French Turn - in France

In France

The idea of the French Turn originated after the 6 February 1934 riots around the Stavisky Affair in 1934, which led to the downfall of the Daladier government. Fearing that fascists would seize power as they had in Germany and Italy, the Socialist Party (SFIO) and French Communist Party (PCF) formed a "United Front."

The Communist League, the French section of the International Left Opposition, remained at this time a small and predominantly middle-class organization. Leon Trotsky saw a great opportunity in the United Front for an expansion of the Trotskyists' ranks. While he saw no possibility of re-entering the Communist Party because of its lack of internal democracy, he believed that the Trotskyists could build a base in the SFIO, which had moved to the left under the leadership of Léon Blum. Trotsky formally proposed the "French Turn" into the SFIO in June 1934.

The Communist League's leaders were divided over the issue of entering the SFIO. While Raymond Molinier was the most supportive of Trotsky's proposal, Pierre Naville vocally opposed the motion, and Pierre Frank remained ambivalent. After two months of formal discussion, the League voted to dissolve into the SFIO in August 1934. In the Socialist Party, they formed the Bolshevik-Leninist Group (Groupe Bolchevik-Leniniste, GBL). Naville split from the group.

Upon entering the SFIO, the GBL began to build a base among the party's left wing. The Trotskyists' influence was strongest in the youth affiliate, Young Socialists, and the Parisian party branches. At the Mulhouse party congress of June 1935, the Trotskyists led a campaign to prevent the United Front from expanding into a "Popular Front", which would include the middle-class Radical Party. Jean Rous of the GBL was elected to the SFIO's National Administrative Committee.

After the adoption of the Popular Front, Trotsky advised the GBL to break with the SFIO and begin forming a new revolutionary party. This created fresh divisions within the GBL's leadership. While Naville supported a split, Molinier hoped to develop connections with Marceau Pivert, one of the primary leaders of the SFIO's left wing. This led to a confused and awkward departure by the Trotskyists from the Socialist Party in early 1936, which drew only about six hundred people from the party. Molinier and Naville formed two separate parties, and their divisions were reinforced over how to relate to Pivert's new party, the Workers and Peasants Socialist Party (PSOP).

The French Trotskyists were dispersed when World War II began, but in 1944 they re-unified into the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI).