Thousands of far-right fanatics, many of them armed, gather in front of the seat of government, whipped-up by fake news and racist propaganda, convinced that the political elite is mired in corruption. They battle with the police, who open fire. At least 15 demonstrators and one police officer are killed and about 2,000 people are injured. One important far-right leader marches his troops away from the battle and the rest are forced to retreat.
You may notice that this is not what happened in Washington on Wednesday.
It is a very brief summary of events in Paris on 6 February 1934 when far-right groups collectively known as les ligues (let’s leave aside the debate of how fascist they were) demonstrated against a government that had been hit by a series of corruption scandals and had decided to transfer the right-wing prefect of police, Jean Chiappe, to Morocco.
Corruption, anti-Semitism, xenophobia
Over the preceding weeks, there had been a series of right-wing demonstrations against corruption, fuelled by anti-Semitism and other forms of xenophobia, as well as another French right-wing hobby-horse, anti-freemasonry.
Veterans’ groups aligned with the Communist Party, at the time still tied to the third period line that dubbed social-democrats “social-fascists”, had also organised their own simultaneous protests.
This all culminated in the 6 February demonstrations, during which thousands of far-right street-fighters assembled in various parts of Paris, a large number of them in front of the National Assembly. Many were carrying projectiles, fireworks or fire-arms, as well as ball-bearings to throw under the hooves police horses or poles with razor blades attached to cut their tendons.
Unlike the US authorities, the French government pulled out the police in force. Then as now, nobody would accuse French cops of being woolly-minded liberals but, having already suffered the attentions of the right-wing militias on previous protests, they opened fire in response to explosions that may or may not have been shots, with the results noted above.
The contrast with the failure to mobilise adequate defence for the Capitol and the lack of the police’s customary brio when it comes to crowd control is obvious. Then again, the sitting French president had not incited the mob to demonstrate.
The riot inspired an immediate debate as to whether there had been at attempted putsch. In both cases, the insurgents don’t seem to have had a coherent plan and didn’t know what to do once they had put thousands on the streets, or in the American case, in the seat of government.
Left unites against fascism
So what happened after the 1934 riot?
Its immediate result was a shift to the right in government, which led to the first appearance of Marshall Philippe Pétain in a ministerial position. (According to General Bornet, he revoked the honour awarded to garde mobile who was killed during the riot and the medal was removed from the officer’s coffin in front of his family as they attended his funeral.)
But, coup attempt or not, the presence of thousands of armed far-right activists on the streets shocked the left into action.
The French Communist Party joined the Socialist Party (SFIO) in demonstrations and strikes against fascism and was instrumental in persuading the Communist International to ditch the third period’s sectarianism.
That in turn led to the 1936 election of the popular front government, led by the SFIO with the bourgeois Radical Socialists holding ministerial posts and the Communists supporting from outside.
The popular front government is still remembered for important reforms – the introduction of the first paid holidays and unemployment pay, the reduction of the working week from 48 hours to 40, and the nationalisation of the rail network and other important industries, although it was a massive strike movement that forced this radical turn.
The bad news is that it failed in its initial primary aim, that of preventing fascism.
A significant number of members of the 200 families who notoriously controlled the French economy at the time – the Michelins, Renaults, Cotys, Taittingers (you’ll notice that these names are still around) – continued to finance the far right, sponsoring anti-Semitism, coup plots and reactionary conspiracy theories as an ideological bulwark against the expropriation of their wealth.
They chose Pétain and collaboration with the Nazis when it came to the national humiliation of 1940. And, while a few of the far right took their patriotism seriously and joined the resistance, many of the ligues’ members ended up in the Vichy government’s militias, in the editorial chairs of collaborationist papers or in important political positions.
Post-Trump Republicans and the modern militias
The US today is clearly not the same as France in the 30s.
Trump is on his way out of office and the violent attempts to prevent his departure have fizzled out.
But, despite all the talk of “moderate” Republicans being forced to distance themselves from him, he has pushed his party even further to the right. Despite all the racism, vulgarity, narcissism and contempt for democratic institutions, the mainstream Republican voter cast his or her ballot for Trump. To really build a worthwhile momentum, the ambitious careerist has to fire up the crazies with just those attributes that shock the rest of us so that is the path many Republicans seem likely to follow over the next few years.
Although the spectre of Bolshevism may not be obviously haunting the West, the US and Europe have entered an era of economic, social, demographic and ideological turmoil. Capitalism is being called into question, especially by young people, in a way it has not been since long before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, capital is increasingly addicted to short-term gains, emptying businesses’ coffers to pay out dividends and enormous salaries to top bosses. Many of the wealthy are deeply committed to defending their right to amass ever vaster fortunes, especially in the US where a kind of neo-Calvinism preaches that the rich are rich because they deserve to be so.
This is now the Republicans’ creed. Combined with white suprematism and a load of other ideological junk, it is the dogma of the Proud Boys and other modern-day ligues and the lumpen bourgeoisie will continue to sponsor them.
Nobody but an idiot would expect the Biden presidency to come up with any reforms as significant as those of the French Popular Front. That means it will be an even less reliable bulwark against the right, once they have caught their breath and launched new political offensives.
Polarisation, turmoil, confusion lie ahead of us. The looming climate catastrophe means that the long-term stakes are even higher than in the 1930s, while those who oppose the solutions remain as ruthless as ever. Let’s hope we have the courage and the means to face them down.
