Sound familiar?

In France the development of the effects of the economic crisis appeared at first more slowly. But in the latest period the situation has gone forward with extreme rapidity, and the question of Fascism has become a burning issue. The events of February 6-12, 1934, and the fall of the Daladier Government, leading to the formation of the transitional Doumergue Government of National Concentration, have brought to the front the whole question of Fascism and the increasing signs of advance to a direct armed struggle. These events are of vital importance for the Western “democratic” countries, because in these events are set out with crystal clearness the two alternative paths, the path of the “left bloc” or bourgeois- liberal democracy, leading in fact to Fascism, or the path of the united working-class front of struggle, which can alone defeat Fascism.

What was the situation on the eve of the events of February 6-12? The national-chauvinist, Fascist and Royalist forces in France-at all times active beneath the democratic-republican exterior--developed extreme activity in the gathering crisis, and especially since the advent of Hitlerism, with the open alliance and assistance of the police authorities in Paris and of the big press, that is, of the State and finance-capital. At the same time the governmental forms were showing the same increase of executive powers and repression of the workers common to all capitalist governments in the present period. Even The Times on February 5, that is, before the decisive events, was compelled to note: “A contrast has been drawn between the severe repression of Communist manifestations and the comparative immunity from punishment of Royalist demonstrators and the Royalist newspaper which directly incites its readers to riot in the streets.”

This was under a “Left” bourgeois Government, maintained in office in practice by the support of the Socialist Party. The majority in Parliament was a “Left Cartel” majority, consisting of the Socialist Party and of the “Left” bourgeois groupings. This “Left” bourgeois Government (previously under Chautemps, then under Daladier) was heavily discredited by one of the typical recurrent financial and police scandals, the Stavisky scandal, which was being utilised by the reactionary forces to raise agitation against the parliamentary regime and to prepare a Government of National Concentration, just as the crisis of the franc was similarly used in 1926. After the dismissal of the police chief, Chiappe, who was notoriously hand-in-glove with the Royalist and Fascist elements, preparations were openly made – without interference – and proclaimed in the big press for a jingo riot on February 6, which was to serve as a preliminary trial of strength and spear-head for the Fascist advance. What was the line of the Daladier Government and of “left democracy” in the face of this challenge? The Socialist Party voted its confidence in the Daladier Government, in the “Left” bourgeois Government, as the defender of “democracy” against Fascism. On the basis of their support the Daladier Government received a substantial parliamentary majority of 360 to 220 on the critical evening of February 6. As against this line the Communist Party, which had approached the Socialist Party for the united front against Fascism in March 1933, and been refused, called for the united front from below, called the workers to the streets against the Fascist attack, and through the unions began to make agitation for a general strike against the Fascist menace. The two lines were now to receive their practical demonstration in the events that followed.

The Daladier Government massed heavy military forces in Paris in the days preceding February 6. But did it act against Fascism? The leaders of the Fascists and Royalists were allowed to carry on their preparations in complete freedom. Previously, on the eve of a Communist May Day demonstration, three thousand Communist leaders had been arrested in Paris in order to cripple the organisation of the demonstration. On the eve of this reactionary demonstration not a single Fascist or Royalist leader was touched. The organisers of the reaction were given freedom of the streets to burn, destroy, set fire to Government buildings, and advance on the Chamber of Deputies; no adequate forces were placed against them; the police were inactive; the “Gardes Republicaines” and “Gardes Mobiles” were steadily commanded to retreat and give way before the bourgeois mob; only at the last moment, when the Chamber was nearly reached and the bourgeois demonstrators began to fire with their revolvers, the “Gardes Mobiles,” not on the order of their officers, but in instinctive self-defence, fired back, and about a dozen of the dupes of the reaction and onlookers were killed.

The subsequent Commission of Enquiry established that the shooting was begun by the Fascist demonstrators and maintained for half an hour before any answering fire took place on the side of the Government forces; and that even so no order to fire was given by any officer, but that the rank and file of the “Gardes, Mobiles” began spontaneously to fire in self-defence and were immediately ordered to stop by their officers. The sequel to this incident is instructive for the whole future of parliamentary democracy. Immediately following this incident, on the very next day, on February 7, the Daladier Government, which bad just received an overwhelming parliamentary majority, resigned; and there was installed, amid the plaudits of the millionaire press, the Doumergue Government of National Concentration, with the semi-fascist-Tardieu in a strategic position in its midst.

How did this happen? Why this sudden surrender of the legal Government with a parliamentary majority before the first Fascist street-offensive? This question is of crucial importance for all the Western “democratic” countries, where confidence in “democratic institutions” as the defence against Fascism is still preached. Why did Daladier, “champion of democracy” and chosen representative of French Socialism, immediately resign before the Fascist extra-parliamentary offensive? Where, then, was the “sovereignty of Parliament,” “law and order,” the “will of the electors,” and all the paper paraphernalia of bourgeois democracy? Flown to the winds, as soon as finance-capital gave the order in the opposite direction. The parliamentary majority might vote one thing; but finance- capital ordered another, and finance-capital was obeyed, including by the representatives of that parliamentary majority.

The Daladier Government issued an explanation that it resigned “to avoid further bloodshed”: “The Government, while responsible for the maintenance of order, declined to ensure it by the employment of exceptional means, which might result in severer repressive action and further bloodshed. The Government bad no wish to use soldiers against the demonstrators, and for that reason bad laid down office.” The transparent hypocrisy of this “explanation” is manifest. As if any French bourgeois Government had ever hesitated to use the utmost violence against working-class demonstrators, not merely using soldiers against them, but organising complete military operations against them, as was done on the night of the far more serious fighting of February 9, amid the applause of the entire bourgeois press. Daladier resigned, not because be was a pacifist, but because he was a puppet of finance- capital and could do no other.

-FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION A Study of the economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay by R. PALME DUTT Ch. 11