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A Study of Election Tactics in 1928
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Since the 1930's the French Communist party has faithfully endorsed the policy decisions of the Soviet Union, oftentimes despite disagreement with major Soviet pronouncements. In the 1920's, however, the French Communist leadership was divided over the appropriateness of Soviet instructions on matters that appeared to many French Communists clearly within the exclusive domain of the French party. The intrusion of the Comintern, the Soviet-dominated international Communist organization, into the pre-campaign discussion of the tactics for the 1928 elections to the French national assembly forced French Communists to re-examine their goals, their position in French politics, and their relationship with the Soviet Union. The decisions of the French party leaders, made amid what was perhaps the last animated and freewheeling public party debate, determined the party's relationship with the USSR for a full forty years.
page 19 note 1 The French Communist party's criticism of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland was a rare example of infidelity. See The New York Times, August 22, 1968.
page 19 note 2 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Jules Humbert-Droz, pp. 233–234. The Sixth Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow, July 17 to September 1, 1928. Classe contre classe, la question française au IXe exécutif et au VIe congrès de 1'Internationale Com-muniste (Paris, 1929) reproduces the discussion by the Latin Secretariat during the Sixth Comintern congress and the resolution of the Comintern executive committee on the policies of the French Communist partv.
From 1921–1931 Jules Humbert-Droz directed the Comintern's Latin Secretariat (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Latin America). After the elimination of Grigori Zinoviev from the presidency of the Comintern, Nikolai Bukharin served as Comintern president. Humbert-Droz was Bukharin's confidant, collaborator, and political ally and supported his opposition to Stalin; as a result, Humbert-Droz was ousted from the executive committee and secretariat of the Comintern in 1931.
page 20 note 1 The opportunist epithet was applied whenever Comintern or party leaders wanted to stress the revolutionary and proletarian character of the Communist parties. It is oftentimes difficult to determine which of Humbert-Droz's opinions were his own and which were the expression of Comintern policy. In September 1928 Bukharin, who had publicly endorsed the “class against class” tactic, privately wrote Humbert-Droz that he disagreed with it, and it is possible that Humbert-Droz shared his viewpoint. On many other matters, particularly internal Russian economic and political policies, Bukharin and Humbert-Droz were in complete agreement. See Daniels, Robert V., The Conscience of the Revolution, Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 334–337Google Scholar; Thornton, Richard C., “The Emergence of a New Comintern Strategy for China: 1928”, in: Drachkovitch, Milorad M. and Lazitch, Branko, The Comintern: Historical Highlights, Essays, Recollections, Documents (New York, 1966), pp. 87–88Google Scholar; Jules, Humbert-Droz, L'Oeil de Moscou à Paris (Paris, 1964), pp. 256–257.Google Scholar
page 20 note 2 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Jules Hum-bert Droz, p. 233. Although Treint was ousted from the party's political bureau at the Lille congress, there were still many comrades who shared his enthusiasm for cooperation with the Socialists; after all, prior to the Comintern declaration that the period of “capitalist stabilization” had come to an end, Communist party organizations had been encouraged to cooperate with other parties of the left. Treint remained a member of the French party's central committee and of the Comintern executive committee until 1927; the following year he was expelled from the party.
page 20 note 3 Classe contre classe, Latin St etariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Jules Humbert-Droz, p. 234.
page 21 note 1 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Jules Humbert-Droz, p. 234; Jules, Humbert-Droz, “The French Elections and the Policy of the Communist Party”, in: The Communist International (official organ of the Comintern executive committee), V, No 12 (06 15, 1928), pp. 274–279.Google Scholar
On the eve of the party congress at Clichy (January 17–21, 1926), the Comintern executive committee had written to the French party: “It is true that the Party should try to form a powerful united front against Fascism, composed of all the workers, peasants and available groups in the middle class. But no political bloc should be formed with these petty bourgeois elements based on a programme of opposition to Fascism. It is essential in this big anti-Fascist movement to stress the predominant role of the proletariat and the role of the Communist Party as guide, the Party should become the centre of the class struggle against Fascism and not merely a section of the extreme left of an anti-Fascist opposition composed of bourgeois elements.” Just before the Lille congress, the Comintern again suggested that: “Our Party, especially in the provinces, must be more active and itself take the initiative and give its demonstrations and propositions the character of a proletarian united front by endeavouring to attract the economic organisations to form a united front.“ See Humbert-Droz, , “The French Elections and the Policy of the Communist Party,” p. 276.Google Scholar
pcongre 00 note 2 Jules, Humbert-Droz, L'Oeil de Moscou àa Paris, p. 241Google Scholar; Jules Humbert-Droz to Palmiro Togliatti, February 26, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers). L'Oeil de Moscou à Paris reproduces the most important documents from the Humbert-Droz papers concerning the French Communist party. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford, California possesses a microfilm copy of the Humbert-Droz papers.
Humbert-Droz had certainly not overstepped the bounds of his authority as a Comintern representative by criticizing the French party leadership. According to Comintern statutes, “The Executive Committee and its Presidium have the right to send their representatives into the various sections of the International. These representatives have the right to attend all the meetings and sessions of the central and local organizations of the sections to which they are sent. They can take actions against the Central Committee of the party to which they are sent.” See Alfred Grosser, “Liens à travers les frontiéres”, in: Les Internationales des partis politiques (Paris, n.d.), p. 8. Branko Lazitch has noted, however, that “… during the Bukharin period of Comintern leadership, the practice of assigning an emissary to the French Communist Party was abandoned… [since] Humbert -Droz had firmly in his hands the reins of direct control over the French Communist Party, with which he had numerous contacts.” Branko Lazitch, “Two Instruments of Control by the Comintern: the Emissaries of the E.C.C.I, and the Party Representatives in Moscow”, in: Drachkovitch and Lazitch, The Comintern: Historical Highlights, Essays, Recollections, Documents, p. 51.
page 22 note 1 Humbert-Droz credited Albert Treint with masterminding the letter from the French party's political bureau which demanded his replacement as director of the Latin Secretariat. See Humbert-Droz to Togliatti, March 5, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 22 note 2 Humbert-Droz to Togliatti, February 26, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 22 note 3 Humbert-Droz to Togliatti, February 26, 1927, March 5, 1927, April 8, 1927; Jules Humbert-Droz to Jean Cremet, April 10, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 22 note 4 Humbert Droz to Togliatti, April 8, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers). Also see [Amicale des anciens membres du parti communiste français.] Histoire du parti communiste français (Paris, [1960]) (three volumes), I, pp. 134–135.
page 22 note 5 Humbert-Droz to Crémet, April 10, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 23 note 1 Ibid.
page 23 note 2 Ibid.
page 23 note 3 Quoted in Fauvet, Jacques, Histoire du parti communiste français (Paris, 1964–1965), I, p. 76.Google Scholar
page 23 note 4 Journal officiel de la République française, annates de la Chambre des Députés; Débats parlementaires, CXXXII (1927), 05 27, 1927, p. 260.Google Scholar
page 23 note 5 Journal officiel de la République française, annates de la Chambre des Députés; Documents, CX (1927), Part 1, Annexe No 4279, p. 546; Annexe No 4323, p. 616; Annexe No 4375, p. 686; Annexe No 4380, p. 689. Also see Fauvet, Histoire du parti communiste français, I, p. 76.
page 24 note 1 Fauvet, , Histoire du parti communiste français, I, p. 76; Histoire du parti communiste français: manuel (Paris, 1964), p. 200.Google Scholar This is an official history compiled by the Commission d'histoire auprès du comité central du parti communiste français.
page 24 note 2 See Togliatti to Humbert-Droz, June 29, 1927 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 24 note 3 The election law of 1919 had been a system of liste majoritaire which meant voting for a départemental slate of party candidates (some départements were divided into two or more election districts) elected by a simple plurality; in 1919 and 1924 it had brought two well-defined blocs to power: the conservative bloc national and the liberal or leftist cartel des gauches. Because the Radical-Socialist and Socialist parties disagreed on financial and monetary policies and because the Socialists refused to accept cabinet posts in the government, fissures were opened within the cartel. It soon became obvious that the joint election lists used in 1924 would be an impossibility for the elections of 1928; this automatically increased the chances of victory for the Communist and conservative parties. Since Radical Socialists and Socialists still desired to barter, a two-ballot system was devised to replace the party lists: candidates would be elected on the arrondissement rather than on the départemental level. To win election a candidate had to receive an absolute majority on the first ballot. If no candidate succeeded in obtaining the required number of votes, a second ballot was cast the following Sunday; a simple plurality sufficed to decide the winner of this contest. Thus, between the first and second ballots, Socialists could withdraw in favor of Radical-Socialists and vice versa in the hope that their combined voter strength would be large enough to defeat either the Communist or the conservative candidate. See François Goguel and Alfred Grosser, La Politique en France (Paris, 1964), pp. 81–82Google Scholar; Joel, Colton, Léon Blum, humanist in politics (New York, 1966), p. 491Google Scholar; Peter, Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789 (London, 1958), pp. 90–99.Google Scholar
page 25 note 1 Quoted in Gérard, Walter, Histoire du parti communiste français (Paris, 1948), p. 185.Google Scholar
page 25 note 2 Ibid.
page 25 note 3 Henri Barbé, Souvenirs de militant et de dirigeant communiste (manuscript, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford, California), p. 127. In 1926 Barbé was appointed secretary-general of the Communist Youth of France; in 1928 he was sent to Moscow as a delegate of the French party and of the youth organization. From 1928–1930, he served as secretary of the French Communist party's central committee and of the Comintern's executive committee. Barbé was ousted from the party in 1934.
Barbé, who was imprisoned in Santé prison from August 1927 to February 1928, reported that in Fall 1927 there were between seventy and eighty Communist leaders arrested. Nevertheless, the political life of the party continued. The prisoners were housed in a large, comfortable common cell and could receive visitors, newspapers, books, and documentation; they were even permitted to write newspaper articles under pseudonyms. Barbé noted that it was relatively easy to hold a meeting of all départemental and regional delegates during visitors' hours. The political bureau which operated from Santé prison was composed of Pİerre Sémard, Benoît Frachon, Gaston Monmousseau, Jacques Doriot, Marcel Cachin, André Marty, Paul Vaillant-Couturier, François Chasseigne, Alfred Bernard, and Henri Barbé. See Barbé, , Souvenirs, pp. 121–122, 125.Google Scholar
page 25 note 4 Humbert-Droz, L'Oeil de Moscou à Paris, p. 235.Google Scholar In a letter to historian Daniel R. Brower Humbert-Droz revealed that he had come up with the “class against class” slogan. Brower, Daniel R., The New Jacobins, the French Communist Party and the Popular Front (Ithaca, New York, 1968), p. 14.Google Scholar
page 25 note 5 In 1925 Comintern economist Eugen Varga defined capitalist stabilization as a period when “…no ‘acute revolutionary situation’ prevailed, e.g., that promising struggles for the conquest of power were not at hand” (Eugen, Varga, “Ways and Obstacles to the World Revolution”, in: The Communist International, No 18–19 (1925), pp. 77–96).Google Scholar The same year Comintern president Grigori Zinoviev emphasized that “… this stabilisation is partial, that it is relative, that it would be the greatest mistake to exaggerate it, and that it is temporary and may even be of short duration” (Grigori, Zinoviev, “Eight Years of Revolution”, in: The Communist International, No 18–19 (1925), pp. 6–7).Google Scholar In 1927 Stalin hinted that the period of capitalist stabilization might be giving way to one of capitalist disintegration, an analysis endorsed by the Sixth Comintern congress in 1928; Comintern spokesmen pointed to the growth of the USSR, the colonial national liberation movement, and the “leftward trend” of the working class as the out-ward signs of the crisis in world capitalism (“The Sixth Congress of the Com-intern”, in: The Communist International, V, No 5 (08 1, 1928), pp. 346–348Google Scholar, and “The Comintern's Militant Task”, in: The Communist International, V, No 2 (01 15, 1928), pp. 26–31).Google Scholar
On the other hand, the theoretical basis for the “class against class” tactic might have only concealed political objectives; in 1924 Varga had to ask Zinoviev whether he should report on capitalist stabilization or capitalist disintegration (Drachkovitch, Milorad M. and Lazitch, Branko, “The Communist International”, in: Drachkovitch, Milorad M., ed., The Revolutionary Internationals, 1864–1943 (Stanford, 1966), pp. 159–202).Google Scholar Since Stalin had defeated Trotsky in the internal Soviet power struggle, he might have decided to embarrass Bukharin, another potential rival, by adopting a political tactic with which Bukharin disagreed. Then too, the period of capitalist disintegration had important political implications for the Soviet Union. In May 1927 the Comintern had concluded that “the danger of war against the Soviet Union is becoming the most pressing question of the international labor movement” (Annie Kriegel, Les Internationales ouvrieres (1864–1943) (Paris, 1964), p. 93).Google Scholar Again, in August 1927 the Com-intern noted that “the danger of a counter-revolutionary war directed against the Soviet Union constitutes the gravest problem of the present situation.” (“The Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”, in: The Communist International, IV, No 14 (08 30, 1927), pp. 262–266).Google Scholar Moreover, rigid application of the “class against class” tactic would be one more step in the bolshevization of the French Communist party; it would further alienate comrades with social-democratic sympathies and at the same time strengthen Comintern loyalists. Since 1924 bolshevization had been “the most important task of the Communist International” but the French party had managed to avoid the effects of this policy, perhaps because Stalin and Comintern officials were more concerned with German than with French matters (Drachkovitch, and Lazitch, , “The Communist International”, p. 180).Google Scholar But once the German Communist party had been bolshevized, it was the French party's turn.
page 26 note 1 Barbé, Souvenirs, p. 127.
page 27 note 1 Barbé, Souvenirs, pp. 127–128. André Ferrat pointed out that “‘red’ in election vocabulary meant ‘communists, socialists, radicals, etc….’ while ‘white’ meant the ‘reaction’, that is the parties of the Republican Federation, the royalists, etc…” Histoire du parti communiste français (Paris, 1931) (edited by the central committee of the French Communist party), p. 233.
page 27 note 2 Barbé, Souvenirs, p. 128.
page 27 note 3 Ibid.
page 27 note 4 Ibid., pp. 128, 133.
page 27 note 5 Ibid., pp. 128, 134. Barbé later estimated that if the party membership had been permitted to vote, the Comintern demands would have been rejected; moreover, he noted that “… no one understood the true nature, the authentic reasons, and the underlying realities….” of the Comintern decision. See Barbe, Souvenirs, pp. 129, 133.
page 27 note 6 L'Humanité, November 19, 1927.
page 27 note 7 Ibid.
page 28 note 1 Ibid.
page 28 note 2 Cahiers du communisme, December 1, 1927.
page 28 note 3 Barbé, Souvenirs, p. 133. Annie Kriegel has pointed out that the Socialists' refusal of the Communist offer was a foregone conclusion since the minimum program stipulated that French foreign policy should be directed in the interests of the “Soviet homeland”. Les Internationales ouvrières, p. 97. A partial text of the Communist party minimum program is printed in Walter, Histoire du parti communiste français, pp. 187–188; a more complete version of the party program is printed in Rougeron, G., Le Département de l'Allier sous la troisième ré-publique (1870–1940) (Paris, 1965), p. 204.Google Scholar
page 28 note 4 See Ferrat, , Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 225.Google Scholar
page 29 note 1 Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Jacques Doriot, pp. 76–77. The Ninth Plenum of the executive committee of the Communist International met in Moscow from February 9–25, 1928. Classe contre classe reproduces the speeches and the report of the French commission of the Ninth Plenum and the resolution of the Comintern executive committee.
page 29 note 2 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Renaud Jean, pp. 130, 133,
page 29 note 3 Classe contre classe, préface, Pierre Sémard, p. 7; Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Jacques Doriot, p. 71; Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Richard Schuller, pp. 41–42.Google Scholar
page 29 note 4 Classe contre classe, préface, Pierre Sémard, p. 6.
page 30 note 1 Ibid, (author's emphasis).
page 30 note 2 Classe contre classe, préface, Pierre Semard, pp. 6–8. Both the Amicale des anciens membres du parti communiste français and André Ferrat recorded the central committee vote as 23–13. Histoire du parti communiste français, I, p. 139; Ferrat, Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 227.
page 30 note 3 L'Humanité, February 2, 1928.
page 30 note 4 Ibid.
page 31 note 1 Ibid.
page 31 note 2 Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Pierre Sémard, p. 26.
page 31 note 3 Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Jacques Doriot, p. 77. Doriot was the only opponent of the “class against class” tactic who might have led a successful rebellion against it. Although he finally submitted to Comintern orders, the chastisement he received embittered him against the Comintern leadership and many of his colleagues in the French party. See Allardyce, Gilbert D., “The Political Transition of Jacques Doriot”, in: Journal of Contemporary History, I, No 1 (1966), pp. 57–58.Google Scholar
page 31 note 4 Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Nikolai Bukharin, p. 85.
page 31 note 5 Classe contre classe, Ninth Plenum ECCI, Résolution du IXe Exécutif sur la question française, pp. 103–104. The French ambassador to Moscow, Jean Herbette, sent a translation of the entire Comintern resolution to Minister of Foreign Affairs Aristide Briand. He thought it particularly important to point out one sentence: “The [Comintern] executive committee, while fully approving the decisions of the national conference, demands a firm and systematic application of the new line of conduct from the central committee [of the French Communist party].” To Herbette the Comintern “demands” of the French Communist party underscored the “incompatibility between the engagements assumed by the Soviet government at the time of the recognition of the USSR by France and the hospitality that it officially gives to such demonstrations as the recent plenary session of the central committee of the Communist International, a session during which a resolution was voted which constitutes an intolerable interference in the political life of France.” Ambassador Jean Herbette to Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, March 20, 1928, in: [Jean Herbette,] Un diplomate français parle du péril bolchéviste, rapports de Jean Herbette, ambassadeur de France à Moscou de 1927 à 1931 (Les Origines de la guerre de 1939, Documents secrets des archives européennes publiés par la commission des archives du ministère des affaires étrangères du Reich) (Berlin, [1943]), pp. 89–98.Google Scholar
page 32 note 1 Souvarine, Boris, “La tactique communiste et les elections”, in: Bulletin communiste, 01–03, 1928.Google Scholar
page 32 note 2 L'Internationale communiste, June 1, 1928.
page 33 note 1 Barbé later alleged a sinister reason for the new election tactic: an attempt to use the French Communist party for the Soviet Union's own economic interests Although many French businessmen loathed communism they seemed to want trade agreements with the USSR. A setback for French Communism at the polls might mean a step forward in Franco-Soviet economic cooperation; perhaps the victory of the Union nationale would give French businessmen the security they desired at home to pursue an adventurous commercial policy abroad; a victory for the French Communists might produce the opposite effect (Barbé, Souvenirs, pp. 134–136). As farfetched as the explanation sounded, it was true that during the period of the Popular Front, the Kremlin worried about the effect of French Communist victories on Franco-Soviet relations. Georges Lefranc, Le Front populaire (Paris, 1965), pp. 58–59.
page 33 note 2 See Walter, , Histoire du parti communiste français, pp. 187–188.Google Scholar The Socialists printed the Communist party program in Le Populaire, November 25, 1927.
page 33 note 3 Quoted in Fauvet, , Histoire du parti communiste français, I, pp. 79–80.Google Scholar
page 34 note 1 Walter, , Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 188.Google Scholar
page 34 note 2 Le Populaire, December 2, 3, 4, 1927.
page 34 note 3 Le Populaire, December 5, 1927.
page 34 note 4 Le Populaire, December 19, 1927.
page 34 note 5 Le Populaire, December 30, 1927.
page 34 note 6 L'Humanité, January 1, 1928. Communist poet Louis Aragon likened the “class against class” tactic to military struggle: “Fire on Léon Blum / Fire on Boncour Frossard Déat / Fire on the trained bears of the social-democracy.” Louis Aragon, The Red Front (translated by e. e. cummings) (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1933).Google Scholar In Allier département Communist posters read: “Against the Union Nationale and its Socialist accomplices, Against the parliamentary regime on its knees before the moneyed powers, Against the lying bourgeois democracy of which you are the victims, Up with the flag of the Workers' and Peasants' Government, prepare yourselves for the revolutionary capture of power which alone will free you from the yoke of your exploiters.” Rougeron, , Le Département de 1'Allier sous la troisième république, p. 204.Google Scholar
page 35 note 1 Sémard, Pierre, “Le triomphe du révisionisme”, in: L'Humanité, 01 2, 1928.Google Scholar
page 35 note 2 Sémard, Pierre, “Qui fait le jeu de la reaction?”, in: L'Humanité, 02 8, 1928Google Scholar; Faure, Paul, “Les communistes: fourriers de la réaction”!, in: Le Populaire, 02 10, 1928.Google Scholar
page 35 note 3 Faure, Paul, “Les communistes: fourriers de la réaction!”, in: Le Populaire, 02 10, 1928.Google Scholar
page 35 note 4 L'Humanité, December 26, 1927. The outcome of the Radical-Socialist party congress had jeopardized the hopes for cooperation between Radicals and Socialists; one group of Radicals, led by Édouard Herriot and Paul Painlevé, marched into the ranks of the conservative, nationalist Union nationale, while the rest of the party under the nominal presidency of Édouard Daladier preferred the Socialists, yet feared the consequences of a total break with Raymond Poincaré, the titular head of the Union nationale. Michel Soulié, La vie politique d' Édouard Herriot (Paris, 1962), pp. 292–293.Google Scholar
page 36 note 1 Lachapelle, Georges, Élections législatives: 22–29 avril, 1928 (Paris, 1928), p. x.Google Scholar
page 36 note 2 Barbé, Souvenirs, p. 160.
page 36 note 3 Barbé, , Souvenirs, pp. 160–163.Google Scholar Humbert-Droz quoted Stalin as saying that the Soviet Union could not accept the fact there would be no Communist deputies in the French Chamber of Deputies. Humbert-Droz, , L'Oeil de Moscou à Paris, p. 241.Google Scholar
page 36 note 4 Humbert-Droz, L'Oeilde Moscou à Paris, pp. 24–242.Google Scholar
page 37 note 1 Barbé, , Souvenirs, pp. 163–166.Google Scholar
page 37 note 2 L'Humanité, April 24, 1928.
page 37 note 3 Le Temps, April 25, 1928.
page 37 note 4 Ibid.
page 37 note 5 Le Temps, April 26,1928. Socialist candidates withdrew in favor of Communists in Allier, Aube, Creuse, Loire, Nord, and Seine-et-Oise. See Le Populaire, April 26, 1928 and Le Temps, April 26, 28, 1928.
page 37 note 6 Le Populaire, April 25, 1928.
page 38 note 1 Ibid. Blum quoted Le Troquer as reporting that Litvinov had told Renaud Jean: “Don't discuss, obey!” (Léon Blum, “Les vraies raisons de la tactique des communistes”, in: Le Populaire, April 26, 1928). The following day Le Populaire reported that Le Troquer stood by his story, but now claimed that Renaud Jean had talked with Manuilskii not Litvinov.
page 38 note 2 L'Humanité, April 27, 1928. Also see Le Temps, April 28, 1928.
page 38 note 3 Goguel, François, La Politique des partis sous la troisième république (Paris, 1946), pp. 246–247Google Scholar; Campbell, French Electoral Systems, p. 98. The Communists were responsible for losing at least 36 seats for the Socialists and Radical-Socialists. Édouard Bonnefous, Histoire politique de la troisieme république (Paris, 1960), IV, 251.Google Scholar
page 38 note 4 Soulié, , La vie politique d'Édouard Herriot, pp. 294–295.Google Scholar Communist votes aided the election of 58 Socialists, 10 Republican-Socialists and 37 Radical-Socialists. Bonnefous, , Histoire politique de la troisième république, IV, pp. 251–252.Google Scholar François Goguel noted the degree to which the ballot by arrondissement had worked against “extremist parliamentary representation”: the Communists received 1,064,00 votes on the first ballot (11.38 per cent of the votes cast in metropolitan France), yet only 14 Communist deputies were elected (2.3 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies) (La politique des partis sous la troisième république, p. 246). In 1924 the Communists polled 876,00 votes (9.8 per cent of the votes cast) and won 26 seats in the Chamber of Deputies (4.6 per cent of the seats). Campbell, , French Electoral Systems, p. 97.Google Scholar
page 39 note 1 L'Humanité, April 30, June 2, 19, 1928; Le Temps, May 1, 1928. The Communist leadership probably found small consolation in the defeat of Léon Blum by Communist Jacques Duclos; on the other hand Paul Faure was elected with Communist support. Fauvet, Histoire du parti communiste français, I, p. 81.
page 39 note 2 Ferrat, , Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 234Google Scholar; Walter, , Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 192.Google Scholar
page 39 note 3 Lachapelle, , Élections législatives, p. xGoogle Scholar; Walter, , Histoire du parti communiste français, p. 192.Google Scholar
page 39 note 4 Jean, Pataut, Sociologie électorate de la Nièvre au XXe siècle, 1902–1951 (Paris, n.d.), I, pp. 56, 158.Google Scholar
page 40 note 1 Lachapelle, , Elections législatives, p. x.Google Scholar
page 40 note 2 L'Humanité, June 2, 1928.
page 40 note 3 L'Humanité, April 26, 1928.
page 40 note 4 Ibid.
page 40 note 5 Le Temps, May 1, 1928; Borkenau, F., World Communism: a history of the Communist International (Ann Arbor, 1962), p. 335.Google Scholar
page 40 note 6 L'Humanité, June 19, 20, 22, 1928.
page 41 note 1 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Pierre Sémard, pp. 111–112. Nevertheless, Thorez believed that the “class against class” tactic had been successful. Thorez to Humbert-Droz, May 16, 1928 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 41 note 2 Humbert-Droz, , “The French Elections and the Policy of the Communist Party”, in: The Communist International (06 15, 1928), p. 277.Google Scholar
page 41 note 3 Ibid., pp. 277–279.
page 41 note 4 Ibid., p. 279.
page 41 note 5 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Humbert-Droz, p. 248.Google Scholar
page 42 note 1 Classe contre classe, Latin Secretariat, Sixth Comintern congress, Maurice Thorez, p. 186.
page 42 note 2 Thorez to Humbert-Droz, November 9, 1928 (Humbert-Droz papers).
page 42 note 3 Pierre, Sémard, “The Third International and the Working Class Movement in the Last Ten Years”, in: The Communist International, VI, No 9–10 [1929], p. 418.Google Scholar
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