Tuesday, April 7, 2009
At the centre of the crisis too is the contradiction between US imperialism and the people of the Third World. This is exemplified by the fact that the consumption of the US, including its gargantuan military expenditure, is being funded from the savings of China, other East Asian countries, and the Gulf oil producers. Though US imperialism is still dominant worldwide, its economic dominance has long been in decline, tending to make this parasitic extraction ever more unsustainable. (Dogged insurgencies in countries under US military occupation have played a significant role in further undermining US hegemony, preventing it from achieving its strategic-economic aims, forcing it to increase its military expenditure abroad, and deepening its dependence on foreign inflows.) The waning of the US’s economic and political power too underlies the current crisis. However, the pattern of trade in recent years (giant US trade deficits, giant trade surpluses of certain Third World countries) and the perverse pattern of financial flows (from the poor to the rich countries) have not been brought about by the US elite on their own, but with the help of the elites of the Third World; and the latter too have flourished unprecedentedly therefrom. These patterns represent, in a sense, a compact between the elites of different worlds against their people, who are the losers in the entire scheme.
So the effects of Obama's drone war are not limited to the few houses destroyed here and there. The attacks have spawned, or greatly added to, a humanitarian catastrophe that remains largely hidden from the world -- and certainly from the well-wadded Western "liberals" who cheer Obama's savvy toughness in the "good war" on the Af-Pak front. As The Times reports, almost a million people have been driven from their homes in Pakistan's Tribal Areas to escape the American drones, and the bombs of Washington's Pakistani proxies:
Most of us remember all too well the praise from the Bush administration lavished on the Awakening Groups, a Sunni militia comprised of former resistance fighters and al-Qaeda members (according to the US military), each member paid $300 per month of US taxpayer money. They grew in strength to 100,000 men. US aid to the Councils was cut off last October on the understanding that the members would be absorbed into Iraqi government forces. To date, less than a third have been given government jobs.
lecture 18, "the dark years: vichy france"
john merriman
-------------
the fall of France, and collaboration
1936, again, possibly a time when Hitler could have been stopped in the Rhineland.
all of this has to be seen, in France, in the context of World War I and its legacy--there was a strong feeling, Wilson, etc., that wars were bad things done by evil people (and this was implicit in the resolution of the Treaty of Versailles, of course)
no one wanted another war, but Hitler had been agitating for one from the outset.
there was a feeling that another war would be unthinkable, in France. have to remember the tremendously traumatizing effects of WWI.
-------------
Hitler had of course been building military capacity in Germany, re-arming the nation, etc. Hitler's advisors had been expecting a war to begin, though, in 1940/1941--as we all know, the war actually begins on the 1st of September, 1939, when Hitler invades Poland (he takes power in 1933).
militarily, why does France fall so rapidly?
their respective troop strengths were relatively equal at the time of the invasion of France in May 1940. in tanks, the allies actually had superiority, though German tanks were lighter and faster (and they were used in divisions, which gave them an advantage).
Germans had a clear superiority in fighter power (and they had tried them out in Spain, don't forget)
how had the British and French been planning? they believed that it would be another war of attrition--a long, drawn-out battle in which a strong, defensive line would be critical.
the Germans, by contrast, believed in rapid attack--the "blitzkrieg"
the French are assuming that the forests in N. France and E. Belgium will be physical impediments to the German invasion, but did not prove to be this. 10 tank divisions pour through the forests and they simply waste these French tanks. in four days they're way inside France. the German High Command thought it would take 9 days--and it took 4!
Hitler does make one mistake, prof argues, which is he refuels, allowing the evacuation of French and British troops at Dunkirk.
you have refugees, and German fighter planes picking them off as they fled.
------------------
a new French government, then, collaborates with the Germans--Vichy France is born. (France is divided in two zones; the "collaborationist" government has its capital in Vichy.)
involves people who actively assist the Nazis in achieving their goals, acting on their aspirations. by the end of 1943/1944, if you were a French collaborator and you find graffiti with the word "K" on your door, you were toast--because it meant that the Maquis (or the resistance) was confident enough to make that kind of threat.
again, it's not only France--in Belgium, for example, the right-wing Flemish were more likely to collaborate, and it remains a tension. in Budapest, way you see a goulish shoe-memorial to Jews and Communists gunned down by Hungarian collaborators.
----------------
the historiography and history of collaboration is fascinating, prof is saying.
there's a myth of universal resistance, perpetuated by people who had actively collaborated and also by Charles De Gaulle (he needed people to forget the Communist resistance, and lead the French people to identify with his person and leadership--part of the mantle he'd assume.)
there was a movie from 1953-1954 about the Jews arrested in Paris in 1942--taken away, put in a transit camp north of Paris. in the film you see French guards--so what they do is they photoshop it, effectively.
three series of crucial events have jolted this myth, prof is arguing:
(1) the film called "the sorrow and the pity", which is 4.5 hrs long. what the producer does is he goes to one single town and he looked at what happened there in collaboration--some of the best documentary scenes about intentional forgetting, etc,--where teachers forget about their Jewish friends/colleagues. it was only shown in one theatre. made for French TV, but not shown until 1981/1982. why? because it told the awful truth, which was that lots of people believed better Hitler than Blum.
(2) "vichy france," by bob paxton in 1972. it cut through the intentional forgetting to look squarely at collaboration--bob paxton, actually, didn't have the right to french archival documents (the 50 year rule, and a "troublemaker"). but when this book came out, it had a very powerful effect. here was a great historian saying it "wasn't like what you learned in school."
(3) the trials--as collaboration came to be something that people wanted to know about--then people with bad histories were tracked down. one of the first was Touvier, who was involved in the torture of resisters, deportations of jews/communists. he was hidden by right-wing groups (bounced from monastery to monastery). but finally tracked down and tried. at this trial, Paxton became an "expert witness." and there was a trial of Barbi, as well, who had tortured people in Lyons. and then there was Maurice Papon, a functionary who signed the death-certificates of hundreds and hundreds of Jews. he went on to a very successful career in the fourth and fifth republic. and they caught up with this very very old man, and there was the question of whether he ought to be tried (in 1998, 1999 -- at one point he escapes, and they find him at a fine restraunt in Switzerland; he insists, "I was a good bureaucrat.") he used the "shield argument"--that if it wasn't for me(/we), thing would have been even worse. he was found guilty, and sent to jail.
"the Vichy syndrome."
so, from having no official memory of Vichy--only bits that had to do with the resistance--France underwent this re-evaluation of its relationship to the regime. and that was important for people who had lost their family members, for Jews (some 75,000 Jews never returned to France after Vichy). the big round-up in June 1942, for example, was not done by the Germans, but by the French police. one of the worst institutions of all was the milice (the militia), created in January 1943, to get tough on the Jews, the communists, the resistance.
remember, the militia's tactics required very personal forms of betrayal--people sending letters to the police, etc. (in the days after war, almost 10,000 collaborators were executed)
----------------
voting left superimposed on a map of de-christianization and there would be remarkable similarities, as prof said before. that is not true of collaborationists--this is not regional, or from one social class (this is the case in Belgium, though.) of course you're more apt to have people from the middle-classes collaborate, but it's difficult to generalize (you have working-class collaboration).
what about religion? the role of the Pope in all of this, professor is saying, is nauseating. the Pope knew, but did nothing. zero. the Catholic Church hierarchy was generally very collaborationist.
Roosevelt and these people knew (they knew before they did anything, prof reminds us), but their dilemma is trickier (can you bomb death camps? train tracks?)
the Church got what it wanted, during Vichy France--no divorce, two people executed for abortion. (though he is also insisting that it is not this open and shut)
-----------------
now, what did the people who collaborated want? a couple of themes
(1) argument made by Petain after the war. by collaborating with the Germans, you were saving the French State. but, as Paxton says, "they may have been saving the French state, but they were destroying the French nation."
(2) the xenophobia that characterized the French right, before the occupation, was obviously a prevalent theme during the collaborationists. no Italians, no Spanish (especially no Marxists).
(3) anti-semitism--the French Vichy regime (it's only in November of 1942 that the Germans occupy the Vichy zone, because the resistance is mobilizing) puts in laws depriving Jews of rights that the Germans didn't even ask them to do. in some ways even harsher than the infamous Nuremberg laws of the Reich.
-----------------
Petain, for the fascists, will be an answer for:
(1) the "decadence" and "feuding France" of pre-Vichy France
(2) the restoration of the earthly power of the Church. restoration of the soul of France; the old, Catholic/Christian values. a return to the "moral order"--when things are passed down from the "moral orders."
(3) nationalism, of a new sort--away from the legacy of the French revolution, towards a nationalism of patriotism and values. and, of course, with this comes an exclusionary ethic.
(4) authority--not the dirtiness of "democracy"; authority flows from the top, down.
(5) peasantism. "true France," not the France of Jews, striking workers, communism, etc., virtue is found in the soil (Joan of Arc is a peasant girl, remember--she becomes a symbol of all this). cities are places where Jews and workers hang out. the true France is the France of peasants on the soil.
(6) corporatism--they've read about Mussolini and Italian fascism, making the argument that workers and bosses have the same interests. and you can resolve these conflicts in the idea of the Nation--strong, marching, plutonic warriors
john merriman
-------------
the fall of France, and collaboration
1936, again, possibly a time when Hitler could have been stopped in the Rhineland.
all of this has to be seen, in France, in the context of World War I and its legacy--there was a strong feeling, Wilson, etc., that wars were bad things done by evil people (and this was implicit in the resolution of the Treaty of Versailles, of course)
no one wanted another war, but Hitler had been agitating for one from the outset.
there was a feeling that another war would be unthinkable, in France. have to remember the tremendously traumatizing effects of WWI.
-------------
Hitler had of course been building military capacity in Germany, re-arming the nation, etc. Hitler's advisors had been expecting a war to begin, though, in 1940/1941--as we all know, the war actually begins on the 1st of September, 1939, when Hitler invades Poland (he takes power in 1933).
militarily, why does France fall so rapidly?
their respective troop strengths were relatively equal at the time of the invasion of France in May 1940. in tanks, the allies actually had superiority, though German tanks were lighter and faster (and they were used in divisions, which gave them an advantage).
Germans had a clear superiority in fighter power (and they had tried them out in Spain, don't forget)
how had the British and French been planning? they believed that it would be another war of attrition--a long, drawn-out battle in which a strong, defensive line would be critical.
the Germans, by contrast, believed in rapid attack--the "blitzkrieg"
the French are assuming that the forests in N. France and E. Belgium will be physical impediments to the German invasion, but did not prove to be this. 10 tank divisions pour through the forests and they simply waste these French tanks. in four days they're way inside France. the German High Command thought it would take 9 days--and it took 4!
Hitler does make one mistake, prof argues, which is he refuels, allowing the evacuation of French and British troops at Dunkirk.
you have refugees, and German fighter planes picking them off as they fled.
------------------
a new French government, then, collaborates with the Germans--Vichy France is born. (France is divided in two zones; the "collaborationist" government has its capital in Vichy.)
involves people who actively assist the Nazis in achieving their goals, acting on their aspirations. by the end of 1943/1944, if you were a French collaborator and you find graffiti with the word "K" on your door, you were toast--because it meant that the Maquis (or the resistance) was confident enough to make that kind of threat.
again, it's not only France--in Belgium, for example, the right-wing Flemish were more likely to collaborate, and it remains a tension. in Budapest, way you see a goulish shoe-memorial to Jews and Communists gunned down by Hungarian collaborators.
----------------
the historiography and history of collaboration is fascinating, prof is saying.
there's a myth of universal resistance, perpetuated by people who had actively collaborated and also by Charles De Gaulle (he needed people to forget the Communist resistance, and lead the French people to identify with his person and leadership--part of the mantle he'd assume.)
there was a movie from 1953-1954 about the Jews arrested in Paris in 1942--taken away, put in a transit camp north of Paris. in the film you see French guards--so what they do is they photoshop it, effectively.
three series of crucial events have jolted this myth, prof is arguing:
(1) the film called "the sorrow and the pity", which is 4.5 hrs long. what the producer does is he goes to one single town and he looked at what happened there in collaboration--some of the best documentary scenes about intentional forgetting, etc,--where teachers forget about their Jewish friends/colleagues. it was only shown in one theatre. made for French TV, but not shown until 1981/1982. why? because it told the awful truth, which was that lots of people believed better Hitler than Blum.
(2) "vichy france," by bob paxton in 1972. it cut through the intentional forgetting to look squarely at collaboration--bob paxton, actually, didn't have the right to french archival documents (the 50 year rule, and a "troublemaker"). but when this book came out, it had a very powerful effect. here was a great historian saying it "wasn't like what you learned in school."
(3) the trials--as collaboration came to be something that people wanted to know about--then people with bad histories were tracked down. one of the first was Touvier, who was involved in the torture of resisters, deportations of jews/communists. he was hidden by right-wing groups (bounced from monastery to monastery). but finally tracked down and tried. at this trial, Paxton became an "expert witness." and there was a trial of Barbi, as well, who had tortured people in Lyons. and then there was Maurice Papon, a functionary who signed the death-certificates of hundreds and hundreds of Jews. he went on to a very successful career in the fourth and fifth republic. and they caught up with this very very old man, and there was the question of whether he ought to be tried (in 1998, 1999 -- at one point he escapes, and they find him at a fine restraunt in Switzerland; he insists, "I was a good bureaucrat.") he used the "shield argument"--that if it wasn't for me(/we), thing would have been even worse. he was found guilty, and sent to jail.
"the Vichy syndrome."
so, from having no official memory of Vichy--only bits that had to do with the resistance--France underwent this re-evaluation of its relationship to the regime. and that was important for people who had lost their family members, for Jews (some 75,000 Jews never returned to France after Vichy). the big round-up in June 1942, for example, was not done by the Germans, but by the French police. one of the worst institutions of all was the milice (the militia), created in January 1943, to get tough on the Jews, the communists, the resistance.
remember, the militia's tactics required very personal forms of betrayal--people sending letters to the police, etc. (in the days after war, almost 10,000 collaborators were executed)
----------------
voting left superimposed on a map of de-christianization and there would be remarkable similarities, as prof said before. that is not true of collaborationists--this is not regional, or from one social class (this is the case in Belgium, though.) of course you're more apt to have people from the middle-classes collaborate, but it's difficult to generalize (you have working-class collaboration).
what about religion? the role of the Pope in all of this, professor is saying, is nauseating. the Pope knew, but did nothing. zero. the Catholic Church hierarchy was generally very collaborationist.
Roosevelt and these people knew (they knew before they did anything, prof reminds us), but their dilemma is trickier (can you bomb death camps? train tracks?)
the Church got what it wanted, during Vichy France--no divorce, two people executed for abortion. (though he is also insisting that it is not this open and shut)
-----------------
now, what did the people who collaborated want? a couple of themes
(1) argument made by Petain after the war. by collaborating with the Germans, you were saving the French State. but, as Paxton says, "they may have been saving the French state, but they were destroying the French nation."
(2) the xenophobia that characterized the French right, before the occupation, was obviously a prevalent theme during the collaborationists. no Italians, no Spanish (especially no Marxists).
(3) anti-semitism--the French Vichy regime (it's only in November of 1942 that the Germans occupy the Vichy zone, because the resistance is mobilizing) puts in laws depriving Jews of rights that the Germans didn't even ask them to do. in some ways even harsher than the infamous Nuremberg laws of the Reich.
-----------------
Petain, for the fascists, will be an answer for:
(1) the "decadence" and "feuding France" of pre-Vichy France
(2) the restoration of the earthly power of the Church. restoration of the soul of France; the old, Catholic/Christian values. a return to the "moral order"--when things are passed down from the "moral orders."
(3) nationalism, of a new sort--away from the legacy of the French revolution, towards a nationalism of patriotism and values. and, of course, with this comes an exclusionary ethic.
(4) authority--not the dirtiness of "democracy"; authority flows from the top, down.
(5) peasantism. "true France," not the France of Jews, striking workers, communism, etc., virtue is found in the soil (Joan of Arc is a peasant girl, remember--she becomes a symbol of all this). cities are places where Jews and workers hang out. the true France is the France of peasants on the soil.
(6) corporatism--they've read about Mussolini and Italian fascism, making the argument that workers and bosses have the same interests. and you can resolve these conflicts in the idea of the Nation--strong, marching, plutonic warriors
Sunday, April 5, 2009
It is important to bear in mind that the state has always remained a relatively distant entity for many people, especially in the non-urban parts of Sindh and Balochistan. In these peripheral regions, the state continues to be conceived of predominantly as an oppressive apparatus of coercion and the above-mentioned functions typically associated with the modern state are conspicuous by their absence (or by their selective provision). Increasingly it appears as if the state is coming to be conceived of in similar ways even in the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan.
Friday, April 3, 2009
lecture 17 -- "the popular front"
john merriman
--------------
France in the 1920s and 1930s has to be understood in the context of the international situation in Europe--and, in particular, the rise of fascism.
by 1939, only, in Central and Eastern Europe, only Czechoslovakia remained a parliamentary regime--when you think of fascism you think of Mussolini and Hitler, but it's important to remember that there were no parliamentary regimes left in the entire region. and even where democracy survived in W. Europe, there were indigenous Fascist movements (not to mention the case of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939).
---------------
so, today, the rise of the Right in France; and its relation to the Popular Front.
the Popular Front era in France is remembered as one of the "magic" moments of French history.
---------------
the political details of the Cartel de Gauche (Left-leaning) that came to power after World War I can be left to the reading. but, for all these countries, the right-wing temptation of the 1920s was evident. Mussolini was on the cover of Time magazine eight times in the US--known as the man who got the trains running on time (even if it was only to the ski resorts that American journalists frequented, quips prof).
Hitler doesn't come to power till 1933--and Hitler was of course only the most successful of a bunch of right-wing leaders in Germany agitating for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic.
one of the salient tactics is corporatism--the philosophy that you can get rid of social strife by organizing industries in a vertical way. Mussolini talked a good game in this regard.
so: Fasicsm was a European phenomenon, as well as a French one.i
----------------
the spiritual leader of French fascism was [de la Rochelle?]. a novelist whose work was obsessed with suicide. in his autobiographical novel he thought Fascism could resurrect a medieval, Christian spirituality in France. Accion Frances was also, at this time, a pro-Monarchist group operating on similar principles. in France, the extreme right and Catholicism were interlnked.
and these groups begin to create paramilitaries (which is obviously what happened with the Nazis in Germany, and Mussolini in the early 1920s). the Accion France, then, takes the tactics of the early Boulanger movement and resurrects them. you have, also, the growth of right-wing groups through the trade union federation, the CGT.
they want to abolish parliamentary democracy. this activism develops to the extent that they are condemned by the Pope. and, indeed, many members leave the organization at this time, fearing ex-communication.
a number of other groups, who are even more radical, start up. Faisceau, which had begun in 1919, but increases its membership, and believes in violent struggle ("will to power"). another, the "Cross of Fire," attracted war veterans--founded in 1928 as a non-political organization, and its membership swells to 60,000 people.
of course, there has to be money behind these movements. interestingly, a bunch of producers of luxury products were funding these folk. and, because the newspapers,etc. are controlled by the right, much of these groups have ready means to disseminate their message.
--------------
why were middle-class people attracted to these movements? (a phenomenon characteristic of Italy and Germany, as well)
has to be seen in the context of the hard times of the 1920s--Europe is basically in a long depression, with the exception of the period from 1924-1929. E. Europe is in a very severe agricultural depression the entire time.
with this rampant inflation (of course nothing comparable to Germany), the people who get burned are middle-class people on pensions. people who have saved their entire life, and their savings are wiped out.
in Germany this is quite clear--you had bourgeois families forced to sell silvers/antiques in order to make ends meet.
these grievances are expressed, then, through various components of fascist ideology, which are virulently anti-communist, anti-Bolshevik, anti-communists, and virulently anti-semitic (Hitler begins as a socialist-hater, before he despises the Jews).
in the 1930s, of course, you have huge numbers of Spanish refugees into France. a further grievance.
furthermore, these groups despise parliamentary regimes. the Europe of the 20s and 30s was dictatorships. characterized by an aggressive nationalism.
this ties into xenophobia in France quite obviously--the population in France was basically stagnant, remember. France has relatively few numbers of people under the age of 20 (only about 30%), and relatively more people who were elderly. and beginning in 1935, more people died in France than are born there. who makes up the difference? Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Belgians, Jews--all are significant minorities (half of the 325,000 Jews had come after 1918).
7.5% of the French population consists of immigrants--highest of any country.
why, with the exception of Oswald Mosley, does the UK remain relatively immune? immigration in that country was relatively small compared to these other places (despite the fact that it was only in London that you would run into people of color, as early as the 18th century, because of the British empire, prof is noting).
you only need to look at the success of the National Front, prof is noting, today, to see the continuities.
the idea of "True France" is being threatened. immigrants are not included, of course. (Hitler's own pernicious view, prof is arguing, took this to its extreme--the power of deciding who remained part of the German people lay with the Fuhrer).
--------------
this culminates in February 6th, 1934. a political scandal gives the extreme right an opportunity for action (this is a country that had political scandals before, of course). and so now the Republic is accused not only of being soft (not virile--a weak system without a strong executive), but also of being corrupt. the France of "camping out" will conquer the France of the Apertif(!).
the police look the other way as the right mobilize their forces on the street.
a Ukranian Jew, con-man, who made an illict fortune. gradually it all collapses on his head--in December 1933 he flees to the Alps, rents a villa. revelations pile up, one after the other. Stavisky was protected by government minister, who happened to be the brother of the Prime Minister. the Right takes full advantage, and urges a full protest against the Chamber of Deputies.
the Police move in to arrest him, and Stavisky blows his brains out. he leaves a suicide note to his son, though, which didn't seem quite right--the right-wing suspected the Republic was covering itself. on top of that he was a Jew, of course.
these demonstrations turn into riots, toppling the gov't (which is replaced by a coalition government).
on February 4th, 1934, every right-wing group plans to march in front of the Chamber of Deputies, plans to perhaps even overthrow the Republic. the police batter them back--prof's uncle claims to have been in a counter-demonstration.
14 demonstrators were killed, and several thousand were injured. several hundred policemen hurt.
on February 8th, the prime minister resigns, again.
----------------
on February 12th, the largest demonstrations in French history occurs (until May 1968), in defense of the republic. organized by the Popular Front, which was organized in the wake of these right-wing demos. millions of people march, 24-hr strike following. the Republic seemed to have a new lease of life--but it could also be called, of course, a new "lease of death."
"something had changed," prof says, "these three parties--communists, socialists, radicals--were frightened."
in 1920, the Communist Party split from the Socialist Party. it retained some elements of the Guedist party; it was fairly top-down, along lines of democratic centralism. in 1922-1923, intellectuals were tossed from the party, as it obeyed quite faithfully orders from Moscow. provided very good social services, however, and so it had a prestige that quite predated their resistance during WWII. (330,000 members by 1936--particularly strong in the red belt around Paris, and with railroad workers/engineers)
they considered the socialists (and Leon Blum) to be a reformist party, so this was a painful alliance for them.
Blum himself was "bourgeois." Blum was an intellectual, literary critic, socially radical ("on Marriage"), etc. when Jaures was killed on 31st of July 1914, Leon Blum was the logical successor. he becomes the dominant figure in the socialist party.
Leon Blum was also Jewish. and one thing that you heard in 1934/1935/1936, right-wing students would chant "better Hilter, than Blum." at one time he was almost beaten to death by right-wing thugs.
---------------
in the meantime, government after government falls.
in June 1934, the Communist party repudiates class vs. class strategy--allowing their alliance with the "bourgeois" socialists. and the three parties meet and decide on a compromise program--tax reform, shorter work week, unemployment benefits, international disarmament,, support for league of nations, dissolution of fascist league.
----------------
on the 7th of March, 1936, German armies move into the Rhineland. Hitler wins the big bluff against the League of Nations and the Allied Powers (his advisors warn him against the move, but Hitler gets away with it)
this leads to May 1936, when the Popular Front wins the election (57% of the vote--386 of 608 seats in the Chamber of Deputies). the communists refuse to participate in the cabinet, but their adding to the mix of three has made this victory possible.
on 3rd June, 1936, Leon Blum becomes prime minister.
what happens now, however, is that the largest wave of strikes (until May 1968) break out in France. in June 1936, there are 12,000 strikes, involving 2 million workers (for the first time ever, workers occupy factories; this happens in Flint, Michigan too, at the same time). there are pre-existing grievances, fanned by Popular Front rhetoric before the election (Taylorism, as well; "killing one's soul 8 hrs of day," factory as prison).
what is interesting is that the strikes take the labor federation and the communists by surprise. this isn't the last time this happens--happens in May 1968 as well, prof notes.
Leon Blum calls the government and employers together, and sign the Matignon Agreements, which promise 15-20% raises, 40-hr work week, paid vacation for a month, and free admission to the Louvre. (working-class resorts at beach develop in this period, prof is noting--"the working-class vacation"). an important conquest.
-----------------
but why does the Popular Front fail in the long run?
one of the reasons is because the employers have no intention of obeying their imperatives.
but really, it's the fact of the economic crisis--can't really bear the burden of these reforms, prof is arguing. wealthy people, also, run with their gold/silver to Switzerland. (Leon Blum does not put controls on currency).
and so at this point the Popular Front begins to unravel. in March 1937, police fire on demonstrating workers in Paris--the Communist Party denounces the gov't. the stock market goes into a tumble, the gov't has to devalue the Franc several times because of the outflow of gold.
but there's yet another reason that the Popular Front fails, says Prof, and that is Spain. people who lived in the late 1930s saw the war on Spain as a "war of Civilization." at the time people realized that it was a dry run for a war that was to come, later. the counter-revolution really starts in 1936 in Morocco--by 1939, an atrocity-filled war (but atrocities overwhelmingly on the side of the Fascists, no question, says prof) is ending.
the question was what was going to happen in Spain? but, of course, nobody gave arms to the Republicans. German planes strafe Guernica, though, and Italians try out their tanks.
there's a moment in France, when Blum is facing a crowd chanting "arms for spain, arms for spain"--and with tears streaming down his cheeks, Leon Blum says "I can't, I can't" (because the British and the Americans didn't want him to).
and, of course, Franco's regime lasts until 1975.
the Spanish Civil War is one of those moments, perhaps--maybe history would have been different if Hitler had been stopped at the Rhineland. or if Franco had been defeated.
as it pertains to the Popular Front in France, it survives, but in name only, until 1939. all this takes its toll. the government is defeated. Leon Blum ends up in jail, survives the war, and is active in politics during the Fourth Republic.
we live in a time of historical nostalgia, of course. prof's generation grew up listening to these tales of "arms for spain, etc." lots of the things that are good about France, prof is arguing, came out of this period of the Popular Front.
john merriman
--------------
France in the 1920s and 1930s has to be understood in the context of the international situation in Europe--and, in particular, the rise of fascism.
by 1939, only, in Central and Eastern Europe, only Czechoslovakia remained a parliamentary regime--when you think of fascism you think of Mussolini and Hitler, but it's important to remember that there were no parliamentary regimes left in the entire region. and even where democracy survived in W. Europe, there were indigenous Fascist movements (not to mention the case of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939).
---------------
so, today, the rise of the Right in France; and its relation to the Popular Front.
the Popular Front era in France is remembered as one of the "magic" moments of French history.
---------------
the political details of the Cartel de Gauche (Left-leaning) that came to power after World War I can be left to the reading. but, for all these countries, the right-wing temptation of the 1920s was evident. Mussolini was on the cover of Time magazine eight times in the US--known as the man who got the trains running on time (even if it was only to the ski resorts that American journalists frequented, quips prof).
Hitler doesn't come to power till 1933--and Hitler was of course only the most successful of a bunch of right-wing leaders in Germany agitating for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic.
one of the salient tactics is corporatism--the philosophy that you can get rid of social strife by organizing industries in a vertical way. Mussolini talked a good game in this regard.
so: Fasicsm was a European phenomenon, as well as a French one.i
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the spiritual leader of French fascism was [de la Rochelle?]. a novelist whose work was obsessed with suicide. in his autobiographical novel he thought Fascism could resurrect a medieval, Christian spirituality in France. Accion Frances was also, at this time, a pro-Monarchist group operating on similar principles. in France, the extreme right and Catholicism were interlnked.
and these groups begin to create paramilitaries (which is obviously what happened with the Nazis in Germany, and Mussolini in the early 1920s). the Accion France, then, takes the tactics of the early Boulanger movement and resurrects them. you have, also, the growth of right-wing groups through the trade union federation, the CGT.
they want to abolish parliamentary democracy. this activism develops to the extent that they are condemned by the Pope. and, indeed, many members leave the organization at this time, fearing ex-communication.
a number of other groups, who are even more radical, start up. Faisceau, which had begun in 1919, but increases its membership, and believes in violent struggle ("will to power"). another, the "Cross of Fire," attracted war veterans--founded in 1928 as a non-political organization, and its membership swells to 60,000 people.
of course, there has to be money behind these movements. interestingly, a bunch of producers of luxury products were funding these folk. and, because the newspapers,etc. are controlled by the right, much of these groups have ready means to disseminate their message.
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why were middle-class people attracted to these movements? (a phenomenon characteristic of Italy and Germany, as well)
has to be seen in the context of the hard times of the 1920s--Europe is basically in a long depression, with the exception of the period from 1924-1929. E. Europe is in a very severe agricultural depression the entire time.
with this rampant inflation (of course nothing comparable to Germany), the people who get burned are middle-class people on pensions. people who have saved their entire life, and their savings are wiped out.
in Germany this is quite clear--you had bourgeois families forced to sell silvers/antiques in order to make ends meet.
these grievances are expressed, then, through various components of fascist ideology, which are virulently anti-communist, anti-Bolshevik, anti-communists, and virulently anti-semitic (Hitler begins as a socialist-hater, before he despises the Jews).
in the 1930s, of course, you have huge numbers of Spanish refugees into France. a further grievance.
furthermore, these groups despise parliamentary regimes. the Europe of the 20s and 30s was dictatorships. characterized by an aggressive nationalism.
this ties into xenophobia in France quite obviously--the population in France was basically stagnant, remember. France has relatively few numbers of people under the age of 20 (only about 30%), and relatively more people who were elderly. and beginning in 1935, more people died in France than are born there. who makes up the difference? Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Belgians, Jews--all are significant minorities (half of the 325,000 Jews had come after 1918).
7.5% of the French population consists of immigrants--highest of any country.
why, with the exception of Oswald Mosley, does the UK remain relatively immune? immigration in that country was relatively small compared to these other places (despite the fact that it was only in London that you would run into people of color, as early as the 18th century, because of the British empire, prof is noting).
you only need to look at the success of the National Front, prof is noting, today, to see the continuities.
the idea of "True France" is being threatened. immigrants are not included, of course. (Hitler's own pernicious view, prof is arguing, took this to its extreme--the power of deciding who remained part of the German people lay with the Fuhrer).
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this culminates in February 6th, 1934. a political scandal gives the extreme right an opportunity for action (this is a country that had political scandals before, of course). and so now the Republic is accused not only of being soft (not virile--a weak system without a strong executive), but also of being corrupt. the France of "camping out" will conquer the France of the Apertif(!).
the police look the other way as the right mobilize their forces on the street.
a Ukranian Jew, con-man, who made an illict fortune. gradually it all collapses on his head--in December 1933 he flees to the Alps, rents a villa. revelations pile up, one after the other. Stavisky was protected by government minister, who happened to be the brother of the Prime Minister. the Right takes full advantage, and urges a full protest against the Chamber of Deputies.
the Police move in to arrest him, and Stavisky blows his brains out. he leaves a suicide note to his son, though, which didn't seem quite right--the right-wing suspected the Republic was covering itself. on top of that he was a Jew, of course.
these demonstrations turn into riots, toppling the gov't (which is replaced by a coalition government).
on February 4th, 1934, every right-wing group plans to march in front of the Chamber of Deputies, plans to perhaps even overthrow the Republic. the police batter them back--prof's uncle claims to have been in a counter-demonstration.
14 demonstrators were killed, and several thousand were injured. several hundred policemen hurt.
on February 8th, the prime minister resigns, again.
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on February 12th, the largest demonstrations in French history occurs (until May 1968), in defense of the republic. organized by the Popular Front, which was organized in the wake of these right-wing demos. millions of people march, 24-hr strike following. the Republic seemed to have a new lease of life--but it could also be called, of course, a new "lease of death."
"something had changed," prof says, "these three parties--communists, socialists, radicals--were frightened."
in 1920, the Communist Party split from the Socialist Party. it retained some elements of the Guedist party; it was fairly top-down, along lines of democratic centralism. in 1922-1923, intellectuals were tossed from the party, as it obeyed quite faithfully orders from Moscow. provided very good social services, however, and so it had a prestige that quite predated their resistance during WWII. (330,000 members by 1936--particularly strong in the red belt around Paris, and with railroad workers/engineers)
they considered the socialists (and Leon Blum) to be a reformist party, so this was a painful alliance for them.
Blum himself was "bourgeois." Blum was an intellectual, literary critic, socially radical ("on Marriage"), etc. when Jaures was killed on 31st of July 1914, Leon Blum was the logical successor. he becomes the dominant figure in the socialist party.
Leon Blum was also Jewish. and one thing that you heard in 1934/1935/1936, right-wing students would chant "better Hilter, than Blum." at one time he was almost beaten to death by right-wing thugs.
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in the meantime, government after government falls.
in June 1934, the Communist party repudiates class vs. class strategy--allowing their alliance with the "bourgeois" socialists. and the three parties meet and decide on a compromise program--tax reform, shorter work week, unemployment benefits, international disarmament,, support for league of nations, dissolution of fascist league.
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on the 7th of March, 1936, German armies move into the Rhineland. Hitler wins the big bluff against the League of Nations and the Allied Powers (his advisors warn him against the move, but Hitler gets away with it)
this leads to May 1936, when the Popular Front wins the election (57% of the vote--386 of 608 seats in the Chamber of Deputies). the communists refuse to participate in the cabinet, but their adding to the mix of three has made this victory possible.
on 3rd June, 1936, Leon Blum becomes prime minister.
what happens now, however, is that the largest wave of strikes (until May 1968) break out in France. in June 1936, there are 12,000 strikes, involving 2 million workers (for the first time ever, workers occupy factories; this happens in Flint, Michigan too, at the same time). there are pre-existing grievances, fanned by Popular Front rhetoric before the election (Taylorism, as well; "killing one's soul 8 hrs of day," factory as prison).
what is interesting is that the strikes take the labor federation and the communists by surprise. this isn't the last time this happens--happens in May 1968 as well, prof notes.
Leon Blum calls the government and employers together, and sign the Matignon Agreements, which promise 15-20% raises, 40-hr work week, paid vacation for a month, and free admission to the Louvre. (working-class resorts at beach develop in this period, prof is noting--"the working-class vacation"). an important conquest.
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but why does the Popular Front fail in the long run?
one of the reasons is because the employers have no intention of obeying their imperatives.
but really, it's the fact of the economic crisis--can't really bear the burden of these reforms, prof is arguing. wealthy people, also, run with their gold/silver to Switzerland. (Leon Blum does not put controls on currency).
and so at this point the Popular Front begins to unravel. in March 1937, police fire on demonstrating workers in Paris--the Communist Party denounces the gov't. the stock market goes into a tumble, the gov't has to devalue the Franc several times because of the outflow of gold.
but there's yet another reason that the Popular Front fails, says Prof, and that is Spain. people who lived in the late 1930s saw the war on Spain as a "war of Civilization." at the time people realized that it was a dry run for a war that was to come, later. the counter-revolution really starts in 1936 in Morocco--by 1939, an atrocity-filled war (but atrocities overwhelmingly on the side of the Fascists, no question, says prof) is ending.
the question was what was going to happen in Spain? but, of course, nobody gave arms to the Republicans. German planes strafe Guernica, though, and Italians try out their tanks.
there's a moment in France, when Blum is facing a crowd chanting "arms for spain, arms for spain"--and with tears streaming down his cheeks, Leon Blum says "I can't, I can't" (because the British and the Americans didn't want him to).
and, of course, Franco's regime lasts until 1975.
the Spanish Civil War is one of those moments, perhaps--maybe history would have been different if Hitler had been stopped at the Rhineland. or if Franco had been defeated.
as it pertains to the Popular Front in France, it survives, but in name only, until 1939. all this takes its toll. the government is defeated. Leon Blum ends up in jail, survives the war, and is active in politics during the Fourth Republic.
we live in a time of historical nostalgia, of course. prof's generation grew up listening to these tales of "arms for spain, etc." lots of the things that are good about France, prof is arguing, came out of this period of the Popular Front.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
For two reasons. One is, it makes you actually very vulnerable if you’re a heavily debt-encumbered homeowner. And actually, the initial legislation was kind of interesting, the debate around it back in the 1930s, when it kind of said debt-encumbered homeowners don’t go on strike, and because it’s—you know, you’ve got to pay your mortgage. And so, this becomes, as it were, a millstone around your neck. And that then makes you very vulnerable to fluctuations in the market like we’re seeing right now, particularly if you have variable rate mortgages, things of that kind, and you can really easily get caught out. So, in effect, what we’ve seen in the housing market is a tremendous plundering of the assets of some of the most vulnerable people in the country. I mean, this has been the biggest loss of asset wealth to the African American population that there’s ever been.
(...) But as soon as the big guns get into trouble, the state bails them out. And this is what we call moral hazard, that actually because you’re bailing out Wall Street all of the time, then Wall Street will take high risks. And they’ve taken immensely high risks over the last thirty years and again and again and again being caught out. And each time they get caught out, the state steps in and saves them. That’s the connection, if you like, between the state and Wall Street. That’s the connection that has to be broken.
(...) I don’t see the neoliberalism as dead, if you say that neoliberalism is about consolidation of class power, because actually we’re seeing the further consolidation of it right now, rather than the lessening of it. And that’s what I—when I talk about the bank bailout, that’s what it was doing. So I’m kind of concerned.
(...) But as soon as the big guns get into trouble, the state bails them out. And this is what we call moral hazard, that actually because you’re bailing out Wall Street all of the time, then Wall Street will take high risks. And they’ve taken immensely high risks over the last thirty years and again and again and again being caught out. And each time they get caught out, the state steps in and saves them. That’s the connection, if you like, between the state and Wall Street. That’s the connection that has to be broken.
(...) I don’t see the neoliberalism as dead, if you say that neoliberalism is about consolidation of class power, because actually we’re seeing the further consolidation of it right now, rather than the lessening of it. And that’s what I—when I talk about the bank bailout, that’s what it was doing. So I’m kind of concerned.
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