The Communist Government
- Part 2, 1925-1926 -
Around Europe and the world events in France reverberated, once again questioning bourgeois society. Inspiring some in the belief that capitalism's time was coming to an end and that a new socialist world order was about to rise and others that liberal democracy was a far sicker beast than had previously been believed and would have to be replaced if society was to avoid collapse and revolution. The world was becoming increasingly polarised between Fascism and Socialism. In Italy, the Fascists, who had been the main movers and shakers of government since 1922, finally seized total control over the Italian state with Mussolini becoming its supreme ruler. The Italians then began to unleash a new wave of repression against the still surviving left – suspected Communist and Socialist leaders facing arrest and even execution. In Britain a strike at first sparked off by a miners' dispute escalted into a General Strike which lasted two weeks – becoming increasingly radicalised by a rapidly expanding Communist Party and in extreme sympathy with the Communists of France the strike was ended by some generous deals between the Conservative government and a TUC leadership that had become terrified by the radicalisation of its own membership. In Spain a mixture of anarchists and socialists organised a General Strike in the city of Barcelona that had to be put down by the army – many seeing the Strike as a precursor of the Spanish Revolution of the 1930s. Major waves of unrest also hit Belgium and the Netherlands in sympathy with the French Revolutionaries even in America, where the labour movement was at its weakest and the radical labour movement even weaker, 400,000 marched through New York in solidarity with France. An action that frightened the establishment across the Atlantic, fearing that the Bolshevik menace that had hitherto not threatened to across the Ocean from the Old World might now establish itself in the world's richest nation.
Finally, in China the KMT unleashed the Northern Expedition under the leadership of its greatest military commander Chiang Kaishek. The successes of the Soviet aligned KMT (the party having maintained a very close relationship with the Comintern since its inception, even applying for membership just a few years back) in China and the Communists in France seemed to point to a new era of endless victories for the worldwide revolution. Soon, boasted Communists, the most populous nation on earth and the most powerful in Europe would join with the Soviets, Poles, Hungarians, Finns and Mongols in a great chain of Revolutionary nations stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and dedicated to destroying Imperialism and Capitalism once and for all. Surely the liberation of the popular classes across the globe was now at hand?
Back in France the beginning of Action Francaise's insurrection in June saw the country lurch into a complicated Civil War. The Civil War began with a general insurrection by the Blueshirts. Now heavily armed with a mixture of arms supplied by friendly army officials and foreign backers – primarily Italy and Britain – the Blueshirts, despite being outnumbered, made some surprising early gains as cities like Bordeaux, Lille and Marseilles fell and wide areas of the countryside were lost to the authority of the Communists. Fearful of calling upon the army to quell the revolt the Communists relied upon using the recently formed Popular militias to fight against the Fascist uprising, using the Army's weapons and supplies but not its forces. Action Francaise, was instantly declared an illegal organisation and all its members enemies of the state and the revolution.
Hopes of keeping the Army largely neutral, however, failed as a group of Generals around war hero and Chief of Staff Marshal Foch attempted a coup d’etat in Paris at the end of June. With the rising of the Blueshirts a large section of the right saw this as the time to put aside their differences and unite in the struggle to bring down the Communists. However the majority of Republicans found the idea of Action Francaise' counter revolution almost as distasteful as the elected government's policies of revolution and refused to back Maurras' struggle. With the Republicans not willing to move the leadership of the Bonapartists was also unwilling to throw itself wholly behind the Action Francaise led war effort. At the high command of the French Army this left the Generals divided between a narrow majority that did not want to immediately lead the army in the overthrow of the government and a minority around Foch, mostly figures associated with Action Francaise pre-1925 anyway, who wanted to topple the government as soon as possible. After losing the argument within the high command Foch decided to proceed with his coup regardless. On June 25th he led 4 divisions (around 40,000 men) into Paris and looked to occupy key points. What he hadn't counted on was the steadfast resistance of the masses. As news of the entry of troops into the capital spread thousands of workers formed a human chain around the National Assembly, which was in session and therefore contained much of the leadership of the Communist Party. Foch was now forced to order his men to open fire on unarmed workers just as the Communists were rapidly gathering their own armed groups in the form of the Popular militias. With the body of the soldiery being draftees the prospect of firing upon unarmed Frenchmen was quite frankly horrifying. A group of lower officers, seeing the coup attempt collapsing around them, decided to hatch a deal with the Communists. In returned for assurances of power for the Army and for themselves they arrested Foch and the leaders of the coup and withdrew from the capital. Shortly later the ageing Marshal Foch was executed whilst pressure from still neutral elements of the right and the army ensured that the other leading participants were merely arrested. The most serious threat to the government since the election had been safely dealt with.
Away from the capital city both the Communists and Blueshirts reached new heights of brutality. The Blueshirts were infamous for instituting progroms in the cities they occupied. The most dispicable case was in the city of Bordeaux where 10-15% of the working class, not of Communists, of the working class was slaughtered. After defeating the militias protecting the city the Blueshirts rampaged through working class districts, pillaging and summarily executing any and all men believed to be Communists or Communist sympathisers, considering the degree of support enjoyed in areas such of this for Communists, this meant that the majority of the adult male population was a potential Communist and in the eyes of the Blueshirts a traitor to be executed. Meanwhile the second greatest target of the Blueshirts after the Communists were the Jews, deemed to be in league with the Communists as well as international finance which was strangling the French economy the Jews faced the most terrible persecution. Bordeaux suffered the worst pogroms to afflict Europe West of Russia for centuries. Whilst no where else suffered so bad as Bordeaux similar actions occurred in many French cities fallen to the Blueshirts. However, horror stories like this only acted to galvinise support for the Communists and encourage them to take heavier action against their enemies. All captured Blueshirt leaders were executed on the spot with the rank and file being transported elsewhere to act as un-waged labour for the state for an indefinite period, with the same policies extended to non-combatant Action Francaise supporters all property of Fascists and their sympathisers was also seized without compensation. Meanwhile liberated cities usually experienced real class war as after seeing the wealthy districts either welcome or at the very least show ambivalence to the Blueshirts whilst they ransacked the poorer areas workers identified the wealthy as being collaborators and launched their own raids against wealthy districts once the Blueshirts were pushed back. It was class warfare in the most literal sense possible.
After the high tide of the Blueshirt rebellion from the late Summer until early Autumn of 1925 the momentum fell indisputably onto the side of the Communists. The use of the air force as well as around 400 bombers loaned to France by the Soviets helped ensure that every major engagement was won by the Communists. By January 1926 the Blueshirt rebellion had largely petered out with the surviving Blueshirts now either in hiding or fled France. Of the leadership of Action Francaise few escaped, however Charles Maurras was among those who did – fleeing through the Alps to Italy.
In January 1926 the French economy was on its knees, the destruction of war had seen large parts of the economy simply destroyed whilst the problems caused by international actions against the country had only made things worse. Unemployment was endemic, inflation remained high, the government was still broke and the breakdown of international trade was causing major issues in the importation of raw materials and exportation of finished goods for industry.
A man with an outlandish moustache was just about to make things worse. Unlike the Bourbon claimant who had returned to France in 1914 as part of a deal between Republicans and Action Francaise, the Bonapartist claimant, Victor, Prince Napoleon, had been forced to remain in exile. With the execution of the Bourbon claimant due to his support for the Blueshirt rising, the self styled Napoleon V became the most prominent pretender to the French throne. In recent years the largely defunct Bonapartist movement had revived itself as a force opposed to the radicalism of Action Francaise – capable of uniting the moderate and far right in opposition to the powerful Left. On January 29th Prince Napoleon took the bold step of crossing the border from Belgium into France with the aim of uniting the right around himself and renewing the struggle to bring down the Communists. Obviously, the government had initially hoped to arrest the returning Prince, but the Bonaparte was protected by his allies in the military, with the government still committed to an uneasy peace with the Army high command Prince Napoleon had a degree of freedom to operate within the country.
At the head of a powerful Bonapartist movement that had only grown at the expense of toothless Republicans and murderous Monarchists Prince Napoleon maintained a great deal of support on the street, amongst a peasantry whose initial support for the government was falling away as a result of the economic problems of the country and most importantly in the Army. In February the National Opposition was formed – a group that brought Radicals, conservative Republicans and Bonapartists together under a single banner and through clandestine channels also maintained links with the surviving Blueshirt and Action Francaise leaders as well as other illegalist right wing organisations that had turned to armed struggle, most notably the OAS (the Organisation of the Secret Army) which used terrorist tactics of assassinating leading Communists as well as widely using explosives in sabotage and murder. Finally the Anti-Communists had united.
Internationally the German alliance with the Comintern essentially came to an end that same month with the Treaty of Locarno. At Locarno in Switzerland Britain and Italy signed a series of agreements with the Germans that greatly soften the Treaty of Versailles and brought Germany back into the fold of the bourgeois community of nations. Now with no more need for its alliance with the Comintern, having gained what lands it could ever realistically gain already, the SPD led German government moved back to its more natural ideological Anti-Communist stance. Although the Germans did not withdraw recognition for the governments of the Comintern, relations quickly soured after Locarno and cooperation largely ceased.
On March 8th 1926 Prime Minister and General Secretary Pierre Semard was assassinated by an OAS bomber whilst attending a meeting of a commune in Lille (it was common for high ranking Communists to participate in communal meetings, believing that it helped to show their unbreakable connection with the working man). The bomb killed Semard and over a dozen other people. The death of Semard caused serious problems within the Party. Since rising to the rank of General Secretary Semard had proven himself an expert and soothing tensions within the Party, allowing it to come to common consensus, the siege mentality fostered under his leadership since the assumption of power had also further eased the problems of factionalism. With his death the Central Committee lost that calming influence. The harshness of the war with the Blueshirts and the sense of urgency within the party had greatly strengthened the radical Left under Souvarine and the Trotskyists – whilst Thorez was made the new General Secretary and Prime Minister the Left was elected to additional positions within the Central Committee. Tensions within the Party were clear as everywhere from the leadership to the commune and the factory floor radicals supporting Souvarine angrily debated with moderate Communists supporting Thorez.
With the monolithic unity of purpose of the PCF now under threat the Communists actually experienced numerous triumphs. In the Middle East the Arab Federation triumphed over the forces of reaction and British Imperialism – establishing a state that stretched from the mountains of Yemen to the Turkish border. As a sign of goodwill the Federation detached the Turkish majority Hatay State with a view holding a referendum to decide whether the province would become a part of Turkey or the Arab Federation. Meanwhile, on the economic front unemployment started to drop noticeably as factories were brought back on line, new ones rebuilt and men employed in programmes of rebuilding. Inflation was also coming back under control, the use of unpaid labour in the form of the 'enemies of the people' – the captured Blueshirts and their allies – was also proving beneficial to the economy. Finally the system of public healthcare was finally becoming functional – providing employment and a major boost to the regime's credibility as this central aspect of the Party's programme seemed to be being accomplished despite the hardships.
The French Communist Party was now presenting itself as the most terrifying force ever encountered by the ruling classes around the world. A Party that could build a democratic and functioning socialist regime – the rule of the working class. Such a reality simply could not be allowed. In the clandestine circles of the National Opposition a plan for a second coup was being hatched. This time this would be different.
On September 15th a series of massive explosions rocked Paris killing scores, breaking down communications and causing a mixture of chaos and fear. Following the explosions right wing paramilitary groups, many of the participants hailing from many different parts of the country, began an armed uprising. With the city in chaos this alone seriously threatened the government as well as working class communities. Publicly acknowledging the threat to the people of Paris a young French commander by the name of De Gaulle led an army into the capital with the stated aim of restoring order and protecting French citizens from the rebellion. Although the Communist leadership seemed to realise what was happening – several leading Communists fleeing the capital as De Gaulle entered – the population seemed to be relieved that someone had arrived to protect them.
As the right wing paramilitaries melted away without any fighting taking place with the army the troops began their real work – strike teams being deployed to occupy all key locations of the city and others looking to capture as much of the Communist Party leadership as possible. As dawn broke on the 16th soldiers were already on the move to secure other major cities. Without publicly announcing it yet the armed forces had toppled the Communist government. It remained to be seen whether the Party could rouse the masses for another fight to defeat the military and save their government and Revolution or if reaction had finally won.
