A-Infos (en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #239 - History - Matthias Bouchenot: "Challenging the presence of nationalist leagues in the street" (fr, pt) [machine translation]

The 1930s witnessed particularly strong fascist violence. Faced with extreme right-wing 
leagues, self-defense is organized within the left parties. Bouchenot Matthias, author of 
Hold the street, to be published on May 6, looks back on the action groups of the SFIO. 
---- Libertarian Alternative: This book, from your master's thesis, focuses on a 
little-known story. How did you come to you care? ---- Matthias Bouchenot: I wanted to 
work on militant practices of revolutionary organizations, examine how their values, 
theories, analyzes political periods embodied in concrete action. ---- The subject of 
socialist self-defense in the 1930s combined three advantages: first, they have never been 
treated, the second to be accessible. The third advantage is that it allows both to take 
the pulse of the intensity of political conflict in the 1930s and to consider the 
realities of the SFIO, through unique experiences such as Always ready to serve, the 
socialist self-defense organization in the Paris region. They were used both for the order 
service very formal events, that to attack by night permanences the French Action.

Some saw them as defenders of republican liberties, if fascist coup, while others saw them 
as the future leaders of revolutionary militias. Here for example, what can be said as a 
matter of the 1930s and the SFIO. This study is moved from memory to the book, and he 
welcomed the nice editing Libertalia work.

What sources could you support you to document this?

Matthias Bouchenot: Federalists and bureaucratically SFIO 1930 practices have not 
facilitated the research. Added to this is the destruction in 1940 of part of the archives 
and the transfer of another party in Berlin and Moscow.

However, I met one of the last witnesses of this adventure, Eugene Butcher, who died at 
the end of last year. The Archives of Marceau Pivert and Jean Zyromski, texts federations, 
the reports of Congress and the press are essential sources. Added to this, of course, the 
archives of the Prefecture of Police.

Proponents of Marceau Pivert seem most active in the theory of self-defense and in its 
implementation. This division between revolutionary activists, ready to punch and cautious 
reformers is it insurmountable?

Matthias Bouchenot: Undoubtedly, the socialist self was associated with revolutionary 
tendency Left Marceau Pivert, who announced in 1936: "Everything is possible! " . It is 
tempting to say that these are the revolutionaries themselves, who brought self-defense in 
the SFIO, despite the legalistic reformers turned solely on the election issue, but the 
story is still a bit more complex.

Of course, those are the revolutionaries of the SFIO (Trotskyists and revolutionary 
socialists) who provided the framework of self-defense, but they have not always built 
against the rest of the party. Until about 1935 they received, if not the support of all 
of the SFIO, at least the agreement of leaders.

In the late 1920s, when are re-established vigilante groups, the goal is to ensure the 
holding of public meetings, election campaigns of the SFIO. They were often under attack 
from the PCF object, especially in the popular districts.

The divorce between revolutionary and reformist activists legalistic on the issue of 
self-defense is therefore intervened later.

Activists of the SFIO, but also other organizations (anarchists, communists ...) are then 
determined not to leave the pavement on the far right ...

Matthias Bouchenot: Yes, in this book, I situates the action of the socialist self-defense 
in the Paris region under the Popular Front and revolutionary circles of the interwar period.

With the emergence of the Popular Front, the main concern of socialist groups fight was to 
challenge the presence of nationalist leagues in the street. They dominated in some areas 
(such as symbolic Latin Quarter), thanks to their militaristic practices particularly 
violent. To cope with them, the socialist self-defense is sought allies.

She found naturally in organizations of the Popular Front, but not particularly on the 
side of PCF or radicals. Rather on the side of the new organizations created in the 
political expansion of the 1930s, such as the Common Front Bergery.

She also found beyond the Popular Front in the revolutionary Trotskyist and anarchist 
circles, used direct action. In approaching these movements there, the revolutionary 
leaders of socialist self also marked their remoteness from the majority party line, which 
is why the majority was so embarrassed by groups of socialist struggle.

Can we draw parallels between the 1930s and today? And thus draw contemporary lessons from 
their experience in an atmosphere of rise of the far-right?

Matthias Bouchenot: Often when you want to take for comparison the story to illuminate a 
situation one has the right to mechanistic adage "history repeats itself", or the 
contrary: "History does not repeat, it stutters, "for those who want to give the 
appearance of Marxism in their ignorance.

Incidentally, this allows to say that the fascist danger of the past and this justifies 
not worry about it ... For my part, I'll just say that what was true in 1930 is still in 
2014: the Capitalism is a system crisis. Economic crises, but so also social and political 
crises.

The rise of racism and nationalism, today as in the 1930s, owes nothing to chance. This is 
the screen of smoke emitted the wealthy to hide their responsibility for these crises. To 
carry the derivative on the popular anger, they need political forces, hence the current 
rise of the extreme right. But be careful: I'm not saying that the capitalists are 
necessarily nationalistic or racist.

In the viewfinder of the extreme right, you can obviously find the revolutionaries who are 
again dealing with violent fascist thugs. It is not uninteresting to the antifascists to 
remember their heritage, including practices and socialists face violence leagues 
reflections ...

Interview by Aurélien (AL Paris-Sud)

Matthias Bouchenot, Hold the street. The self Socialist 1929-1938, Libertalia, 2014 300 
pages, 15 euros.
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