Activities and affiliations

What people did, and whom they served in that activity.

Reset

Social movements and organizing · General Confederation of Labour (CGT, France) people 2

Social movements and organizing × General Confederation of Labour (CGT, France) ×

Alfred Rosmer

Alfred Rosmer
Social movements and organizing General Confederation of Labour (CGT, France) France France 1877–1964 ○ Natural causes

From syndicalism through the Comintern to the Fourth International: a French internationalist across a century of revolution

Lenin described Rosmer as "a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut in five or six languages." — quoted in Philippe Robrieux's internal history of the French Communist Party

American-born French revolutionary syndicalist and a key figure in the Comintern leadership. With Pierre Monatte he published La Vie ouvrière and organised anti-war internationalism; he spent seventeen months in Moscow helping found the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern). A Political Bureau member of the French Communist Party, he was expelled in 1924 for defending Trotsky, thereafter committing to the Left Opposition and Trotskyism. In 1938 he hosted the founding conference of the Fourth International at his home in Périgny. In his later years he signed the Manifesto of 121 against the Algerian War and wrote the classic memoir Lenin's Moscow.

Career timeline
  • 1909–1914Co-editor of the CGT journal *La Vie ouvrière* with Pierre Monatte; leading figure in revolutionary syndicalism
  • 1915–1918Organised French participation in the Zimmerwald Conference; sustained anti-war activity throughout WWI as an internationalist
  • 1919–1920Active in the Committee for Adhesion to the Third International; sent to Moscow, elected to the ECCI during a seventeen-month stay
  • 1921Helped found the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern) at its inaugural congress; served on the provisional council with Lozovsky and Tom Mann
  • 1922–1924Political Bureau member of the French Communist Party and general secretary of *L'Humanité*; core leader of the party's Left current
  • 1924.10Expelled from the PCF alongside Boris Souvarine and Pierre Monatte for opposing the anti-Trotsky campaign
  • 1929–1931Co-founded the Communist League, France's first Trotskyist organisation; resigned in 1931 over tactical differences
  • 1938.9Hosted the founding conference of the Fourth International at his home in Périgny, held clandestinely under threat of GPU assassinations
  • 1939Visited Trotsky in Mexico; served on the Dewey Commission and acted as guardian to Trotsky's grandson Sieva
  • 1940–1947Stranded in the United States by WWII; returned to France in 1947
  • 1953Published *Lenin's Moscow* (*Moscou sous Lénine*), with a preface by Albert Camus
  • 1960Signed the Manifesto of 121, supporting those who refused to fight in the Algerian War

Léon Jouhaux

Léon Jouhaux
Social movements and organizing General Confederation of Labour (CGT, France) France France 1879–1954 ○ Illness

The syndicalist who led the CGT for 31 years, signed the Matignon Agreements and won the Nobel Peace Prize

'The labour movement has never won a greater victory', radio address just after the conclusion of the Matignon Agreements, June 1936

A match-factory worker who became secretary-general of the CGT at thirty in 1909 and led it until 1940, the public face of French trade unionism. Starting as a revolutionary syndicalist, he moved to reformism when he accepted the union sacrée in 1914, helped draft the labour clauses of the Versailles Treaty and co-found the International Labour Organization. He led the reunified CGT into the Matignon Agreements in 1936, was interned under Vichy and deported to Germany, and after the war became founding president of Force Ouvrière, the 1948 breakaway from the communist-led CGT, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951.

Career timeline
  • 1895–1906Match-factory worker at Aubervilliers; sacked for striking against the white phosphorus that blinded his father
  • 1909–1940Secretary-general of the CGT
  • 1914.08Abandons the antiwar general strike for the union sacrée; speaks at Jaurès's funeral
  • 1919–1921Helps draft the Versailles labour clauses and found the ILO; the CGT's revolutionary wing splits off as the CGTU
  • 1936.03–06Leads the reunified CGT into the Matignon Agreements; membership soars from one to four million
  • 1940–1945CGT dissolved by Vichy; house arrest, then deported to Germany in 1943
  • 1947–1948Breaks with the communist-led CGT; founding president of Force Ouvrière
  • 1947–1954President of the French Economic Council; Nobel Peace Prize, 1951
  • 1954.04Dies in Paris