Parti républicain-socialiste

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The Parti républicain-socialiste ("Republican Socialist Party", abbreviated to PRS ) was a small reform socialist party at the time of the Third French Republic . It was founded in 1911 and disbanded in 1934. In the party spectrum, he took the place between the socialist SFIO and the left-liberal Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste . Prominent members included René Viviani , Aristide Briand , Alexandre Millerand and Paul Painlevé .

history

After the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 1910, several independent socialist members who, for various reasons, did not want to join the Marxist SFIO, founded in 1905 , formed their own parliamentary group : the Républicain-socialistes . The associated party was founded in July 1911. It saw itself as socialist, that is, it strived for the socialization of the means of production. This should be done in an evolutionary process on the way of reforms and in compliance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Third Republic, which the Républicain-socialistes fully endorsed. Various methods of socialization were proposed in various party programs, but one idea remained constant until the end of the party in 1934: the labor share ( action de travail ). Thereafter, the property rights of every company would be converted into shares , the dividends of which would be shared between shareholders and employees; Both sides should also have equal rights in corporate management. According to the French historian Yves Billard, it represents something like the unique selling point of the Républicain-socialistes .

The PRS quickly developed into a largely organized, modern party, which differentiated it from most of the other parties of the Third Republic, which were mainly support groups of individual members of parliament or parties of dignitaries . According to Anatole de Monzies, the PRS had 11,000 paying members at the first party congress, which took place in Paris in November 1912, and they were active in 35 of the 98 departments . Between the congresses the party was led by an executive committee of 15 members; the actual management was in the hands of a general secretary and a nine-person administrative commission. These party officials were opposed to the much more prominent mandate holders, MPs like Briand, Millerand, Viviani, de Monzie or Joseph Paul-Boncour , who determined the party's external image . Unlike the public officials, they were much more willing to compromise when it came to bourgeois legislative proposals and political concepts. This was due to their involvement in the specific government work, which for some of them had been the reason for leaving the SFIO: Briand had entered the cabinet of the radical socialist Ferdinand Sarrien in 1906 as Minister of Culture , Viviani was succeeded by his successor and Viviani in the same year Party colleague Georges Clemenceau, France's first labor minister. The differing perspectives of MPs and officials have been a source of persistent disagreement in the PRS.

In 1913 the conflict spread to the MPs. Points of contention were on the one hand the extension of compulsory military service from two to three years, on the other hand Raymond Poincaré's candidacy from the right-wing liberal Alliance démocratique as president and the mode to be used in the election. All three questions split the parliamentary group: Briand, Millerand and de Monzie were in favor of Poincaré and the extension of compulsory military service, Painlevé and Paul-Boncour against. The conflicts continued in the membership of the party, the party congress in November 1913 in Grenoble led to a split: Poincaré's opponents accused the other side of having manipulated the composition of the delegates, left the PRS and founded a competition with the same name. Both parties proved to be unable to survive, the party de facto ceased to exist from 1914 to 1923.

Nevertheless, the parliamentary group still existed. In the elections of May 1914, 24 Républicain-socialistes were elected to the chamber, which comprised a total of 601 members. The fierce domestic political controversy came to rest all over France due to the outbreak of the First World War ; the country was ruled by an all-party government, the Union sacrée , until 1917 . The Républicain-socialistes Viviani, Briand and Painlevé served as prime ministers in this legislature, others like Millerand (who soon left the party) became ministers. In the chamber elections of November 1919, the Républicain-socialistes were able to maintain their result overall: This time their parliamentary group comprised 26 of the 613 members of parliament. Several PRS MPs, together with the Radical Socialists, the Alliance démocratique and the conservative Fédération républicaine , had previously called for the formation of a Bloc national in which the successful cooperation of the war years should be continued. Others ran on lists that ran against the Bloc . Despite these diametrically different lists, the Républicain-socialistes faction acted largely unanimously during this legislative period. They supported their group colleague Briand, who from January 1921 to January 1922, as Prime Minister, headed a coalition government from the Radical Socialists to the Fédération républicaine - with himself as the only Républicain-socialiste in the cabinet. At the same time as this coalition with parties from the center and the right, the Républicain-socialistes improved their cooperation with the left : in 1921, together with socialists and radical socialists, they founded a Ligue de la République : politicians who saw themselves as left worked together more closely and gave up in the second ballot in favor of another leftist for a new candidacy, if his election appeared more promising. In April 1923, the PRS was re-established at a party congress in Marseille.

In the chamber elections of May 1924, the Républicain-socialistes were able to more than triple their previous election result with 78 members (out of a total of 581). The other left parties had also clearly won; together they formed the Cartel des gauches , the first coalition government in France that also included the socialists. The radical socialist Édouard Herriot became Prime Minister , while the Républicain-socialiste Painlevé, as President of the Chamber, was the second strong man of the Cartel . During this time, the PRS parliamentary group supported the Herriot government with discipline - unlike that of the radical socialists, which repeatedly voiced reservations about the policies of the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux . In 1925, Herriot failed because of the severe financial and currency crisis, which was a consequence of the financing of the war on credit and the false hope that all problems could be eliminated with the German reparations payments ("Le boche paiera" - "the German will pay") . In May 1926, the PRS merged with a spin-off from the SFIO, the Parti socialiste français founded in 1920 , and was now officially called Parti socialiste français et républicain socialiste .

The question of whether one should participate in the Union nationale , a coalition government that Poincaré formed in July 1926 in order to balance the budget and stabilize the currency with a resolute austerity policy , there was again sharp controversy within the party: Briand and Painlevé entered in Poincaré's majority conservative cabinet and were supported by a majority of MPs and members of the PRS, while a minority pleaded for doing the same with the radical socialists and staying away from the government. At the Paris party congress of December 1927, the Poincaré-critical minority split off under the name Parti socialiste français . The party was not to recover from this split, which was accompanied by a significant decline in membership. In the words of Yves Billard, it was now a “ general casino [...] almost without soldiers”. In the chamber elections of April 1928, the Républicain-socialistes received only 31 of 606 seats, the elections of May 1932 only 29 of 614 members.

The PRS dissolved in 1934. In 1935 the members joined forces with those of the Parti socialiste français and the Parti socialiste de la France , a spin-off from the SFIO, to form the Union socialiste républicaine .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Yves Billard: Un parti républicain-socialiste a vraiment existé . In: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 51 (1996), p. 46 f.
  2. ↑ Elections législatives 1914 ( Memento of the original of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Rois et Présidents, histoire de France et histoire politique page , accessed September 29, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.roi-president.com
  3. ↑ Elections législatives 1919 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Rois et Présidents, histoire de France et histoire politique page , accessed September 29, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.roi-president.com
  4. ↑ Thomas Raithel: The difficult game of parliamentarism. German Reichstag and French Chambre des Députés during the inflation crises of the 1920s. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, p. 43 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  5. ^ Daniela Neri-Ultsch: Socialists and Radicaux - a difficult alliance . Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, p. 78 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  6. ^ Elections législatives 1924 on the page Rois et Présidents, histoire de France et histoire politique , accessed on September 29, 2015.
  7. ↑ Thomas Raithel: The difficult game of parliamentarism. German Reichstag and French Chambre des Députés during the inflation crises of the 1920s. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, p. 477. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  8. ^ Charles P. Kindleberger : The Great Depression . Reprint, Finanzbuch, Munich 2014, p. 61 f.
  9. ↑ Thomas Raithel: The difficult game of parliamentarism. German Reichstag and French Chambre des Députés during the inflation crises of the 1920s. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, p. 65. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  10. ↑ "Un mess des généraux [...] presque sans soldats". Yves Billard: Un parti républicain-socialiste a vraiment existé . In: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 51 (1996), p. 55.
  11. ^ Elections législatives 1928 on the page Rois et Présidents, histoire de France et histoire politique , accessed on September 29, 2015.
  12. ^ Elections législatives 1932 on the page Rois et Présidents, histoire de France et histoire politique , accessed on September 29, 2015.
  13. ^ Yves Billard: Un parti républicain-socialiste a vraiment existé . In: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 51 (1996), p. 55.

literature

  • Yves Billard: Un parti républicain-socialiste a vraiment existé . In: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 51 (1996), pp. 43-55.