Pierre Lambert - leader of the French Trotskyist organisation Parti des travailleurs, pictured left - has died at the age of 87. You can read his obituary in Le Monde - in French, what else? - here.
Born as Pierre Boussel in Paris in June 1920, the son of a Russian-Jewish émigré tailor, Lambert was recruited to the far left as a teenager, joining the grouping around Raymond Molinier in the 1930s.
Molinier - a sometime brothel keeper and taxi cab firm boss - has justifiably entered Trot history as something of a wide boy and general purpose spiv; but as Frédéric Charpier makes clear in his book ‘Histoire de l'extrême gauche trotskiste, de 1929 à nos jours’, he was capable of raising the funds to keep his show on the road, and consequently his faction picked up the proles; the intellectuals signed up to the rival grouping around Pierre Naville, who secured official recognition from the Old Man.
The Le Monde obit maintains that it is unclear what stance Lambert took in world war two; it seems that he may have argued for entrism inside collaborationist organisations rather than supporting the resistance. If this is true, that is obviously not to his credit. I’m not in a position to judge.
But Lambert gets more kudos for siding with the anti-Pabloites in the 1953 split in the Fourth International. His Parti communiste internationaliste was one of the principal components of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Formally, this was the correct side of the bust-up to be on, although ultimately what was to become the United Secretariat emerged as a far healthier political tradition.
By the early 1970s, the ICFI essentially boiled down to the PCI and the increasingly madcap Socialist Labour League in Britain; Lambert broke with the Healyites, and after a failed flirtation with the USec, ended up in a regroupment with the Latin American current around Nahuel Moreno. That wasn’t to last, either.
British supporters - the Socialist Labour Group, around Ken Stratford, Harry Stannard, Steve Lloyd, Mike Phipps of Labour Left Briefing, and RMT militant Martin Wicks - were active in the Labour Party during the 1980s. Thereafter, the SLG folded into Alan Thornett's International Socialist Group, today the soi-disant organised Marxist left of Respect Renewal.
Ultimately, the PT was doomed to remain number three of the three main Trot tendencies in France. Lambert - standing under his real name - picked up 116,823 votes in the 1988 presidential contest. That’s a whopping 0.39 % of validly cast ballots. But in keeping with its consistent orientation towards the class, PT remains hegemonic in the Force ouvrière union federation.
Whatever one’s final judgement on his political career, Lambert’s death marks the departure of another stalwart from the generation of 1930s militants who upheld the ideals of revolutionary socialism in the midnight of the century, against the monstrous hegemony of Stalinism. For that reason alone, mourn his passing.
UPDATE: French newspaper Libération pays tribute here. Yes, it's in French.
Comments (10)
Thereafter, the SLG folded into Alan Thornett's International Socialist Group, today the soi-disant organised Marxist left of Respect Renewal.
Haven't you skipped a couple of steps here (involving the USec, among other things)?
Sure Phil, I've skipped plenty in the hope of keeping a general readership awake. Trainspotters invited to add details in the comments box.
In fact, as it's Sunday and I'm pleasantly merry in front of my keyboard right now, let's open to thread to Brit Trot musings.
As one of the commenters at Libération.fr rightly asks regarding the Lambertists' history:
"Et Jospin ?".
So the auld enemy is dead.
Some points, from an unrepentant Pabloite.
A minor item first:
I thought that Archer and his small group remained in the Labour Party as a 'Lambertist' group, and may still be around (met them some time back in the 90s).
Now for the meat (and drink):
Few would say that the Parti des Travaillieurs is 'hegemonic' in Force Ouvriere. I understand, for example, that FO enjoyed a close relationship with Chirac in Paris, and that its activists include (d) supporters of the RPR, and, now, Sarkozy, as well as those 'apoliticals' one would expect in what is essentially a 'business union'. An ability to do deals goes with this, overwhelming everything else. As a result, there is little evidence of FO having become Trotskyist, even in the vaguest sense.
As is well known, FO's past, as a CIA encouraged split from the CGT, is sordid (and includes state sponsered influence over various tripartite bodies, such as the Securite Sociale - Health Finance - amongst others). FO's membership is regularly inflated, in a very dubious manner, as revealed this October in investigations into French union finances. No doubt the Marie of Paris, having changed hands, they've lost of their better known sources of dosh.
The OCI-MPPT-PT has an equally sordid past during its close relationship with the Parti Socialiste, and the student union, UNEF. The latter was the subject of a number of journalistic investigations, notably in le Monde. I referred to this in something I wrote for What Next at the time. This got a furious reply from the Lambertists saying that these people were not longer memebrs of their group, but the fact is they *were* at one point.
Essentially some, if not many, Lambertists have, at various times, operated in a way not too dissimilar to the British Socialist Action around Livingstone. Though, sensing where the money and power is, many have since passed over to the Socialists full-time.
But that's just the organisational detail. What exactly does the PT stand for? Politically the Parti de Travaillieurs has become increasingly nationalist. Writing material on last year's Presidential elections I came across acres of leaden PT prose devoted to denouncing the EU, in a way identical to the Common Market Safeguards Committee.
French sovereignty is their hobby-horse. Even secularism, where the PT are strongest (they are said to influence the excellent Libre Pensee) is interpreted in this ultra-sovereigntist way (not far from Chevenement's 'republicanism'). They do not begin with the principle that secularism is a value for human freedom, the left and workers' movement. They start with the EU's alleged threat to French national sovereignty, and allege that this source of power is the well-spring of human liberation and, secularism.
The PT resembles, in effect, something like the arid remnants of Blanquism in the years up to the First World War: a party unable to cope with the changes wrought by a new phase of economic and political development and that clings to the most ancient of all verities. La Patrie...
I fail to see how the Helmsman of this wreck deserves the slightest respect.
Well, the PT was good enough at its best to keep Pierre Broue happy - for several years.
Indeed, in formal membership terms, it was for longest the largest of all the French Trotskyist groups. (Which isn't everything, but neither is it nothing).
There's a nice, detailed account of its history in the 70s and 80s and its role in education struggles in the current issue of Revolutionary History.
Dave, that's as may be. They played a significant role in the attempt to extend public control to the Catholic private schools in the 'eighties (defeated by a vast religious mobilisation). In this respect they are in advance of the pro-religious British left, as one see in the publicly funded campaign against French secularism launched by Ken Livingstone.
But the Parti des Travailleurs candidate's (whose name is so significant I forget it) campaign for Mayors' rights in the Presidential election will for ever stand as low point in the history of the French left.
Though there was their role in May 68, pretty dismal as well.
Didn't Broue leave them some time back anyway?
i have to say i agree with much of andrew coates' post on this. i am not a pabloite by the way and never have been!
i think the pt's capitulation to french nationalism / republicanism is particularly rotten.
in their attempts to take on the pcf they sought all kinds of allies, including social-demoracy and those to the right. this was un-principled in my view.
they still have a group in the labour party apparently, the british committee of the european peoples' alliance or something stupid like that!
i think lambertism is a right trend of trotskyism internationally as well so i hope it dispands soon.
interesting post though dave.
best wishes,
ks
Sorry to comment belatedly.
There's a fascinating obituary (in French) at
http://www.le-militant.org/carnet/lambert2.htm
And as for the OCI's role in 1968, despite their appalling withdrawal from the barricades, they did initiate the Sud Aviation strike on 14 May which sparked off the general strike.
Hi there gang, take a lookee at this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x45wfy_enterrement-de-pierre-lambert_news
I didn't like the look of those flags (in that video). They reminded me far too much of those used by Russia's National Bolsheviks, or of Nazi ones.