(Redirected from SFIO)
The 'French Section of the Workers' International' (''Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière'', 'SFIO'), founded in
1905, was a French
socialist political party, designed as the local section of the
Second International (i.e. the ''Workers' International''). After the
1917 October Revolution, it split up (during the
1920 Tours Congress) into two groups, the majority creating the ''Section française de l'Internationale communiste'' (SFIC), which became the
French Communist Party (PCF).
Following the first unification of the French socialist movements in 1901, the ''Parti socialiste français'' and the ''Parti socialiste de France'' united during the 1905 Globe Congress in Paris, which followed the 1904
Amsterdam Congress of the Second International. The 1905 Globe Congress thus united the
Marxist tendency represented by
Jules Guesde'
French Workers' Party with the
social-democrat tendency represented by
Jean Jaurès' ''Parti socialiste français''. The "''party of the
workers' movement''" was born, and continued existing until 1969, when it was replaced by the current
Socialist Party (PS). The SFIO was led by
Jules Guesde,
Jean Jaurès - who quickly became its most influential figure,
Edouard Vaillant and
Paul Lafargue. It opposed itself to
colonialism and to
militarism, although following Jean Jaurès' assassination on
31 July 1914, four days before
Germany's declaration of war to France, it abandoned its
anti-militarist views and, as the whole of the Second International, replaced its
internationalism conceptions about
class struggle with
patriotism, by supporting the
National Union government (''Union nationale''). After the war, this was regarded as a major failure of the socialist movement and explains, in part, the split of the Tours Congress. Jaurès' ashes would be transferred to the
Panthéon in 1924, while his assassin,
Raoul Villain, who was judged but acquitted in 1919, would later be executed by the Spanish Republicans in 1936.
Before the 1905 unification
After the failure of the
Paris commune (1871), French socialism was severely weakened. Its leaders died or were exiled. In 1879, during the
Marseille Congress, workers' associations created the
Federation of the Socialist Workers of France (''Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France'' or FTSF). However, three years later,
Jules Guesde and
Paul Lafargue (the son-in-law of
Karl Marx) left the federation, which considered so moderate, and founded the
French Workers' Party (''Parti ouvrier français'' or POF). The FTSF, led by
Paul Brousse, was defined as "possibilist" because it advocated gradual reforms, whereas the POF promoted Marxism.
In the same time,
Edouard Vaillant and the heirs of
Louis Auguste Blanqui founded the
Central Revolutionary Committee (''Comité révolutionnaire central'' or CRC), which represented the French revolutionary tradition.
In the 1880s, the Socialists knew their first electoral success, conquering some municipalities.
Jean Allemane and some FTSF members criticized the focus on electoral goals. In 1890, they created the
Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (''Parti ouvrier socialiste révolutionnaire'' or POSR). Their main objective was the "general strike". Besides, some deputies declared Socialist whereas they were not member of a party. They had moderate opinions.
In 1899, a debate opposed the Socialist groups about the participation of
Alexandre Millerand in
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet, which included the
Marquis de Gallifet, best know for having directed the bloody repression during the Paris Commune. Furthemore, the participation in a "
bourgeois government" sparked a controversy opposing
Jules Guesde to
Jean Jaurès. In 1902, Guesde and Vaillant founded the Socialist Party of France, while Jaurès, Allemane and the possibilists formed the French Socialist Party. In 1905, during the
Globe Congress, under the pression of the
Second International, the two groups merged in the French Section of the Workers' International.
It was hemmed in between the middle class liberals of the
Radical Party and the
revolutionary syndicalists who dominated the
trade unions. Indeed, the
General Confederation of Labour proclaimed its independance and the non-distinction between political and professional aims.
1914-1920
During
World War I, the Socialists suffered a severe split over participation in the wartime
government of national unity. In
1919 the anti-war socialists were heavily defeated in elections by the ''
Bloc national'' (National Bloc) coalition which had played on the middle-classes' fear of the
bolshevik (posters with a bolshevik with a knife between his teeth were used to discredit the socialist movement). The ''Bloc national'' won 70% of the seats, making the ''Chambre bleue horizon'' ("Blue Horizon Chamber").
On
25 December 1920, during the
Tours Congress, the majority of SFIO members accepted to join the
Third International (''Comintern''), created by the
Bolsheviks after the 1917
October Revolution. Led by
Boris Souvarine and
Ludovic Frossard, they created the ''Section Française de l'Internationale Communiste'' (SFIC). Another smaller group also accepted the membership to the Comintern, but not all 21 conditions, while the minority, led by
Léon Blum and the majority of the elected socialists members, decided to "''keep the old house''" (Blum) and remain within the Second International.
Marcel Sembat, Léon Blum and
Albert Thomas refused to align themselves on Moscow. Ludovic Frossard would resign from the SFIC and join again the SFIO in January 1923.
The next year, the
Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) trade union made the same split, those who became
communists creating the ''Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire'' (which fused again with the CGT in 1936 during the
Popular Front government).
Léon Jouhaux was CGT's main leader until 1947 and the new split leading to the creation of social-democrat ''
Force Ouvrière'' (CGT-FO).
From the 1920 Tours Congress to the Popular Front
In
1922 and again in
1924, the Socialists joined with the
Radicals in the ''
Cartel des Gauches'' coalition. Although they took part in the first ''Cartel des gauches'' government (1924-26), led by Radical
Edouard Herriot, they didn't participate in the second Cartel's government (1932-34) which was plagued by parliamentary instability.
The first Cartel saw the right-wing terrorized, and
capital flight destabilized the government, while the divided Radicals didn't all support their socialist allies. The monetary crisis, also due to the refusal of Germany to pay the
reparations, caused parliamentary unstability.
Edouard Herriot,
Paul Painlevé and
Aristide Briand would succeeded themselves as president of the Council until 1926, when the right-wing came back to power with
Raymond Poincaré. The newly elected communist deputies also opposed the first Cartel, refusing to support "
bourgeois" governments.
The second Cartel acceeded to power in 1932, but this time, the SFIO only gave their support without participation to the Radicals, which allied themselves with right-wing radicals. After years of internal feuds the reformist (or right) wing of the party, lead by
Marcel Déat and
Pierre Renaudel, split from the SFIO in November 1933 to form a
neosocialist movement. The Cartel was again the victim of parliamentary unstability, while various scandals led to the
6 February 1934 riots organized by far-right leagues. Radical
Edouard Daladier resigned on the next day, handing out the power to conservative
Gaston Doumergue. It was the first time during the
Third Republic (1871-1940) that a government had to resign because of street pressure.
Following the
6 February 1934 crisis, which the whole of the socialist movement saw as a
fascist conspiracy to overthrow the Republic, a dream followed on by the royalist ''
Action Française'' and other far-right leagues,
anti-fascist organizations were created. The PCF, supported by the Comintern's abandon of the "
social-fascism" directives in favor of "
united front" directives, got closer to the SFIO, to form the coalition that would win the 1936 elections and bring about the
Popular Front. In June 1934,
Leon Trotsky proposed the "
French Turn" into the SFIO, which is where the
entrism strategy takes its origins from. The
trotskyist Communist League's (the French section of the
International Left Opposition) leaders were divided over the issue of entering the SFIO:
Raymond Molinier was the most supportive of Trotsky's proposal, while
Pierre Naville was opposed to it and
Pierre Frank remained ambivalent. The League finally voted to dissolve into the SFIO in August 1934, where they formed the
Bolshevik-Leninist Group (Groupe Bolchevik-Leniniste, GBL). At the
Mulhouse party congress of June
1935, the Trotskyists led a campaign to prevent the United Front from expanding into a "
Popular Front," which would include the middle-class Radical Party.
However, the Popular Front strategy was adopted, and
Léon Blum became France's first socialist president of the Council in 1936, while the PCF supported - without participation - his government. A general strike applauded the socialists' victory, while
Marceau Pivert cried "''Tout est possible!''" ("Everything is possible!"). Pivert would later split and create the
Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party (''Parti socialiste ouvrier et paysan'', ''PSOP''); historian
Daniel Guérin was also a member of the latter. Trotsky advised the GBL to break with the SFIO, leading to a confused departure by the Trotskyists from the Socialist Party in early
1936, which drew only about six hundred people from the party. The 1936
Matignon Accords set up
collective bargaining, and removed all obstacles to
union organization. The terms included a blanket 7-12 percent wage increase, and allowed for
paid vacation (2 weeks) and a 40-hour work week — the
eight-hour day had been established following the 1914-18
war of attrition and its mobilization of industrial capacities.
Within a year, however, Blum's government collapsed over economic policy (as during the ''Cartel des gauches'',
capital flight was an issue, giving rise to the so-called "''myth of the 200 hundreds families''") in the context of the
Great Depression, and also over the issue of the
Spanish Civil War. The demoralised left fell apart and was unable to resist the collapse of the
Third Republic after the
military defeat of
1940 (during
World War II).
After World War II
After the liberation of France in
1944 and the proclamation of the
Fourth Republic (1947-58), the SFIO re-emerged under the new leadership of
Guy Mollet, who was Prime Minister at the head of a minority government in
1956 and the SFIO's general secretary from 1946 to 1969. The Radicals were in steep decline, and the SFIO, along with the Christian-Democrat
People's Republican Movement (MRP) created in 1947 by
Georges Bidault and the powerful Communist Party were the three main parties governing the Fourth Republic, until
Charles de Gaulle's return to power with the
May 1958 crisis.
Because of the
Cold War, the PCF had to leave the government in May 1947, exactly like the
Italian Communist Party (PCI).
Anti-communism prevented the left from forming a united front. The CGT trade union, which had been united again in 1936, was relatively weakened by the 1948 creation of a social-democrat trade union, ''
Force Ouvrière'' (FO), which was supported by the
CIA. The split was led by CGT's own secretary general,
Léon Jouhaux, who was granted the
Nobel peace prize three years later.
Moreover, the SFIO was divided about the repressive policy of Guy Mollet in
Algeria and his support to De Gaulle's come back. If the party returned in opposition in 1959, it couldn't prevent the constitution of another
Unified Socialist Party (''Parti socialiste unifié'' or ''PSU'') in 1960, joined the next year by
Pierre Mendès-France, whom was trying to anchor the Radical party in the left-wing and opposed the colonial wars.
The Fifth Republic
The SFIO received its lowest vote in the 1960s. The
Fifth Republic's
Constitution had been tailored by Charles de Gaulle to satisfied his needs, and his
gaullist movement managed to gather enough people from the left and the right-wing to govern without the parties' help.
Furthemore, the SFIO hesitated between the alliance with the non-Gaullist center-right (that was the opinion of
Gaston Defferre) and the reconciliation with the Communists. Guy Mollet refused to choose. The SFIO supported
François Mitterrand to the
1965 presidential election although he was not member of the party. The SFIO then created with the Radicals the
Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (''Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste'' or ''FGDS''), a center-left coalition led by François Mitterrand. But it split after
May 68 and the electoral disaster of June 1968.
Gaston Defferre was the SFIO candidate to the
1969 presidential election. He was eliminated in the first round with only 5% of votes. One month later, in the
Issy-les-Moulineaux Congress, the SFIO was replaced by the current
Socialist Party. Guy Mollet let the leadership to
Alain Savary
Endnotes
See also
★
French Socialist Party
★
History of communism
★
History of socialism
★
History of the Left in France
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