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The Development of Socialism in France: The Example of the Var

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Tony Judt
Tony Judt
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge
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Extract

During the first half of the French Third Republic, before 1914, certain regions of France established themselves as ‘red’, areas where the extreme left of the political spectrum could rely on strong and regular popular support. One of the outstanding features of this geographical ‘partition’ of French politics was the extent to which the ‘red’ areas were located in the countryside, notably in the departments of small peasant property in the south. Radicals, socialists and latterly communists have all benefited from this fact of French political life, consistently carrying at elections departments such as the Creuse, the Haute Vienne, the Allier, Gard, etc. Contemporaries and historians alike have observed this phenomenon with some surprise, and we are now witnessing a concerted effort by French historians and political scientists to find convincing explanations for it. This article is intended as a contribution to the continuing debate.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 55 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 See Goguel, Francois, Géographic des Elections Francoises (Paris, 1970).Google Scholar

2 The best study of this kind, concerned with the origins of political behaviour in the Sarthe, is that of Bois, Paul, Paysans de l'Ouest (Paris, 1971).Google Scholar

3 The arrondissement of Grasse was taken from the Var to form part of the new department of the Alpes-Maritimes in 1861.

4 See Blanchard, R., Les Alpes Occidentals, Vol. iv, Les Préalpes francaiscs du Sud, pp. 368–71 (Paris, 1945).Google Scholar

5 Livet, R., Habitat Rural et Structures Agraires en Basse Provence (Aix-en-Provence, 1962), p. 101.Google Scholar

6 Figures for the population of Bargemon in Archives Departementales du Var (henceforth referred to as A.D. du Var), XI.M.2./1.

7 For population statistics, see source cited in note 6; on the details of wine growing in the Var, see Y. Rinaudo, ‘Quelques Aspects de l'Evolution Démographique de deux communes viticoles varoises’, in Provence Historique, No. 76.

8 e.g. olive oil, wine, silk, cork, minerals, fruit confections.

9 There were 14,458 hectares of vines in the Var in 1873, 51,510 hectares in 1910. See France: Annuaire Statistique for the whole period.

10 On Toulon, see Agulhon, M., Une ville ouvriére au temps du socialisme utopique. Toulon de 1815 à 1851 (Paris, 1970);Google Scholar also J. Masse, ‘Les Anarchistes varois 1879–1920 ’in Le Mouvement Social, No. 69.

11 See Gadille, J., La Pensée et l'Action politique des évêques françxais au début de la Troisième Réublique (Paris, 1967), p. 152.Google Scholar

12 See A.D. du Var 111.Z.26 1 ‘Cube Protestant’.

13 Thus the Fêre of St. Aigulphe (held on the first Sunday in September) became, in le Muy and Roquebrune, a cover during the early eighteen-seventies for celebrations of the declaration of the Republic on the 4th September. See A.D. du Var IV.M.40 ‘Rapports sur l'Esprit Publique’.

14 In 1901, only 18% of those involved in agriculture in the Var were métayers or fermiers; for Fiance as a whole the figure was 38%. See Annuaire Statistique for 1901.

15 Dictionnaire Biographique du Mouvement Ouvrier 1864–1871 (ed. Maitron, J., Paris, 1964), P. 433Google Scholar

16 See Morel, A. Compére, Encyclopaedic Sodaliste, Vol. III, p. 25 (Paris, 1921).Google Scholar Also Historique el Vie de la Fédération du Var (Toulon, 1936), 4 ffGoogle Scholar, for much of what follows.

17 For administrative purposes the Var was divided into four arrondissements: Draguignan, Brignolcs, Toulon 1, Toulon 2. Each arrondissement was divided into cantons (with a cantonal capital), and each canton into communes.

18 For the voting figures, see A.D. du Var II.M.3.15–46 Eléctions.

19 For details of elections, see source cited in note 18; the situation in Toulon was complicated by the presence of Escartefigue, a local socialist who was expelled from the party, but who retained a significant clientele. Cluseret, too, was a ‘renegade ’who continued to use the ‘socialist’label long after the official organisations had rejected him, and he thus retained a (dwindling) personal following. For details of the Cluseret and Escartefigue ‘affairs’, see Le Petit Var and Le Cri du Var for these years.

20 For details of the various organisations into which the Var socialists were grouped, see Historique et Vie; see also Archives Nationales (henceforth referred to as A.N.) F7 12503. The disparate groups were finally united at a departmental congress in April 1905.

21 See Historique et Vie, p. 28ff; SFIO Congrès Rapports for these years. The 1913 conseil general elections only involved half of the cantons in the department (i.e. 13).

22 France: Statistique des Grèves, published annually. See also A.D. du Var IV.M.52 Manifestations Syndicates 1871—1914.

23 This remained true in all Bargemon municipal elections down to 1914. See A.D. du Var II.M.7.21 Elections Municipales.

24 For further details of Var syndicates, see A.N. F22 150 Syndicats.

25 On the anarchists, see the article by Jean Masse cited in note 10; see also A.D. du Var IV.M.41 Rapports sur l'Esprit Publique.

26 For details of the post-1851 repression, see A.D. du Var IV.M.24 2/5 Condamnés politiqucs.

27 A.D. du Var I.Z.41 Rapports du sous-préfet de Brignoles for 1869; III.Z.6.15 Police Générale Toulon, Rapports.

28 See A.N. F17 14295 Instruction Primaire — Affaires Diverses; there are also reports of attacks on priests, funeral processions, etc in A.D du Var VII.U.29.3. justice.

29 This was certainly the opinion of the prefect of the time. See A.N. F12 4702 Syndicats Agricoles dissous.

30 See A.D. du Var IV.M.41. Rapports.

31 See Agulhon, M., La République au Village (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar, passim and M. Agulhon, ‘La diffusion d'un journal montagnard, Le Démocrate du Var, sous la Deuxième République’, in Provence Historique, No. 39.

32 On Sanary, see Gall, G. Le, La Population de St Nazaire 1836—1931 (Aix, 1970).Google Scholar

33 See Goguel's use of it in his commentaries in Géographie des Elections.

31 For voting figures by commune, see A.D. du Var II.M.3.15–46. It remains to explain the nature of this distinction, but this question will be dealt with elsewhere.

35 Figures from Y. Masurel, La vigne dans la Basse-Provence Orientale, planche IV. (Thése Complémentaire 1964).

36 Source as in note 34.

37 Figures for métayage and fermage from A.D. du Var XI.M.2. 6/7; XlV.M.ig.8 Statistiques Agricoles.

38 A.D. du Var IV.M.41 Rapports, Arrondissement de Toulon. For an insight into the life of a métayer in the Allier, see Guillaumin, Emile, La Vie d'un Simple (Paris, 1904).Google Scholar

39 See below and notes 63, 69.

40 In the period May 1890 to January 1895 t n e price of one quintal of wheat fell from 24·93 francs to 17·50 francs. In the same period the price of a quintal of flour consumed in Paris fell from 38·69 francs to 28·98 francs. See A.N. F11 2768, Mouvement des Prix.

41 See La Dépêche de Toulon, 19th November 1893. The paper feared the revolutionary potential of this development.

42 On the foregoing, see Y. Rinaudo, ‘l’Opposition à la loi de trois ans dans le Var ’in Provence Historique, No. 80.

43 This highlights the weakness of the rural/urban division set at the figure of two thousand.

44 For all population statistics, see A.D. du Var XI.M.2.1.

45 For these figures, see A.D. du Var XI.M.2 Etat Civil, Dénombrement de la Population. Etal Nominatif.

46 For details of the location of population (‘éparse’and ‘agglomerée’) by commune, see A.D. du Var II.M.S.37.

47 For figures of literacy for conscripts, see A.N. F17 14270 Degré d'lnstruction des Consents, Classe de 1899. Note also the articles on the subject in Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Le Territoire de l'Historien (Paris, 1973), pp. 38–116.Google Scholar

48 Details of female literacy are very scarce; in the eighties mayors were expected to provide them to the administration, but their figures fluctuated wildly and are nearly all unreliable.

49 On the extent of the school teachers‘rejection of socialism, and the reasons for it, see Ozouf, J., Nous les Maitres d'Ecole (Paris, 1967).Google Scholar

50 For the Aups figures in 1872, see A.D. du Var XI.M.219; for the 1899 details, see note 47.

51 Which is not to say it was modern.

52 See A.N. C.3021 Enquères, for many and varied examples of this tendency.

53 For details, see the Statistique des Grèves for these years.

54 See details in A.D. du Var VII.U.29.3. Justice.

55 This method was still employed in the nineteen-twenties — see the case of one Herpe in 1923: A.D. du Var IV.M.45 Dossier Herpe.

56 These visits were recorded in great detail in reports of police officers and their informants; see A.D. du Var 1V.M.52; IV.M.55./, also Willard, C., Les Guesdistes (Paris, 1965), pp. 433, 512.Google Scholar

57 See in particular, A.D. du Var IV.M.41. Rapports sur l'Esprit Publique tor August 1907.

58 Details of candidates may be found in the local papers of the time, notably in le Petit Var.

59 See inter alia Lichtheim, G., Origins of Socialism (London, 1968)Google Scholar and Lichtheim, G., A Short History of Socialism (London, 1970).Google Scholar

60 See Agulhon, M., La Vie Sociale en Provence Intérieure au lendemain de la Révolution, p. 179. (Société des Etudes Robespierristes, Paris 1970).Google Scholar

61 A.N. F12 4664 Grèves.

62 For the population of Vidauban, Bargemon (and Callas) see A.D. du Var XI.M.2.1; for the occupation structure of these communes, see XIV.M.19.4, list by commune.

63 A.D. du Var II.M.5 227–231 Eléctions au Conseil Général.

64 For voting figures, see A.D. du Var II.M.5.231.

65 M. Agulhon, La Vie Sociale en Provence lntérieure, op. cit.

66 See A.D. du Var XIV.M.19.4, also XIV.M.19. 11/12.

67 On population figures, see source cited in note 34. For Figanières in the twentieth century, see Blanchard, , op. cit., pp. 689–690.Google Scholar

68 For reports on the vibrations produced in the Var by the 1905 Revolution in Russia, see A.D. du VarlV.M.41. Esprit Publique.

69 Viz. the numerous socialist calls for cheap fertiliser, cheap transport of agricultural produce, etc. For an example of this, see the programme of Masseboeuf in the 1898 Toulon cantonal elections, A.D. du Var II.M.5. 180–186.

70 For footnote, see p. 81.

71 For the 1956 vote, see Goguel op. cit. For the 1973 elections, see Monde, Dossier du – Les Forces Politiques et les Elections de Mars 1973 (Paris 1973).Google Scholar

71 Sufficiently famous to figure prominently (though under a pseudonym) in Zola's ‘La Fortune des Rougon’; there were 114 condamnés policiques from la Garde Freinet in 1851. A.D. du Var IV.M.24. 2/3.

72 On the great hopes of the last months of the Second Republic, see the works of Agulhon, and also Vigier, P., ‘La Seconde République dans la Région Alpine ’(Paris 1963 P.U.F.).Google Scholar

73 A.D. du Var IV.MA.40Rapports sur l'Esprit Publique.

74 Among the better examples are S. Derruau-Boniol, ‘Le Socialisme dans l'Allier de 1848 à 1914’in Cahiers d'Histoire No. 2 1957, and the same author's ‘Le Département de la Creuse. Structure sociale et Evolution politique’, in Revue Francaise de Science Politique, Vol. VII (1957).

The only general work which acknowledges the need to explain rural support for socialism is the recent volume in the Oxford History series (‘France 1848–1945 ’Vol. 1) by Theodore Zeldin. Unfortunately, Zeldin's election statistics (p. 783) are somewhat inaccurate and his attempt to explain the phenomenon by classing Flayosc and Vidauban as industrial villages is simplistic; they were no less rural for having numerous artisans and labourers among their populations — Flayosc had 550 sheep and 250 pigs in 1885, and produced over 20,000 quintals of olives per annum. Zeldin concedes (p. 785) that neither economic nor social explanations are adequate, and that traditions were important, but his own assumption that the socialist vote reflected artisanal interests is a contradiction, and in no way helps us explain the later survival of socialism in the area. So far as Zeldin's general point is concerned, it is of course true that in Draguignan as elsewhere socialists benefited from the votes of ‘Radical’ peasants, particularly when Radical candidates withdrew in the socialists'favour. In the cities, and in those rural areas where Radicals and socialists were subject to an undifferentiated hostility, this alliance, usually unofficial, obtained for some years; but the point is that those peasants and townsmen who did vote socialist can often be identified as men who had never voted Radical, and who were quite unsympathetic to Radical propaganda. The role of the Radicals in paving the way for the rise of socialism has perhaps been overstated (Zeldin appears to take it as assumed), to the detriment of our understanding of the more complex origins of socialist support; part of the purpose of this article is to contribute towards a redressment of the balance.

75 This article was completed before I had the opportunity to read a new work by Leo Loubere, A., Radicalism in Mediterranean France, 1848–1914 (State University of New York Press, Albany, 1974).Google Scholar I do not however think that I would have wished to alter anything substantial as a consequence of studying Loubere's book. On many points (the importance of the transitional nature of the last years of the century, the peculiar structure of political support in the region and the possible reasons which can be adduced to account for it) we agree. Loubere puts perhaps a little too much emphasis on the nature of the economy of wine as a political factor; but then his book covers not merely the Var, but departments such as the Hérault where the economy was virtually monocultural. His stress on the necessity of taking into account the Topography, demography and political economy of the area in locating the roots of political traditions seems to me occasionally unsubde, rather reductionist; but it is a healthy swing away from the usual political/ideological explanations found in general surveys of the growth of Radicalism. Finally, his suggestions as to the nature of the changeover from Radical to socialist sympathy are very different from my own, and appear to be contradicted by the very evidence he himself provides. I hope to take up this question in far greater detail at a later stage.