Revolutionary Interlude in France¶
Core Argument¶
Here, Trotsky delivers a polemical dissection of the Popular Front government in France, led by Léon Blum, in the immediate aftermath of the June 1936 strikes. His core argument is a stark refutation of the reformist narrative. While the socialist and communist press hailed the Matignon Agreements as the beginning of a peaceful social transformation, Trotsky insists that the conservative press of London and Paris had a far more realistic grasp of events: a revolution had begun, and its next stage would be violent.
The chapter’s key claim is that the concessions wrung from capital in June—the forty-hour week, paid vacations, collective bargaining—are not viable within the framework of declining French capitalism. Trotsky argues that the productive forces of France have outgrown the bounds of private property and the nation-state. The ‘200 families’ who control the levers of finance, industry, and commerce will not absorb the costs of reform. Instead, they will shift the burden onto the middle classes—small manufacturers, tradesmen, and peasants—by raising prices. This, in turn, will drive the petty bourgeoisie, disillusioned with the Popular Front, to seek salvation on the right, providing the mass base for a French fascism.
Trotsky draws heavily on the historical pattern of revolutionary dualism. He compares the current situation to two precedents: the June Days of 1848 in France, where a semi-victory of the workers led to a catastrophic rout and the end of the revolution; and the July Days of 1917 in Russia, where the defeat of the Petrograd workers proved to be a severe lesson that accelerated the rise of the Bolsheviks and prepared the ground for victory. The French proletariat, he argues, faces this same fork in the road.
The polemic is directed squarely at the leaders of the Popular Front—Blum and the official Communist and Socialist parties. Trotsky accuses them of being pedants who fix their eyes on the past, projecting the conditions of rising capitalism onto a declining one. They are incapable of the ‘heroic decisions’ and ‘complete overturn in property relations’ required to save the petty bourgeoisie. By warning the workers against further factory occupations and seeking to appease the Bourse, the government is preparing to betray the movement in the coming conflict. The task of the Marxist revolutionary is not to provoke the struggle artificially, but to prepare the advanced workers for a conflict that will arise with “mechanical inevitability” from the semi-fictitious character of the June victory.