CHAPTER IV

Socialism and Labor in France

We have already spoken of the brilliant French Utopian Socialists whose ideas were so influential with Karl Marx, though he did not acknowledge their influence upon him. The influence of Guesde at the time of the founding of the Second International has already been referred to. There were at that early time two parties in the Socialist movement, who were called the Possibilists and the Impossibilists, according as they accepted or did not accept any modifications in the present organization of society. In 1893 as many as forty Socialists were elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Even Socialists who approved of taking part in parliamentary life were for the most part opposed to having Socialist leaders accept office in the government ministries. In fact, some of the ablest Socialist leaders were read out of the party on account of accepting portfolios in the ministry. This was the case with Millerand in 1904, and with Viviani and Briand in 1906. In the first decade of the century the parliamentary Socialists advocated the dis-establishment of the Church, the secularization of education, labor legislation and the diminution of the army. The increased voting power of the party is shown by comparison of the 20,000 votes in 1885 with the 1,400,000 votes in 1914 when the Socialists had about onesixth of the total votes.

It was in 1877 that the Socialist organization began and that their organ, "L'Egalité," was started to promote Marxian ideas. Socialism was indorsed by the labor union congress at Marseilles in 1879 and soon after a Socialist Labor Party was founded, which took part without any success in the elections of 1881. Its first real political victory was in 1893, when they polled 487,000 votes and elected forty representatives. As in Italy, the Socialists gained great influence in the municipal elections, especially in those of the large cities.

In 1912, 282 cities and towns came under the control of the Socialists. In great contrast to the condition in Germany is the relation of labor to the Socialist Party in France. For a long time there was very little contact between the two radical groups. The French labor movement, being Syndicalist and not trade union in character, and relying on the general strike as a weapon,

See Addendum, Part I.

was out of sympathy with the political action of the Socialist Party. It was only the approach of the war that led to closer contact between the "Conféderation Générale du Travail" and the Socialist Party, as we shall see. Consequently, in the matter of law-making in the interest of labor, in the matter of parliamentary influence, the labor Confederation was quite negligible before the war.

France has no large trade union organization, comparable with those of America and Great Britain. Business and labor are not organized in the same way, nor are the problems of labor considered as in these two countries largely on the basis of evolutionary processes. The struggle between employers and employees is not being abridged. The possibility of immediate and violent revolutionary action is continually in mind. The "hotair" revolutionists are not held in check by a mass of practical wage-earners. The various Syndicates composing the "Conféderation Générale du Travail" are practically at one in their policies with the Socialist Party, if one can speak of a Socialist policy in view of the many sections of the party each with different policies. At the same time the practical French character leads the Confederation to draw back at the last moment from extreme measures. The Syndicalist theory includes the class struggle and the abolition of the State as its ultimate aim and direct action through the general strike and sabotage as the means for realizing the change by which all industry shall be in the hands of the producers.

The Conféderation Générale du Travail is composed of two kinds of federations: one is the national federations of crafts and the other the departmental federations of joint local organizations. The departmental federation has for its main object propaganda, among other aims for "the general social transformation." Communications from the C. G. T. with affiliated bodies are addressed to both the national and departmental federations, most of the latter having their headquarters in local Bourse halls. These organizations have not all the character of trade unions.

The similarity between the aims of the Syndicalist leaders and those of the Socialists makes it possible for a Socialist organ to represent them both. The paper "L'Humanité," the Socialist daily, has recently been supplemented by another Socialist organ "Le Proletaire."

The fact that Syndicalism is opposed to taking part in parliamentary life is one of its points of difference with the conservative wing of the Socialists. The greater community of views with the more revolutionary Socialists, includes opposition to community ownership and control of industry.

The attitude of the Confederation is expressed in the following statement issued in April, 1919:

"The Confédération Générale du Travail to Public Opinion. To the Workers.

"From August, 1914, to November, 1918, we were told repeatedly that we were fighting the war of right. This assurance implied that peace would confer upon the nations the liberty of self-determination and that it would be based on general disarmament, the only possible method of liquidating the debts of

war.

"To-day these solemn promises are being broken. Our diplomats offer us a plan of a League of Nations which is not the society of nations described in the Fourteen Points of President Wilson. The peoples of the whole world in their thirst for justice have acclaimed these fourteen propositions. We have made them ours. "The French working class, faithful to its conception of "war against war," rises against the sabotage of peace.

"On coming out of torment, the nations cannot be condemned to have no other object than the payment of taxes destined to support the burden of armament.

"The Confédération Générale du Travail condemns any foreign policy of blockade, of force, of diplomatic or armed intervention.

"It recalls the formula of the French Revolution: Each nation. by itself has the right to make its laws, the inalienable right to change them; to wish to despoil a foreign people of that right is to become the enemy of the human race.'

"The C. G. T. vigorously protests the expedition against Russia, a friendly country against which no declaration of war has ever been made.

"The continuation of this policy of intervention makes France a power guarding the privileges and the reactionary institutions of all countries.

"The working class, the French people, can never subscribe t this humiliating and dishonorable attitude.

"Since liberty of thought and opinion was the very foundation of the declaration of the rights of man, the C. G. T. appeals to

public opinion, to the conscience of the trade union organizations, to agitate against this state of things.

"The C. G. T. condemns any continuation of the war, and urgently demands the conclusion of a real peace to which all peoples can subscribe."

In its Congress held at Lyons during July, 1919, the Confédération Générale du Travail by a vote of 1,393 against 586 repudiated Bolshevism and upheld Jouhoux, its patriotic leader and secretary who opposed the proposed general strike of July 21st, which had been called as a protest against the blockade of Russia and as a mark of sympathy with Bolshevism. Consequently, on July 19th, the strike was officially countermanded by the Confederation, and Italy was left practically alone to carry it out on a large scale.

In a notable speech of Merrheim, also, like Jouhoux, a Syndicalist leader and therefore supposed to be an advocate of Bolshevism, he described his meeting with Lenin at the famous Zimmerwald Conference in 1915. At that time the Germans were only forty kilometres from Paris and France was in danger of perishing. Lenin worked hard to persuade Merrheim to return to France and declare a general strike as a war against war. This would have put France at Germany's mercy. From that moment Merrheim says that he became the enemy of Lenin and Trotzky.

At the same time the Confederation's Congress passed a resolution ordering the Syndicalist transportation organizations to refuse to handle any shipments of farms and ammunition and other stores that were intended for the use of the anti-Bolshevik armies of Kolchak and Denikin in Russia. This order was obeyed and was paralleled by action of the port workers and seamen in Italy.

The Confederation also put forth a manifesto based on a theory of Revolutionary Syndicalism, which differed from the Bolshevist plan in its method, because it forbids the use of conspiracy, of minority terrorism and the bringing on of a state of anarchy. Since then the Confederation has taken another step forward. (American Labor World, Feb. '20.)

FRENCH LABOR'S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN

In the "American Labor World" for February, 1920, Wm. English Walling outlines the plan of the C. G. T. for the recon

struction of France. Mr. Walling says: "The French project is perhaps the first reconstruction plan the world has seen which rests upon economic and not upon political democracy. It aims frankly to bring about by gradual and by peaceful means the substitution of industrial democracy in place of the present political state and the control of that state by private or capitalistic interests."

The new project consists not in a program of reforms but in a new method of evolving such a program. Let the C. G. T. speak for itself:

"The C. G. T., representing organized labor, examined the general problems that confronted the country immediately after the armistice and pointed out in a general way the solution of these problems through a National Economic Council.

"To its proposition to create this National Economic Council with the duty of confronting these difficult and essential problems the government replied only by offering to enact a grotesque caricature of the project. The General Confederation of Labor then decided itself to constitute an Economic Council of Labor.

"The C. G. T. intends to have recourse to the new form of organization and to introduce, by new methods, a changed direction into the entire economic activity of the country.

"In order to assure to the organism which it has created the necessary maximum of competency and authority, the C. G. T. has appealed to the following organizations of consumers and technicians, all of which have agreed to give it their undivided support:

"National Federation of Co-operatives;

"National Federation of Government Employees and Functionaries.

"Union of Technicians of Industry, Commerce and Agriculture.

"The Economic Council of Labor thus constituted is placed under the protection of the C. G. T. The end pursued is to contribute to economic reconstruction by means of practical principles aimed solely at the common good and giving to labor a just share in the management and control of production and distribution.