Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:59:35.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Invention of Neo-Socialism: The Dynamics of Schism and Doctrinal Distinction in the French Socialist Party

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2019

Mathieu Hikaru Desan
Mathieu Hikaru Desan*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What is the relationship between schism and political identity? Existing scholarship has tended to focus on the determinants of schism while treating the ideational basis on which schisms are made as largely fixed. In this paper, I develop a new interpretation of the 1933 “neo-socialist schism” within the French Socialist Party to highlight how new political identities can be constituted in and through the process of schism itself. The 1933 schism is often understood as the convergence of a doctrinal revision called “neo-socialism” and a separate tactical challenge to the party's parliamentary practice. But a careful reading of the factional conflict within the party reveals that it was the preceding tactical debate over ministerial participation that was transformed over time into a debate over socialist doctrine. This distinction between “tactics” and “doctrine” performatively defined the limits of acceptable party discourse, and as such was both a weapon and a stake in the factional conflict. I trace the evolution of this conflict and show that, so long as the minority faction was weak, the issue of participation was widely considered “tactical” and thus safe for discussion. But when minority strength grew, the majority sought to redefine the conflict as doctrinal to delegitimate the challengers. Finally, only when a schism appeared inevitable did the challengers themselves adopt the label of “neo-socialism.” Neo-socialism was thus not a pre-constituted political heresy driving the schismatic process, but the contingent and emergent outcome of this very process.

Keywords

schismsocialismneo-socialismpolitical identityFrancepolitical partiesfactionalismfascism
Type
Democratic Socialism and Neo-Socialism: Santiago, Paris, Chicago
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 680 - 711
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abellio, Raymond. 1975. Ma dernière mémoire, T.2. Les militants, 1927–1939. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Aminzade, Ronald. 1992. Historical Sociology and Time. Sociological Methods & Research 20, 4: 456–80.10.1177/0049124192020004003Google Scholar
Ansell, Christopher K. 2001. Schism and Solidarity in Social Movements: The Politics of Labor in the French Third Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511499357Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Donald N. 1971. The Politics of Socialist Protest in France: The Left Wing of the Socialist Party, 1921–39. Journal of Modern History 43, 1: 2–41.10.1086/240584Google Scholar
Balinski, M. L. and Young, H. P.. 1978. Stability, Coalitions and Schisms in Proportional Representation Systems. American Political Science Review 72, 3: 848–58.10.2307/1955106Google Scholar
Balser, Deborah B. 1997. The Impact of Environmental Factors on Factionalism and Schism in Social Movement Organization. Social Forces 76, 1: 199–228.10.1093/sf/76.1.199Google Scholar
Bergounioux, Alain. 1978. Le néo-socialisme: Marcel Déat: réformisme traditionnel ou esprit des années trente. Revue historique CCLX: 389–412.Google Scholar
Bergounioux, Alain. 1984. La naissance et les premiers développements de la crise néo-socialiste. Cahiers Léon Blum 15–16: 5–15.Google Scholar
Bergounioux, Alain and Grunberg, Gérard. 2005. L'ambition et le remords: Les socialistes français et le pouvoir (1905–2005). Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Berstein, Serge. 2006. Léon Blum. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Biard, Jean-François. 1985. Le socialisme devant ses choix: la naissance de l'idée de plan. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.Google Scholar
Birnbaum, Paul. 2015. Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Boivin, Pierre, Lefranc, G., and Deixonne, M.. 1932. Révolution constructive. Paris: Librairie Valois.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Theory 7, 1: 14–25.10.2307/202060Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bruce, Steve. 1990. A House Divided: Protestantism, Schism and Secularization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bryant, Joseph M. 1993. The Sect-Church Dynamic and Christian Expansion in the Roman Empire: Persecution, Penitential Discipline, and Schism in Sociological Perspective. British Journal of Sociology 44, 2: 303–39.10.2307/591221Google Scholar
Burrin, Philippe. 2003. La dérive fasciste: Doriot, Déat, Bergery 1933–1945. Nouvelle édition. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.10.14375/NP.9782020093576Google Scholar
Colton, Joel. 1966. Léon Blum: Humanist in Politics. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Déat, Marcel. 1930. Perspectives socialistes. Paris: Librairie Valois.Google Scholar
Déat, Marcel. 1989. Mémoires politiques. Paris: Denoël.Google Scholar
Defrance, Jacques. 1989. Un schisme sportif: clivages structurels, scissions et oppositions dans le sport athlétique, 1960–1980. Actes de la recherche en scienecs sociales 79: 76–96.10.3406/arss.1989.2908Google Scholar
Desan, Mathieu Hikaru and Heilbron, Johan. 2015. Young Durkheimians and the Temptation of Fascism: The Case of Marcel Déat. History of the Human Sciences 28, 3: 22–50.10.1177/0952695115583193Google Scholar
Dobry, Michel. 2003. La thèse immunitaire face aux fascisms: Pour une critique de la logique classificatoire. In Dobry, Michel, ed., Le mythe de l'allergie française au fascisme. Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dyck, Bruno and Starke, Frederick A.. 1999. The Formation of Breakaway Organizations: Observations and a Process Model. Administrative Science Quarterly 44, 4: 792–822.10.2307/2667056Google Scholar
Emirbayer, Mustafa. 1997. Manifesto for a Relational Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 103, 2: 281–317.10.1086/231209Google Scholar
Ermakoff, Ivan. 2008. Ruling Oneself Out: A Theory of Collective Abdications. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1215/9780822388722Google Scholar
Gamson, William. 1975. The Strategy of Social Protest. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack A. 1998. Initial Conditions, General Laws, Path Dependence, and Explanation in Historical Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 104, 3: 829–45.10.1086/210088Google Scholar
Graham, B. D. 1994. Choice and Democratic Order: The French Socialist Party, 1937–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511521836Google Scholar
Grossman, Stanley. 1975. L’évolution de Marcel Déat. Revue d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale 97: 3–29.Google Scholar
Grossman, Stanley. 1985. Marcel Déat: From Socialism to Fascism. Indiana Social Studies Quarterly 38, 3: 45–52.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses Do Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hohl, Thierry. 2004. À Gauche! La Gauche socialiste, 1921–1947. Dijon: Éditions universitaires de Dijon.Google Scholar
Jansen, Robert S. 2016. Situated Political Innovation: Explaining the Historical Emergence of New Modes of Political Practice. Theory and Society 45, 4: 319–60.10.1007/s11186-016-9272-0Google Scholar
Judt, Tony. 1976. La reconstruction du Parti Socialiste, 1921–1926. Paris: Presses de la Fondation National des Sciences Politiques.Google Scholar
Judt, Tony. 1986. Marxism and the French Left: Studies in Labour and Politics in France, 1830–1981. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kestel, Laurent. 2012. La conversion politique: Doriot, le PPF et la question du fascisme français. Paris: Raisons d'Agir.Google Scholar
Lebas, Jean. 1931. Le Socialisme: But et moyen. Suivi de la réfutation d'un néo-socialisme. Lille: Imprimerie Ouvrière.Google Scholar
Lefranc, Georges. 1963. Le mouvement socialiste sous la Troisième République (1875–1940). Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Lefranc, Georges. 1980. Marcel Déat: A travers quelques-uns de ses inédits. L'Information Historique 42, 4: 157–61.Google Scholar
Lefranc, Georges. 1982. Une scission malencontreuse: la scission ‘néo-socialiste’ de 1933. In Visages du mouvement ouvrier français. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 117–39.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Liebman, Robert C., Sutton, John R., and Wuthnow, Robert. 1988. Exploring the Social Sources of Denominationalism: Schisms in American Protestant Denominations, 1890–1980. American Sociological Review 53, 3: 343–52.10.2307/2095643Google Scholar
Ligou, Daniel. 1962. Histoire du socialisme en France (1871–1961). Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2000. Path Dependence in Historical Sociology. Theory and Society 29, 4: 507–48.10.1023/A:1007113830879Google Scholar
Markoff, John. 1985. The Social Geography of Rural Revolt at the Beginning of the French Revolution. American Sociological Review 50: 761–81.10.2307/2095503Google Scholar
Markoff, John. 1988. Allies and Opponents: The Nobility and the Third Estate in the Spring of 1789: American Sociological Review 53: 477–96.10.2307/2095844Google Scholar
Markoff, John. 1997. Peasants Help Destroy an Old Regime and Defy a New One: Some Lessons from (and for) the Study of Social Movements. American Journal of Sociology 102: 1113–42.10.1086/231041Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511805431Google Scholar
Moch, Jules. 1927. Socialisme et rationalisation. Brussels: L'Églantine.Google Scholar
Montagnon, Barthélémy. 1929. Grandeur et servitude socialiste. Paris: Librairie Valois.Google Scholar
Montagnon, Barthélémy, Marquet, Adrien, and Déat., Marcel 1933. Néo-socialisme? Ordre—autorité—nation. Paris: Bernard Grasset.Google Scholar
Morin, Gilles. 1994. La Vie socialiste avant le néo-socialisme, 1926–1928, Cahier & Revue de l'Ours 250: 29–41.Google Scholar
Nadaud, Eric. 1989. Une tendance de la S.F.I.O.: la Bataille socialiste (1921–1933). Bulletin du Centre d'histoire de la France contemporaine 10: 102–15.Google Scholar
Niebuhr, H. Richard. 1929. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Nyomarkay, Joseph. 1967. Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Office universitaire de recherche socialiste. 1975. Histoire du Parti socialiste S.F.I.O. Huitième partie (1932–1933: Conflit avec le groupe parlementaire). Cahier & Revue de l'OURS 58: 5–67.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1905. Le et 2e Congrès nationaux, tenus à Paris en avril 1905 et à Chalon-sur-Saône en octobre 1905: compte rendu analytique. Paris: Conseil national du Parti socialiste S.F.I.O.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1928. XXVe Congrès national 26–27–28–29–30 mai 1928 Toulouse. Rapports. Paris: Librairie Populaire.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1929. XXVIe Congrès national 9–12 juin 1929 Nancy. Rapports. Paris: Librairie Populaire.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1930. XXVIIe Congrès national 8–9–10–11 juin 1930 Bordeaux. Rapports. Paris: Librairie Populaire.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1931. XXVIIIe Congrès national tenu à Tours les 24, 25, 26 et 26 mai 1931. Compte rendu sténographique. Paris: Librairie Populaire.Google Scholar
Parti socialiste SFIO. 1933. XXXe Congrès national tenu à Paris les 14, 15, 16 et 17 juillet 1933. Compte rendu sténographique. Paris: Librairie Populaire.Google Scholar
Philip, André. 1928. Henri de Man et la crise doctrinale du socialisme. Paris: Librairie universitaire J. Gamber.Google Scholar
Pondy, Louis R. 1967. Organizational Conflict: Concepts and Models. Administrative Science Quarterly 12, 2: 296–320.10.2307/2391553Google Scholar
Sani, Fabio and Reicher, Stephen. 1998. When Consensus Fails: An Analysis of the Schism within the Italian Communist Party (1991). European Journal of Social Psychology 28: 623–45.10.1002/(SICI)1099-0992(199807/08)28:4<623::AID-EJSP885>3.0.CO;2-G3.0.CO;2-G>Google Scholar
Sapiro, Gisèle. 2004. Défense et illustration de l'honnête homme. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 153, 3: 11–27.10.3917/arss.153.0011Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1998. Course in General Linguistics. New York: Open Court.Google Scholar
Schorske, Carl. 1955. German Social Democracy 1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. 2005. Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226749198.001.0001Google Scholar
Shapiro, Gilbert and Markoff, John. 1998. Revolutionary Demands: A Content Analysis of the Cahiers de Doléances of 1789. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Slez, Adam and Martin, John Levi. 2007. Political Action and Party Formation in the United States Constitutional Convention. American Sociological Review 72: 42–67.10.1177/000312240707200103Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R. 1992. Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation. Social Science History 16, 4: 591–630.10.1017/S0145553200016679Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney and Bainbridge, William. 1996. A Theory of Religion. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Sternhell, Zeev. 2000. Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sutton, John R. and Chaves, Mark. 2004. Explaining Schism in American Protestant Denominations, 1890–1990. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43, 2: 171–90.10.1111/j.1468-5906.2004.00226.xGoogle Scholar
Tavory, Iddo and Timmermans, Stefan. 2014. Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226180458.001.0001Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1964. The Vendée. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Mark. 1980. Determinants of Political Orientation: Class and Organization in the Parisian Insurrection of June 1848. American Journal of Sociology 86: 32–49.10.1086/227201Google Scholar
Traugott, Mark. 1985. Armies of the Poor: Determinants of Working-Class Participation in the Parisian Insurrection of June 1848. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew. 2006. Ambiguity and Choice in Political Movements: The Origins of Beijing Red Guard Factionalism. American Journal of Sociology 112, 3: 710–50.10.1086/507854Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew. 2009a. Political Sociology and Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology 35: 393–412.10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-120035Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew. 2009b. Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wallis, Roy. 1979. Salvation and Protest: Studies of Social and Religious Movements. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
White, Dan S. 1992. Lost Comrades: Socialists of the Front Generation 1918–1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674418813Google Scholar
Zald, Mayer and Ash, Roberta. 1966. Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay and Change. Social Forces 44, 3: 327–41.10.1093/sf/44.3.327Google Scholar