 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| Part of a series on |
| Trotskyism |
|---|
 |
In France, several organizations identify with Trotskyism. These groups vary in size, with memberships ranging from a few dozen to several thousand activists. [1]
In 1929, Leon Trotsky was expelled from the USSR by order of Joseph Stalin. [2] Internationally, those who supported Trotsky's political views and his Left Opposition were expelled from the Communist parties aligned with the Third International, which had come under Stalinist control. These initial "Trotskyists" (a term initially used by their adversaries) organized themselves nationally and internationally despite significant challenges. [3]
In France, under Trotsky’s guidance, the Communist League was founded in April 1930 by Alfred Rosmer, Pierre Naville, Gérard Rosenthal, Pierre Frank, and Raymond Molinier. Its members, all part of the French Communist Party (PCF), operated as a clandestine faction within the party and disseminated their ideas through the journal La Vérité . [4]
After a stay in Turkey, in July 1933, Trotsky was offered asylum in France by Prime Minister Édouard Daladier. Trotsky accepted the offer, but he was forbidden to live in Paris and soon found himself under the surveillance of the French police. From July 1933 to February 1934, Trotsky and his wife lived in Royan. The philosopher and activist Simone Weil also arranged for Trotsky and his bodyguards to stay for a few days at her parents' house. [5]
Following the 6 February 1934 crisis in France, the French minister of internal affairs, Albert Sarraut, signed a decree to deport Trotsky from France. [5] However, no foreign government was found willing to accept Trotsky within its borders. Accordingly, the French authorities instructed Trotsky to move to a residence in the tiny village of Barbizon under the strict surveillance of the French police, where Trotsky found his contact with the outside world to be even worse than during his exile in Turkey. [5]
In May 1935, soon after the French government had agreed to the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union government, Trotsky was officially told that he was no longer welcome in France. After weighing his options, Trotsky applied to move to Norway.
By 1934, the French Trotskyists numbered fewer than forty members. Following Trotsky’s advice, under what was known as the French Turn, they joined the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) to influence the party's political direction, particularly after the SFIO adopted a united front strategy with the Communist Party. [6] However, this effort ended when the SFIO adopted the Popular Front strategy at its 1935 Mulhouse Congress, leading to the expulsion of the Trotskyists. [7]
Subsequent years saw internal divisions and the creation of several groups:
By 1938, the French Trotskyists unified into the Internationalist Workers' Party (POI), which represented the French section of the newly established Fourth International. Internal schisms, however, persisted. [9]
During World War II, French Trotskyists faced difficult choices: whether to engage in resistance or entryism into collaborationist movements to conduct propaganda among German soldiers. [10] Notable figures like David Rousset endured Nazi deportation and later documented the concentration camp experience. [11]
The war also saw Trotskyist activities in the Free French and clandestine efforts. These years were marked by the assassination of Trotsky in 1940, leaving the Fourth International in disarray. [12]
The postwar years saw the unification of French Trotskyists into the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI), which became the French section of the Fourth International, though this unity was short-lived due to internal ideological divisions. By 1952, a major split occurred between the Pabloist and Lambertist factions, reflecting broader international divisions within the Fourth International [13] which removed its Central Committee. It split again when in 1953, the Fourth International itself divided.
During the Algerian War of Independence, French Trotskyists played an active role. The Pabloists supported the FLN, providing material aid and political advocacy. [14] Conversely, the Lambertists aligned with the MNA. [15]
In 1967, the rump of the PCI renamed itself the "Internationalist Communist Organisation" (Organisation Communiste Internationaliste, OCI).
The events of May 1968 revitalized Trotskyist movements in France, with the emergence of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and the growth of Lutte Ouvrière (LO). These groups, along with other smaller factions, gained electoral and political visibility in the decades following. [16]
They were banned alongside other far-left groups, such as the Gauche prolétarienne (Proletarian Left). Members temporarily reconstituted the group as the Trotskyist Organisation but soon obtained a state order permitting the reformation of the OCI. By 1970, the OCI was able to organise a 10,000-strong youth rally. The group also gained a strong base in trade unions. However, further splits and disintegration followed.
In 2002, three trotskyist candidates ran in the election. Arlette Laguiller of Lutte Ouvrière got 5.72%, Olivier Besancenot of the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) got 4.25% and Daniel Gluckstein of the Workers' Party (Parti des Travailleurs) got 0.47%.
Trotskyist movements continue to influence French politics, particularly through electoral campaigns and activism in social movements. [17] While the broader left has fragmented, organizations like Lutte Ouvrière, the NPA, and smaller groups like Revolution Permanente maintain the legacy of Trotskyist thought in the 21st century. [18]
In 2016 Jean-Luc Mélenchon, formerly of the ICO, launched the left-wing political platform La France Insoumise (Unbowed France), subsequently endorsed by several parties, including his own Left Party and the French Communist Party. In the 2017 French Presidential Election, he received 19% in the first round. In the same election, Philippe Poutou of the New Anticapitalist Party, into which the Revolutionary Communist League dissolved itself in 2008, won 1.20% of the vote. The only openly Trotskyist candidate, Nathalie Arthaud of Lutte Ouvrière, won 0.64% of the vote.
Lutte Ouvrière is a Trotskyist communist party in France, named after its weekly paper. Arlette Laguiller was the party's spokeswoman from 1973 to 2008 and ran in each presidential election until 2012, when Nathalie Arthaud was the candidate. Robert Barcia (Hardy) was its founder and central leader. Lutte Ouvrière is a member of the Internationalist Communist Union. It emphasises workplace activity and has been critical of such recent phenomena as alter-globalization.
The Revolutionary Communist League was a Trotskyist political party in France. It was the French section of the Fourth International (Post-Reunification). It published the weekly newspaper Rouge and the journal Critique communiste. Established in 1974, it became the leading party of the French far-left in the 2000s. It officially abolished itself on 5 February 2009 to merge with smaller factions of the far-left and form a New Anticapitalist Party.
The Internationalist Communist Union is an international grouping of Trotskyist political parties, centred on Lutte Ouvrière in France.
David Korner was a Romanian and French communist militant, trade unionist, and journalist. A Trotskyist for most of his life, he was active in the labor movement of France from the 1930s to the 1960s.
The Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party was a socialist organisation in France, formed on June 8, 1938, by Marceau Pivert. Its youth wing was the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Youth.
Daniel Bensaïd was a philosopher and a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France. He became a leading figure in the student revolt of 1968, while studying at the University of Paris X: Nanterre.
The Revolutionary Workers League was a Canadian Trostkyist party formed on 8 August 1977 by the fusion of the Revolutionary Marxist Group and its Quebec counterpart, the Groupe Marxiste Revolutionnaire, with the League for Socialist Action. The organization marked the reunification of the Canadian section of the Fourth International and had a membership of several hundred people. The group published a monthly newspaper in English, Socialist Voice, as well as a French-language publication, La Lutte Ouvrière.
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.
Betty Hamilton (1904–1994) was a British Trotskyist.
Michel Varga was a Hungarian and French Trotskyist activist.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is a public faction of the Fourth International founded in 1953. Today, two Trotskyist internationals claim to be the continuations of the ICFI; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK.
The Fourth International (FI), founded in 1938, is a Trotskyist international.
The French Turn was the name given to the entry between 1934 and 1936 of the French Trotskyists into the French Section of the Workers' International. The French Turn was repeated by Trotskyists in other countries during the 1930s.
Pierre Frank was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979.
Pierre Lambert was a French Trotskyist leader, who for many years acted as the central leader of the French Courant Communiste Internationaliste (CCI) which founded the Parti des Travailleurs.
Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the philosophy, methods and positions of Leon Trotsky and the early Fourth International, Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx than other avowed Trotskyists.
La Vérité is the first trotskyst publication in history, having its first issue published on August 15, 1929, in French. Its name refers to Pravda, which means Truth, and was chosen because Trotskyists believed that the French labor movement needed "Truth therapy".
The Revolutionary Marxist Alliance (AMR) was a Trotskyist movement with a Pabloist orientation, closely aligned with libertarian ideas and active from 1969 to 1974. It founded the publication L'Internationale in 1970. The AMR distinguished itself from other Trotskyist groups through its emphasis on and promotion of the concept and practices of self-management.
The far-left in France encompasses political organizations, movements, and ideologies that are considered to be at the furthest left end of the political spectrum. It includes a variety of political traditions, such as revolutionary socialism, anarchism, Maoism, and Trotskyism. Historically, the far-left has distinguished itself by opposing the reformist left represented by the PCF and the SFIO, advocating instead for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a classless, egalitarian society.
The Communist League was a French Trotskyite party established in 1930, which published the journal La Vérité. It brought together French members of the International Left Opposition before the proclamation of the Fourth International in 1938. Following the far-right riots of February 6, 1934, it joined the SFIO as an organized tendency, forming the "Bolshevik-Leninist group" (BL), which was expelled at the SFIO Congress in Mulhouse in June 1935. During this period, the Ligue communiste officially continued to exist but was dormant and its members split.
