Marceau Pivert
Marceau Pivert (born October 2, 1895 in Montmachoux , Département Seine-et-Marne , † June 3, 1958 in Paris ) was a French socialist politician. He was a left-wing leader of the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO) and a minister under Léon Blum in the 1930s .
biography
Pivert came from a petty-bourgeois background. Drafted for military service in 1915, he was poisoned during a gas attack , fell seriously ill and was released in 1917. He joined the League for Human Rights and the Freemasons and became a member of the teachers' union. In 1924 he joined the SFIO; under his leadership, the SFIO section in the 15th arrondissement of Paris was to become one of the strongest organizations of the party in the 1930s.
Pivert belonged to the current around the bataille socialiste (socialist struggle) founded by Jean Zyromski and sat on the board of the SFIO since 1933. In the 1930s he became known as the leader of the party's far left. After February 6, 1934, he set up a socialist self-protection formation and made a significant contribution to the creation of the united front of workers' organizations .
In March 1935 he met Trotsky in his French exile in Domène ( Isère ). After the break with Zyromski, as whose right hand he had long been considered, Pivert formed a new tendency within the SFIO at the end of September 1935. The Gauche révolutionnaire (revolutionary left) maintained close contact with the London office of left-wing socialist parties and groups. After the election victory of the Popular Front and at the beginning of the mass strikes by French workers, Pivert published an article in the central organ of the SFIO, Le Populaire , in May 1936 , which with its title Tout est possible (“Everything is possible”) caused a sensation.
In the Popular Front government under Léon Blum, he was responsible for the press , radio and cinema . In January 1937 he resigned in protest against the government's policies, which increasingly gave in to pressure from the bourgeoisie. When the leadership of the SFIO declared the Gauche révolutionnaire dissolved in April 1937, he submitted to party discipline . After the party leadership suspended his membership for three years in April 1938 and dissolved the Seine Federation, a stronghold of the socialist left, Pivert founded the Parti Socialiste Ouvrier et Paysan (PSOP) in July 1938 , which with around 10,000 members made up around a third included the earlier followers of the Gauche révolutionnaire.
The PSOP participated in the London office and its successor organizations, the International Labor Front (IAF) and the International Revolutionary Marxist Center (IRMZ). On behalf of the IAF, Pivert traveled to the USA in August 1939 . Surprised by the outbreak of war in America, he had lived in Mexico since 1940 . With Julián Gorkin , Victor Serge , Gustav Regulator and others he formed an international discussion group there, which was the target of violent journalistic attacks on the part of the Moscow-loyal communists and supporters of Josef Stalin . In 1946 Pivert returned to France and rejoined the SFIO. In contrast to the former, he sided with Algeria's independence .
literature
- Jacques Kergoat: Marceau Pivert, socialist de gauche. Editions de l'Atelier
Web links
- Texts by Marceau Pivert in the Marxists Internet Archive (English)
- Brochure from the teachers' union SNUipp (ensemble) about Marceau Pivert (PDF file, French)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pivert, Marceau |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French socialist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 2, 1895 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Montmachoux , Seine-et-Marne department |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 3, 1958 |
| Place of death | Paris |