Pierre Monatte

Pierre Monatte around 1915

Pierre Monatte (born January 15, 1881 in Monlet , Haute-Loire department , † June 27, 1960 in Paris ) was a French union leader and theoretician of syndicalism , who was one of the activists of the Confédération Générale du travail (CGT) union . He founded the newspaper La Nouvelle Vie ouvrière on October 9, 1909 in Montreuil and became its editor-in-chief.

Live and act

Pierre Monatte was initially a primary school teacher and then worked in a printing company as a proofreader . In 1904 he joined Émile Pouget in the CGT.

In 1907, at the Amsterdam Anarchist Congress, a dispute broke out between the Italian successor to Bakunin, Malatesta and Monatte.

At the beginning of the First World War , the war opponent Monatte resigned from the board of the CGT because of their insistence on the Union sacrée . In 1915 Monatte was mobilized and had to fight at the front. After the war he resumed work on his newspaper - strengthened by the impression of the October Revolution - rejoined the CGT and founded the Comités syndicalistes révolutionnaires (CSR) there - a pool of trade unionists who - like Monatte - were in wartime had been against the Union sacrée . Together with the communist trade unionists Joseph Tommasi, Raymond Péricat and Gaston Monmousseau, he wanted to join the Communist International at the first CGT post-war congress in Lyons in September 1919 . From May 3, 1920 to March 1921, Monatte was in prison with other comrades-in-arms for a plot against the internal security of France. He then worked as general secretary of CSR union for around 300,000 members.

In 1923 he joined the PCF . The interlude did not last too long. Together with Boris Souvarine and the journalist Alfred Rosmer , he fell victim to a party purge a year later as a friend of Trotsky and an opponent of Stalin . In January 1925, he co-founded the militant anti-colonialists Robert Louzon the La Révolution prolétarienne . This magazine was especially appreciated by activists from the left wing of the CGT in the interwar period .

Works (selection)

Ernest Labrousse : Syndicalisme révolutionnaire et communisme. Les archives de Pierre Monatte, 1914–1924 . In Colette Chambelland (ed.), Jean Maitron (ed.): Bibliothèque socialiste vol. 12, Verlag François Maspero , 1968. 462 pages
Trois scissions syndicales. Les Editions Ouvrieres, Paris 1958
Où va la CGT? Lettre d'un ancien à quelques jeunes syndiqués sans galons. Paris

literature

Leon Trotsky : My life . Attempt an autobiography. Translated from the Russian by Alexandra Ramm . 543 pages. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1990 (Licensor: S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main). ISBN 3-320-01574-5

Web links

Commons : Pierre Monatte - collection of images, videos and audio files

Author: Pierre_Monatte (French)
Biography at revolutionproletarienne.wordpress.com (French)
Entry at marxists.org (English)
Entries in WorldCat
Listed on HathiTrust
2 min video on YouTube (French)
Entry at anarchopedia.org (Italian)

annotation

↑ Fifteen years later, Trotsky remembers November 1914 in Paris and writes about Pierre Monatte and the Alfred Rosmer mentioned in this article: “Soon after my arrival in Paris, Martow Monatte and I visited one of the editors of the syndicalist magazine La vie ouvrière . A former elementary school teacher, then a proofreader, a typical Parisian worker in appearance, a clever fellow with character, Monatte never deviated for a moment in the direction of reconciliation with militarism and the bourgeois state. But where to look for a way out? We diverged on this question. Monatte denied the state and the political struggle. The state ignored Monatte's denial and forced him to wear red trousers [drafted] after he came out in open protest against syndicalist chauvinism . Through Monatte I came into close contact with the journalist Rosmer, who also belonged to the anarcho-syndicalist school, but, as events had shown, was already much closer to Marxism than the Guesdeists . I have had a close friendship with Rosmer since those days, which has withstood all the tests of war, revolution, Soviet power and the suppression of the opposition. "(Trotsky, p. 222, 15th Zvu, see also Paris and Zimmerwald at MIA )

Individual evidence

^ French La Nouvelle Vie ouvrière
^ French Comités syndicalistes révolutionnaires

personal data
SURNAME	Monatte, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French trade union leader and theoretician of syndicalism
DATE OF BIRTH	January 15, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH	Monlet
DATE OF DEATH	June 27, 1960
Place of death	Paris

[A1-3] Fifteen years later, Trotsky remembers November 1914 in Paris and writes about Pierre Monatte and the Alfred Rosmer mentioned in this article: “Soon after my arrival in Paris, Martow Monatte and I visited one of the editors of the syndicalist magazine La vie ouvrière . A former elementary school teacher, then a proofreader, a typical Parisian worker in appearance, a clever fellow with character, Monatte never deviated for a moment in the direction of reconciliation with militarism and the bourgeois state. But where to look for a way out? We diverged on this question. Monatte denied the state and the political struggle. The state ignored Monatte's denial and forced him to wear red trousers [drafted] after he came out in open protest against syndicalist chauvinism . Through Monatte I came into close contact with the journalist Rosmer, who also belonged to the anarcho-syndicalist school, but, as events had shown, was already much closer to Marxism than the Guesdeists . I have had a close friendship with Rosmer since those days, which has withstood all the tests of war, revolution, Soviet power and the suppression of the opposition. "(Trotsky, p. 222, 15th Zvu, see also Paris and Zimmerwald at MIA )

[1] French La Nouvelle Vie ouvrière

[2] French Comités syndicalistes révolutionnaires