Workers and Communists in France: From Popular Front to Eurocommunism

Workers and Communists in France explores the relationship between the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), analyzing its impact on French Communism, workers, the French left, and society. The book evaluates the effectiveness of the linkage between the party and trade union in achieving French Communism's goals, considering the complex test of a cost-benefit analysis.

Format: Hardback
Length: 376 pages
Publication date: 25 March 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

The relationship between the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France's largest and most influential trade union organization, is examined in Workers and Communists in France. All trade union movements in advanced capitalist societies have had to develop mechanisms to achieve their goals within the labor market and the political realm, and the nature of these mechanisms varies significantly from society to society. George Ross examines a trade union movement whose philosophy and actions are derived from the political and organizational perspectives of the Communist Third International tradition. Workers and Communists in France submits the modern history of the relationship between the PCF and the CGT to the complex test of a cost-benefit analysis. How well has the linkage between party and trade union worked for French Communism, for French workers, for the French left, and for French society? Since World War II, the ties between the PDF and the CGT have enabled them to promote and perpetuate sharp notions of class and class conflict among French workers and French society in general. The CGT has been the central agency through which French Communism has shaped debate about the nature of French society, a debate with profound effects on the structure of French politics and intellectual life. On the other hand, the basic contradiction between the Communist Party's desire to use the CGT for partisan purposes and the CGT's need to generate mass support has never been resolved. This failure may have followed from the very structure of the relationship between the PCF and the CGT, as well as from consistently inappropriate strategic calculations by the PCF. Ross concludes that the Communist Third International's concept of the "labor arist.

Weight: 680g
Dimension: 234 x 156 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520356719