Griffiths - Anticapitalism and the French Extra-parlamentary Right

8/12/2019 Griffiths - Anticapitalism and the French Extra-parlamentary Right

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Anticapitalism and the French Extra-Parliamentary Right, 1870-1940Author(s): Richard GriffithsSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 13, No. 4, A Century of Conservatism (Oct.,1978), pp. 721-740Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/260081 .

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Journal of Contemporary History

situations,' but these have been seen as temporary side-tracks from

the major aimsand

interests;and where the

questionhas been

ap-proached more centrally, the anticapitalist strain has been seen as aparticular form of 'radical conservatism' put forward by a fewpolitical philosophers.2 One must not discount, of course, the impor-tance of nationalism as a central tenet of the French right, particular-ly in the period from 1898 to 1918; but it is interesting to note that itis precisely in this same period that some of the most important pro-nouncements were made upon social matters. It was, after all, a

period of social ferment, when such matters were at the forefront of

most Frenchmen's minds. Nationalism was an important watch-word, but no political thinker could ignore the realities of domestic

policy, and a movement such as the Action FranSaise was no excep-tion.

That anticapitalism was central to the French right, and not justthe product of a few radical conservatives, is shown by its impor-tance in the thought of the right's most consistent area of support -

the Catholic public. For every Catholic industrialist (and these were

represented in the parliamentary right far more strongly than theirnumbers warranted) there were many other categories for whom theindustrial revolution, and the international capital that had createdit, were anathema: Catholic landowners holding to the old virtues,and deploring not only the misery of the urban proletariat, but alsothe lack of the sense of social hierarchy in urban society; Catholic

peasants, filled with preconceptions about the horrors of atheisticmodern society; the Catholic lower middle classes, convinced thatthere was some sinister capitalistic plot to deprive them of theirlivelihood; Catholic small investors who had lost their savings in thekrach de l'Union Generale; these, and many others, were appalled bythe nature of le monde moderne, and laid much of the cause of it atthe doors of capital. Only the Catholic bourgeoisie, and its represen-tatives in the Chamber, were for obvious reasons exempt from this

feeling. For this reason the term 'conservative', applied to deputies,is often misleading.

The writers of the Catholic Revival, starting in the 1880s, were to a

great extent the spokesmen for the haters of the modern world.3Angry, outspoken and violent, they condemned not only capitalistsociety, but also those elements within their own Church which had

compromised with it. Catholic anticlericalism is a common

phenomenon in all ages, but in this period it took on a significantviolence: 'Des qu'ily a de l'argent en jeu', wrote Huysmans to one of

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Griffiths: The French Extra-Parliamentary Right

his friends, 'I'infamie sort comme un pus et du clerge et des cloitres'.4

In their hatred of the rule of money, and of material things, it ishardly surprising that some of these writers found an affinity withthe anarchists, who came so much before the public eye in the yearsof terrorist anarchism in Paris, 1890-93. While, in some cases, theenthusiasm for anarchism in contemporary literary circles may beascribed to a form of dilettantism, a writer such as the young PaulClaudel, in his play La Ville, clearly shows the need for destructionof modern society; as he said of the anarchists at a later date, 'Jetrouvais dans l'anarchie un geste presque instinctif contre ce mondecongestionne, etouffant, qui etait autour de nous, et a l'egard duquelils faisaient un geste, presque celui du noye qui cherche de l'air, je-tant des bombes au hasard, presque sans savoir ou. 5 What is impor-tant is that for Claudel the destruction of the 'cite d'Henoch ...I'hydre grouillante, la Ville vomisseuse de fumee' 6 is not an end initself; it is the necessary precondition for the reconstruction of socie-ty on a Christian basis.

These tendencies in the thought of the writers of the Catholic

Revival are not being produced here in order to suggest any kind ofpolitical link-up between Catholic reaction and anarchism; theysimply exemplify the negative side of Catholic anticapitalism at itsmost violent. For Catholics of this kind, there was a perpetualharking-back to a golden age that had existed before the advent ofthe industrial revolution, a time when classes had known their dutiesas well as their rights, and when mankind had lived together in har-mony; the modern world had destroyed this harmony, and capitalwas above all to blame. Such beliefs contributed in

no small way tothe popular support for movements which laid an emotional blameon groups or institutions; it was in the choice of positive solutionsthat the dilemma of retaining this support in its entirety revealeditself. It mattered little that a number of the main spokesmen, in-cluding Barres and Maurras, were not Catholics; Maurras, par-ticularly, aimed his appeal at the Catholic public, and among theirfollowers there was a preponderance of Catholics.

For the purpose of this study, the era between the Franco-Prussianwar and the first world war can be divided into three periods. Thefirst, 1870-86, was marked by serious, but paternalistic, attempts todeal with the social question, mainly on the part of traditionalistCatholics. The second, which started with the publication of

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Drumont's La France Juive, and which contains Boulangism and thePanama

Scandal,was a

periodof violent

anticapitalistic appealsto

the people by sections of the right, coinciding with other manifesta-tions of social unrest. The third, from 1898 onwards, sees the rise ofthe Action Franqaise movement, together with what appeared to be acrisis for capitalism.

The period from 1870 to the mid-80s requires little discussion. Onthe right, the most interesting activity in relation to the social ques-tion was provided by the Oeuvre des Cercles Catholiques de Travail,founded by Count Albert de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour du Pinin 1871. This social experiment was basically paternalistic, and in-spired by the principles of Le Play, who, together with La Tour duPin himself, was to be one of the strongest influences on the Frenchright. The Oeuvre des Cercles was based on the conception of afeudal and corporative social structure, necessitating a sense of dutyon the part of the upper classes; its founders believed in the possibili-ty of peaceful collaboration between the classes. The mostfavourable reaction to this enterprise came from intransigent right-

wingers like Veuillot, and from provincial 'notables', who saw in DeMun's and La Tour du Pin's plans for industrial society a reflectionof the harmony they felt still to exist in their rural domains. In asense, such experiments might be enough, in political terms, to gainsupport in rural France; but what about the bourgeois capitalistsociety they aimed to reform? Certainly, the Oeuvre des Cercles, andother such experiments, failed to arouse much enthusiasm among theworkers themselves, or among the urban population. They remaineda well-meaning utopian experiment. As Rene Remond has put it, 'Le

premier catholicisme social est d'inspiration conservatrice, d'inten-tion contre-revolutionnaire, d'affinites legitimistes.'7 We shall seethis tradition continuing in other forms of social catholicism.

The two founders of the Oeuvre des Cercles followed very dif-ferent courses thereafter. Albert de Mun became a parliamentaryconservative, and eventually a rallie. Members of the extreme rightcastigated him for pusillanimity and for negating his early principles.La Tour du Pin was to become a member of the Action Franqaise,

and to remain the social theorist who was to influence generations ofright-wing social thinkers, from Maurras to Vichy.

The appeal to urban anticapitalism, which became a feature of

right-wing campaigns from the mid-80s onwards, was no doubt the

product of a number of factors, including the squeezing of the lowermiddle class by major financial interests, and the realization that

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much ground was being gained, both there and in the working class,

by the socialists. The alignments of the Boulanger Affair not onlyshowed that right and left were united in their hatred of theRepublic; it also showed that they were united in other hatreds aswell, and that they could have an appeal to the same strata of society.The man who, however, above all pushed the right in this directiondid so before the Boulanger Affair; and, though his policies werefollowed by many purely for the achievement of power, he himselfseems to have been dominated more by a sense of divine mission totell what he saw to be the truth. This man was Edouard Drumont,whose book La France juive (1886) started a completely new politicalmovement.

Drumont's name is above all associated with antisemitism. His an-tisemitism was, however, the outcome of his main political beliefs,rather than the cause of them. The Jew became the scapegoat, the in-carnation of the faceless monster, capital. In the violence of Dru-mont's onslaught we find the traditional Catholic view of themodern world combined with the fury of a man who was himself one

of the disinherited, a product of that lower middle class which wasone of the losers in the capitalist system. Added to this, there was astrong sympathy for the conditions of the workers.

The present regime, he claimed, weighed heavily on two categoriesof people, the revolutionary worker and the Christian conservative:'L'un est atteint dans ses interets vitaux; I'autre est blesse dans sescroyances les plus chores. 8 Things had been different before 1789,but 'le resultat le plus clair de la Revolution a ete de rendre plus durla situation

des petits et de fortifier au contraire la situation desgrands et des riches en la delivrant de toute responsabilite morale. 9The ancien regime had given everybody the possibility of resisting in-justice: 'Le regime moderne, qui entend ne trouver patrout que desames d'esclaves, s'efforce par tous les moyens de mettre les humblesdans l'impossibilite de tenir tete aux gros. '0 All the governmentssince the Revolution had been governments of the bourgeoisie:

I1 a fallu cinquante ans de luttes aux ouvriers pour briser les chaines si admirable-

ment forgees que la Bourgeoisie triomphante en 1789 leur avait attachees aux piedset aux mains pour exercer l'exploitation industrielle a son aise; c'est a peine si au-jourd'hui ils se trouvent, au point de vue du droit d'association, a peu pres aumeme point qu'a la veille de la Revolution.11

Above all, the propertied classes were stronger than ever: 'Jamais lapropriete, nous l'avons constate d maintes reprises, n'a eu des droits

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semblables a ceux qu'elle exerce aujourd'hui avec une si jalouse

aprete. '2In his search for a scapegoat to blame for this state of affairs, Dru-mont turned on the Jews, who were responsible for the rule ofmoney:

Aujourd'hui, grace au Juif, l'argent auquel le monde chretien n'attachait qu'uneimportance secondaire et n'assignait qu'un role subalterne est devenu tout-puissant. La puissance capitaliste concentree dans un petit nombre de mains

gouverne a son gre toute la vie economique des peuples, asservit le travail et serepait des gains iniques acquis sans labeur.

It was thanks to the Jew that 'la vieille France s'est dissoute, decom-posee. 'Rich Jews such as the Rothschilds were seen as having arrivedfrom abroad, done no work, produced nothing, and yet mademillions of francs through the financial system: 'Tout vient du Juif;tout revient au Juif. 13

The sales of La France juive were enormous, and its political ef-fect incalculable. Drumont appealed not only to Christian conser-

vatives,but to all those who hated the

capitalist system.He soon

found that his book had placed him firmly in the political arena; andhis writings and actions, from 1886 onwards, were far more con-sciously political, culminating in the founding of the newspaper LaLibre Parole (1892), the involvement in the Panama and Dreyfus Af-fairs, the founding of the Ligue Nationale Antisemitique franqaise,and his incursion into parliamentary politics.

The strength of antisemitism as a political force has been a matterof some discussion. There is no doubt that, in the years immediatelysucceeding 1886, the theme became very influential. To manyobservers, any anticapitalistic traits in Drumont have appeared to bean offshoot of his antisemitism. It appears, on the contrary, from areading of the texts, that anticapitalism was the major interest, andantisemitism its weapon. Like many others, Drumont sincerelybelieved the Republic to have been taken over by Jewish interests;but the results he abhorred were the ravages created by capital. It wasfor this that he was to be of such lasting influence, and that in the

1930s a man like Bernanos could still claim allegiance to him.Antisemitism was a rather shorter-lived political force only in thesense that it could never remain the major plank in a platform. Forabout fifteen years, with the help of the Panama and the Dreyfusscandals, it maintained a strong political presence. It is wrong,however, to suggest that thereafter it became something of a political

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albatross to those parties who took it up. In the French situation, it

was a powerful emotive force when placed alongside other majorpreoccupations, such as nationalism or anticapitalism.In the 1880s it was a particularly good way of bringing together the

disparate forms of hatred of capital, and giving them a target to aimat. Above all, for Catholic traditionalists, it was a way of attracting awhole new area of public support. French socialism had always con-tained elements of antisemitism, and was later publicly to declare itsattitude at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, in the Manifeste desdeputes socialistes au proletariat, in which the Jews were accused ofattempting 'pour garder leur part du butin de se rehabiliter un peu',and in which 'tout le groupe judaisant et panamisant' were depictedas wishing to 'laver d cette fontaine toutes les souillures d'Israel. "4Popular support for such hatreds was something which could now, itwas felt, be attracted to more traditional doctrines.

The young Barres saw this, but saw the dangers of this approachas well. Shortly after the foundation of the Ligue nationale anti-semitiquefranqaise, he described, in an article in La Figaro, the way

in which antisemitism, a 'tradition un peu honteuse de l'ancienneFrance', had been rejuvenated by Drumont, and had now been madepublic in crowded and enthusiastic political meetings. 'C'est de lahaine, simplement de la haine qu'on voit tout d'abord dans cette for-mule antijuive', he declared. For capital was the enemy, and thecrowds who were crying 'A bas les Juifs ' were really crying 'A basles inegalites sociales ' The 80,000 Jews in France really meantnothing to these people. Their anger was against 'toute cette for-midable organisation du capital qui les domine.'

Barres was frightened by this antisemitism, because it would serveto divert attention from the real enemy. A movement which shouted'A bas les Juifs ' would not last long. The moment one Jew was kill-ed the whole thing would collapse. 'Lespartis uniquementfondes surles passions demeurent a la merci des moindres evenements qui fonttourner l'opinion.'

State Socialism, declared Barres, was the answer to the antisemiticformula. 'II nous fournit un beau reve .... C'est une theorie

d'amour.' The antisemites, with their furious imprecations, mustrealise the nature of modern society, and the formidable power ofthe capitalistic society they were attacking. Capitalist France wouldalways laugh at mere agitators; what was needed was 'un homme in-stalle dans la place, un pouvoir fort', which could 'imposer sesvolontes, ouvrir les murs aux desherites. 5

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The use of the word socialism, in the mouths of people like Barresat this

time,has little relation to the

politicalterm as it is

generallyunderstood. Any concern with social matters, with a desire forchange, with an attack on capitalism, could be described in this way.Charles Maurras's description of Drumont, in a letter of 1890, istypical in its description of the new-style conservatism: 'II y a deuxpartis conservateurs, l'un qui est vivant et I'autre. Le premier estavec Drumont et, par Drumont, il finira bien par joindre le partisocialiste, populaire, qui est la grande force aveugle, encore in-employee. '16

Drumont quite clearly saw himself, in electoral terms, as aCatholic conservative. In his description of his own candidature at amunicipal election in Paris, he states how he counted on the votes ofthose French workers who would be aware of the Jewish danger, butthat any any rate he felt that 'j'aurai toujours les voix de mesfreresles catholiques que, depuis de longues annees, je rencontre le diman-che a la Messe.' This was all the more so because he was notchallenging anyone's interests, as there was no conservative adver-

sary; he would not be troubling any 'droit acquis'. The obvious thingfor the local Catholics to do was to 's'employer de leur mieux poursoutenir un candidat qui etait, par sa vie comme par ses ecrits, lerepresentant de leurs idees.'17 He was not conservative in theparliamentary sense. To be so would be to associate himself withdeputies like Baron Reille, who was 'I'oppose du Catholique tel queje le comprends', and who was 'par excellence le Catholique meleaux affaires financieres, s'accommodant tres bien du regime socialactuel si monstrueux et si

inique qu'il soit,en

beneficianttant

qu'ilpeut.'18 It was the opposition of people like Reille to his an-ticapitalism, he claimed, that had caused his electoral defeat.

Barres's own concern with social ideas in this period has led anumber of writers, using his own contemporary terms, to describe itas his 'socialist' phase; some even go so far as to call it his 'leftist'phase.'9 Yet his political platform in this period fits in well with theright-wing trends we have been describing, and his later conservatismwas a natural continuation of these earlier conservative tendencies.

In the election of 1889 Barres stood as a Boulangist, and wasreturned for the third constituency of Nancy. Observers have rightlypointed to the varied support which General Boulanger achieved,ranging from extreme left to Royalism; this support was united in itshatred for the Third Republic, and the desire for a new regime.Patriotism was another binding factor. But what is not sufficiently

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realised is that fact that, in this unexpected alliance, further points of

agreement were discovered, and a new form of political platformformed, in which anticapitalism, patriotism, and antiparliament-arianism were the watchwords. After the failure of the General,which removed the immediate possibility of a coup d'etat, these newpolicies were the basis for the first Boulangist electoral campaign.Barres's published programme included the suppression of theparliamentary regime, a separation of the legislative and executivepowers, and a strong executive which, on major matters, could referdirectly to the people by way of a referendum. On the social side, itcalled for the organization of retirement pensions for the workers,the abolition of laws restricting the right to strike or the right tounionise, more equitable taxation, and guarantees for Frenchworkers against foreign competition.

The last of these aims was to lead to one of the main planks inBarres's platform in the 1893 election: protectionism led inexorablyto an appeal for 'France for the French.' Impressed, perhaps, by thesuccess of Drumont's tactics (which he had viewed with such scep-

ticism in 1890), Barres claimed that the exclusion of foreign workers,which would protect French workers, was an issue which formed themeeting point of antisemitism, socialism and the patriotic current.20Barres's programme in this election was one of socialisme na-tionaliste. Like many other traditionalist movements from this dateonwards, it attacked both international socialism and internationalcapitalism.

Despite Barres's attacks on socialist thinkers from Fourier toMarx, he nevertheless insisted in this

periodon

thinkingof himself as

being a socialist, and on seeing men like Jaures and Sembat as'garqons marchands de vin au comptoir oti je bois ma liqueur. '2Both his supporters and his opponents saw his views in their truelight, however, as being basically of the right. In La Cocarde, thenewspaper which he edited from late 1894 to early 1895, he gatheredtogether what Maurras, with hindsight, saw as a very motley array ofcollaborators.22 Yet the journal, which contained a number offormer Boulangists, as well as an anarchist like Augustin Hamon,was united by a number of things: patriotism, anticapitalism andantiparliamentarianism, as well as decentralist policies. To thosewho suggest that Barres's social thought in this period had to be 'abalancing act, an attempt to maintain an equilibrium between bothpoles of his staff, between left-wing and right-wing doctrines,'23 tcould be answered that, in the fluid political situation of the 1890s,

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such distinctions were not so clear, and that Barres, who after allchose his own

collaborators, appearedto be unaware of the contra-

dictions. For him left and right, if they were national rather than in-ternational, were likely to take the same views upon social problems.Barres's own ideas, as expressed in the paper, appear to have beenbecoming more and more affected by Proudhon, who was to lie atthe basis of so much right-wing social theory in the next fifty years.

Barres's last campaign as a socialiste national was in 1898. Hisplatform reiterated the need for tax reforms, workers' pensions, bet-ter schooling, etc., and levelled further attacks against high financeand against the foreigners who ran it. Nationalism was stressed moreand more, as well it might in the year of the Dreyfus crisis; yet the'Socialist' Barres and the 'Nationalist' Barres were a natural con-tinuum, and if events after the Affair made Barres concentrate moreon the latter doctrine, this was in no way a denial of the former. Thebasis for both was a desire for strong government, preferably by oneman, who would put the country to rights; this leader would beelected by popular vote, and have recourse to the people over the

heads of any other elected representatives, by means of referenda. Inthis mystical appeal to the people, and this hatred of parliamen-tarism, there is much which makes one think of the origins of theFifth Republic.

Barres is a case of particular interest. But he was not the onlyright-winger to make use of the title 'Socialist'. In 1890 the Marquisde Mores, Drumont's chief collaborator in the new Ligue antisemiti-que, had formed in Paris a 'comite revisionniste et socialiste'; andlater on Pierre Bietry, the leader of the 'yellow' trade unionists, wasto call his movement the Parti Socialiste National.

That all this populist conservatism was an honest appeal to theworking class can hardly be in doubt. Drumont's fierce attack onJewish capital was based upon the contrast between the rich and thefact that there were 'des familles entieres [qui] 'asphyxiaient parcequ'elles ne pouvaient plus manger. 24 Again and again he stressed theappalling conditions under which sections of the poor lived. God hadsaid, 'Thou shalt live by the sweat of thy brow', but He had not said:

'Tu vivras enferme dans une atmosphere meurtriere, tu epuiseras lesforces de ton corps, tu videras tes moelles et tu brtuleras on sang.'25For Barres the important thing was to bring the working classes backinto a relationship with the rest of the French nation; nationalismand 'socialism' of his particular type were therefore natural cor-ollaries. Mores shared Barres's view of the need for an economic

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transformation of society and a new kind of leadership, while basing

these views on 'la souverainete du peuple'26 and seeing the mosturgent need as being to 'alleger . . la misere generale'.27The suggestion that has been made by several historians, that such

views were a conscious attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of theproletariat, and that, unrelated as they were to true socialist theory,they were merely an attempt to improve the lot of the petitebourgeoisie, is hard to support. Some of the policies put forwardwere unrealistic and, in the case of Barrres, a growing concern fororder and continuity meant that the most that would be likely to beachieved was a tinkering with the system. But in a period whenworking-class ideology and organization were poorly developed,when French socialism was divided, when strikes could be brutallysuppressed with little in the way of retaliation, and when theChamber of Deputies hardly discussed the 'Social Question' (oc-cupied as it was by outdated problems such as the clerical threat), theconservative solutions, Boulangism, and the violence of the anar-chists, must have seemed the only real contributions to the solution

of the problem. The late growth of effective working-class organiza-tion in the mid-1890s was completely to change this picture.

In the 1886-98 period, the Chamber of Deputies had devoted alltoo little attention to social problems, and when it did, it appeared toconcentrate on the maintenance of the rights of the property-owningclasses. Barres was out of the Chamber from 1893 onwards. Amongthe Conservatives, Albert de Mun, who in 1886 had founded hisAssociation Catholique de la Jeunesse Franqaise, based on the con-

cept of individual evangelisation which would bring individuals backto the true faith and to a sense of duty, which would thus graduallyimprove society, continued on his paternalistic way; but he appearsto have done little, in parliamentary terms, to deal with social pro-blems. Most of the Catholic deputies fitted Drumont's description ofBaron Reille. Drumont asked himself what right such people had to'traiter les Republicains d'affames et de jouisseurs. '28 At least theRepublicans did not claim to be Christians.

While not necessarily sharing the violence of Drumont's denuncia-tions, we should perhaps nevertheless look fleetingly at the conser-vative parliamentarians of the time. They divide very much into pro-vincial nobility and urban industrialists and businessmen. The Rallie-ment was to be the great opportunity for some of the latter to showtheir colours, by supporting the status quo in the Republic. AsShapiro puts it in his study of this question, 'this makes political

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sense. They were men whose fortunes were most closely linked to the

preservationof

publicorder.'29

In the 1886-98 period, parliamentary conservatism was on thewhole, despite varied opinions about the regime that was desirable,on social matters not very different from the capitalist liberalismwhich ruled France with such ease. It was the extra-parliamentaryright which objected to the social order, and which, whether itlooked for it within revolution or continuity, asked for change. Itappealed both to the working class and to the lower middle class; butby the middle of the nineties new forces had begun to emerge whichwere to complicate what, until then, had been a fairly simple issue.

Of these forces, the rapid expansion of the Socialist group in theChamber of Deputies was, paradoxically, one of the least important.It was the founding of the Confederation generale du travail, and thesharp increase in strike action in the late 1890s, which showed theway forward for working-class action. The Dreyfus Affair, whichwas originally seen by the Socialist deputies as a fight between twobourgeois factions, which would merely succeed, by distracting at-

tention from France's true problems, in furthering the exploitationof the people, eventually engulfed the leading Socialists Jaures andMillerand, as well as many of their followers. The aftermath of theAffair showed that, in Socialist terms, involvement on the Dreyfusside had been a mistake. Socialists might well enter government; butnone of Millerand's proposed social reforms in 1900-02 ever led toanything, and the government alliance, after the elections of 1902,remained in the sidetrack of anticlerical activity which had been be-queathed to it by the Affair. Effective activity in relation to the socialproblem, on the left, was in the hands of the anarcho-syndicalistsand the CGT.

The extra-parliamentary right had been aware of the potentialpower of the mouvement ouvrier, which may have been one of thereasons that it had done so much to try to channel its forces.Parliamentarians had been far less aware. In the aftermath of theFourmies strike, in July 1891, Deroulede, amid the smiles of theCentre, had warned them in the following terms, to no avail:

Vous pouvez vous reconcilier ainsi avec ce mouvement ouvrier qui se developpe,que vous ne pouvez arreter, et dont vous pourrez peut-etre alors reprendre a direc-tion, cette direction qui vous echappe parce que dans la democratie revolutionnairevous avez constitue I'aristocratie financiere, dont vous etes les fideles et tenaces

representants.30

By 1898, at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, however, the right

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was far too concerned with the matters of the moment to devote

much attention to the social problem. The various Ligues were moreconcerned either with nationalism or with antisemitism than withsocial reform, more with the defence of religion and order than withthe defence of the poor. Deroulede's revived Ligue des Patriotes,together with Barres, the proponent of authoritarian Republicanism,saw the Affair as the opportunity for a change of regime; Guerin andthe Ligue antisemite, in the wake of Drumont, used it as the oppor-tunity for their last public achievements. The Ligue de la PatrieFranqaise was mainly concerned with defending the anti-Dreyfusardcause, and attacking the opposing forces (though, in its programme,it took advantage of Socialist inadequacy on the social question tomake an appeal to the workers). The Action Franqaise movement,starting from very small beginnings, was the only one to havetendencies towards a real social policy; and these were not to becomeclear and fully developed until about 1906.

In the Ligue de la Patrie Franqaise's programme there were,however, as Watson points out,31 certain significant trends. The

danger from the left led to a declared opposition to collectivism. Itwas suggested that there was a 'secret alliance of Socialism andJewish high finance'. This appeal to the lower middle class wasmatched by an appeal to potential Socialist supporters, through aclaim that the Nationalists would do all that Socialism, despite all itspromises, had failed to do - produce equitable taxation, old agepensions, a sickness fund, unemployment insurance, pensions, allbased on the principle of free association instead of 'enforced collec-tivism' .32

The Action Franqaise was eventually to be the main spokesman ofthe right on social affairs. In 1899, at its foundation, it consistedlargely of a group of young people devoted, as its title suggests, to anactive and violent pursuit of Nationalist aims. Its journal was na-tionalist, anti-parliamentarian, anticapitalist and (at this stage)Republican. Writing to Barres in February 1899 to ask him whetherhe would be a collaborator in the journal they were aiming to pro-duce, Maurras wrote: 'Le groupe qui se reunit au Cafe Voltaire(Vaugeois, Pujo, etc.), et dont je suis toutes les deliberations, mecharge de vous demander si l'on peut citer votre nom dans la liste descollaborateurs possibles du journal ... La nuance est nationaliste,avec quelques propensions au socialisme ... .33 Vaugeois, one of thetwo founders of the movement, saw its mission as to 'raviver en lesmettant en presence, ces deux verites pures, celle du

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passe et celle de l'avenir, celle du parti reactionnaire et celle du parti

socialiste, de faire voir leur egale noblesse et de preparer non pas lemelange, mais la paix entre elles par une serie de discussions sinceressur les questions vitales de la politique actuelle. 34

The political character of the journal, and the movement, hadcompletely changed from Republican to Royalist by 1901. This wasthe work of Maurras, who in the years since La Cocarde haddiscovered his Royalist faith, and now succeeded in converting hiscollaborators. This new form of Royalism, far removed from themoribund Royalism of the Legitimists and Orleanists, was to be bas-ed on a coherent and rational assessment of the problems of society.The monarch became the equivalent of Barres's dictator who wouldreorganise society on suitable lines.

Amid the other political interests of the first years of the ActionFran aise, one can perceive a coherent social policy growing up. Thiswas largely based upon the teachings of La Tour du Pin, of whomMaurras said in 1905, 'I7 est essentiel que l'on sache tout ce que nousdevons a cet homme, qui est vraiment un maitre. 35La Tour du Pin,

who joined the movement, had by now become the theorist of awhole social policy based on corporatism. In Vers un ordre socialchretien he links this with a specific attack on capitalism, which hedescribed as a modern form of usury.36

It was from 1906 onwards, however, that the Action Franqaisebegan to take a specific stance on social issues. This coincided withwhat appeared to many to be a potentially revolutionary situation.As Malcolm Anderson puts it, many people felt that 'the future of

the bourgeois society wasin

doubt.' Between 1906 and1911 there

were perpetual strikes, 'accompanied by a commentary of revolu-tionary pronouncements by trade union leaders.' The 'social pro-blem' replaced 'clericalism' as the main issue in parliament.37

It is significant that, in 1906, Clemenceau as Minister of the In-terior claimed to have discovered a plot involving leaders of the CGTand 'certain members of the extreme extra-parliamentary Right.'38For, in opposition to the forces of capital and the bourgeoisie, thesetwo forces were not entirely contradictory. Though no plot was everproved, the belief in the likelihood of such a link-up was clearlythere.

The Action Franqaise's first social move, however, had been in thedirection of the Parti Socialiste National of Bietry and his yellowtrade unions. Bietry, who had become a rather idiosyncratic deputyby winning a Brest constituency in 1906, believed in the extension of

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property-owning to all classes. His platform combined violent anti-

socialism with a belief in the principle of the 'closed shop'. Bietry'sunions were, however, basically blackleg organizations, and when hecalled for the CGT to be suppressed, in 1907, it was clear that hiscommitment was more to the economic status quo than to any attackon capitalism. The Action Franqaise broke with him, and turned tothe trade unions themselves. Maurras, Leon Daudet, Pujo, Revainand Valois all spoke of the similarity of their aims.39

The strong support given by the Action Franqaise to the strikers ofDraveil and Villeneuve-St-Georges in 1908, when Clemenceau, the'premier lic de France' saw it as his duty to put down such socialdisorders, is at first sight paradoxical; but it bears out the view thatparliamentarians, whatever their political hue, stood for themaintenance of the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Maurras's statements on the social question on the occasion of thisstrike40 howed his fundamental belief that the class struggle was in-evitable in a democratic society. What was needed was a completechange of regime, the installation of a monarchy, which would show

both employers and workers that they had common interests, andthat any differences could be resolved by each class being aware of itsown duties rather than asserting the duties of others. In his depictionof the present system, however, he made it clear that class strugglewas inevitable, and that the needs of the workers should beunderstood by the bourgeoisie, rather than ignored. The attitudes ofthe employers created the reactions of the workers.

So, in the present unsatisfactory world, faced by the reality of the

class struggle, it was important not to side with the forces ofcapitalism. The workers, at least, were able to recognise the commonenemy, democracy. This explains all the ventures which, up to 1914,the Action Franqaise undertook with syndicalists of various hues,and which have been documented in Weber's book.41 They representnot so much a renunciation of traditional or corporatist theory, as arealistic assessment that, until the regime was overthrown, the pre-sent situation must be dealt with in its own terms. The movement'sbelief in the monarchy remained based not purely on nationalismand tradition, but also on the belief in a need for a new society whichwould, by a return to the old virtues, do away with the rule ofcapital.

The preparedness to work with other revolutionary forces opposedto capital was not understood by a number of the movement'sfollowers; indeed, La Tour du Pin himself broke off relations for a

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while. But conservative corporatism and revolutionary syndicalism

shared many negative attitudes,and even when

combiningwith the

latter Maurras was aware of the ultimate aim which transcended thepresent situation.

The war appeared to change everything. By their alliance withClemenceau in 1917, the Action Franqaise had subordinated whatthey saw as the national interest to all others. After the war, it washarder to see them as opponents of the Republic, even though theyretained their Royalist policies. Leon Daudet's seat in the Chamberof Deputies denoted a complete change of political tactics. The Ac-tion Franqaise was becoming respectable.

It was in this situation that a major policy split took place withinthe movement. A number of the members of the newly respectableAction Franqaise began to see the movement as being, above all, thedefender of the interests of the bourgeoisie against revolutionarysocialism and communism. Volumes and articles expatiating on thevirtues of the bourgeoisie as the backbone of France were produced.Bainville wrote of 'le divin capital'.42 At the same time some of the

political and economic thinkers of the movement continued with theold line. Georges Valois was the leading figure on this side, and hisConfederation de l'Intelligence et de la Production Franqaise, aimedat both workers and employers, was a serious attempt to introduce

corporative ideas at the ground level. The Conf6deration had con-siderable success in the early twenties; Valois's appeal was based not

merely on economic grounds, but on the sense of comradeship andheroism which all Frenchmen had found in the trenches, and which

shouldnow create the

unitywhich would enable them to

stampout

all the forces of plutocracy which had taken advantage of the war.This appeal to disappointed ex-servicemen was, later in the inter-war

period, to be the strength of a number of the ligues. Valois's book,La Revolution nationale, in its call for a strong leader who wouldmaintain the rights of all against the rights of capital, appeared the

perfect answer to Rene Johannet, the most strident of the supportersof the bourgeoisie, for whom 'le capitalisme l'emporte et l'emporteratoujours, parce qu'il est seul scientifique, parce qu'il correspond a la

nature, parce qu'il s'appuie sur la tradition, parce qu'il existe. 43The fact that it was Valois who left the Action Franqaise has led

many people to believe that it was the triumph of the other factionwhich drove him out. In fact, it appears to have been, above all, im-

patience with what he saw as the moribund, respectable outlook of

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the contemporary movement. As he later said, 'Ma volonte bien

arretee etait d'entrainer toute l'Action Franqaise dans un mouvementrevolutionnaire. Je la tenais pour gouvernee par des hommes par-faitement resolus a ne jamais agir.44

This appears to relate to the new 'respectability of the ActionFranqaise, rather than necessarily to its rejection of all its formerideas; but the two things are naturally to some extent intermingled.Though Leon Daudet continued his violent attacks on plutocracy,and though many of the movement's supporters, like Adolphe Rette,found in Daudet's phrase 'tout en or' the true designation of 'lesfinanciers qui opposent a l'Esprit la puissance brutale de leurscapitaux',45 he Action Franqaise represented to many people, fromnow on, a bourgeois movement supporting the status quo against thecommunist threat. It is significant, nevertheless, that in a selectionfrom his works published in 1937, under the title Mes Ides politi-ques, Maurras should have had reprinted some of his 'social'writings of the 1908 period.

It is difficult, in the perpetual argument between political scientists

about the fascist or non-fascist nature of the ligues of the inter-warperiod, to arrive at clear conclusions. But three movements, aboveall, appear to stem directly from that traditional right which we havebeen describing: Valois's Le Faisceau (despite its obeisance toMussolini in its name), Taittinger's Jeunesses Patriotes, and La Roc-que's Croix de Feu. Le Faisceau continued Valois's already-formedideas; the Jeunesses Patriotes combined traditional nationalism withthe corporatist ideas of La Tour du Pin; the Croix de Feu aimed

specifically at ex-servicemen, calling for unity of the classes, respectfor work and for the rights acquired by the workers, and authorityand order.46 It was these, rather than the other ligues, which at-tracted traditionalist support to the greatest extent; Doriot's move-ment, Le Parti Populaire Franqais, attracted, after its foundation in1936, a very different kind of support, from the working class andfrom intellectuals, as did some of the other, smaller, movementswhose true origins lay on the left.

Le Faisceau did not have enormous success after 1926. It was thetwo traditionalist and patriotic ligues, the Jeunesses Patriotes and theCroix de Feu, which appeared, by the mid-thirties, to be capturingmuch of the lower-middle class support which the Action Franqaisehad once enjoyed. A referendum, in the newspaper Le Petit Journalin late 1934, is a good witness to this change. The referendum was onthe question of who should be the French dictator. The result put

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Marshal Petain first, with 38,561 votes, with Pierre Laval second

with 31,403. When it came to the heads of the ligues, Taittinger ofthe Jeunesses Patriotes did very well, with 11,163 votes. La Rocqueof the Croix de Feu got 6,402. Maurras and Daudet had so few votesthat they did not even appear on the final list, and the royalist can-didates, between them, got only just over a thousand.

The strength of anticapitalist views on the French right has oftenbeen underestimated. The solutions which were put forward wereoften either unrealistic, or paternalistic, or consciously or un-consciously advantageous to the very bourgeoisie they were attack-ing. But one must discount neither the possibility that these viewswere sincere, nor the effect that the negative attack on capitalismcould have on whole sections of the community. The policies of theRevolution Nationale, in 1940, still bear the imprint of this anti-capitalist tradition, and it is interesting to note, in July of that year,the concentration on these themes in the major statements aimed atwinning over the French nation. The Expose des motifs du projet deloi constitutionnelle spoke of a redistribution of wealth, designed to

avoid 'd'une part, la dictature de l'argent et de la ploutocratie,d'autre part, la misere et le chomage.'47 Laval, presenting the exposeto the Assembly on July 10th, spoke emotively, saying that 'Ce qui acorrompu surtout l'ame de la France, c'est l'or de l'etranger'.48 Pe-tain, in his Appel du 11 juillet, spoke of 'le capitalisme internationalet le socialisme international' which had exploited and degraded theFrench workers: 's'opposant l'un a l'autre en apparence, ils semenageaient l'un et l'autre en secret.' Capital had been the enemy:

'Pour notre societe devoyee, I'argent, trop souvent serviteuret in-

strument du mensonge, etait un moyen de domination'.49In the Revolution nationale we find an attempt to put many of the

theories of the French right, in relation to capitalism, into practice.In the process the inevitable clashes between corporatism, 'back tothe land' agriculturalism, utopian trust in the ultimate goodness ofman, and meritocratic technocracy were revealed. It had taken theachievement of power to show the incoherence of the proposed prac-tical solutions to a problem which, presented in negative terms, hadappeared deceptively simple.

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Notes

1. E.g. Weber's study of the Action Franqaise's relationship with syndicalism inthe period 1911-14.

2. E.g. E. Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (London 1965).3. See Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution (London 1966).4. Huysmans, Letter to Leclaire, 28 April 1903.5. Paul Claudel, Memoires improvises, 73.6. Paul Claudel, La Ville (2nd version, 1897).7. Rene Remond, La Droite en France (Paris 1963), 136.8. Edouard Drumont, La France Juive (1886).9. Edouard Drumont, Testament d'un Antisemite (1891).

10. Ibid.11. Ibid.12. Ibid.13. Drumont, La France Juive.14. Manifeste des deputes socialistes au proletariat, 19 January 1898, quoted in

Kedward, The Dreyfus Affair (London 1965), 101.15. Maurice Barres, Le Figaro, 22 February 1890.16. Charles Maurras, Letter to Maurice Barres, 22 February 1890. (Printed in La

Republique ou le Roi (Paris 1970) 31-32.17. Drumont, Testament d'un Antisemite.18. Ibid., 403.19. E.g. Robert Soucy, Fascism in France: The Case of Maurice Barres (Los

Angeles 1972), 228.20. Interview in Le Figaro, 31 July 1893, quoted in Soucy, op. cit., 235.21. Quoted in Pierre Moreau, Maurice Barres (Paris 1946), 100.22. Maurras, Au Signe de Flore, (Paris 1933), Livre premier, 'Confession politi-

que'.23. Soucy, op. cit., 237.24. Drumont, Testament d'un Antisemite, 363.25. Drumont, quoted in Bernanos, La Grande Peur des Bien-pensants (Paris

1931), 91.26. Mores tract, 'La Fete du Travail, le 1er mai 1890'.27. Mores et ses amis, Rothschild, Ravachol et Cie (Paris 1892), 48.28. Drumont, Testament d'un Antisemite, 403.29. David Shapiro, 'The Ralliement in the Politics of the 1890s' in The Right in

France 1890-1919, (St. Anthony's Papers 13), 1962.30. Debats parlementaires, 10 July 1891, quoted in Girardet, Le Nationalisme

Franqais 1871-1914, (Paris 1966), 165-66.31. D.R. Watson, 'The Nationalist Movement in Paris, 1900-1906' n The Right in

France, 1890-1919, 62.32. Lemaitre, election poster of 1900, quoted in Watson, op. cit., 63.33. Maurras, Letter to Barres, 3 February 1899. (La Republique ou le Roi, 206-7).34. Vaugeois, quoted in Girardet, op cit., 195.35. Maurras, letter to Barres, 9 July 1905 (La Republique ou le Roi, 455).36. La Tour du Pin, Vers un ordre social chretien (Paris s.d.), 351.37. Malcolm Anderson, 'The Right and the Social Question in Parliament,

1905-1919' in The Right in France 1890-1919, 85-86.38. Ibid, 85.

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39. See especially Georges Valois, 'La Revolution sociale et le roi' in Revue deI'Action Franqaise, 16 September 1907; idem, 'Royalisme et syndicalisme' in ibid., 15October 1907; and Jean Rivain, 'L'Avenir du syndicalisme' in ibid., 15 September1908.

40. See, particularly, the Action Franqaise, for 30 & 31 July and 1, 3 and 4 August1908.

41. Weber, L'Action Franqaise, Part One, Chapter Three, 'Alarmes etAventures'.

42. Jacques Bainville, 'L'Avenir de la civilisation' in Revue Universelle, 1 March1922.

43. Rene Johannet, 'La Victoire du capitalisme en Allemagne' in RevueUniverselle, 1 January 1922.

44. George Valois, L'Homme contre I'Argent, Souvenirs de Dix Ans, 1918-1928(Paris 1928), 167.

45. Adophe Rette, 'Tout en or' in La Basse cour d'Apollon (Paris 1924), 156.46 See J. Plumyene & R. Lasierra, Les Fascismes Franqais, 1923-1963 (Paris

1963), 53.47. Expose des motifs, in Montigny, Toute la verite sur un mois dramatique de

notre histoire, Clermont-Ferrand, 1940, p. 129-132.48. Montigny, op. cit., p. 80.49. Petain, Appel du 11 juillet 1940.

Richard GriffithsProfessor of French at University College,Cardiff, is the author of The DramaticTechnique of Montchrestien (Oxford 1970), TheReactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival inFrench Literature 1870-1914 (Oxford 1966) andMarshal Petain (Constable 1970). He is currently

working on a book entitled Reactions to theDictators.

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Griffiths - Anticapitalism and the French Extra-parlamentary Right

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