraid that their leaders were too easily tempted by the wiles of the bourgoisie...
...It is a reaction against the nationalism in the outside world and at the same time a rebellion by the petit-bourgeoise, with their strong possessive instincts, against the loss of France's territories overseas...
...VLADIMIR DEDIJER is the noted Yugoslav political writer...
...Even the Communists, the biggest party, paid lip-service to the idea of self-determination, but did nothing practical to stop the French action...
...This was also one of the issues on which the change of leadership in 1947 was contested, when the so-called "humanist wing" was defeated by the "Marxist wing" headed by Guy Mollet, which opposed participation in the Government...
...The reasons for the paralysis of the SFIO are manifold and complex and cannot be explained only by the lack of competent leaders...
...In any analysis of the situation in the SFIO, it would be a mistake to overlook the changes which have taken place in French society since the war, and especially France's new place in international affairs...
...There is the decrease in the number of workers among its supporters...
...It does not include the strongest trade unions or the cooperative movements of the country...
...In the past, the French Socialist party played a very important role both inside France and in the world...
...All the French political parties, to a greater or smaller extent, followed the official policy...
...Since that time, there has been a movement toward forming a more centralized party and the conflict between internal party democracy and monolithism has come to the fore...
...These colonial wars have influenced the balance of social relations inside France...
...But Mollet, in his efforts to unite the party, did great harm to its internal democracy and this hit the Socialist movement at its most vulnerable and most precious spot—its ethical basis of tolerance and freedom of opinion...
...Finally, there is the desire that France should play a more important role in world affairs...
...When one looks at the changes which have taken place inside the SFIO, turning it more and more into a party of the petit-bourgeoisie instead of the party of the working class, it is clear that this wave of despairing nationalism has also hit French Socialists and in one sense, in fact, provided the impetus which threw up Guy Mollet...
...The recent book by Philip Williams, Politics in Postwar France, throws some light on the reasons for the present situation in the SFIO...
...Williams notes that from the first days of the French Socialist party, the rank and file were strongly suspicious of their leaders...
...The stagnation in the party is due to the general crisis of French society as a whole as well as to the developments within the party...
...After 1940, France was pushed out of the club of the elite among world powers...
...The age group of its members and leaders (it is one of the "oldest" parties in France...
...As a justification for Mollet's attitude, it cannot be denied that there were strong tendencies toward individualism in the SFIO and that the struggle between the various factions damaged the party as a whole...
...Its tragedy in the last two decades, when all but seven of its deputies voted for Munich, and in 1940 when half of the deputies, including the secretary-general Paul Faure, gave their support to Petain...
...Its lack of program...
Vol. 41 • November 1958 • No. 42
