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Ideology and Tactics of the French Socialist Party

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Nancy I. Lieber
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Extract

WESTERN EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS HAVE LONG BEEN PLAGUED BY THE existence of factions and cleavages within their party ranks. But it is quite consciously that Socialists defend internal party democracy as the best guardian against the abuses of arbitrary decision-making and bureaucratic fossilization. This aspect of party life continues to divide the Left movement into Socialist and Communist camps. The Socialists, however, believe that the means employed very much determine the nature of the end; that ‘if you have a revolution by a Bolshevik Party, you will end up with a Bolshevik society’. A Socialist Party therefore is not expected to bc homogeneous, but pluralistic - like the future Socialist society it seeks.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1977 , pp. 455 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1977

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References

1 These basic arguments are essentially those put forth by Léon Blum at the 1920 Tours Congress.

2 Martinet originally was identified with the CERES. The two groups combined their journals. Les Cahiers du CERES and Socialisme Aujourd’hui, into one, Frontière, beginning in December 1972. Martinet then fell out with the CERES leaders in 1974, finalized when the CERES put out a pirate issue of Frontière just before the 1975 Pau Congress. The ensuing legal battle was finally resolved with Martinet henceforth putting out Faire and the CERES Repères.

3 See, for example, Bourdet, Yves., Pour l’Autogestion, Anthropos, Paris, 1974 Google Scholar.

4 ‘Quinze Thèses sur I’Autogestion’, Pamphlet supplement to Le Poing et la Rose, No. 45, 15 November, 1975.

5 For that interpretation, see Avineri, Schlomo., Karl Marx: Social and Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1971 Google Scholar, and Harrington, Michael., Socialism, Saturday Review Press, New York, 1972 Google Scholar.

6 Charzat, Michel, and Toutaine, Ghislaine., Le CERES: Un Combat pour le Socialisme, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1975 Google Scholar, in particular Section II, Chapter Ill.

7 Found in du Socialisme, Assises, Pour le Socialisme, Stock, Paris, 1974 Google Scholar.

8 Meyer, Alain., ‘Réflexions sur l’Originalité du Parti Socialiste Français’. Nouvelle Revue Socialiste, No. 12/13, 1975, p. 21 Google Scholar.

9 The CIR and CERES think it more important to strengthen PS influence within the CGT; the Assises wing, within the CFDT. As of 1974, 33% of all members belonged to the CGT, 27% to the CFDT, 14% to the FO. Bizot, Jean-François, Au Parti des Socialistes, Grasset, Paris, 1975, p. 285 Google Scholar.

10 The text of the re-written section can be found in Autogestion et Socialisme, No. 30–31, March-June 1975, pp. 109–114.

11 See ‘Les Relations PS-PC’, supplement to Le Poing et la Rose, No. 40, April 1975, a report which was prepared for the Convention Nationale of May 1975 dealing with that same topic. See also ‘Rapport sur le XXIIième Congrès du PCF, l’Evolution du Mouvement Communiste International et les Relations PS-PC’, by Lionel Jospin and approved by the Bureau exécutif on 21 January 1976. Mimeographed.

12 The PCF lost votes in four of the six constituencies; the UGSD (Socialists plus Left Radicals) gained in all six.

13 The PCF accused the PS of returning to social-democratic principles, of scuttling the Common Programme, of having ambitions of joining in a national unity government with Giscard’s majority, even of desiring to be the number one party of the Left.

14 Chevènement, cited in Bizot, op. cit., p. 194.

15 Editions Sociales, Paris, 1975.

16 Ibid., p. 117.

17 Ibid., p. 41.

18 See Jean-Pierre Cot’s response, ‘I’Union est un Combat’, Faire, October 1975, pp. 35–37.

19 Banned by the SFIO, the post-1971 creation of sections d’entreprises is part of a renewed effort to compete more effectively with the PCF for working-class votes and influence. Under the direction of CERES leader Georges Sarre, the number of sections and groupes d’entreprises rose from none in 1971 to around 800 in 1975. Charzat and Toutain, op. cit., p. 137.

20 In revealing language, the CERES refers to itself as ‘I’aile avancée du Parti’, ibid., p. 56.

21 This is very much Mitterrand’s view.

22 Mitterrand, in a speech before the Commission des Résolutions, Le Monde, 4 February 1975.

23 Georges Fillioud, ibid..

24 For details of the meeting, see the anonymous editorial (undoubtedly Martinet) in Frontière, January-February 1975, pp. 7–10.

25 Bizot, op. cit., p. 81.

26 Nouvel Observateur, 15 March 1976, p. 33.

27 For instance, it called off its own ‘mini-convention’ on municipal strategy, scheduled to preceed the official PS convention in May 1976.

28 From private conversation, February 1976.

29 Nouvel Observateur, 2 July 1973, p. 18.