REVOLUTION VACCINATION
By JEAN-PIERRE GIRAUDOUX Paris.
AFORTNIGHT ago, while the French Press seemed more con- cerned with Princess Elizabeth's wedding than with the fall of the Government, the Third Force had yet to find itself. It has not thus far done so." The Ramadier Cabinet has been followed by its very image—the Schuman Cabinet. The hard-working and honest freemason of the lower middle class has been succeeded by the hard- working and honest clerical man of the upper middle class. On these two French faces, different though they may appear super- ficially, the expression is identical.
Whereas a Blum-Reynaud combination, because of the personal standing of the two men, might have stimulated an ever-disappointed population, the new Government, in which a party just beaten at the local elections has the upper hand, could hardly be expected to arouse faith in the masses or enthusiasm in Parliament. If the Third Force ever had a chance it was wrecked by the uncompromising attitude of the leaders of the Socialist Party, who persisted in launch- ing a fight on two fronts against an all too real Russian menace and an obviously mythical Caesarian peril. M. Blum's failure to obtain the constitutional majority was a heavy, perhaps fatal, blow to his prestige. The blind obstinacy of the Socialists in vetoing M. Paul Reynaud as a symbol of liberalism prevented M. Schuman from reuniting M. Reynaud with M. Blum as Vice-Premiers. Further- more, the attempts of the new Prime Minister to appease the Parlia- mentarian Gaullists by more or less ignoring them, while giving the key Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs to an eminent sup- porter of the General, M. Rene Mayer (whose economic views are very similar to those of the discarded M. Paul Reynaud), were not tolerated by the Socialists without much impatience. Thus, none of the personalities that have been chosen to form the new Cabinet, full of good intentions though they may be, is in a position to assert himself in the atmosphere of general doubt and scepticism that surrounds them. Goodwill will not suffice where strength and imagination are required.
This all too apparent weakness of the Government of the Third Force has done much to encourage the Communist Party to de- velop the plan of sabotage which was communicated to it at the Warsaw Conference. The American Congress is being asked to help Europe. M. Molotov has arrived at the conference that should decide the fate of Germany. The majority of the French people think that now is the time to have a strong Government, but the Communist leaders hold a different view : " Now is the time for confusion ; the Government lacks popular support. It is obviously not armed to resist assault ; let us go for a general strike. The currency is threatened ; let us paralyse production in order to precipitate its collapse. Let us also avoid at all costs General de Gaulle's coming to power by normal means, or at least let us force him to come to power before the winter is ended. Let us provoke the ' Reaction.' In short, let us practise a policy of extremes ; it will help our great Dauphin Molotov in London. In France, anyway, it is our last chance."
As regards the London Conference and the Marshall Plan, France's prestige has been wrecked in a fashion that should be pleasing to the Russian leaders. Where home affairs are concerned, however, there should be less cause for alarm. The Communist majority since the Liberation has been ruling French trade unions in a completely totalitarian manner, but the minority movement grouped around its newspaper Force Ouvriere has at last asserted itself. Workers have condemned the political use of strikes—an unprecedented step in the history of French trade unions. In the past week the C.G.T. has been split, and, should the cleavage become definite, it is more than likely that the great majority of French workers will rally to the two unions which seem to them more independent of foreign political interference. How superficial is the hold of the Communists on the mass of the workers, but how tight it is on the fanatics, is shown by the incredihle fact that the majority strike committee, which issues communiqués as in civil war, published a manifesto branding the secret vote for and against strikes as a manoeuvre of the Reaction. Of course, with very few exceptions, wherever secret voting was effectively organised, the majority pronounced itself in favour of continuing work Events will no doubt show how unwise it was to attempt a test of strength, however timorous the adversary may have seemed. Moscow and its agents grossly misunderstood the French working class. For the strikes have had a disastrous effect on French public opinion. In most cases it is only through methods of terrorism and sabotage that they have been carried out. This semi-revolutionary atmosphere has removed any glamour that the notion of revolution might still have held in the hearts of the working population. One could, indeed, say that France is now undergoing a vaccination against revolution. No fever is ever pleasant. Still it cannot be said that freedom of work is assured in France today. Owing to the sabotage of coal production and—through dockers' strikes—of the import pro- gramme, that had been planned long ahead, transport, gas and key industries, despite the wish of the immense majority of employees concerned, are gravely impaired—and electricity soon will be. One must bear in mind that this is only the beginning. Sombre days lie ahead of the French people.
Demanding a 25 per cent. immediate rise and a moving scale to which it knows no Government can ever agree, the C.G.T. means to baffle the State, while endeavouring to attract the workers whose lot is not enviable since prices has been rising steadily, especially within the last month. In this extremely difficult situation the Govern- ment has made laudable attempts to act energetically, but so did its predecessor ; and there is no reason why M. Schuman should succeed where M. Ramadier failed. Some men may have been changed ; a show of "Gaullism without de Gaulle" may have been put forward ; a general economic programme may be constantly alluded to, but the flaws which made the former Cabinet powerless are still there. On the one hand the Government, though it has vigorously con- demned the political use of strikes, has been obliged to give way at least to the demands of Force Ouvriere and suggests a limited rise in salaries—another temporising half-measure. On the other hand, there has been the calling up of 8o,000 men to be put at the disposal of a Minister of the Interior entirely lacking in popular appeal, new legislation on strikes and sabotage, and, indeed, a regulation re- stricting in a dangerously vague fashion the freedom of the Press. (The seizing of many Communist newspapers, provoking though they were, is from a tactical point of view a somewhat clumsy move.)
These steps, had they been proposed by de Gaulle, would have been branded by their present authors as a " menace to democracy," and they can do little to alleviate a crisis that is essentially one of an already thoroughly discredited regime. Indeed, M. Jouhaux's minority reacted against the Bill almost as violently as M. Frachon's Communist majority. Therefore. the position of the Socialist Ministers, who are very dependent on the C.G.T. minority, may be made untenable. Meanwhile, public opinion, mourning over the death of General Leclerc, France's most popular military leader, is becoming more and more bewildered, waiting as it is, not always consciously, for a Government that can at last govern. And many people wonder at General de Gaulle's present silence. (A lecture the General was due to hold was cancelled at the end of last week.) De Gaulle's attitude is, however, a very simple and logical one. He has already said all he had to say, and does not wish to add fuel to the flames while events are so tragically fulfilling his forecasts. But the time draws nearer and nearer when, in the face of anarchy, the President of the Republic will have no other course left than to appeal, directly or indirectly, to the man whom M. Auriol's party friends call "a new-fangled Caesar."
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