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Les
communismes britannique et français, 1920-1991 Un conte de deux partis
Gavin Bowd
Paris: L’Harmattan,
2020 Paperback. 238 p. ISBN
978-2343196138. €24,50
Reviewed by Jeremy Tranmer
Université de
Lorraine
Although
communism no longer exists as an organised movement and most communist parties
have either declined or disappeared, much academic work continues to be
published about this phenomenon which dominated, directly or indirectly, so
many people’s lives in the twentieth century. Given the importance of the
French Communist Party (PCF) to political life in France for the past hundred
years, it is hardly surprising that it continues to be the focus of a great
deal of research, both in France and abroad. Even the comparatively small British
Communist Party (CPGB), which officially ceased to exist thirty years ago, has
been the subject of numerous academic books and articles, predominantly
published in the United Kingdom. Communism being an international movement, it
is hardly surprising that much work on individual communist parties has a
transnational and/or comparative aspect. The relationship of the PCF and the
CPGB with the Soviet Union has been examined in detail, particularly after the
opening of the Soviet archives to researchers, and both parties have been
compared to the Italian Communist Party.
Gavin Bowd’s Les communismes britannique et français, 1920-1991 : Un
conte de deux partis is a welcome
addition to the historiography of European communism as it is the first
book-length account in French of the history of the CPGB. Furthermore, it is
the first attempt to compare the CPGB and the PCF. This comparison may seem
surprising given the difference of size and importance between the two parties
(the CPGB never had more than two MPs at one time and was only a minor irritant
to its main left-wing rival, the Labour Party). However, as Bowd notes, the
United Kingdom and France are neighbouring countries with demographic and
economic similarities and with imperial pasts. Consequently, despite the
particularities of both countries (the existence of a revolutionary tradition
in France and the strength of reformism in the British labour movement, for
example), the CPGB and the PCF existed in similar environments and therefore faced
similar challenges. Bowd makes ample use of archival material on both sides of
the Channel, giving the reader an insight into the internal lives and
functioning of the two parties and into their views of each other, some of
which were not always expressed in public.
Unlike
many accounts of communist parties, Bowd’s work does not concentrate on the
role and personality of general secretaries. His approach allows him to shed
light on the activities of activists who are usually left out or marginalised.
Thus, Gerry Pocock, who was the CPGB’s international secretary in its final
years, emerges from the shadows, as does the English teacher Pierrette Le
Corre, who attended congresses of the CPGB and wrote reports on them for the
leadership of the PCF. The author Jack Lindsay, who had a keen interest in
France, is also frequently referred to. What emerges from the book is the
history of a complicated, occasionally conflictual relationship between two
parties belonging to the same world movement. The early CPGB believed that
intellectuals and literary figures were too influential in the PCF [21-22],
while the PCF criticised the CPGB for its excessively supportive approach to the
first Labour government [23]. Mutual criticism became much more common and
acerbic in the 1980s when the two parties began to follow very different paths.
For the CPGB, the PCF remained stuck in its pro-Soviet, workerist past, while
the PCF believed that its British counterpart had abandoned communism
completely and was increasingly wedded to reformist social democracy [224-234].
Nevertheless, throughout the twentieth century there were examples of solidarity
between the two parties and joint activities involving their members. The most
significant occasion was probably the 1984-85 British miners’ strike. In a
still relatively little-known example of international solidarity, the
communist-led CGT trade union organised holidays in France for the children of
striking miners and at Christmas 1984 collected huge quantities of toys and
food which were distributed to miners’ families [206-224]. In spite of its
innovative character, the book does have some weaknesses. Although it appears
in a collection intended for academic work, the select bibliography contains
only a small number of entries, limiting its use for academics or others who
wish to delve a little deeper. Furthermore, the book does not contain an index
and more surprisingly does not have a general conclusion giving an overview of
the changing relations between the two parties during the seventy years covered.
This reinforces the impression (suggested by the book’s title) that it is more
of a narrative history of the two parties and their interactions than a
detailed analysis of them. More importantly, the focus of the book is
occasionally unclear, and it seems to go beyond its initial remit. This is
particularly the case when the author uses diplomatic sources. Moving away from
the parties’ views of each other, he examines the analyses of the PCF by the
British Embassy in Paris and those of the CPGB by the French Embassy in London.
In addition, Bowd also uses the archives of the Secret Services to ascertain
that the British state monitored the French communists who were occasionally
present in the United Kingdom [39-40] as well as British communists who were in
contact with their French comrades [48-50]. Although these sources have not
been used before, their usefulness here is open to debate since they reveal
little about the PCF or the CPGB and more about the fears of the British state. Overall,
Bowd’s work is an interesting contribution to the study of both parties. It
shows that despite belonging to the same world movement and having the same
objectives, the two parties were markedly different. Moreover, the book goes
beyond a presentation of the parties’ frequently declared commitment to
internationalism and looks at the various forms internationalism actually took in
practice. It is, however, unfortunate that this piece of work will not be
available to an English-speaking audience.
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