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From The Rise of De Gaulle and the Class Struggle

Marxist Theory · 1958-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the crisis of May 1958 in France — the military revolt in Algiers and the subsequent installation of Charles de Gaulle — was not an accidental product of the Algerian war but the logical outcome of two decades of betrayals by the French Communist and Socialist Party leaderships. Ted Grant argues that the working class had been "rotten-ripe for revolution" in 1944–45, with five million Communist votes and the majority of workers organised in trade unions, a situation Lenin considered all but impossible under capitalism. The revolutionary opportunity was squandered by the Communist Party's participation in coalition governments that waged colonial wars and held back strikes. By 1958, the demoralisation of the working class had reached such a point that a handful of paratroop officers could seize Corsica with sixty men, while the Communist Party's response was to vote for the very government that was preparing to hand power to de Gaulle.

The article claims that de Gaulle's Bonapartism differs fundamentally from fascism: it lacks a mass social base and relies on the state apparatus balancing between classes, making it inherently weaker and more unstable. However, the article warns that unless the working class learns the lessons of this defeat, a new Popular Front could prepare the ground for a genuine fascist dictatorship on the German model.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the Marxist theory of Bonapartism as developed by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Grant distinguishes Bonapartism from fascism along clear lines: fascism is a mass movement of the petty bourgeoisie, lumpenproletariat, and backward sections of the working class, mobilised by anti-capitalist demagogy to destroy all independent working-class organisations. Bonapartism, by contrast, is "rule by the sword" from the outset — a police-military dictatorship that raises itself above society as an "arbiter" between classes, lacking a stable social base.

The article draws on Lenin's analysis of the state as "armed bodies of men" and his warnings against parliamentary illusions. It applies the concept of revolutionary situations — that they are historically brief and cannot be prolonged indefinitely — to explain why the failure to seize power in 1944–45 meant the loss of the opportunity for a whole historical period. The analysis of the Communist Party's degeneration follows Trotsky's critique of Stalinism: the CP acted as a strike-breaking force within the government, then as a "loyal opposition," and finally as a parliamentary obstruction that demoralised its own base.

The article also deploys the Marxist method of historical analogy, drawing explicit parallels between France 1958 and Spain 1936, Germany 1933, and France 1848–51. These are not decorative comparisons but structural analyses: the same class forces, the same betrayals, the same mechanisms of counter-revolution.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in real time, completed two days before de Gaulle took office. It captures the precise sequence of events: the Algiers coup of 13 May 1958, the formation of the Committee of Public Safety under General Massu, the Corsican coup of 21 May, and the paralysis of the Pflimlin government. Grant identifies the key actors — Massu, Salan, Soustelle, de Gaulle — and the social forces behind them: the colons (French settlers in Algeria), the officer corps humiliated by defeats in Indochina and Suez, and the big bourgeoisie seeking a "strong state" to discipline the working class.

The economic context is crucial: French capitalism was lagging behind its Western competitors, the Algerian war was bleeding France of 600 million francs per year, and the article anticipates an approaching slump. De Gaulle, Grant argues, assumes power "on the eve of a slump" rather than on the eve of a boom as Hitler and Mussolini did — a structural weakness that will limit his room for manoeuvre.

The article's predictions proved remarkably accurate: de Gaulle did indeed "lean on the left to strike blows at the right," extricating France from Algeria against the wishes of the colons and crushing the OAS conspiracy. The revolutionary explosion of May-June 1968, which Grant anticipates as inevitable, confirmed the analysis that Bonapartism could only hold the workers in check temporarily.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is the third in a sequence of writings on post-war Europe, following the 1944–8 analyses of the revolutionary potential in France and Italy. The argument continues in several directions:

  • The 1968 events: Grant's analysis of the May-June 1968 general strike and student uprising in France directly extends the framework established here. The prediction that the workers would "burst into the open" is vindicated.

  • The theory of Bonapartism: Later writings in the Ted Grant archive and in In Defence of Marxism develop the distinction between Bonapartism and fascism further, applying it to other contexts such as Latin American military regimes and the rise of authoritarian populism.

  • The critique of Stalinism: The article's analysis of the French CP's betrayal is part of a broader corpus on the degeneration of the Communist movement, including the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the role of the Kremlin in shaping CP policy.

  • The Algerian Revolution: The article's insistence on the necessity of a socialist perspective for Algeria — linking the struggle against French imperialism to the struggle for workers' democracy in France — is developed in later writings on national liberation movements.

Connections

  • Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: The theoretical foundation for the analysis of Bonapartism. Grant explicitly frames de Gaulle as a new candidate for the role of Bonaparte.

  • Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany: The analysis of the German Communist Party's errors in 1933 — voting for Hindenburg "to stop Hitler" — is directly applied to the French CP's support for Pflimlin.

  • Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: The theory of Stalinist degeneration that underpins the critique of the French CP's role.

  • Lenin, The State and Revolution: The conception of the state as armed bodies of men, and the necessity of smashing the bourgeois state apparatus.

  • Ted Grant, Western Europe After the War (1944–8): The earlier writings that establish the analysis of the revolutionary opportunity in post-war France.

  • Ted Grant, France in Crisis (1958): The pamphlet from which this article is extracted, published two days before de Gaulle took office.

  • Leon Trotsky, Whither France? (1934–6): Trotsky's analysis of the French Popular Front and the rise of fascism in France, which provides the historical precedent for Grant's warnings about a new Popular Front.

Key Quotes

  1. "The 'liberation' of France lifted the lid of the class struggle. It was achieved partly by the uprising of the Paris masses (August 1944). General de Gaulle's forces, indeed, were rushed frantically to Paris to forestall the possibility of a new Paris Commune."

  2. "The only way to stop de Gaulle is the extra-parliamentary mobilisation of the working class, drawing behind it the plebeian masses. Truly the 'Little Plum' has proved 'worthy' of the support given it by the Socialist and Communist Parties."

  3. "Fascism is a mass movement of the middle class, the lumpenproletariat, the peasants and even backward sections of the working class, financed and organised by capitalism as a desperate last resort in the face of growing crisis and the threat of a possible socialist solution. Bonapartism, as defined by Marx, is rule by the sword. It is from the start, a police-military dictatorship."

  4. "The Bonapartism of Napoleon I and even of Napoleon III had a base in an expanding economy. The Bonapartism of de Gaulle has as little base as that of Petain: in fact it has less, for Petain could at least rely in the last resort on the German army for protection."

  5. "The disgrace of Germany where Hitler took power without firing a shot has been repeated, and this in a country where the CP in number, organisation and support, was stronger than were the Bolsheviks in 1917 before the revolution."

  6. "The advanced worker-militants must learn from the rich history of the French and international working-class movement. If the lesson is not assimilated in time, a new popular front bringing with it fresh defeat and disillusionment could prepare the way for a real fascist dictatorship on the lines of Hitler's monstrous regime."