THE FRENCH POPULAR FRONT 1937: Defeats open the door to the Radicals

Leon Blum's social and economic measures, the hardening of the policy of the employers and the continued flight of capital and run on the franc exposed all the contradictions of reformism in 1936—only months after his Popular Front govern. ment came to power.

The cost of the reforms cut into profits already forced down by the depression. Blum hoped that he could count upon the co-operation of the capitalists. Instead they prepared to take on the working class and did everything they could to weaken his governHe failed to take any measures to stop the flight of capital and in the latter part of 1936 prices rose rapidly. The bourgeoisie was determined to take back all the concessions which it had been obliged to make under pressure from the May-June sit-in strikes.

Blum himself took up a more openly hostile attitude towards the working class. In the Chamber of Deputies in September he attacked the renewed factory occupations. Police armed with tear gas were sent in against strikers in the 1936-1937 period.

At the 'massacre' of Clichy, police were sent in to break up an anti-fascist demonstration with the result that five people were killed and 150 injured. This took place when the semi-fascist French Social Party (successor of Colonel De La Rocque's 'Croix de Feu' which had been made illegal) held a meeting in the heart of the working-class district of Clichy on March 15, 1937.

The workers took the meetSocialist anyProvocation and as a Communist organizations in the area called for a demontsration round the hall where the meeting was to take place. About 4,000 people assembled. It was after emissaries from the Blum government had persuaded the leaders to give the order to disperse that police attacked the crowd. for action against the police, did not break its Popular Front ties with the Blum governIn fact, a few days later, when the government was under pressure from the right, that accomplished Stalinist parliamentarian, Jacques Duclos, took the initiative in proposing a vote of confidence in Blum; it was passed with full Communist Party support.

In February 1937, Blum declared a 'pause'-that is, there were to be no more social reforms or wage increases while serious measures were taken to try to boost ailing French capitalism. At the same time he assured the capitalists that there would be no exchange control and re-established the free gold market. Blum's abject capitulation before the bankers did not save him.

• conspiracy of bankers and top civil servants led to huge quantities of government bonds being thrown onto the market, creating a budgetary crisis. The government sought emergency powers to deal with the crisis; these were accorded by the Chamber of Deputies but rejected in the Senate. As a result, Blum resigned and Chautemps took his place. The initiative had passed to the Radicals.

Blum's abject capitulation to the financiers and civil servants was typical of his reformist position. He had hoped, and failed, to win the capitalists to support his policy He knew that the alternative was to rouse the working class to action. But that would have meant a revolution and the taking of power by the workers. Blum had, with the help of the Communist Party, defused a revolutionary situation a year before. He had not changed.

Nor, indeed, had the Communist Party. Instead of exposing Blum's complicity with the bankers, it assured him throughout the crisis of its 'unconditional support'. It placed no alternative before the working class.

After the fall of Blum the Communist Party's main concern was to prevent a repetition of the events of May-June 1936. It supported the measures taken by the Chautemps government and called for discipline in industry and increased production. It held back the workers in the factories who were increasingly angered by rising prices, which had cancelled out the gains made in the previous year's The Communist Party had been the strongest supporter of a Popular Front with the Radicals. Its leaders had welcomed the Radical leaders onto their platforms. Edouard Daladier, together with Maurice Thorez and Leon Blum had marched at the head of Popular Front demonstrations. There was, therefore, no reason why the Stalinists should not continue to support Chautemps, as they did.