Third Republic: to the Popular Front
The Third Republic existed in France from 1870 to 1940. During this period, bourgeois reforms and the modernization of French society continued, and the common vector of the French historian of the Modern Age remained unchanged.
Already in the XIX century after the end of the Napoleonic era, France on the main European geopolitical issues firmly sided with Britain in opposition to the growing strength of Germany. Thus formed the Atlantic Franco-British bloc, which opposes the European-continental Germanic. This geopolitical dualism within the European space was also matched by civilizational dualism: France and England were at the forefront of a progressive bourgeois liberal democratic society, while Germany (and, in part, Austria-Hungary) developed in a “catch-up” regime, modernizing in a defensive way – first of all , In order to respond to the challenge of their western neighbors. Even more delayed and fragmentary was during this period the modernization of tsarist Russia, which stood against the whole of Europe, beginning with the tragic events of the Crimean War, when the Anglo-French coalition opposed it by the Anglo-French coalition that supported Turkey under the neutrality of Austria, which, theoretically, Side of Russia. Thus, under Napoleon III and during the Third Republic, France firmly established itself in the structure of the Atlantic bourgeois camp, acting along with England as its second most important pole.
On the eve of World War I, France and England conclude an alliance (Entente, Entente) against Germany, which also succeeds in involving Russia of Nicholas II, which has its own local geopolitical tensions with Germany.
Conflicts between the Entente countries (to which the United States joined the decisive moment) and Germany in union with Austria-Hungary turn into the First World War (1914 – 1918), which became one of the bloodiest and largest wars in human history. Formally, it was a clash of several large European national states, each of which sought to strengthen its territorial positions, defend its interests both in Europe and in the colonies, strengthen itself and weaken the enemy. However, we see that, from a civilizational point of view, the two opposing camps represented three different civilizational segments.
· England, France and the United States (from now on confidently strengthening their positions on the world scale and emerging into the vanguard of the Atlantic civilization) represented the Modern pole , where bourgeois reforms and modernization were wholly and entirely an internal phenomenon (despite the fact that the British Empire was at the time Ahead of the rest).
· Germany and Austria-Hungary, representing Central Europe, retained much more of the characteristic features of traditional society , and their modernization was in part a response to the challenge of the countries of Western Europe. It was the pole of continental conservative Europe.
· The Russian Empire was even more traditional , although also affected by modernization and Europeanization. But the nature of these processes was even more external than in the case of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the society itself is even more conservative.
The fact that in such a situation France managed to persuade the Russian Tsar Nicholas II to alliance with the Entente was a serious success of Atlantic diplomacy and a sign of effective activity of Masonic structures in Russia, which almost completely controlled the State Duma. That is why, after the fall of the monarchy, the Provisional Government, consisting of Freemasons and headed by the Freemason A.F. Kerensky, despite the difficult political situation, remained faithful to the Allies in the Entente, and during the Civil War the Entente, in turn, supported the white movement, whose leaders continued the policy of the Provisional Government. Thus, the Masonic bourgeois network in tsarist Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was the most important political instrument in the organization of the West by a broad anti-German and anti-Austrian coalition, while the inclusion of Russia on the side of the Entente led to the fall of the monarchy and a sharp weakening of the state as a whole; At the same time to the salvation of France from the successful German offensive at first. After the pro-German Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, they hurried to conclude a separate peace with Germany, but this did not save the Second Reich from the defeat. Finally, the victory of the Entente predetermined the entry into the war of the United States.
For France, the First World War ended in victory, and it was no coincidence that Germany’s surrender was signed near Paris at the Palace of Versailles, which put France symbolically not just a number of winners, but made them the main ones. From the point of view of the French historian, in the context of the French Modern, the victory in the First World War was interpreted as the triumph of the vanguard of bourgeois-democratic forces over conservative Europe. It is significant that among the losers there was the German monarchy of the Hohenzollerns, the Austrian monarchy of the Habsburgs, and in addition, according to the results of the First World War, two more Empires, the Ottoman and the Russian, disappeared. Thus, from the ideological point of view, the Modern has finally defeated the remnants of the traditional society embodied in the conservative society of Germany (the Second Reich) and in the last world empires – the Ottoman and the Russian. From a geopolitical point of view, Versailles was a fixation of the triumph of thalassocracy , Sea Power, which predetermined the balance of forces in Europe and the next interwar period.
After the end of the First World War in Europe, the rise of extreme nationalism begins. In Italy, Mussolini’s fascists come to power, and in Germany renaissance tendencies ideologically incarnate in the Conservative Revolution, and politically in the successes of Hitler’s national-socialist movement, are ripening. The same wave is captured by other countries – first of all, Spain and Portugal, where traditionally strong conservative forces and sentiments were strong. But parallel to this, throughout Europe, the extreme left is gathering momentum – communist and socialist tendencies (to a certain extent inspired by the successes of the Russian Bolsheviks). In addition, bourgeois-democratic reforms in politics, economics and ideology are also actively continuing. Then at the same time in Austria and England the formulation of liberal ideology begins on a new historical coil. This current is commonly called neoliberalism (F. von Hayek, K. Popper, etc.). So, in the interwar period in Europe, there are three clearly expressed ideological camps, armed with three political theories.
· The liberal camp (the first political theory) prevails in England, France, Austria (Germany in the Weimar period), in the USA.
The socialist camp (the second political theory) comes to power in Russia, but it is strong enough in Germany, France, Spain (where it becomes an important factor in the civil war of 1936 – 1939).
· The nationalist camp (the third political theory) in the face of Fascism Mussolini comes to power in Italy in 1922, and in 1933 the Nazi Hitler’s party won the elections to the Parliament (Reichstag), with which the Nazi dictatorship begins. In addition, similar regimes are established in other European countries – in Spain Franco, Portugal Salazar, etc. [1]
During this period, France also has all three ideological camps –
· With the domination of the bourgeois liberal center, but
• With a strong enough and influential left flank (socialists and communists, traditionally active in France since the time of the Jacobins and the French Revolution),
· And the nationalist movement, which included
· Conservative monarchists (such as the theorist of nationalism Maurice Barres (1862 – 1923) or the founder of the “French Action” Sh. Morras (1868 – 1952),
• the French fascists themselves from the French People’s Party Jacques Doro (1898 – 1945), which became the main political force in the era of collaboration,
· Republican syndicalist party Georges Valois (1878 – 1945), French nationalist, who later spoke against Hitler, who was an active activist of the Resistance and died, after all, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Theoretically, alliances could be concluded during this period according to different schemes:
· Left + liberal center (against nationalists);
· Right-wing + liberal center (against communists);
· Right-wing + left (against liberals).
All three political theories were Modern products, therefore any alliance had a theoretically common denominator [2] . In practice, in 1936, the socialist Leon Blum (1872 – 1950) created the Popular Front, where he united all the left forces – from communists to moderate socialists under the aegis of opposition to nationalists. The liberals split, but the majority supported Blum and his policies.
Thus, by the end of the Third Republic, France had received a completely left government, again 200 years later, again taking a radical leap to the left, which had been committed in the first years under the Jacobins during the Great French Revolution.
The de Gaulle phenomenon: against the current into the abyss
In 1940, the northern part of France is under direct Nazi occupation, and in the south in Vichy (Provinz Auvergne) a collaborative pro-German government headed by Marshal Henri Petain (1856-1951) is being created. Under the occupation, naturally, the third political theory dominates (dominating in National Socialism), but some French nationalists (such as Georges Valois) oppose the occupation and find themselves in the ranks of the Resistance. Thus, the head of the Resistance from abroad, General Charles de Gaulle (1890 – 1970), the future President of France during the Fifth Republic, in particular, belonged ideologically to the moderate right forces.
Among the collaborators are some French intellectuals – Louis-Ferdinand Selin (1894 – 1961), Pierre Dreu La Rochelle (1893 – 1945), etc. In the 1930s, the famous literary critic and literary critic Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) was close to the extremely right-wing course of France, during the occupation and the Vichy regime, the risen (like J. Valois) on the side of the Resistance.
At this time, the Resistance movement is being formed in France, in which almost all the political forces participate, but nevertheless, two poles are singled out:
· Left, continuing the line of pre-war France, and
· Right, formed from nationalists who opposed the Nazi occupation and National Socialism.
The liberals behaved inconsistently to the crane, often choosing a compromise and going for cooperation with the Germans, therefore they did not represent the independent force in the Resistance.
After the fall of Hitler’s regime and the solemn liberation of Paris in 1944, both these poles – leftists and nationalists – are at the head of the liberated France, which proclaimed the Fourth Republic, which completely continued the ideological line of the Third. As in recent years in the Third Republic, the Fourth is dominated by left and extreme left forces; The Communists have a significant influence. At the same time, the influence of the left does not abolish the fundamentally capitalistic character of the French economy, the predominance of bourgeois-democratic values and, on the whole, the liberal understanding of man and history. Another pole is embodied in the personality of General de Gaulle, perceived by the French as a national hero and liberator of France. De Gaulle becomes a Prime Minister for a certain period, then goes into opposition, and, finally, withdraws altogether, devoting his time to writing military memoirs.
When in 1957-1958 France faced fundamental problems in its colonial possessions, and especially in Algeria, preserved despite the predominance of the left and at the end of the Third Republic and all through the Fourth, de Gaulle triumphantly came to power as a national leader, and in 1958 The French adopt a new Constitution with the expanded powers of the President, which marks the beginning of the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle is building his policy, which he seeks to put in the foundation of a new France (Fifth Republic), on the following principles:
· Full sovereignty of France in the context of European and world politics;
· France’s assertion as a free great world power (this presupposes distancing from England and especially from the US, a balanced relationship with the USSR – up to the withdrawal from NATO, which occurs in 1965 and the denial of the same time from the dollar in international trade);
· Political union between the two main forces of the Resistance: anti-capitalist left and nationally-oriented conservatives (with a minimal influence of the liberal cosmopolitan-atlantist center);
· Partial return of Catholic culture and national French values to the society;
· The rate on industrial development and the real economy against the excessive growth of the financial speculative sector;
· Gradual transition from the French colonial bourgeois empire to the Francophone commonwealth of postcolonial nations (from reorienting them to an independent, relatively independent development path from the US and the USSR) [3] .
From the geopolitical point of view, Charles de Gaulle is based on the line of European continentalism and actively supports the alliance with Germany, despite the bloody confrontation in the Second World War. In addition, he seeks to distance himself as much as possible from the Anglo-Saxon pole, and for this he goes on some rapprochement with the USSR, in seeking a counterbalance to Atlanticism. At the same time, de Gaulle starts dismantling the French colonial system, which is at odds with the representatives of the extreme right-wing colonialists (who, in the struggle against de Gaulle, do not stop before numerous attempts on his life).
Ideologically, the Fifth Republic, according to de Gaulle’s plan, must combine socialism in the national context with conservatism at the level of values, which justifies the structure of relations with both the Anglo-American pole and the Soviet pole, for each of which the Fifth Republic must be equidistant. As the contours of the bipolar world are clearly manifested, de Gaulle increasingly understands the need to create a new unified Europe as an independent third pole , which for many years will predetermine the official policy of France and its special position in the structure of the Western capitalist camp.
De Gaulle in France is usually compared with Napoleon I. They are brought together by authoritarianism (absolute in Napoleon and moderated by de Gaulle), as well as by a geopolitical orientation toward Euro-continentalism, which is strictly against Atlantism (in the person of Great Britain in Napoleon, the USA – in de Gaulle) And the desire to unite Europe into a single sovereign independent space, to turn into a subject of history. However, the scale of their achievements was disproportionate: Napoleon conquered almost all of Europe and reached Moscow, whereas de Gaulle withdrew France from the colonies. But at the same time Napoleon I, from the point of view of the development of the bourgeois system, was its protector and guarantor, and General de Gaulle, on the contrary, strove to tame capitalism, its restriction to national borders, taking into account the interests of workers and the priority of the real sector to the detriment of autonomous finances. In this de Gaulle was a unique ruler of France in its history, since the XVIII century, since only with him the French government first openly opposed the trends prevailing in Western Europe , trying to contain them or send them to another, alternative channel. This is the mystery of de Gaulle in the general context of the history of modern France.
De Gaulle, thus, offers a rather unusual historian of France, which can be deciphered in metaphysical terms, as proposed by the French writer of Romanian origin Jean Parvulesco [4] (1929 – 2010). This reading represents the presence in France of a parallel tradition , originally opposed to the trend towards Modernity and the Logos of the Great Mother, prevailing in official history. This parallel tradition , called J. Parvulesco “great Gaullism”, is associated with Neoplatonic metaphysics and Gnostic mysticism in combination with the Catholic traditionalist conservatism in the spirit of Joseph de Maistre. Theoretically, the existence of such a line is quite possible, especially since the traces of the root Indo-European identity – both Celtic and European – are indeed encountered throughout the history of France, and its distinguishing features are the rejection of modernization, Protestantism, English influence and Secular masonery. A whole series of political gestures and ideological preferences of de Gaulle are quite compatible with this interpretation.
May 1968 and Fifth Republic
In May 1968, France began a serious political and social crisis that resulted in student insurrections and was called the “1968 Revolution”. During this period, the leftists, and especially the extreme left, fiercely oppose de Gaulle, who desperately tried to maintain a rigid vertical of national power, restraining both the liberal-bourgeois circles from deep integration into Anglo-Saxon capitalism and the anarcho-communist groups that demanded modernization Education, culture and politics in a secular, anti-religious and ultrahumanist manner. And although the extreme left rebellion managed to be localized, as a result, de Gaulle was forced to resign, giving way to his main opponent, the leftist leader François Mitterrand (1916-1996), and a new dominant trend was established in French culture, culminating in finalization in postmodernism.
Since that moment, the Fifth Republic has turned off the path outlined by General de Gaulle, although the party founded by it and its various versions continue to be one of the two main forces along with the left, while undergoing significant ideological transformations and further withdrawing (especially lately) From the “great Gaullism.”
It is indicative that it is at de Gaulle that the vector of French ideology sharply changes, where until 1968 the predominantly critical criticism of liberalism and anticapitalist ethics prevailed, mainly in leftist form (Marxism, Freudian Marxism, Anarchism), but with elements of conservative anticapitalism (traditionalism, New Right), as well as in scientific types of discourse (sociology, structuralism, phenomenology, anthropology, the history of civilizations, comparative religious studies) and in art (surrealism). Everything was moving to build a version of the “second humanism” under the auspices of Gaullism, in which the subject of Modernism would be completely dismantled and an alternative version of anthropology based on organic holism to which the French thought of the last phase of the intense Modern would come to the left and right, And also in a broad stream of less clearly ideological scientific disciplines, which, however, are opposed to methodological individualism. De Gaulle’s departure from power marked a sharp malfunction in this process and the beginning of the fundamental deviation of the French Logos, which is in search of Dionysus, towards liberalism and individualism, in a gradual rapprochement with Anglo-Saxon culture and geopolitical atlantism. Therefore, the events of 1968, in which Gaullism lost its leading position, and de Gaulle himself in 1969, was removed from power and soon died, were of great importance for the noological structure of France and Europe as a whole, since they had the prerequisites for the transition to Postmodernism , Which is reflected, in particular, in poststructuralism and the accompanying intellectual phenomena that subjected to a critical revision the previous rigidly anti-bourgeois, continental trend of French culture.
After de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic is increasingly converging along the main vector with the Fourth Republic and with the last years of the Third, with the only difference being that the trends outlined there for radical modernization and deepening in the Logos of Cybele have now reached their extreme limits when France’s identity itself is placed under The question, and the nihilistic tendencies have become so powerful that the impression of the readiness of modern French society to completely break all continuity with the French is formed Orial, dissolving it in the European network ultra-liberal globalization community, based on the postmodern paradigm.
Modern France is increasingly turning into anti-France if its complex and controversial but generally Olympic-oriented, Celtic Dasein, with a strong factor of “liberated femininity” (“fragile patriarchy”), or, on the other hand, finally Changes its noologic nature from the Logos of Apollo and Dionysus to the Logos of Cybele, thus completing the process that began many centuries ago.
[1] A.G. Dugin The Fourth Way. Introduction to the Fourth Political Theory. Moscow: Academic Project, 2015.
[2] A.Dugin The Fourth Way. Introduction to the Fourth Political Theory. Decree. Op.
[3] Soral A. Comprendre Empire. P .: Blanche, 2010.
[4] Parvulesco J. Les Fondements géopolitiques du grand gaullisme. P.:Guy Trédaniel, 1995.
The Fourth Revolutionary War 