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Strikes and Discontent in the French Empire and Beyond 1947-48 Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jean-Philippe Stone Wolfson College, University of Oxford 99,979 words August 2020

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Ruth Harris for her invaluable guidance and encouragement throughout the past four years. I am grateful to the archivists in Paris, Montreuil, Roubaix, and Aix-en-Provence for their gracious assistance over the years. I thank all my friends and colleagues in Wolfson College and Oxford for their support, and above all, I am very grateful to my mother Joëlle, my father Thomas and my grandmother Suzy for always believing in me and my work.

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Table of Contents Page Abstract..................................................................... 2 Long Abstract............................................................... 4 Abbreviations............................................................... 12 Introduction...................................................................................... 15 Chapter 1: Anatomy of Discontent.................................................. 34 Chapter 2: Eternal War.................................................................... 81 Chapter 3: Look to the East.............................................................. 120 Chapter 4: Le recul ouvrier.............................................................. 139 Chapter 5: Beyond the Metropole.................................................... 180 Chpater 6: 'Ils sont français aussi'................................................... 231 Chpater 7: Aftermaths...................................................................... 293 Conclusion....................................................................................... 345 Bibliography..................................................................................... 356

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Abstract

This thesis examines French post-war strikes in a new light. The first half exhumes the subterranean sources of discontent which powered these movements. The memory of wartime hardships or torture endured long after hostilities ended. The preservation of concentration-camp like detention centers, and the erection of confining ONCOR barracks, ensured l'univers concentrationnaire remained a permanent fixture in the psychological and architectural landscape of the immediate post-war years. These factors, combined with exhaustion from overwork, the selective heroism of the battle for production, the judicial persecution of respected maquisards, and rose-tinted portrayal of Eastern Europe in the communist and even centrist press, describe the 'impossibility of demobilization' which lurked behind demands for more food or higher wages. Post-war strikes signaled the continuation of grudges left over from World War II and the Occupation. Moreover, news of anti-labour legislation and repression abroad, kept CGT unionists on a constant war-footing and bred fears that similar measures could intrude on

French soil.

The second part of the thesis contextualizes the 47-48 strikes in a global setting and argues an 'impossibility of demobilization' infected police, intelligence services, and administrations throughout France and its empire as well. Colonial authorities interpreted benign strikes as attempts to topple French rule, while anti-communism and xenophobia resulted in the mistreatment and deportation of Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian workers or associations in the metropole; actions which had significant repercussions. Democracies in the West and emerging communist regimes in the East exploited the fallout of the 47-48 strikes. They prompted Quebecois authorities to overreact to unrest 3 in Asbestos, while Dutch economic courts punished trade unionists for sending financial aid to French strikers. Meanwhile, Hungarian, Czech, and Polish communist propaganda machines instrumentalized French strikes, both to discredit capitalist nations in the West at home and to market the 'superiority' of communism abroad. 4

Long Abstract

The immediate post-war years in France and Europe saw countless cities, factories, and industries engulfed in paralysing, divisive, and deadly strike waves. From Paris to Algiers, industrial action saw thousands of miners, metal-workers, postmen, textile weavers, and teachers, belonging to multiple ethnicities and political orientations, take to the streets for reasons often not articulated fully or accurately by either Socialist, Communist or trade union representatives at the time. Demands for higher wages, lower prices, and more bread obscured and subsumed more subtle sources of discontent. Thus far, the works of Robert Mencherini, Annie Lacroix-Riz, Danielle Tartakowsky, and many others, have analysed the political significance and ramifications of the 1947-48 strikes. Questions as to whether Joseph Stalin was responsible for orchestrating a dastardly coup in France, via industrial action the PCF led and abetted, have been put to rest, while current historiographies fix the 47-48 strikes firmly in the context of the Cold War. My contribution to this historiography will be twofold: to better understand, identify, and analyse these latent anxieties and silent frustrations, it is necessary to look and think differently about the immediate post-war period itself. Thus, the first four chapters will examine the types of subterranean discontent which powered such movements, focusing specifically on France. Rather than concentrating on the emerging binaries of the Cold War, I will examine the 'impossibility of demobilization' afflicting French society. Secondly, the three remaining chapters will contextualize French post- 5 war strikes, not only in labour disputes within the larger French Empire, but also in a global setting. The impact of the 47-48 strike waves resonated across borders in significant and unexpected ways. Through private correspondence, labour press releases, medical records, and ministerial reports, the first chapter exhumes the emotions and frustrations underpinning the discontent which fueled French post-war strikes. The first section focuses on the physical and physiological factors which contributed to unrest. Rising absenteeism suggested how miners yearned to escape a claustrophobic and highly dangerous workplace, if only temporarily. Wounds or illnesses sustained during the war persisted long after hostilities ended, while chronic fatigue from strenuous workloads, and often extreme hunger from low rations, suggest the depth of their hardship. The second section uncovers the psychological stresses workers and their representatives faced. The continuing existence of numerous camps for Vietnamese labor, German POWS, and French laborers ensured that workers and survivors continued to be haunted by l'univers concentrationnaire. Lingering memories of the repression, torture, and violence meted during the Occupation precipitated post-war militancy among some trade unionists. Furthermore, the court trials of renowned maquisards and respected résistants in northeastern coalfields compelled miners to fight back against the authorities and go out on strike. Moreover, the selective heroism promoted during the battle of production had its own price. An idolization of miners, dockers, or railway conductors came at the expense of other professions, such as bargemen and construction workers, whose efforts to 6 rebuild France went unrecognized. This awareness of being forgotten or belittled is crucial for understanding the discontent which preceded post-war strike waves. The last section will examine how l'univers concentrationnaire never disappeared for laborers housed in confining ONCOR (Office National des Cantonnements Ouvriers de la Reconstruction) barracks scattered throughout post-war France. Despite the ambitions of progressive architects, haphazard planning and frequent material shortages ensured that ONCOR housing retained a sense of war-time prisoner camps. The ONCOR dwellings accentuated feelings of isolation among workers, forced again to live far away from family and friends.

In the second chapter, I argue post-war strikes did not necessarily announce the beginning of the Cold War in France, but rather signalled the continuation of grudges and struggles left over from the Occupation. An 'impossibility of demobilisation' prevailed not only amongst prisoners of war or combat veterans, but throughout French society. The persistence of old 'rancunes' played a significant part in fuelling post-war strike waves, as seen in the case of CGT unionists in the naval plants of Saint-Chamond, who sought to discredit an uncooperative patronat by unearthing documents holding managers responsible for the unjustified firing of communist workers during the Phoney War.

I argue that the specter of Vichy is crucial for understanding why the Seine primary school teachers' strike of November/December 1947 took place. For communist sympathizers or supporters, this strike was framed as another episode in the long struggle between secular and confessional schools in France. The perception of a growing 7 inequality between decimated urban or state schools, as opposed to supposedly thriving confessional schools in the countryside, was maintained for months before the strike via regular press releases loyal to anti-clerical factions in teacher unions. A study of strikes in Berliet factories reveal various engineers, technicians, and other cadres also had great difficulty demobilizing. Much like the patronat in Saint- Chamond, cadres in Lyon faced accusations of war time treachery. By going on strike, said cadres set out to accomplish more than just clearing their names, but to re-assert the authority they once possessed before nationalisation and moderate democratization of industrial relations after the Liberation. The trials of insubordinate strikers in 1949 allowed aggrieved engineers to achieve victory over their tormentors and avenge or re- claim their lost status as masters of the workplace.

In contrast, the French patronat was largely exempt from the impossibility of demobilization which affected the metal-workers of Saint-Chamond, teachers in the Seine département, and engineers in the mines. Although post-war strikes reveal some bosses minimized their authoritarianism in the workplace, others, like the Schneider

patronat, presiding over the metalwork and mining industries of Le Creusot in Saône-et- Loire, did not mend their ways. The paternalist model in the Schneider plants persisted long after the end of World War II, despite the CGT and PCF's attempts to carry on the struggles of yesteryear. In the third chapter, I argue that journalists, editors, columnists, and intellectuals writing for L'Humanité, La Vie Ouvrière, Ce Soir, La Défense, and Le Peuple heightened discontent in France by portraying the emerging Soviet sphere in Eastern 8 Europe as countries filled with limitless resources. They painted Czechoslovakia as an ascendant social democracy, beaming with youthful energy and vigour. The formerly backward peasant nation of Hungary appeared transformed for the better by communism. Poland was a promised land brimming with ingenuity and meritocracy. French workers facing crippling rations, fatigue, demoralization, or disillusionment with the slow pace of recovery looked to the East with envy, hope, and aspiration. It is unlikely such coverage instilled revolutionary intentions, although it did inflame the discontent which exploded during strikes in 1947 and 1948. Conversely, publications loyal to anti-communist trade unions, such as Force Ouvrière, frequently exposed the authoritarian practices of communist regimes, therefore convincing miners not aligned to the CGT, not to take part in the miners' strike. In the fourth chapter, I demonstrate that events abroad also accentuated this 'impossibility of demobilization' afflicting French workers. For PCF-oriented CGT unionists in particular, the press, and correspondences with unions in and outside the French Empire, sketched a world filled with democracies, dictatorships, colonial administrations, and other regimes united in waging war against workers. Local, national, and trade union newspapers, whether biased in favor of communist, socialist, right-wing, anarchist, and independent causes or parties, all imparted this message to varying degrees in the late forties. While caring little for the fate of indigenous or foreign laborers, French unionists were nonetheless well informed about the various 'reculs ouvriers' sweeping through the imperium and the world at large. Some feared similar measures had begun to intrude on French soil, thereby fueling desires to preserve legislation favorable to workers via strikes and other forms of protest throughout 1948. 9 While the first part of the thesis argues the specter of World War II or Occupation is crucial for understanding the outbreak of French post-war strikes, the second part proves Cold War paranoia and growing fears of anti-imperialist movements bred a similar 'impossibility of demobilization' among security branches and colonial administrations, facing their own waves of unrest throughout the French Empire. In the fifth chapter, I show how strikes frightened intelligence agencies, police informants, and security personnel in overseas territories. Strikes in mainland France envenomed colonial anxieties sweeping across a French Empire rattled by war in Indochina, uprisings in Madagascar, and labour unrest in French-owned railway companies in Ethiopia and neighbouring French Somaliland. Colonial administrations experiencing their own 'impossibility of demobilisation', interpreted generally benign and peaceful strikes in overseas départements in the Caribbean, or Algeria and Morocco, as nationalist or communist revolts aiming to topple French rule; and often reacted rashly in response.

In addition, this chapter also explores how strikes overseas revealed the aspirations of workers and their representatives far away from the metropole. Strikes abroad took place in very different geographical, political, social, and economic contexts. Industrial action represented an opportunity for indigenous workers, in territories such as La Réunion or Algeria, either to move closer or drift further away from French rule.

10 The sixth chapter examines how French security forces, also suffering from the impossibility of demobilization, unleashed a wave of terror and violence on immigrant communities following the November/December strikes. It explains why Polish, Italian, and Spanish workers chose to participate in French strikes or not, and assesses the international ramifications of French authorities' mistreatment of foreign labourers. The expulsion of Italian trade unionists from France prompted no reaction from De Gasperi's government, considering the anti-communist and anti-partisan crusade taking place in Italy, while the exile and imprisonment of Spanish republicans signaled the abandonment of France's anti-Franco foreign policy, which so isolated Spain on the world stage after

World War II.

Conversely, the deportation or mistreatment of Polish miners and pro-Romanian organizations or individuals had the opposite effect, and severely harmed France's diplomatic and cultural standing in Eastern Europe. In the final chapter, I argue the misleading, and often sensational coverage of post-war French strikes abroad, such as in Canada and the Netherlands, was partly responsible for prompting governments in the West to overreact to their own labour unrest. The French miners' strike in particular envenomed pre-existing fears of chaotic or communist-led strikes, and pushed politicians and company directors in Quebec to overreact to unrest in Asbestos. Meanwhile, Dutch politicians and magistrates, while unencumbered by the blinding anti-communism which prompted Quebecois authorities to react so harshly to unrest in Asbestos, also used the French miners' strike to weaken already diminished and isolated communists in Dutch trade unions. 11 In contrast, communist parties in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia successfully instrumentalized French strikes to discredit their adversaries in the West, and to legitimise the hold of their regime at home. The Eastern bloc weaponized French strikes, not to destabilize or sabotage enemies behind the Iron Curtain, as some French politicians so feared, but to mobilize support for the Communist cause. 12

Abbreviations

Organisations

AFL American Federation of Labour AML Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté ARAC Association Républicaine des Anciens Combattants

ATV Association des Travailleurs Vietnamiens

BKP Bëlgarska Komunističeska Partija (Bulgarian Communist Party) BVD Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (Dutch Domestic Security Services)

HTUC Hungarian Trade Union Congress

CCL Canadian Congress of Labor

CFA Francs of the French colonies in Africa

CFE Chemin de Fer Franco- Éthiopien

CFTC Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens

CGC Confédération Générale des Cadres

CGIL Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (Italian General Confederation of Labor) CGT Confédération Générale du Travail CGTM Confédération Générale des Travailleurs Marocains CGTU Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire

CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations

CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain

CPN Communistische Partij Nederland (Dutch Communist Party) CPUSA Communist Party of the United States of America CNPF Centrale Nationale du Patronat Français CNPF Comité National des Polonais de France CNT Confédération nationale du travail (Anarchist) CNV

Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond (

Dutch National Federation of Christian

Trade Unions)

CRS Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité

CSU Canadian Seamen's Union

CTCC Confédération des Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada

DST Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire

EVC Eenheids Vakcentrale (Dutch Communist Trade Union)

FEN Fédération de l'Éducation Nationale

FFI Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur

FNSIM Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d'Ingénieurs et assimilés des Mines

FNSS Fédération Nationale du Sous-Sol

FNTBB Fédération Nationale des Travailleurs du Bâtiment et du Bois

FO Force Ouvrière

FSM Fédération Syndicale Mondiale

FTP-MOI Franc-tireurs-main-d'oeuvre immigrés

GC Gauche Communiste

GM General Motors

HPB Hôpital Psychiatrique de Blida (Algérie)

HUAC House on Un-American Activities Committee

KAB

Katholieke Arbeidersbeweging

(Dutch Catholic Trade Union Federation) KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (German Communist Party) 13 KVP Katholieke Volkspartij (Dutch Catholic People's Party) LPP Labor Progressive Party (Canadian Communist Party) MDP Magyar Dolgozók Pártja (Hungarian Working People's Party) MKP Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja (Hungarian Communist Party) MOI Main d'oeuvre Indigène Nord-Africaine et Coloniale

MRP Mouvement Républicain Populaire

NMU National Maritime Union

NVV Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Dutch Association of Trade

Unions)

ONCOR Office National des Cantonnements Ouvriers de la Reconstruction OVRA

Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organisation for the Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism) (Italy)

OPO

Organizacja Pomocy Ojczyźnie

(Organization de l'aide à la patrie) (Poland) PCI

Partito Comunista Italiano (

Italian Communist Party)

PCM Parti Communiste Marocain PCP Partido Comunista Português (Portuguese Communist Party) PCR Partidul Comunist Român (Romanian Communist Party) PIDE

Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (

Portuguese International and

State Defense Police)

POWN

Polska Organizacja Walki o Niepodległość

(Polish Organization for the

Struggle for Independence)

PPA Parti du Peuple Algérien PPR

Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers' Party)

PRL Parti Républicain de la Liberté PvdA

Partij van de Arbeid (Dutch Labor Party)

RPF Rassemblement du Peuple Français SBO Syndicat de la Batellerie Artisanale SEBCA Société d'Exploitation des Bois Coloniaux en Algérie SFIO Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière SIHN Syndicat des Ingénieurs des Houillères du Nord et Pas-de-Calais SMCS Società Mineraria Carbonifera Sarda (Sardinian Mining Society) SNCF Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français SNET Syndicat National de l'Enseignement Technique SNI Syndicat National des Instituteurs STO Service du Travail Obligatoire UD Union Départementale UFA Union des Femmes Algériennes UGT Unión General de Trabajadores (General Union of Spanish Workers) UGTT Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens UMW United Mining Workers of America UPC Union des Populations du Cameroun USBB Union des Syndicats du Bâtiment et du Bois USCI Union Syndicale des Ingénieurs Catholiques USM Union des Syndicats de Madagascar VNI Verenging Nederland- Indonesië (Dutch-Indonesian Association) WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions 14

Archives

ADSSD Archives Départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis

AMDT Archives du Monde du Travail

AN Archives Nationales

ANOM Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer

CHS Centre d'Histoire Sociale du Vingtième Siècle IHS-CGT Institut d'Histoire Sociale de la Métallurgie

OURS Office Universitaire de recherche Socialiste

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Introduction

The years 1945-50 witnessed an era of permanent agitation. Civil wars in Greece and China, partitions in Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan, anti-colonial struggles in Indochina, Malaysia and Indonesia, or insurgencies in the Soviet Union, were the most visible symptoms of this worldwide discontent. Disaffection in continental Europe, whether in Italy, Belgium, Germany, or even behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and Czechoslovakia, translated into massive and occasionally violent strike waves. Even in the United States, relatively unscathed by war, workers walked-out of factories, mines and railroads, or in the British Commonwealth, where thousands of Canadian and Australian miners took to the streets. Spontaneous strikes shook textile plants in Salazar's Portugal, Franco's Spain, and De Valera's Ireland as well. 1 France was particularly prone to this kind of upheaval. An uneasy truce, embodied in le tripartisme, which saw Socialists, Communists and Christian democrats set aside differences in the name of national recovery, buckled under the weight of Cold War pressures. Steadily mounting anger gave rise to populist movements such as General de Gaulle's RPF (Rassemblement du peuple français). 2

Inflation rose sharply while

sugar and bread were in short supply. Disease was rampant and unemployment high. 1 For insurgencies in Ukraine and the Baltic, see J. Burds, 'Gender and policing in Soviet West Ukraine, 1944-1948', Cahiers du monde russe, 42/2-4 (2001), pp.270-320. Y. Zhukov,'Examining the

Authoritarian Model of Counter-insurgency: The Soviet campaign against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army',

Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18/3(2007), pp.441-449. For post-war strikes in Belgium and Ireland, see

A. Thomas, ' "Une telle indifférence": la présence communiste dans les entreprises belges de l'après-

guerre (1945-1948)' (Masters Thesis, Université de Liège, 2015), pp205-225. '`À son tour, l'Irlande

connaît les restrictions', La Croix [Paris], no.19, 481 (3 rd

April 1947), p. 3 col a-c.

2 R. Vinen, Bourgeois Politics in France 1945-1951 (Cambridge, 1995), pp.215-218. B., Lachaise, 'La

création du Rassemblement du peuple français', in S. Bernstein and P. Milza (eds.), L'Année 1947 (Paris,

2000), pp.332-333.

16 Uneventful twenty-four hour shut downs of mines or taxi-routes in late 1946 preceded massive strikes throughout 1947. Railwaymen, postmen, teachers, metallurgists, factory- workers, and miners took to the streets in their thousands. 3

Small Trotskyist groups in the

Renault car-manufacturing plant sparked a strike-wave which later spread from Paris and into the countryside in the summer of 1947. 4

However, concessionary wage hikes proved

to be fleeting solutions. Regional courts which tried workers refusing to pay for overpriced train tickets in Marseille, combined with the dismissal of veteran coalmining unionist Léon Delfosse in the North, provoked further unrest. 5

The ensuing strikes raged

uncontrollably from mid-November till early December 1947. The murder of a young PCF (Parti communiste français) member Vincent Voulant and derailment of a passenger train killing many on board, unleashed a flurry of rumours and conspiracy theories. 6 Socialist and Christian Democratic deputies stoked fears of a Soviet-backed revolution, further crystallizing divisions between a communist majority and SFIO (French Socialist Party) leaning minority in the CGT (Confédération générale du travail). 7

Textile workers

erected barricades in Saint-Etienne, while fully armed colonial troops from Senegal poured into Nice to suppress unrest. 8quotesdbs_dbs47.pdfusesText_47

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