During the immediate post-war period the SFIO found itself under increasing stress as the combined task of restoring the national economy and constructing a constitutional settlement imposed heavy demands on successive governments. All of these rested on the alliance of three parties, the Communists, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats (the Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP), and as the Socialist Party possessed the greatest degree of internal democracy of the three, its rank-and-file members were the first to express their discontent at the disadvantages of being part of a governing coalition. By degrees their sense of grievance brought them to the verge of revolt and the task of this chapter is to describe this change of mood within the SFIO and to analyze the organizational crisis which it brought about at the party's 38th National Congress of August 1946.

The 37th National Congress of August 1945

Early in May 1945 as the war in Europe drew to its close, the French authorities were trying to locate and free those public figures who still remained in German hands. Prominent amongst these was Léon Blum and on 4 May Jules Moch, who was still serving in the navy, was given the task of searching for him.