French Section of The Workers' International - From The 1905 Unification To The 1920 Tours Congress Split

From The 1905 Unification To The 1920 Tours Congress Split

The new SFIO party was hemmed between the middle class liberals of the Radical Party and the revolutionary syndicalists who dominated the trade unions. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) proclaimed its independence from political parties at this time and the non-distinction between political and industrial aims. In addition, some CGT members refused to join the SFIO, because they considered it extremist. They created the Republican-Socialist Party (PRS).

In contrast to other European socialist parties, the SFIO was a decentralized organization. Its national and executive institutions were weakened by the strong autonomy of its members and local levels of the party. Consequently, the function of secretary general, held by Louis Dubreuilh until 1918, was essentially administrative and the real political leader was Jean Jaurès, president of the parliamentary group and director of the party paper L'Humanité.

Unlike the PRS, SFIO members did not participate to Left Bloc governments, although they supported a part of its policy, notably the laïcité, based on the 1905 Act of separation between Church and State. However, they criticized the ferocious repression of strikes by Radical Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau after 1906, following the creation of a Minister of Labour, a post held by PRS leader René Viviani.

During the July 1914 international crisis, the party was ideologically torn between its membership in the Socialist International and the wave of patriotism within France. The assassination of Jaurès, on 31 July 1914, was a setback for the pacifist wing of the party and contributed to the massive increase in support for the wartime government of national unity. Participation in World War I caused divisions within the party, which were accentuated after 1917. Furthermore, internal disagreements appeared about the 1917 October Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

In 1919, the anti-war socialists were heavily defeated in elections by the National Bloc coalition which played on the middle-classes' fear of Bolshevism (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, forming what became known as the Chambre bleue horizon ("Blue Horizon Chamber").

On 25 December 1920, during the Tours Congress, a majority of SFIO members voted to join the Communist International (Comintern; also known as the "Third International"), created by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 October Revolution. Led by Boris Souvarine and Ludovic Frossard, they created the French Section of the Communist International (SFIC). Another smaller group also favoured membership in the Comintern, but not all 21 conditions, while the minority, led by Léon Blum and the majority of the socialists' elected members, decided to in Blum's words, "keep the old house" and remain within the Second International. Marcel Sembat, Léon Blum and Albert Thomas refused to align themselves with Moscow. Paul Faure became secretary general of the SFIO but its most influential figure was Blum, leader of the parliamentary group and director of a new party paper Le Populaire. The previous party paper, L'Humanité, was controlled by the founders of the SFIC. (However, Ludovic Frossard later resigned from the SFIC and rejoined the SFIO in January 1923.)

One year after the Tours Congress, the CGT trade union made the same split - those who became communists created the United General Confederation of Labour (CGTU), 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 the reformist union confederation Workers' Force (CGT-FO).