Before the Fall Out
Roger Hudson examines a photograph from 1920 taken on the eve of a profound split on the French Left.
The French Socialist Party (SFIO) is addressed at its conference in Tours in December 1920 by Marcel Cachin. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1914, he has been editor of the party’s paper, Humanité, since 1918 but, although the banner exhorts the workers of the world to unite, he, along with 110,000 out of a total of 180,000 Socialists, is going off to form the PCF, the French Communist Party, taking the paper with him. However, the person who will turn out to be the most successful founder member of the PCF does not appear to be in the audience, although present at Tours. Pastry chef Nguyen Ai Quoc, born in the French colony of Vietnam, transformed into Ho Chi Minh, will lead his people to independence. Soon after his death in 1969 not merely North but South Vietnam, too, will come under Communist sway.
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