Whither France?¶
Core Argument¶
Whither France?
Trotsky’s analysis of the French events of 6 February 1934 diagnoses a general crisis of bourgeois democracy across Europe. Parliaments, he argues, can no longer reconcile class contradictions; the bourgeoisie, unable to govern democratically, turns to fascist armed bands to smash the working class. In France, this transition is in its first stage: the Doumergue government represents senile Bonapartism, a bureaucratic-military dictatorship balancing above parliament and resting on the police, army, and fascist bands. This regime finds political support in the Radical Socialist Party, whose petty-bourgeois base is fragmenting because capitalism can no longer grant even petty reforms. The key question is whether the petty bourgeoisie will turn to revolutionary socialism or fascism.
The lower petty bourgeoisie is in revolt against its own upper layers, driven by hatred of crisis-shattered intellectual youth for lawyers, deputies and parvenu ministers. This does not make a petty-bourgeois turn to fascism inevitable; what is inevitable is the doom of Radicalism. Under capitalist decline, no party of democratic reform can survive. The Radical Party will be rejected by the petty bourgeoisie it betrayed, but the basic masses of city and country still hesitate. They will reject fascism only if they see another road: proletarian revolution. The petty bourgeoisie does not fear extreme measures; it fears that working-class parties are merely parliamentary machines lacking strength and readiness to fight. To win it, the proletariat must have confidence in its own strength, a clear programme, and readiness to struggle for power. An alliance with the Radicals would be an alliance against the middle class, pushing the petty bourgeoisie into fascism.
Trotsky polemicises fiercely against the French Stalinists, who now argue that the workers’ militia failed the German proletariat, having previously denied any defeat and endorsed Stalinist policy. The claim that a militia provokes adventures or replaces political struggle is political cowardice. A strong vanguard militia is the best defence against adventurism and individual terrorism, and minimises the civil war fascism imposes. L’Humanité’s argument that replying to fascist revolver shots with revolver shots ignores that fascism is a product of capitalism is fatalist prostration, not Marxism. The paper’s “mass self-defence” groups, which must renounce arms to avoid putschism, are fraudulent; they leave workers defenceless.
A workers’ militia must be built openly, with political campaigning in meetings, factories, and streets. Cadres should be factory workers grouped by workplace. Arms can be obtained by systematically disarming fascists. The strike picket is the embryo of the militia. The slogan is “Arm the proletariat and the revolutionary peasants.” The revolutionary method does not guarantee victory; correct Marxist orientation, organisation, mass confidence, and bold leadership are decisive. Following Clausewitz, civil war is politics by other means, its outcome depending three-quarters or nine-tenths on political preparation: revolutionary cohesion, liberation from illusions about bourgeois democracy, and implacable cadres. What was defeated in Austria was Austro-Marxism, not insurrection; in Spain, parliamentary reformism. Both waited for bourgeois ‘loyalty’ and led the proletariat to catastrophe. The Communist International’s ‘third period’ and ‘social fascism’ theory compounded the defeats. The united front of Socialist and Communist parties must openly aim for a workers’ government and conquest of power, using all means including parliament to unmask it. The masses are to the left of their parties; the crisis is one of power: if the proletariat does not take it, fascism will.