French Socialism on the Eve of Revolution¶
Core Argument¶
French Socialism on the Eve of Revolution
This chapter dissects the paradoxical condition of French socialism on the eve of revolution, where rising revolutionary strikes coincided with a parliamentary election victory for Clemenceau’s imperialist reaction. This apparent contradiction, far from refuting Marxist theory, confirms it: parliamentarianism stands exposed as an obsolete instrument of bourgeois rule, and the proletariat’s victory will come through open class dictatorship, not bourgeois democracy. The French labour movement remains paralysed by the conciliationism and chauvinism that corroded the Socialist Party and trade unions during the World War. Powerful mass movements are likely to erupt before new revolutionary organisations can lead them, making the urgent task the creation of independent revolutionary points of support, unbound by old party or union discipline.
The revolutionary leadership must break completely with counter-revolutionary figures such as Renaudel, Longuet, Jouhaux and Merrheim. The slogan of preserving unity serves only the old apparatus functionaries; the working class needs unity of revolutionary struggle, not unity of outlived organisations. Traitors must be boycotted and replaced by revolutionists. The claim that “the masses have not matured” is a renunciation of socialism—the masses will reach maturity during revolution, not before it. The conciliators’ assertion that workers join unions only for immediate material gains is false; the World War itself, not petty issues, drove the mass influx into unions and Soviets, as every proletarian felt his helplessness against the imperialist machine. Reformists like Merrheim and Longuet, having lost faith in the masses, seek support from ‘enlightened’ bourgeois figures, their political bankruptcy exposed by their reverence for Woodrow Wilson, whom they believed could march with the European working class while ignoring Wall Street’s machinations. At the Lyons Conference, Merrheim attacked a syndicalist for disrespecting Wilson, proclaiming no one had the right to insult him—such grovelling is base flunkyism.
The French parliamentary elections will sharpen the line, eliminating intermediate political groupings. The bourgeoisie hands power to the financial oligarchy, which uses parliament to mobilise exploiters; parliament becomes the counter-revolution’s general staff, while the revolution creates its own extra-parliamentary one. Only two groupings will remain: Clemenceau’s followers and the revolutionary Communists. Kautsky’s hopes in French and English humanitarian democracy are misplaced; in reality, monstrous reaction meets the arising proletariat. Victory will be with the working class, and proletarian dictatorship will sweep away bourgeois democracy for communism.