France 1939–1945: From Strange Defeat to Pseudo-Liberation

 

This essay provides a class-analysis interpretation of France’s role in World War II. Determined to eliminate the perceived revolutionary threat emanating from its restless working class, France’s elite arranged in 1940 for the country to be defeated by its “external enemy,” Nazi Germany. The fruit of that betrayal was a victory over its “internal enemy,” the working class. It permitted installing a fascist regime under Pétain, and this “Vichy-France”—like Nazi Germany—was a paradise for the industrialists and all other members of the upper class, but a hell for workers and other plebeians. Unsurprisingly, the Resistance was mostly working class, and its plans for postwar France included severe punishment for the collaborators and very radical reforms. After Stalingrad, the elite, desperate to avoid that fate, switched its loyalty to the country’s future American masters, who were determined to make France and the rest of Europe free for capitalism. It proved necessary, however, to allow the recalcitrant leader of the conservative Resistance, Charles de Gaulle, to come to power. In any event, the “Gaullist” compromise made it possible for the French upper class to escape punishment for its pro-Nazi sins and to maintain its power and privileges after the liberation.

In 1914, most if not all European countries were not yet full-fledged democracies but continued to be oligarchies, ruled by an upper class that was a “symbiosis” of the landowning aristocracy (allied with one of the Christian Churches) and a bourgeoisie (i.e., upper-middle class) of industrialists, bankers, and such. Universal suffrage did not even exist yet in Britain or Belgium, so the upper class was firmly in power. In the “lower houses” of parliaments, this elite increasingly had to put up with pesky representatives of socialist (or “social-democratic”) and other plebeian parties, but it managed to maintain control. More importantly, it continued to monopolize non-elected state institutions such as the executive (usually a monarch), the judiciary, the diplomatic corps, the upper houses of parliaments, the higher ranks of the civil service, and above all, the army. (The secret services were only later to become important in this respect.)

The upper class, demographically a tiny minority, was not fond of democracy. After all, democracy means the rule of the demos, that is, the poor and restless majority of the people, the presumably dumb and cruel and therefore frightful “masses.” Particularly distressful for the upper class was the fact that, under the auspices of socialist parties and labor unions, the industrial working class had been agitating successfully for democratic reforms on the social as well as political level, such as a widening of the voting franchise, limitation of the working hours, higher wages, and social services such as paid holidays, pensions, and free or at least inexpensive health care and education.

As a remedy against the twin threat of revolution and democracy, however, war proved to be counterproductive. First, the “Great War” did not chase away the specter of revolution once and for all.

To the contrary, it ended up triggering revolutions in virtually all belligerent (and even some neutral) nations, and one of those revolutions even triumphed in one of the great empires, Russia. Second, the war produced not less, but more democracy: indeed, in order to take the wind out of billowing revolutionary sails in Britain, Germany, Belgium, and so forth, new, previously unthinkable democratic reforms, such as the introduction of universal suffrage and the eight-hour day, had to be introduced.  (more...)

France 1939–1945: From Strange Defeat to Pseudo-Liberation